FFB DUE OR DIE, Frank Kane

 

Due Or Die – Frank Kane (reviewed by Randy Johnson in 2012)

Author Frank Kane created P.I. Johnny Littell in a short story for the pulps in 1944 and went on to write twenty-nine novels featuring him, plus an unknown number of short stories. According to his granddaughter, he claimed four hundred, though she believes that an exaggeration. And Bill Crider said in 2000, if it’s a Frank Kane book, chances are “it’ll be a competent straightforward P.I. story.” DUE OR DIE certainly was all that. I quite enjoyed my first Kane book.

P.I. Johnny Liddell got the job offer from a most agreeable source. Beautiful redheaded singer Lee Loomis. Mobster “Fat Mike” Klein, who Johnny knew from the old days, needed help in Las Palmas, a small Nevada city where the gambling joints were controlled by aging mobsters, no longer the hard men they’d once been. The deal was $10,000 to find the killer, half now, half when the job was done.

They didn’t dare let New York know what had happened. The remaining five knew the vultures were already out there and they didn’t dare let anyone know that a hit had gone down without their knowledge.

But Johnny arrived too late. Fat Mike had been murdered as well, shot down in his car on the side of the road. The remaining four showed Johnny the note all had received promising each would be killed unless they ponied up a million dollars. With each death, the share went up for the others.

They wanted Johnny to simply deliver the money. The two deaths had been covered up, the first a heart attack, the body quickly cremated, and Fat Mike had committed suicide, the body to be buried as soon as possible.

Johnny didn’t like that. Fat Mike had not been a particular friend, but he’d accepted the job and he was loathe to quit before he got it done.

Tom Regan, the police chief, was as crooked as the mobsters, in their pocket, and was no help. Despite his bosses agreement, he seemed determined to impede the investigation.

Johnny plugs away, avoiding beatings, dodging frame-ups, and questioning anyone and everyone.

He thinks he has it figured out. Now all he has to do is prove it before being killed.

Enjoyed this one. Johnny Liddell appeared in 29 novels and numerous short stories(Kane claimed four hundred in a letter, though his granddaughter thought that an exaggeration).

Short Story Wedneday SNAPSHOTS, Rick Bailey-How to Write Your Life in Thirty Days

 These are not really stories but instead it's the author's chapters on his life. And it's to inspire you to try it too. He is roughly my age so many of his memories are mine. Black and white TV, vacations, class reunions, yearbooks, the Beatles, groovy, etc. If you have even given any thought to writing a quick memoir, this will give you ideas on how to do it. 

 

He wrote twice a day for thirty minutes, just for a month. Rick Bailey has a blog also. (http://rick-bailey.com) He spends time in Michigan and Italy. I enjoyed reliving our past with him. 

George Kelley

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

Monday, Monday

Saw BLUE MOON, which I liked very much, especially Ethan Hawke and Andrew Scott's performance. I am not sure people with no familiarity with the story (Rodgers and Hart) or music would enjoy it as much. 

Enjoying FIVE FOUND DEAD, which was included in locked room mysteries that Jeff forwarded me last week. Also HOTEL DU LAC for my book group

 Lots on TV including NO ONE SAW US (Netflix) THE DIPLOMAT (Netflix) SLOW HORSES (Apple) and THE LOW DOWN (Hulu) Finished TASK which had a spectacular ending. 

Really enjoyed Ben Stiller's doc about his parents. I was never a big fan of their very broad humor, but it was so well done in what it said about his family. He was honest in his own mistakes as well. 

Colder but still lots of sunny weather here.  

What's new there?  

Short Story Wednesday "Down at the Dinghy" J.D. Salinger (from NINE STORIES)

 https://www.scribd.com/doc/258614035/Down-at-the-Dinghy

The story begins with two servants alluding to one's worry that the child in the house will tell his mother than he used an ethnic slur regarding his father.

The child (4) has a habit of running away and his mother finds him down on the dock. She plays with him and cleverly gets him to admit what he heard said by the servant although he misunderstood the actual slur. But he did not misunderstand the meanness of it. His mother makes light of it, hoping I think that he will not continue to run away from things that frighten him. So much in so few words. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

TracyK 

Monday, Monday

                                                Out my window-11th floor

I have always been a David Strathairn fan, even in his most frightening movie, BLUE CAR. In this domestic drama (A LITTLE PRAYER), he's a father trying to keep his family together when his son seems intent on blowing it apart. I was able to rent it on Prime. 

Finished DAY OF THE JACKAL, which was very good. Still an episode left of TASK on HBO and enjoying SLOW HORSES.  Getting ready to begin THE DIPLOMAT.

Saw a great concert at the DSO with a trumpet concerto by Branford Marsalis.  

We finally got some rain.  The trees have a lot more color than this photo indicates

Reading Andy Green's book on the making of THE OFFICE. A nice break  

Highly recommend the Martin Scorsese doc  on Apple. Rebecca Miller did a great job with it. 

FFB-THE UNIVERSAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATON-Robert Coover

THE UNIVERSAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATION, INC, J. HENRY WAUGH, PROP., by Robert Coover

With the exception of CATCH 22, I don't know of another book that knocked me out in quite the way this one did when I was young(er). Written in 1968, it overflows with creativity, humor, and pathos. Maybe it's not forgotten, but I rarely hear it mentioned.

J. Henry Waugh is an unhappy accountant who entertains himself by inventing a game that he can escape to at the end of the day. Every action in the game is ruled by the dice. Waugh does not get to intervene. He is, of course, no more in charge of what happens in the game then he is in what happens in his life. He finds this out when his star pitcher is killed by a pitched ball. (Yes, his game even allows for such events; it's that complex) This fictional event has impact on Waugh's real life in horrible ways.

Cleverly, Coover allows the players, managers and baseball executives to come to life, making the book much less static than this might sound. Is Waugh a God? If so, he has little power over his invented world and even less over his real one. It is chance that rules Waugh's game and his world. Until....This is a great book.

Short Story Wednesday, Hard-Boiled edited by Bill Pronzini, Jack Adrian

                                                             H/T Todd Mason

"Graveyard Shift" by James Reasoner; "The Long Silence After" by Ed Gorman

Browsing in the Dawn Treader bookstore in Ann Arbor in January, I grabbed a book from the shelves entitled HARD-BOILED. It was an anthology published in 1995, edited by Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian, and published by Oxford University Press. I took it home and was delighted to find stories by two of our most faithful reviewers, but that isn't why I'm choosing these two stories today.

Although the stories are quite different, they share a theme: men attempting to redress the loss of a wife through criminal action. Though the outcomes are different, both stories are rich in atmosphere, tension, and character and a quality I love: uxoriousness. They rise above many short stories that depend almost totally on plot. Within a few pages, we know these men---or think we do. I highly recommend both stories as primers on how to write a short story as well as stories to be enjoyed.

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 The Jewish Book Fair began today at the Detroit Institute of Arts with Michelle Young talking about her book, The Art Spy, The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WW II Resistance Hero, Rose Valland who rescued much stolen artwork. The Festival goes on for a month. There must have been 500 people there. 

Also saw Secret Mall Apartment and Roofman. 

Watching Task, Low-Down, Baby Fever, Slow Horses. Has to be the best season of Slow Horses. 

Sad that the Tigers are out of the series although they never played well after mid-July. 

Still reading Black Cake, and trying to get started on Isola (Allegra Goodman). 

Very sad about Diane Keaton. Certainly one of my favorite actors.  

Still enjoying great weather. It's probably going to be gone with a thud.  

FFB TRIAL AND ERROR, Anthony Berkeley

 (reviewed by Casual Debris in 2012)

 
Its excellent premise is what attracted me to Anthony Berkeley's original, innovative and highly entertaining Trial and Error. Mild-mannered Lawrence Butterfield Todhunter learns that due to an aggressive aneurism he doesn't have much time left on this earth. Wanting to commit a great, humanitarian act before he goes, he throws a dinner party and tosses out a hypothetical, which leads nearly everyone to declare that great can be achieved through murder, so long as the victim is deserving of death. Hence Todhunter decides that before his impending doom he must seek out an appropriate victim and commit this terrible act.

Anthony Berkeley's novel has been out of print for some time, since the late 1960s it appears, with the exception of a small print run in 2001 by House of Stratus. This is a terrible shame because Trial and Error is an excellent read, a unique mystery that reads almost like an epic novel as it spans various significant episodes, each one a small book on its own, from Todhunter's seeking the perfect victim to the murder itself and its eventual trial. The book is split into five parts, each part dealing with a substantial leg in Todhunter's journey. There are a number of twists and I won't reveal anything more about the central plot.

The novel also boasts great characters, dialogue and attention to detail that is simply riveting. The world Berkeley manages to create is very real, and the geography of the various UK locations are clear; we always know where we are and where the settings lie in relation to one another. Moreover, the novel is filled with a good deal of humour despite its premise and its incessant focus on death. Yet what elevates Trial and Error from a good British mystery to a great novel is its notions of absurdity. Throughout the novel is a pervasive sense that despite the high dramatic aspects of life, both selfish and altruistic actions are governed by nothing more than chance; no matter how we strive for control the idea that we can influence destiny, our own or someone else's, is ridiculous. It is clear that the universe has its plans and the minutest element can thrust and thwart our plans in any seemingly random direction. And in the final scene even these ideas are challenged, as Berkeley twists the entire story into something altogether different.

Trial and Error is additionally a success due to its innocuous protagonist. Lawrence Todhunter is barely a character, a simple man with simple ideas, impressionable and easily influenced, harmless in every dimension of his being. While it initially appears that such a character would undoubtedly fail in maintaining interest in any kind of novel, Todhunter succeeds in growing on the reader, not necessarily through his altruism, but through his determination and particularly because he does indeed transform. Not static at all, this Todhunter. Berkeley also risks creating an over-sentimental character, particularly as he is nearing death, and yet does a wonderful job in being direct with his story and avoiding overblown sentimentality.

The novel's only weak point is at the early stage of the trial, when Berkeley feels the need to restate details which the reader is already familiar with. This portion of the work suffers a little in its pacing, but once the cross-examination begins, the writing, particularly the dialogue, is so riveting that we nearly forget the slow progress of the previous thirty or so pages.

Anthony Berkeley's Trial and Error is a rare find that is absolutely worth seeking out

Wednesday's Short Fiction

 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/10/13/coconut-flan-fiction-catherine-lacey

Did you ever read a story and feel the protagonist in the story could be you? This is the story of an extremely passive, dependent woman in Mexico who loses her passport. Every bit of description diminishes anything of note about her. Even her voice is referred to as "little." Nobody seems to see her or remember her. Frightening in its own way. My therapist would think I wrote this. How easily this woman could disappear in a crowd. 

TracyK 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 ONE BATTLE was the best movie I've seen in a long time. I am only occasionally a Paul Thomas Anderson fan but this one is right up there with PHANTOM THREAD. I also rewatched COLUMBUS at home. I can't say exactly why this movie works so well for me but I would love to go to Columbus, Indiana and see all of the great architecture. 

Reading THE SUMMER HOUSE (Matsuie), a novel also about architecture and BLACK CAKE (Wilkerson). 

On TV, watching THE LOWDOWN (HULU), TASK (HBO), LYNLEY etc. 

It's been weeks since it rained. It is killing my sinuses. 

How about you 

 (from the archives, 2012 Randy Johnson)

FFB: Due Or Die – Frank Kane

Author Frank Kane created P.I. Johnny Littell in a short story for the pulps in 1944 and went on to write twenty-nine novels featuring him, plus an unknown number of short stories. According to his granddaughter, he claimed four hundred, though she believes that an exaggeration. And Bill Crider said in 2000, if it’s a Frank Kane book, chances are “it’ll be a competent straightforward P.I. story.” DUE OR DIE certainly was all that. I quite enjoyed my first Kane book.

P.I. Johnny Liddell got the job offer from a most agreeable source. Beautiful redheaded singer Lee Loomis. Mobster “Fat Mike” Klein, who Johnny knew from the old days, needed help in Las Palmas, a small Nevada city where the gambling joints were controlled by aging mobsters, no longer the hard men they’d once been. The deal was $10,000 to find the killer, half now, half when the job was done.

They didn’t dare let New York know what had happened. The remaining five knew the vultures were already out there and they didn’t dare let anyone know that a hit had gone down without their knowledge.

But Johnny arrived too late. Fat Mike had been murdered as well, shot down in his car on the side of the road. The remaining four showed Johnny the note all had received promising each would be killed unless they ponied up a million dollars. With each death, the share went up for the others.

They wanted Johnny to simply deliver the money. The two deaths had been covered up, the first a heart attack, the body quickly cremated, and Fat Mike had committed suicide, the body to be buried as soon as possible.

Johnny didn’t like that. Fat Mike had not been a particular friend, but he’d accepted the job and he was loathe to quit before he got it done.

Tom Regan, the police chief, was as crooked as the mobsters, in their pocket, and was no help. Despite his bosses agreement, he seemed determined to impede the investigation.

Johnny plugs away, avoiding beatings, dodging frame-ups, and questioning anyone and everyone.

He thinks he has it figured out. Now all he has to do is prove it before being killed.

Enjoyed this one. Johnny Liddell appeared in 29 novels and numerous short stories(Kane claimed four hundred in a letter, though his granddaughter thought that an exaggeration).

Short Story Wednesday: THE STORIES OF MURIEL SPARK

 (from the archives) 

I always like to look for ghost stories in October. Here's a start.

I happened upon an article in "Ploughshares" discussing the ghost stories of Muriel Spark and I happened to have this collection (above) which had a number of the mentioned stories in it. I found them oddly appealing although more as pieces of writing than satisfying ghost stories. 

"The Leafsweeper" has the odd premise of being about a man whose obsession was putting an end to the celebration of Christmas. When enough people were bored and tired with his ranting about it, he was put in an asylum where he rakes leaves. In the house where he formerly ranted, another ghostly figure takes his place at Christmas time although he does not rant and rave about Christmas.  The story ends with the two figures becoming one. One has to wonder what the man does when there are no leaves to rake. 

"The House of the Famous Poet" was even stranger. A woman living in the house of a famous poet is on a train ride when a soldier sells her "an abstract funeral" to cover the costs of his fare. The story ends with a bombing where people in the house of the famous poet die thus requiring a real funeral.

And finally "The Executor." A woman's uncle dies and leaves her his house and estate. She turns over his literary work to a foundation, holding back a novel about a witch with a chapter left for completion. As she works to complete it, little notes turn up each day, chastising her for not finishing the work and making disturbing accusations. The Foundation notifies her that they were in receipt of the final chapter and wanted the rest of it. 

None of these were satisfying to me as ghost stories but as I said, I enjoyed them anyway. Sometimes the conceit is more interesting than a satisfying conclusion. I always like Spark's writing and these were stories from a quirky mind. The best kind, I think. 

What is your favorite ghost short story?  

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 

I didn't go to DC because as I pulled my suitcase from my too high bed, I dropped it on my foot and within a few hours it was swollen and hurting. I couldn't imagine getting myself across two large airports and it was too late to order a wheelchair. So instead I watched six plus seasons of THE OFFICE. It was a terrific show until Steve Carrell left and then it felt like the writing room left too. They just didn't know what to do with it and characters that had seemed rich and lovable became flat and boring. 

Saw Eleanor, the Great, which was okay but it really had significant plot problems. Saving the Paul Thomas Anderson movie until I am recovered. 

What about you? 

Short Story Wednesday: "League of the Grateful Dead and Other Stories" Day Keene

 (from Cullen Gallagher) 

"League of the Grateful Dead and Other Stories" by Day Keene (2010) - Short Story Wednesday

Editor John Pelan and publisher Ramble House have set out to restore the long obscured history of Day Keene in the pulps, embarking on a multi-volume series inspired by Dennis McMillan's amazing Fredric Brown pulp series. The first volume in their Day Keene in the Detective Pulps series is League of the Grateful Dead and Other Stories. Released in 2010, it gathers eight tales and an insightful introduction by Pelan.

The eight stories in League of the Grateful Dead show classic crime pulp at its finest. Tough-as-nails private eyes navigating twisty (and twisted) capers, engaging in blazing shootouts with ruthless gangsters, and trying to keep their necks out of jail—all while making it home for supper without compromising their wedding vows. They're paced so quickly that it's nearly impossible to keep up or follow all the clues—but it's sure fun trying. While the private eye cases are fabulous and most indicative of Keene's characteristic style, my favorite was actually "Nothing to Worry About," a vicious quickie tale about a husband's plot to murder his wife that features a wicked twist ending.

Fans of Keene will be especially interested in this volume for several reasons. Two of the stories were later expanded into novels. "Marry the Sixth for Murder!" was later turned into the novel Love Me—and Die! (1951, Phantom Books), and "Dance with the Death-House Doll" became half of an Ace double called Death House Doll (1954, Ace). This collection also features two of Keene's series characters: Private Eye Tom Doyle appears in three stories, while another P.I., Matt Mercer, appears in one.

The adaptation of "Marry the Sixth for Murder!" to Love Me—and Die! is a mystery of its own. James Reasoner writes on his blog that, "According to Gil Brewer’s stepdaughter, Brewer ghosted this novel for Keene, expanding one of Keene’s pulp stories to book length. . . . This seems pretty feasible to me. Keene and Brewer were friends, and since Keene was already an established writer as the Fifties began, with more than ten years as a popular pulp author under his belt, I can easily see him farming out this expansion to Brewer." I've yet to read the novel, but I'm looking forward to doing so now that I've read the original story.

Here's a run-down of the stories.

"League of the Grateful Dead" (Dime Mystery Magazine, February 1941) — Mummified corpses are popping up all over Chicago—and some of them had already been dead for weeks! After seeing a B-girl turn into a mummy right before his eyes, journalist Tim Murphy follows her tip and heads to a cemetery to watch a performance by a local con artist calling himself Satan and who claims he can raise the dead.

(And, yes, according to Pelan this is the story that inspired the name of Jerry Garcia's band.)

"As Deep as the Grave" (Detective Tales, January 1946) - Chicago Private Eye Tom Doyle gets a call from a woman offering him $10,000 to kill a man that deserves it. She hangs up before he can find out who. Then he gets held up and taken to notorious gangster Red Faber who offers him $2000 to track down his wife and daughter, whom he abandoned years ago before they could find out about his true identity, in order to leave his daughter a piece of land before he is caught and executed by the state.

"Fry Away Kentucky Babe!" (Detective Tales, December 1947) - Private investigator Tom Doyle has a soft spot for veterans in a jam, seeing as he's a vet himself. So when Larry Reagan's wife pleads with him to look into her husband's case, he agrees. Larry is a journalist accused of murdering his editor, Ernie Jackson, over a dispute about a young woman named Ruby Thiels. As soon as Doyle arrives in Larry's hometown, however, someone takes a shot at him at the train depot, and then a "Mr. Big" calls his hotel and warns him to get out of town. Before he knows it, Doyle is knee-deep in a local organized crime racket.

"Crawl Out of That Coffin!" (Detective Tales, September 1947) - Private Eye Matt Mercer and his wife, Sherry, are grabbing drinks after a performance of Hamlet when a drunken young woman falls into Matt's lap—and with her comes a $10,000 contract to keep her alive for seventeen days until she turns 21 and can collect her multi-million dollar inheritance.

"Marry the Sixth for Murder!" (Detective Tales, May 1948) -- Johnny Slagle is a troubleshooter for Consolidated, a Hollywood studio. He gets a call in the middle of the night from Steve Millet, one of their contract stars, who thinks he killed someone in a hit and run on the night before he is supposed to marry a young actress named Cherry Gamble. When Slagle goes to investigate, there's only a dead dog. Millet thinks he dodged a bullet—but soon enough a body is found, Laura Jean Jones, another aspiring actress who moved to Hollywood hoping to be discovered. It looks like a cut-and-dried case, but when gambler Paul Glade offers $10,000 for Slagle and his wife, Sally, to skip town for a few weeks, Slagle knows there's more to the story.

"Nothing to Worry About" (Detective Tales, August 1945) - Assistant State's Attorney Brad Sorrel has a fool-proof plan to murder his wife: witnesses to prove he's somewhere else, and a planted car so he can sneak away to commit the murder and be back before his alibi is broken. He'll be a free man in half an hour—if only everything goes according to plan.

"Dance with the Death-House Doll" (Detective Tales, May 1945) - Sgt. Mike Duval on vacation leave from military goes to Chicago to visit the widow and child of his brother, who died in WWII. He finds that Mona is in prison and due to be executed in five days, accused of murdering a jeweler, but no jewels were ever recovered, and no mention was ever made of any child. First the cops pick him up and work him over, and then Mona's alleged gangster boyfriend, LaFanti, picks him up and works him over again, and both the cops and LaFanti want to know the same thing: where are the diamonds?

"Dead—as in Mackerel!" (Detective Tales, February 1945) - Private eye Tom Doyle's wife is expected to go into labor at any minute, when into his office walks burlesque dancer Dolly Adoree wearing a mink coat and not much underneath. She offers him $500 to listen to her story, and $20,000 if he takes the case. Mr. X, a wealthy 83-year-old man has offered to leave her $200,000 because she reminds him of his deceased daughter, only Dolly expects that his heirs will challenge this in court, if they don't try to kill her before. But before she can reveal who Mr. X is, Dolly drops dead in Tom's office.

***

George Kelley

TracyK 

What are your five desert island movies? -Five movies you would take with you for eternity on an island.

Any over five get discarded. 

Three Days of the Condor

Remains of the Day

Rear Window

It Happened One Night 

The Apartment 

I am seeing an issue with my list, These are male-centric movies. The women in them are in secondary roles. They are not the POV. Also where are the black actors? 

A friend said my movies would depress him and chose: HIGH SOCIETY, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, GIGI and MEET ME IN S. LOUIS 

What would you choose?  

Monday, Monday

 

Still watching DAY OF THE JACKAL, TASK, DR BLAKE MYSTERIES, PLATONIC.

I saw SPLITSVILLE with one other patron. It had the funniest, longest fight scene in memory. I came home and watched THE CLIMB, which the two writers/actors had done earlier and although it was funny, too, SPLITSVILLE was much better.

I am going to see MAN OF LA MANCHA today. From Friday to Monday I will be in D.C. so I will just leave a place to post on Monday. (It was an excellent production for community theater)

Reading DREAM HOTEL by Laila Lalami for one book group and BLACK CAKE (Wilkerson) for the other.  

What about you? 

FFB-THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR, Yoko Ogawa

 I may have FFBed this book before because I read it a few years ago first, after I read Ogawa's MEMORY POLICE. They are very different books as it MINA'S MATCHBOXES, which I read a few months ago. This is my favorite of the three. The housekeeper (unnamed) is hired to care for a older math professor who has a brain injury leaving him with a memory of only the last eighty minutes. She and her son, named Root by the professor due to his head shape and it's likeness to the sign for square root, are enriched by this relationship, and he with them. There is a lot of math in this book, which I got very little of, but it didn't really matter because this is a story about how a family can be people related to each other or people who enjoy each other even if for only eighty minutes at a time. A wonderful book, uplifting in a time we need it. 

Short Story Wednesday: "THE POOL" T.C. Boyle

 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/09/22/the-pool-fiction-t-coraghessan-boyle

We once considered a house with a swimming pool, but Phil, having had one as a child, nixed it, saying it was too much responsibility and insurance, and this story tackles that. The protagonist, a rather dyspeptic man for someone in his early thirties, allows his house to become party central for his friends and family and several issues arise over the pool. This feels like a story John Updike might have written forty years ago. Perhaps Boyle did or perhaps he's remembering such a house and pool. 

I am pretty sure I read one or two Boyle novels back in the day but they were much less upper middle class than this one. I will have to investigate.  

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Todd Mason

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 

Just started THE DAY OF THE JACKAL (Peacock). I have never seen the movie so I am new to the story. Also watching the new Lynley on PBS, THE PAPER, on Peacock, which I liked moderately. And still making my way through the DOCTOR BLAKE MYSTERIES. I really like that each episode is complete in itself. Nothing to remember the next time. 

Went to a great chamber music concert Saturday night. The Zukerman Trio played piano trios by Mendelssohn and Dvorak. We can get very good seats for $30 at a lovely venue. I also spent a beautiful afternoon walking the riverfront in Detroit, which now extends for more than five miles. Windsor, Canada is on the other side and two bridges and a tunnel connect the two.

It is astounding to compare many areas of Detroit to the way they were twenty years ago. Of course, other areas are still in need of help.  

And what about you?  

FFB: KARNAK CAFE Naguib Mahfouz

( From Ron Scheer on Buddies in the Saddle in 2015) It has a frightening resonance for today, here. 

Naguib Mahfouz, Karnak Café (1974)

Bit of a change today at BITS, from West to Middle East. This short novel by Nobel-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz is a sadly melancholy story of the crushing of youthful hope. Set in the 1960s around the time of the 1967 war with Israel, it describes how a generation of young Egyptians, the children of the revolution of 1954, were betrayed and lied to by their government, while being subjected to interrogation and imprisonment by secret police.

Their story is told by an older man (and stand-in for the author), who befriends a gathering of them who are regulars at a Cairo café, Al-Karnak. There they talk of politics and express their idealistic aspirations, both for themselves and their country. Abruptly disappearing for periods of time, they return shaken and demoralized. While in police custody, kept in windowless cells, they have endured harsh treatment and false accusations.

Eventually it’s revealed that they have been coerced into becoming informants, which corrodes their trust in each other and eventually leads to the death of one of them. Two, a loving couple at the story’s start, are driven apart by their guilt and shame.

Karnak Café is a troubling vision of life in a modern police state, and it sheds light for Westerners on the recent struggles in Egypt for freedom and justice. Novella-length, it takes a stand somewhat distant from political events, while clearly throwing its sympathies to the young people who speak on its pages. 

Short Story Wednesday, "How to Make Love to A Physicist"

 

I put this aside some time ago and just ran across it yesterday. I think I have only read half of the stories. This one is about a couple that meet at a STEAM conference. She is in the arts and only there to oversee. He is a physicist and this story documents the relationship that follows. She does everything she can to put him off but he hangs in there. I am not sure all men would allow this latitude but lucky for her. Deesha Philyaw won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her debut short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies.

 

Todd Mason 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

This weather is something to behold. I can't remember a better stretch of weather in many years. Saw LOVE, BROOKLYN, which was way too ordinary to be on a big screen. On Criterion I saw, MISERICORDIA which was funny but so very odd. Also rewatched ANATOMY OF A FALL, and came to a different conclusion on the fall. 

On TV watching THE PAPER on Peacock and ready to begin the new LYNLEY and TASK (HBO) Enjoying revisiting CHINA BEACH. 

Still working on ANTIDOTE, which is wonderfully researched and written but too long. We go over the same sort of ground too many times. Have to finish it by tomorrow though. Ugh. 

I did another protest on Saturday. A lot of support from passing cars. Much more than six months ago. Does it mean anything? 

We are all missing Kevin. I got a text from him today saying he has watched SINNERS and did I see it. He liked it. I am impressed that he did. Hope he gets to take a film course in college. It really makes a difference to be able to watch films critically, I think.  I only took one film class and it was on vampire films and taught by a Romanian professor. How fitting. 

What are you up to?  

 

FFB: A LOSS FOR WORDS, Lou Ann Walker

 

I was working on a piece for my writing group and looking through photos and saw a boy in my confirmation class who was deaf. I googled him and found out despite his deficit, he had an amazing career, beginning with taking the University of Texas to the Supreme Court for refusing to provide him with language assistance. And then I remembered a book I read years ago (1988) that really captured the hearing person in a deaf family (A LOSS FOR WORDS). Now that I have a moderate hearing loss, this subject interests me. The recent series CODE OF SILENCE on Britbox did a great job with this and of course, CODA, which won an Oscar. 

From the time she was a toddler, Lou Ann Walker acted as the ears and voice for her parents, who had lost their hearing at a young age. As soon as she was old enough to speak, her childhood ended, and she immediately assumed the responsibility of interpreter—translating doctors’ appointments and managing her parents’ business transactions. Their family life was warm and loving, but outside the home, they faced a world that misunderstood and often rejected them. 

In this deeply moving memoir, Walker offers us a glimpse of a different world, bringing with it a broader reflection on how parents grow alongside their children and how children learn to navigate the world through the eyes of their parents.

Short Story Wednesday: "The Wife On Ambien," Ed Park

 https://www.newyorker.com/books/flash-fiction/the-wife-on-ambien

As someone who takes Ambien, I can attest to some unusual things that happen under the influence. Although usually it's Amazon orders that I remember considering but not ordering. For instance, I considered making my NYT subscription digital rather than print and apparently I did do that because no paper was here today but a change in billing email was. Also I sometimes find cracker crumbs on my chest in the morning. I also have had deliveries of clothing in the wrong size so I am not as careful under Ambien.

A bit worrisome. I have been advised to powder the hall in front of my door to make sure I don't leave the apartment at night.  As a child I walked in my sleep so it may not be the Ambien at all. 

Fun story anyway.  

Jerry House 

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Kevin Tipple 

Casual Debris 

Todd Mason 

Monday, Monday

 It looks like CHINA BEACH is streaming on a new streaming channel called HOWDY, which is $1.99 a month. Some of the original music has been replaced. 

Three great movies. Third was It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley. Who I'd never heard of. Have you? 

Finished the latest season of UNFORGOTTEN, which was good although the third plotline may have been unnecessary. Also finished FISK, which is very funny. 

Still slogging through ANTIDOTE by Karen Russell. Just too long but well-written. Rereading THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR for my other book group. 

Beautiful weather here. Can't remember better weather over this weekend. There are a lot of festivals in Detroit area. A huge jazz festival down on the waterfront and and art festival nearby but crowds don't please me anymore. 

Kevin's classes don't start for another few days. Why get them there eight days before when there's nothing to do? And the WI kids probably went home for the holiday weekend.  

What are you up to?  

FFB: HAMNET. Maggie O'Farrell

 The movie version of this with Paul Mescale and Jessie Buckley will be released at Thanksgiving. 

 

Hamnet, William Shakespeare's only son, died at the age of eleven. HAMNET is Maggie O'Farrell's imaging of the event and the months that followed. In 1580, the Black Death was surging across England. A young Latin tutor, (never named) impregnates a woman several years his senior. Called Agnes in this novel, rather than Anne, she is a woman very much of the land, adept in mixing potions to cure whatever ailed the townsmen of Stratford. The two marry.  

This book is her story rather than her husband's. She bears three children, Hamnet is a twin to Judith, and Suzanne is their elder sister. This is a story of grief, a story of learning to accept living with a husband who is gone much of the time pursuing his writing and stage career. Not until the end of the book does Agnes come to understand what it is her husband is doing in London. This allows her some peace.

There is much about William Shakespeare that is not known, including the exact circumstances of Hamnet's death. Situating it as a result of this plague makes perfect sense.  O'Farrell has taken some of what is known about the man and made it come alive. 

Highly recommended. 

Short Story Wednesday: "The Project" from THE NEW YORKER

 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/09/01/project-fiction-rachel-cusk

 

I really wish I had picked up the collection of short stories set in British grand houses I saw at the library sale because I am sure discerning their meanings would have been easier than this one. Maybe I will go back and get it if the sale is still on. 

The protagonist has several themes in The Project. Two friends experience childhood's end in different ways, the story of her husband's time in a hospital and their subsequent move to a city with their children. This is probably the sort of story you need to read twice and I didn't. It was easy enough to read but I didn't quite pull the strings together.  I don't mind a story that doesn't have a traditional style but this one seemed like three stories-one of them perhaps borrowed from Alice Munro's daughter. 

Todd Mason 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

Monday, Monday

I didn't much enjoy FREAKIER FRIDAY. Never much of a Jamie Lee Curtis fan for one thing. I watched the Kurosawa version of HIGH AND LOW on HBO, which is great. Hopefully I will see the Spike Lee one soon. Started THE HOSTAGE and am also watching SON OF CRITCH and FISK, all on Netflix. Still watching PLATONIC on Apple and DOCTOR BLAKE Mysteries on Britbox. Although I read an alarming reason for why the show was cancelled. It's a good enough show but I don't know if I will continue given his wandering hands on set. 

Reading STONEYARD DEVOTIONAL (Charlotte Woods) and THE ANTIDOTE (Karen Russell)  Both are very good. 

Some nice weather.

Kevin and his parents are on their way to Madison. I am sad to think I won't see him until Thanksgiving. His hair is perfectly straight now. I miss the curls but that style is gone, I guess. 

What about you?  

FFB: THE DRAMATIST, Ken Bruen

 

We lost Ken Bruen recently, which is sad. He brought me many great reading hours. I have read several of the wonderful Jack Taylor novels, They all are imbued with great dialogue, poetry, action, angst, Ireland, literary and musical references, quirky characters.

In a word, they are all special. But THE DRAMATIST is my favorite.

Jack Taylor is newly sober in this entry in the series and finding it a chore. Bruen turns the heat up by placing Jack in harm's way in a number of ways. Taylor finds it especially hard to keep things on an even keel when his ex-drug-dealer, now in jail, asks him to find the murderer of his daughter. He also becomes involved with an old lover and her scary husband, a vigilante group, and the usual assortment of Bruen characters and temptations.

Bruen's books are outstanding because of the fully-realized life he invests Taylor with. Oh, and the plots are great, too. But he generously allows you to enter into Jack Taylor's world in a way few authors pull off. You know him. You root for him.

The end of this book will send you over the edge. I guarantee it. I am not much for crying but this one made me bawl.

Short Story Wednesday "Something Has Come to Light" Mirian Toews

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/25/something-has-come-to-light-fiction-miriam-toews 

 

Perhaps you have read novels by Miriam Toews or saw the excellent movie based on one of them, WOMEN TALKING. A memoir by Toews comes out this month. Toews, who fled her Mennonite community at 18, has said she feels the need to write about who she might have been if she stayed. 

This story is set in the Mennonite community in Manitoba. A farm wife near death at an old age tells the story of a boy she met, and refused, as a girl. It is quite short but paints a good picture of a religious community and this particular woman.  

We get so few stories about Mennonites or the Amish. Their world is rarely talked about although there is quite a large community in Sarasota, FL and I see they do have their own publishers and books.  

 

George Kelley 

Tracy K 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 

Enjoying THE DOCTOR BLAKE MYSTERIES on BritBox. Not a lot else although watching some movies here and there (Rohmer's A TALE OF SUMMER) and a bio doc on David Hockney. 

This was the weekend of the WOODWARD DREAM CRUISE, which seems to get bigger each year. Thousands of classic cars to remember. 

Had a final dinner with Kevin and his folks. He leaves for Madison next Sunday.  

Reading THE ANTIDOTE by Karen Russell although it doesn't seem like my kind of book. 

I did enjoy ABSOLUTION for my other book group though. 

What are you doing? 

FFB: A GREAT DELIVERANCE, Elizabeth George

 

I read this in 1988, which was the year it was published. It was George's first Lynley novel and a real corker as the Brits might say. I recently watched it on the series and it was also well done there. I like when the lives of the detectives are part of the story and right from this first book we learn Lynley has been disappointed in love and Carol Havers, his assistant, has a parent with dementia she is responsible for. 

I understand a new series is coming but I am not sure if this will be the first book they refilm. It is quite a bloody and upsetting beginning because it appears a farmer's daughter has murdered him. I am anxious to see who replaces Lynley. 

Short Story Wednesday, THE AGE OF GRIEF, Jane Smiley

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres—a luminous novella and short stories that explore the vicissitudes of love, friendship, and marriage. • “A glorious achievement….. Infinitely satisfying….. A triumph.” —The New York Times Book Review

In “The Pleasure of Her Company,” a lonely, single woman befriends the married couple next door, hoping to learn the secret of their happiness. In “Long Distance,” a man finds himself relieved of the obligation to continue an affair that is no longer compelling to him, only to be waylaid by the guilt he feels at his easy escape. And in the incandescently wise and moving title novella, a dentist, aware that his wife has fallen in love with someone else, must comfort her when she is spurned, while maintaining the secret of his own complicated sorrow. Beautifully written, with a wry intelligence and a lively comic touch, The Age of Grief captures moments of great intimacy with grace, clarity, and indelible emotional power.

A Thousand Acres was Smiley's most successful book-it was a modern take on King Lear. But she was a fine short story writer too. I read this collection in 1988. 

 George Kelley

Jerry House 

TracyK 

Neeru

Monday, Monday

 

Have you read ON THE ROAD? I never made it through although both Phil and Megan were fans and I remember going to an exhibition of artifacts at the NYPL on 42nd Street a few years back. The movie was good enough but all of the info was widely known facts.

Also saw SKETCH, which turned out to be a kids' movie. 

Watching THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT on Britbox, PLATONIC (Apple) and THE GILDED AGE.  Still reading ABSOLUTION. So wickedly hot here. 

We had a water main break here and I have to boil water for another day. Wonder if that is heat-related.  

What about you?  

FFB-A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE, Reynolds Price

 

Published in the sixties, I read this book in 1988. It was Price's first novel, published in the sixties, and immediately launched a fine career. 

From the LA TIMES:

 Reynolds Price’s first novel, “A Long and Happy Life,” originally published in 1962, recounted--or, better, evoked--the back-country courtship of the young Rosacoke Mustian and Wesley Beavers. Beginning with “Wesley’s impulsive and short-lived abandonment of Rosa at her friend’s funeral, encompassing their awkward sexual initiation, the novel culminated with Wesley’s decision to do the right thing by the girl he’d made pregnant. A quarter century later, it remains a nearly perfect novella. Every page declares the open senses and curious heart of an enormously gifted young writer.

Short Story Wednesday: "The Necklace" V. S. Prichett

 

The New Yorker, February 15, 1958 P. 31

A window-cleaner finds a pearl necklace and turns it over to the police. He recalls his actions on the day that it was found, and also how he met his wife, Nell. He remembers her incessant reference to her well-to-do- Aunt Mary throughout their courtship. Later she admitted that Aunt Mary died the previous year. Also apparent is Nell's hatred of liars, of which she constantly reminds her husband. After questioning each one separately, the police bring them together. Nell claims that the necklace was hers, and not found by her husband. Further investigation revealed that she had stolen jewelry previously, and credited her Aunt Mary, who never really existed, with having given it to her. Nell was sentenced to three months in prison.

Quite an odd little story. DeMaupassant's story THE NECKLACE is an influence. The story is read by Paul Theroux on THE NEW YORKER website. 

 George Kelley

Kevin Tipple 

Monday, Monday

A quick one as I am getting home late from seeing a  play RADICAL EMPATHY. As you can imagine it was not a comedy. Also saw the movie FOLK TALES about a school in Norway that tries to get teens to get off their phones and out of their heads and learn some skills, like dog-sledding. 

Reading ABSOLUTION by Alice McDermott. Also THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE (Van Der Kolk)

Watching THE GILDED AGE (HBO), CODE OF SILENCE (Britbox) and various other things. 

A very nice three days here. Hope you are enjoying your weather too.  

THE LIFEBOAT, Charlotte Rogan

 

Charlotte Rogan published her first novel post age 50 in 2012, which gives aspiring novelists a lift. And quite a novel it is. Set in 1914, as World War 1 is beginning, a ship, Empress Alexandra, goes down. Our narrator, a woman of 22, is one of the forty people that manage to get themselves on one of the lifeboats. Her recent husband does not.

We know from the start she is on trial for murder along with two other women. They are accused of pushing the man who has commandeered the lifeboat overboard. The book examines what occurred on the lifeboat, which although said to be fit for forty is vastly overfilled. The weeks spent on the boat are full of degradation, hardship, starvation, madness.

There is an enigmatic quality to our narrator. How did she manage to wrestle her husband away from the woman he was engaged to? How did she manage to get a spot on the boat? How did she come away from the trial with a new husband in tow? Is she the naive woman she appears to be, taking her cues from more experienced travelers? Or is she more savy than her companions, push come to shove.

It will be up to you as the reader to judge her. Perhaps your judgement will be harsher than her jury's. Or perhaps more lenient than her fellow travelers. This is a deep and troubling book you will not soon forget. We learn very little about the men on this boat, but a lot about the woman.
This is fitting, I think. Highly recommended.

Short Story Wednesday "The Heroine" Patricia Highsmith from TROUBLED DAUGHTERS, TWISTED WIVES, Sarah Weinman editor

 

Lucille is hired by a family in Westchester to care for their two children. Almost immediately you sense this will not turn out well and the tension never lets up. She is not ill-intentioned but she is crazy. She longs to do something heroic for this family. What will it be. And a strange life the family has-with the children rarely leaving their nursery. A good reminder to always check out references. 

I have read most of the stories in this anthology and have not been disappointed. 

Putting together this anthology was one of Sarah Weinman's first endeavors. Now the mystery and  crime editor of the New York Times Book Review, Sarah has written SCOUNDREL, THE REAL LOLITA, UNSPEAKABLE ACTS, EVIDENCE OF THINGS SEEN and has a new book WITHOUT CONSENT debuting in the fall. All non-fiction, her books look at true crime.

 George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

TracyK