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 

Monday, Monday

 SORRY, BABY was at only one theater in the Detroit are. It was a good movie about our ability to overcome a "very bad thing" and get on with our lives. THis despite the fact she got no backup on her assault from the police or university. Worth thinking about.

Reading RAISING HARE, by Chloe Dalton. I knew nothing about hares before reading this and it is fascinating. Also reading ABSOLUTION BY Alice McDermott.

Watching PRIME TARGET on Apple. Finished POKER FACE. The second season had some real winning episodes. Could not finish DYING FOR SEX on Hulu.  Still watching the series on the Mitford sisters. What a handful they were. 

What about you?  

 

FFB-INDIAN COUNTRY-Philip Caputo

 

Although A RUMOR OF WAR (a memoir) was Caputo's big book, this one was also great. I read it in 1987 and its Michigan settings probably attracted me. Also the narrator's relationship with an Ojibwa Indian, another earlier interest of mine. This also has a strong Vietnam connection and I took a course on Vietnam around this time so it was possibly assigned. It follows the character through the war and in the decades after. Did anyone really escape the horrors of that war when our mission was so murky? Caputo has written many books since but these were the only two I read. I wonder if he's escape the influence by now. Reading their synopses, they do sound grim. 

Short Story Wednesday: "Face- Time" Lorrie Moore from THE NEW YORKER, Sept. 2020

 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/28/face-time

 

You can tell by the date above, what was going on then. And this story, well-written and sad can stand in for a million stories like it. The protagonist's father is in the hospital. A surgery is followed by Covid. His daughters can only visit on Face- time as was so much the case then. It is hard to read this and be taken back to that hopeless time when we didn't know how long a vaccine might be in coming. But it wasn't that long because we believed in science and labs and the scientists working in them. And now we don't. Or at least our government doesn't.  

Todd Mason 

Neer 

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Monday, Monday

 I didn't expect to like THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME but I sort of did. I think it was because of Michael Cera's casting. I watched it as a series of skits rather than a whole, which was less frustrating. Going to see DON'T LETS GO DOWN TO THE DOGS TONIGHT today. I read it a long time ago. (Great movie-about a family caught up in the end of white Rhodesia). 

Liked the BLACK MIRROR episode with Paul Giamatti. Still watching the series on the Mitfords (OUTRAGEOUS) on BRIT BOX. Always difficult to find much sympathy for the rich and this one makes it even harder as they fawn over Adolph Hitler. Still reading MINA'S MATCHBOX, which is so unusual. Although it goes well with the Anderson movie. Also reading essays by Lorrie Moore. THE WSJ picked their favorite crime books from the 2000s. Megan's THE TURNOUT was on there. I thought it was a very good list but anyone craving action probably won't. 

The weather is strange or maybe it's the Canadian fires but it's dark a lot. 

I wake up full of dread anyway and that sure doesn't help.  

What about your world?  

FFB THE SOUTHPAW, Donal Hamilton Haines

 (From the distant past)

Kent Morgan writes (or wrote) a sports column for a paper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but spends most of his time puzzling over what to do with all the books piled on his furniture and floor and stored in his garage. More bookcases are not the answer as he has no room for them.

The Southpaw - Donal Hamilton Haines

I came across a copy of this juvenile novel at a recent charity book sale and quickly grabbed it for my baseball fiction collection. I didn't remember much about the story, but knew I had owned and read it in my youth. First published by Rinehart in 1931, Comet Books started reprinting it in 1949 and that's the edition I found. The book includes illustrations by Harold Minton and several panels on the back cover along with brief text provided the potential reader with an idea about the storyline.

"All Hillton Academy hated baseball, and every other sport except for hazing freshmen. For games bored Greg Elliott, a senior who had the whole school under his thumb. Then Bob Griswold arrived, like a one-man revolution. Bob loved baseball and refused to be bossed. That got him into a knock-down fight with Butch, Elliott's bully. And into much worse trouble with Elliott himself. Finally this undercover battle for leadership blazed into a revolt that shook Hillton Academy to its foundation."

The Southpaw with a cover price of .35 was #16 in a series of 20 mystery, sports, career and adventure tales published by Comet. Among the titles are The Green Turtle Mystery by Ellery Queen Jr., The Spanish Cave by Geoffrey Household and Sue Barton, Student Nurse by Helen Dore Boylston. The series also includes two other baseball books, Batter Up by Jackson Scholz and Bat Boy of the Giants by Garth Garreau, that I also read in my youth. My copies could be hiding from me in boxes in my garage.

Short Story Wednesday, "Premium Harmony" Stephen King

 from THE NEW YORKER.

 A couple, who fight over meaningless things, (his smoking, her weight) stop at a roadside store to pick up a ball for her niece. The husband and their dog wait in the car. It's a very hot day and after too long of a wait for her small errand, a woman comes out to tell him his wife has collapsed. He goes inside and waits until EMS arrives and confirms her death. She is only 35. He returns to the car where the dog has also died from the heat. I am not sure I would identify this as a King story if not for the references to Castle Rock. It was written in 2009. 

George Kelley

Jerry House 

Todd Mason 

Monday, Monday

 

BLUE, SUN PALACE, showing at the Detroit Film Theater was very slow but interesting. A first film, set in Queens, Baltimore and somewhere in Asia.

I seem to be surrounded by Asian fare lately. Also rewatched IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, which is such a gorgeous film. And reading MINA'S MATCHBOXES by Yoko Ogawa who also wrote THE MEMORY POLICE and THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR. 

Enjoying BALLARD (Prime), MURDERBOT (Apple). Not sure about the Lena Dunham show (Netflix), which has a hard-to-remember title Also liked PERNILLE (Netflix)

My hearing problem turned out to be wax, which Urgent Care removed,somewhat painfully. I can certainly hear much better. 

Weather been hot. I hate when I am tired of summer by mid-July because winter is so dreadful.

How about you?  

FFB: THE GREAT SANTINI, Pat Conroy

 

 

 

 You've probably seen the movie with Robert Duvall, but the book is terrific too. Conroy is a great writer and I've read most of his books THE PRINCE OF TIDES may be my favorite but this has the most memorable character in his work. This is a semi-autobiographical story of an ex-marine who runs his family like it's boot camp.Especially affected is Ben who fears, hates, and is anxious to feel his father's love and respect. "THE GREAT SANTINI HAS SPOKEN" is Bull's catch phrase and I can still picture Robert Duvall shouting that.  

Short Story Wednesday: "Something is Out There" Richard Bausch

 

Originally in MURDERLAND, this ended up the title story in his collection. 

A family returns home from the hospital where the father is spending some time after falling off the roof after being shot. They are having a rare snowstorm, and the boys begin to shovel the driveway and walk. The women try to piece together what has happened. The man who shot the father has been captured and was a former business partner. They are also waiting for the return of another family member away at college. They are worried about him out on the icy roads.

The dread in this story is palpable: the storm, the fate of the college student, knocks on the door, is the father involved in some crime? And then the power goes out. 

Bausch takes his time to make you feel what they are feeling. In fact, when a knock came at my own door (something very rare nowadays) I almost fell out of the chair. (It was the mailman). 

Bausch understands that the threat of violence can be more frightening than actual violence. He gives you enough information to understand, sort of, what might be going on. The story ends with the woman, standing at an upstairs window, with a loaded gun. The kids wait downstairs baseball bats and knives at the ready. The other woman waits too.

 Superb. There are probably pdf's online if you care to read it

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

TracyK 

Steve Lewis 

Kevin Tipple 

Todd Mason 

Monday, Monday

Going out tonight (Sunday) to celebrate Kevin's passing the IB (International Baccalaureate)  exams. These are the equivalent in his school of AP exams.  Yay, Kevin!

Enjoyed FILM GEEK (Max) which so encapsulates the years when my kids were growing up in terms of movies.  Finished THE BEAR, which never quite recaptured the magic of the first two years but still is better than most anything else right now.  POKER FACE is fine but they are too wedded to their concept. Much like COLUMBO, I guess. 

Very much enjoying THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE-which is a fantasy-romance novel. Or maybe add historical fiction too. Beautiful writing. 

Went down to Michigan Central (Detroit's one-time train station) again-this time on a tour. Ford has made a gorgeous building out of what was a complete wreck a few years ago. Now they charge $20 a head for the tour so they will probably come out ahead over time because they have many tours every day.  Unlike Grand Central, Union Station and Penn Station no trains will ever come through it again. There are trains that head to Chicago but not via this route. 

Heard a rumor that both Detroit newpapers are soon going to online only. Yikes! 

How about you? 

FFB: BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, Ron Kovics

 

BORN details Kovic's experiences as a soldier in two tours of duty in Vietnam, his involvement in war atrocities, his injuries, his paralysis, his treatment at various VA facilities and his road to activism. A very hard book to read and it was a terrific movie with Tom Cruise. 

Will this be the last fourth where the country we have forged is considered a democracy?  

Short Story Wednesday: "Button, Button" Richard Matheson

"Button, Button", Richard Matheson 

A package arrives at Norma and Arthur Steward's house with a gadget inside with a button on it. Shortly after a man arrives and announces to the couple that if they push the button they will kill someone in the world, and receive $50, 000 in exchange. Norma is intrigued by this, insisting that they are part of an experiment, and nothing will happen if they push the button. Except maybe they would get paid and could do the many things she was longing for. Arthur is repulsed by the idea and by his wife. This is a very well -written story although you will probably guess the ending. This was, of course, on the Twilight Zone. You can watch it on you tube. It was also the plot of the 2009 movie THE BOX.

Steve Lewis 

George Kelley 

Martin Edwards 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

Monday, Monday

 

Off to see BAD SHABBOS. A comedy is what we need. Luckily the theater near me is still trying to have some alternative films. Because everything else is for kids or action movies. 

I broke down and ordered Peacock. Decided I wanted to see POKER FACE enough to be worth it. A few other shows too. 

The first three episodes of THE BEAR were not so hot but I liked 4 although I am betting most viewers don't.

Still wading through THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE. I am just not a fantasy reader to my detriment, I am sure. It's popular with many readers, I understand. 

What do people who live in Manhattan do for the fourth of July. I mean Central Park is huge but can you barbecue there?  Although it's been a long time since I had anything barbecued. 

What's up with you guys?  

 

Good Turnout for Megan-maybe 75.

Mama to the rescue although I don't like doing it. She can't do it herself because she's in the green room. I had to correct the date on their website, make them order more books, make them get enough chairs and prepare an introduction for a clerk to read who was about to say. "Here is Megan Abbott". She was impressed enough with what she read, she bought a book.Of course I can only step in when she is in Detroit. But Indy book stores do a much better job of it because they know their customers and do it all the time. Barnes and Noble has been very good to Megan though. They did a great interview online. This store doesn't do many live events. But there were as nice as could be to the panicked Mom. Even when we tried to steal chairs from the coffee bar. 

My Choices

 

THE 100 BEST MOVIES OF THE 21st CENTURY

Reader’s Choice: My Ballot

Perfect Days

2023

Tár

2022

The Great Beauty

2013

Before Sunset

2004

The Lives of Others

2006

No Country for Old Men

2007

Moonlight

2016

45 Years

2015

Calvary

2014

Phantom Thread

2017