Monday, Monday

 

Two terrific plays in Stratford. Lovely weather. Using my ArriveCan app turned out to be easy too. Going to Canada is indeed entering another country, one that is sane and never changes very much Except they keep installing more and more roundabouts. Oh, and they have installed boardwalks along side every restaurants so pedestrians do not need their sidewalks and they can put more tables outside. Most people wore masks at the plays but not much elsewhere.

Reading SLEEPWALK by Dan Chaon. Still reading DEAR EDWARD too.

Went to see the Spanish film OFFICIAL COMPETITION which was funny but not wholly satisfying. Comedies in a foreign language work less well than dramas for me. But still a good movie. 

Watching end of Better Call Saul. And the hearings, of course. 

So much beautiful weather.
How about you?

Today I am picking out what films to see at the Traverse City Film Festival. As usual, they lean toward Michael Moore's POV. It is his party after all.

R.I.P. Rick Robinson

For anyone who has not heard this, an email from Barbara Robinson shocked and saddened.. When I began this blog I had no idea we would lose so many friends over the years. But that was partly because I never imagined my blog lasting 15 years. I think if you want to correspond with Barbara, you could leave a message on Rick's blog. So sad.

From Barbara:

As Rick said in his e-mail below that there would be updates, I am sending one on his behalf. Once I figure out how to post a brief comment on his blog, I will. He would not want to leave out any of his blog/book friends.

I am not good at sharing sad news but wanted to let you know that RicK passed away last Thursday morning in Bend, OR. He had been airlifted from the Portland hospital, as they could not locate a Neurosurgeon and ICU bed locally for him immediately. I was able to be over there with him. 

Complications from metastatic cancer was their final conclusion. We did not see this coming.

The cats and I will be fine; it is all too fresh to even process right now. I am thankful I had 16 years of life and love with that wonderful man. He’s at peace now.

Off To Stratford

 

This is the Festival Theater, one of the three lovely theaters at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. I managed to download and fill out the ARRIVECAN app and hopefully we will sail through the customs at the Blue Water Crossing in Sarnia, ON, CA. I have some trepidation since Covid numbers are on the rise. Masks are not required but encouraged and I will wear mine. 

We are seeing HAMLET (has to be my tenth time) and CHICAGO (probably seen it twice before). My friends are also seeing RICHARD III but I doubt I would get much out of seeing two plays in a day. All of these productions have gotten great reviews. 

Have a great weekend.

Monday, Monday

Hard to feel much like celebrating the Fourth this year. My favorite restaurant sent this email out. 

            Leon & Lulu and Three Cats

                  Closed Monday, July 4, 2022

This is not a time for the usual celebration of our country's hard won freedom and independence. In light of recent rulings, we believe it is a time to reflect and take a stand against the freedoms we have all just lost and those we stand to lose soon: as individuals, as families, women and men. For the love of our nation, we are choosing to take this day to pause from business as usual. We wish you a good holiday.     I do admire a commercial business bold enough to put this out there.   Anyone feeling celebratory this fourth?

FFB; THE MOVIEGOER, Walker Percy

 (from 2011)

The Movie-goer by Walker Percy

This book won the National Book Award in 1962. It is a brilliant exploration of a young man searching for both a way and the inclination to live a meaningful existence. Binx Bolling has returned from the war, taken up a job as a stock broker, and spends most of his spare time seducing his secretaries and attending movies. The story takes place in a New Orleans that seems totally Southern and certainly far from the New Orleans we think of today.

A lot of the book examines a certain notion of exceptionalism and honor southerners had at that time. Binx is repeatedly reminded of this by his aunt and various other characters in the book. This is the sort of book you will think about long after you close it. What Binx does to alleviate the ennui he suffers may not be persuasive as a cure, but it requires him to put himself and his narcissism aside.


I was a great Walker Percy fan once upon a time. Some of his work has fantastical or science fiction elements: The Thanatos Syndrome and Love in the Ruins being two.

Short Story Wednesday, "My Mother's Yellow Dress: Ann Packer from MENDOCINO AND OTHER STORIES

Ann Packer is known for her best seller A DIVE FROM CLAUSEN'S PIER, which came after her first collection, MENDOCINO AND OTHER STORIES. 

In "My Mother's Yellow Dress," the narrator, a gay man who has just lost his mother, remembers a party from his youth. His mother, clearly a handful but beloved by him, wears a very short and very sharply yellow dress at a party his father hosted as Head of the English Department. The marriage ends sometime after this and his father goes to California where his son rarely sees him. 

This is a coming of age story, where Buddy is watching the drunkenness and sexual behavior of adults for the first time.  He is embarrassed and perhaps titillated by what he sees.

 A homeless man, hungry, also plays a part in the day. This story could have been an episode of MAD MEN. You have to work a little to put it together, to see what the author is trying to say. It moves a bit through time too with scenes between Buddy and his adult lover who are making their way through the AIDS crisis. The writing is very good but perhaps a bit too many strands for a short story. 

I liked CLAUSEN'S PIER when I read it. An interesting premise of a woman whose fiancee is paralyzed after a dive and the dilemma of leaving a paraplegic. 

Kevin Tipple

George Kelley

Monday, Monday

Another alarming week on so many fronts, but let's not go there. 

I am looking forward to Megan's visit on 7/1-7/3. Hoping her plane is one of the few that seem to arrive on time. These very short trips don't allow much wiggle room.

I went to see Phantom of the Open because I like Mark Rylance and the reviews were good but it was truly awful. Who makes a two hour movie about a guy who plays his first round of golf at the British Open. It was a Monty Python skit at best. This is the second goofy British movie I have seen of late. Desperation prevails. Put a movie theater down the street from me and this is the result. There are so few movies for adults this summer and like climate change it will probably get worse. 

Enjoying The Bear (FX and Hulu). I always liked Lip on Shameless and he really gets to shine here. Also watching Dark Winds and rewatching Mad Men. Also The Split

Reading The Good Detective (John McMahon) and Dear Edward. 

Listening to Somewhere in Time, Richard Matheson. So much better than the movie.

So what's going on with you?

FFB. WHEN THE KILLING STARTS, Ted Wood

 (reviewed by Bill Crider in 2012)

Reid Bennett is the entire police force in tiny Murphy's Harbour, Ontario, Canada.  Of course he gets a lot of help from his German Shepherd, Sam.  While he's on vacation, he's approached by a woman who asks him to find her son, who's joined an outfit that supposedly trains mercenaries.  Bennett is a little reluctant, but he agrees.  Before long, he's on a wilderness adventure that involves lots of shooting and a serious wildfire.  He recovers the son, but that's just the beginning, as Wood starts springing the plot twists.  

If you're looking for villainous villains, lots of action, a little sex, and a very cool dog, you've come to the right place.  There are a few plot problems, not the least of which is the faithful Indian companion deus ex machina, but Wood's writing is strong and his pacing is exemplary.  Bennett is a hero like Jack Reacher, tough, strong, and sure of himself.  I'd think Reacher's audience would like him a lot.

Ted Wood is a Canadian author who had a good bit of success in the U.S. with this series.  I believe there were ten books in all.  He wrote a couple of others as Jack Barnao, and I liked those, too.  He might not be completely forgotten, since I believe the books are available for Kindle. 

Short Story Wednesday, "Detroit Skyline, 1949" from SHILOH AND OTHER STORIES by Bobbie Ann Mason

 

Of course, it you are about to choose a story in an anthology and you see one with your hometown in the title, that is probably the one you will choose. Bobbie Ann Mason won awards for this collection of stories and the novel that followed it, IN COUNTRY. She was an especially influential writer in the eighties and was known for her use of KMART realism where she peppered her stories with specific names and titles-something wasn't done as much before her. In other words, she replaced a name like Five and Dime with Woolworth's. This can be overdone, of course, but on the whole I like specificity, do you?

"Detroit, Skyline, 1949" is the story of a visit by a mother and daughter from Kentucky to Detroit, where family members have moved for better jobs. Nine-year old, Peggy Jo (probably Bobbie Ann) is especially eager to see the sky-scrapers. It turns out the city buses are on strike and the family has no car so this dream is not realized. The differences between life in rural Kentucky and urban Detroit get a lot of attention and the TV is a new thing for Peggy Jo. A lot of the story also concerns the "red scare" going on at that time and how unions were blamed for introducing socialists into the factories. Her mother has a miscarriage during the visit and Peggy Jo is a bit overwhelmed by so many issues. Perhaps I was too. This story seemed to have one too many themes for its own good. But the writing is always great and her characters jump off the page. The title story is especially terrific in this collection. I have not read any of her more recent books, has anyone? 

Kevin Tipple

Jerry House

TracyK 

George Kelley  

Neer

Monday, Monday

 

Saw this strange movie at a theater. It's a sort of spoof about the minutes missing on Rosemary Wood's record of Nixon's conversation. It didn't work for us and we were the entire audience. Plus the sound system in this tiny theater was not good. Or maybe it's partly my making do with one hearing aid as they replace the battery. 

Went out to lunch in Metamora, a town of 600 people and maybe more horses. The White Horse Inn has been there in one form or another since 1850. This is unusual in the Midwest.

Have been watching the films referenced in YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS PODCAST on the erotic eighties. So I have watched NO WAY OUT, DIRTY DANCING and a few more. 

Also watching THE OLD MAN (Hulu), where Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow give a master class in acting. Also FOR ALL MANKIND and DARK WINDS.

Strange weather -- two cool days following two hots ones. Looks like more high heat on its way.

Reading THE PLOT (Jean Hanff Korelitz)  but slowly. THE NEW YORKER had such a great issue that has been keep me busy. 

Watching the hearings and finding it horrific.

What about you? 

 

Happy Father's Day!

 

FFB: ZIGZAG, Bill Pronzini

  Ed Gorman's last review...

ZIGZAG    

   You can’t fake it, the kind of mastery Bill Pronzini shows in all his writing, whatever the genre, whatever the length.  And his years of writing Grand Master-level material inform every single line and scene in this new collection. Included are two new novellas and two short stories well worth reprinting. 

   The novellas are equally strong. “Zigzag” demonstrates that the simplest of mishaps—a minor accident investigation—can take you places you may not want to go. Nameless really earns his private eye money on this one. 

  The melancholy truths of “Grapplin’” shows us the emotional power that underpins so much of Pronzini’s most celebrated work over the years even though it also manages to be filled with kind and gentle truths. On this one Nameless shares the spotlight with his new business partner Tamara.      

   The two short stories are strong and fresh. They illustrate that no matter what form Pronzini uses, he makes it his own.  

   My favorite here is “Revenant.” Pronzini has always done well by the supernatural even though he is certainly a skeptic.      

   What we have a here is a spin on road rage. A strange man named Antanas Vok piled his car into an embankment, blaming Peter Erskine and his wife Marian for the crash. Witnesses say otherwise. Vok’s wife dies in the accident and Vok stands there screaming threats at the Erskines. He will make sure that they will be dead, too.

     A year later, Vok is still stalking them and they are scared. The police have been no help. Lately the harassment has taken a turn into the occult.

     The black host is the Satanic version of the Roman Catholic host. When you touch it the residue sticks to both your fingers and your clothes.  Vok has sent them a black host to show them his power over them.

     Supernatural power? Erskine doesn’t believe it and neither does Nameless. Marian Erskine can’t decide what she believes.  

    Oh, and there’s one other small problem. How can Vok be sending them black hosts when he’s been dead for some time?   

    Nameless is surprised when he meets Marian who spends a good deal of her time in a gazebo-like creation that could only be found in the type of posh gated community the Erskines live in.

   Marian turns out to be substantially older than her husband and very frail. Namesless notes that in today’s one percent culture it’s all right for older women to have trophy husbands. Peter isn’t exactly a pretty boy but close. Marian’s obvious drinking problem adds just one more confusing psychological layer to the meeting. 

    The Erskines beg Nameless to take the case and ultimately he chooses to because the fee they offer him is so good and he’s just so damned curious about what’s really going on here.

    This is the way to tell a supernatural story—sardonically.  Pronzini show us that no matter how bizarre the world of the supernatural is, the human world is always stranger.

   A five star collection. Perfect for a wide range of readers.   

    

Ed Gorman

 I have been asked to write a short piece about Ed Gorman for the next NoirCon program. If any of you can add something to this, please do. Scott Cupp is doing a remembrance of Bill Crider. Thanks.

Short Story Wednesday: From The Best American Short Stories of 2021: Switzerland, Nicole Krauss

 This edition was edited by Jesmyn Ward. 

I have never read Nicole Krauss before although a friend recently passed on her novel, THE HISTORY OF LOVE. Why did I choose this story? That question interests me: how do people pick the story to start with. In this case, it was the third one I tried. As usual, the George Saunders one was hard to get into. I was tempted by two writers I did know: Kevin Wilson and C. Pam Zhang but eventually this won out. 

It's the story of a teenager who is placed in a school in Switzerland, mainly to get her out of the way while her father finishes a trauma course in medical school. Too young to board at the school, her parents find her a room in a boarding house (kind of amazing that a 13 year old would be on her own) where two other girls also board. They are older than her (18) and are toying to various degrees with their sexuality. The more interesting, Soraya, is Iranian and is having an affair with a banker but is also engaging in relationships with other men. Our narrator is fascinated by this glimpse into adult life and this has impact on how she goes on to see herself.  She sees the power Soraya can wield but also its limitations.

Soraya disappears one night and her father flies in to look into this. An engineer to the Shah, he has sent his daughter to Switzerland with its promise of safety. Soroya returns and the threesome soon is separated. Our narrator looks for her off and on but never finds her. Our narrator admires Soroya's recklessness but it doesn't suit her in the end. 

"She (Soraya) had gone further than anyone I knew in a game that was never only a game, one that was about power and fear, about the refusal to comply with the vulnerabilities one is born into." 

Jerry House

George Kelley

Monday, Monday

Had a nice trip to DC except for the two bad flights--not Delta's fault. Apparently we can expect more turbulence due to climate change. But on the flight there, the flight attendants hit the deck on a real jolt, lightning struck the gate, the airport closed for a few minutes and our luggage took two hours to unload. Delta gave us 5000 miles though. Other than that though I had great weather and a nice time. Always a great place to visit.

Rushed over to catch Benediction on my return. Sure is nice having a theater two blocks away. Although getting there with this construction is a challenge. They have marked out a path for pedestrians, but it is very muddy from the work and rain. When I complained about this the foreman said, "I can't install grab rails in the air, Lady."

Watching FOR ALL MANKIND on Apple and BORGEN on Netflix. Also started IRMA VEP.

Broke down and ordered AMC+ but it seems like I can only play the last two episodes (5 and 6) of BETTER CALL SAUL. Anyone know how to access the first four episodes of Season 6?

 

Rewatched THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, after an interview with Alan Arkin on Criterion. A real cast of character actors of that era in this film. I had forgotten half of them.

The scariest thing I've seen ever was the first night of the January 6th hearings. So glad that guy took videos from multiple angles. 

Cancelled my trip to Bouchercon. I think those days are over for me. I never found it easy to navigate once Phil wasn't with me. (Even when he was). And I can't tail Megan because it's business for her. 

I feel like reading a certain kind of mystery that I can't quite put my finger on. I was reading a journal of short stories from 1992 and I realized how much the writing style in short stories  at least has changed and how much I preferred the style back then, which was clear and straight forward. No multiple POVs. No multiple time frames. I am a simple reader, I guess.

(Found a novel. The new Emma Straub. This Time Tomorrow. Yay!)

So what's up with you?

FFB: THE PLASTIC NIGHTMARE, Richard Neely

(Ed Gorman from the archives)

I've written before about Richard Neely. He wrote standalone crime novels that pretty much covered the entire range of dark suspense. I mentioned that in the best of them the weapon of choice is not poison, bullets or garrote. He always preferred sexual betrayal.

Plastic is a good example. Using amnesia as the central device, Dan Mariotte must reconstruct his life. Learning that the beautiful woman at his bedside all these months in the hospital--his wife--may have tried to kill him in a car accident is only the first of many surprises shared by Mariotte and the reader.

What gives the novel grit is Neely's take on the privileged class. He frequently wrote about very successful men (he was a very successful adverts man himself) and their women. The time was the Seventies. Private clubs, private planes, private lives. But for all the sparkle of their lives there was in Neely's people a despair that could only be assuaged (briefly) by sex. Preferably illicit sex. Betrayal sex. Men betrayed women and women betrayed men. It was Jackie Collins only for real.

Plastic is a snapshot of a certain period, the Seventies when the Fortune 500 dudes wore sideburns and faux hippie clothes and flashed the peace sign almost as often as they flashed their American Express Gold cards. Johny Carson hipsters. The counter culture co-opted by the pigs.

The end is a stunner, which is why I can say little about the plot. Neely knew what he was doing and I'm glad to see his book back in print. Watching Nerely work is always a treat. 

Short Story Wednesdays

 Kevin Tipple

Jerry House 

TracyK

George Kelley 

Monday, Monday

                      Visiting my brother, Jeff. Stay well and let me know what you are up to. ..

First Wednesday Book Review: MONTANA 1948, Larry Watson

Although I am pretty sure I reviewed this before, I could not find it on here. So since I read it again, I will review it. It is one of my favorite books, maybe my most favorite. It has no weaknesses that I can see and all of the things I like most in a novel:
 

A single narrator, a first person point of view, a small number of characters, an injustice that's addressed, a rural setting, it takes place before technology changed our lives, good characterizations, short length, great writing.

David is an only child living with his father, a sheriff, his mother, and a native American woman, Marie Little Soldier, who helps out since both his parents have day jobs. Also in the picture are grandparents and an uncle and his wife, and a deputy. The uncle is a doctor who has cared for most of the townspeople since he returned from the second world war, a hero. David's Dad had a bad leg that kept him at home. 

When Marie falls sick and they call for the doctor, David's uncle, she refuses to see him. It is soon revealed he has been abusing her as well as other Sioux women for years. His exact actions are not spelled out. 

After this the book is mostly about how the sheriff handles his brother's crime. Will he hide it? Will he prosecute? Much of the pressure to overlook it comes from the grandfather, who almost views abuse of these women as his right. The family and the white townspeople do not see the native Americans as quite equal to them and deserving of the same protection. Even David's father admits he does not like "Indians"

There are a lot of things that enrich this narrative. The problem of the son who stayed home from the war, disappointing his father. How to handle a crime in your own family if you are a law enforcement officer, what your child will take from all this. How to do the right thing and what that right thing is. Is what is right absolute or does it change over time and place.

This is a terrific book as I have said.

For more book reviews, see Barrie Summy

Short Story Wedneday:"Others of His Kind" James Sallis, PHOENIX NOIR

 What are some of the authors you go to first in an anthology? Or is it the length of the story that draws you in? Or perhaps the title? Or its placement in the collection?
With me, if I see the name James Sallis, I will go to his story early on. 

This story had an odd feel about it. Slightly unfinished, like it was part of something bigger, which it turned out to be. In lesser hands, this might have made the story suffer more than it did. But because Sallis is such a master at creating characters, situations, locations, descriptions, it only felt incomplete in a few spots.

A cop asks a woman if she might be willing to speak to an abused girl the department has found. At first she refuses. Her back story turns out to be one of abuse too, and then escape and then years of living alone in a mall and then the typical social services trauma. She eventually goes to see the girl. 

We don't know why he came to her, nor why the few things she said to the abused woman would count for much. Where are they going at the story's end?What makes the story are the details of her abduction and her time as a twelve-year old living in the mall. And the writing, which is terrific.

But because he has made his characters real to us, we don't mind too much. And I will probably look for the novella this became. Because these characters are compelling and that's the trick. 

Todd Mason

Kevin Tipple

Jerry House 

George Kelley

Monday, Monday

 Hope you guys have more to say than I do today. I am floundering with starting and stopping both books and TV shows. I did watch OPERATION MINCEMEAT which was fine but spy dramas have never been my favorite.  I tried TEHRAN, (HULU) which seems good but my focus is frayed. Not sure why. Maybe it is the world we live in that is sucking everything out of all of us. I do like HACKS very much and am sticking with THE STAIRCASE although having watch the doc a few years ago and the podcast, it feels like a rerun. Off to visit my brother and friends in DC on Thursday  But I will post it here for you guys next Monday and catch you up when I return. 

Operation Mincemeat

FFB: DIRTY WORK, Larry Brown

 

More and more it is this sort of novel that attracts me. Not exactly crime novels but novels that chroncicle the lives of the sort of people who commit or become viictims of crimes. Books by Larry Watson, Willie Vlautin,  Larry Brown.

DIRTY WORK is the debut novel from Mississippi writer, Larry Brown, and it seemed appropriate to read it around MemoriaL Day since it's about two vets. I picked it up a decade ago and just wish I had picked up more of them. I have RABBIT FACTORY around somewhere and will dig it out now.

Walter James and Braiden Chaney are two Vietnam Vets lying side by side in a Vet hospital 20 years after the war. Chaney has basically spent the entire time in a hospital since the war left him with no arms or legs. James is newly admitted with some sort of brain trauma from a bullet lodge in his head. He has also been badly scarred from his years in Vietnam. 
  
The two men eventually trade war stories, but this book does much more than that. It painted the lives of the sort of men who couldn't dodge the war--the down and dirty life they led in northern Mississippi. Much of Chaney's thoughts are dream-induced and almost biblical in theme. Who could spend 20 years in a bed and not retreat to such a place?

The two men do a lot of drinking with the beer Chaney's sister smuggles in.  They also smoke a lot of pot. Their stories are different and the same. It was men like these two who served in Vietnam and never recovered from it. They either died in body or died in spirit. An amazing and thought-provoking book.

What is your favorite book about Vietnam or its aftermath? Mine would be IN COUNTRY by Bobbie Ann Mason.

Wednesday Short Stories" Nighthawks" Michael Connelly from In Sunshine or in Shadow, ed, Lawrence Block

A masterful story. Boy it helps a short story immeasurably when you, as a reader, have a history with the protagonist as most of us do with Harry Bosch. Things can go unsaid that other stories would have to tell you. 

Bosch is in Chicago at the Museum sitting in front of the Hopper painting "Nighthawks" (which Connelly is able to cleverly connect to both Harry and the girl taking notes in front of it). A client believes the girl to be his daughter and wants Bosch to verify it. 

The girl engages Bosch in a conversation and by the end of it, Bosch has decided not to complete his assignment. The story has so much texture and familiarity if you have read the series. He inserts just the right details but not too many. Not a wasted word and every detail builds this tale. A great one. 

Kevin Tipple

Jerry House

TracyK 

George Kelley 

Casual Debris

Monday, Monday

 

This is the view here today. (The other side is the race track) It will look pretty much like this until November. You can only exit in the rear of the building where the dumpsters are. In my case, I get picked up there, which means people have to dodge delivery trucks to get to me.

This goes on for about ten blocks. People I had dinner with Friday night suggested that the management should have warned me this was going to happen, but truthfully, I probably would have rented it anyway because I was so eager to be gone from where I was. A few people are suing the city though, claiming that it is unsafe for anyone with disabilities. And it surely is. The narrow path we have left to us is potholed and there is nothing to grab on to.

A mix of weather this week but more good than bad. I used my gym here finally but had to listen to Fox News while I treadmilled. Awful The stack of WSJ on the table in the lobby was my warning. But I had a book on my cellphone to listen to, thank goodness.

HAPPENING was a shot from the past to the future. It's a French film about an abortion in France in 1960. Terrifying to think this sort of thing is coming very quickly to a neighborhood near you. Also watched three films directed by Billy Wilder, LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON, THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR and ONE TWO THREE. My favorite will always be THE APARTMENT. Megan had discussed lesser Wilder films on a podcast and although I had seen LOVE, I watched it again too. 

Watching HACKS, BARRY, THE STAIRCASE, UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN. Can't watch PBS until I figure out why my Passport is not working with the new Roku.

Reading a book about Billy Wilder as you may have guessed. CONVERSATIONS with Cameron Crowe.

I lost a hearing aid. It will cost me $2500 to replace and I am sick but the combination of mask, glasses and a hearing aid has always been troublesome. It has gone flying a dozen times. I sent away for masks that have elastic rather than go around the ear. But I doubt that will completely solve the problem because I know on my knobby head the elastic will slip and end up at my ears. 

What's up with you? 

FFB: LET HIM GO, Larry Watson

I am a big Larry Watson fan and LET HIM GO did not disappoint. It is a great followup to books like WHITE CROSSES and MONTANA: 1948.

After their adult son is killed in an accident, his widowed wife marries again and leaves the Blackledge's home to go with her new husband to Montana. She takes their grandson with her, of course, and therein lies the problem.

"With you or without you," Margaret Blackledge insists, and at these words George knows his only choice is to follow her to Montana.
 
George takes to the road with Margaret by his side, tracking down the Weboy clan quickly. When Margaret tries to convince Lorna to return home to North Dakota, bringing little Jimmy with her, the Blackledges find themselves mixed up with the entire Weboy clan, a horrific family determined not to give the boy up without a fight. It's more about possession than love with a family like this. 

This slim volume contains a heart-pounding story, unforgettable characters, terrific atmosphere and some of the most beautiful prose you will ever read. I liked it almost as much as MONTANA: 1948, making it still one of my favorite books. Oh, to write like Mr. Watson.  

This was made into quite a decent movie with Kevin Costner and Diane Lane a few years ago. 

 

Short Story Wednesday: "Just a Little Fever" Sheila Heti

 

I have subscribed to THE NEW YORKER since I was a teenager. I also subscribed to THE NEW REPUBLIC and a few teen magazines then. Over the years, there were times when we subscribed to 25 magazines. Phil liked cooking and gardening magazines as well as many scholarly ones. We got THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, THE ECONOMIST, THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS, ATLANTIC, HARPERS and many more. Now it is just the one.

The short stories used to be my favorite part of the magazine. That was back in the day when the stories tended to be by Updike, Cheever, Munro, Carver, Beatty, etc. Those were stories I understood even though I didn't come from that milieu. 

Now I rarely read the stories because they puzzle me. For instance in 'Just a Little Fever" a young woman washes her hair in cherries, goes to work at the bank and becomes interested in a customer old enough to be her grandfather. It is a long story about their courtship, which never explains her attraction (or his) beyond a degree of comfort she experiences in his company.  The story ends, many words later, with their breakup which appears to relieve her. The writing is fine, but shouldn't we understand by the end the point of the story. Is it enough just to offer a portrait of a relationship?

This is the knock on a lot of literary stories. That nothing happens. But in a good one, things do happen or you come to a greater understanding of the human condition. This offered none of that for me. Both characters were unknowable. Was that the point? Another thing: I am reading more and more novels and stories with a quirky central character . Or an autistic/aspergers character. When did we become to fascinated with this? Was it Sheldon on THE BIG BANG that started this trend. The other trend would be characters with dementia. Hardly a story goes by without a character with dementia.

Kevin Tipple

TracyK 

Jerry House 

George Kelley 

Steve Lewis

Monday, Monday

 HACKS is back, picking up where it left off. The chemistry between these two women make it zing. Also enjoying UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN

and BREEDERS.

Went to see a terrific MAMA MIA at a local theater here. I guess if you like the music of ABBA, which I do, you won't find much to dislike.

I doubt I have ever seen a cast enjoy themselves more than this one. Say what you want about musicals amateurs are much more likely to be able to sing than act. And this one had many good singers.

We have had a gorgeous week here. Although things are closing down to the left and right of me as construction begins, I can still sneak out. This was a good move for me. I feel calmer than in years despite all of the COVID and bad politics around me. Not sure why but I'll take it. 

Reading THE LIONESS by Chris Bohjalian.

What about you?

FFB POWER OF THE DOG, Thomas Savage

 

 POWER OF THE DOG was a 1967 novel written by Thomas Savage. It concerns two brothers on a ranch in Montana in 1925. They have reached the age when most would consider them confirmed bachelors when the younger, George, falls in love with a widow, upsetting the balance on the ranch. Phil, the alpha male of the family and ranch, is incensed with this and is cruel to both the new wife and her son. Rose starts drinking and her son despairs in how to help his mother. His solution is a drastic one.

I liked the movie of this work well enough to read the novel. We get a lot more insight into Phil especially in the novel.  He is a closeted homosexual who has probably only once been able to act on his desires. So he has turned that love to his brother and can't bear losing him to Rose. Rose is a timid woman but her son who seems to be at first is not. We have four interesting characters here and the author makes us sympathetic to each of them.  Phil may be a monster in some ways but the writer makes him understandable. A great book. Savage wrote many others, which I will seek out.

Short Story Wednesday: Two stories from TROUBLED DAUGHTERS, TWISTED WIVES, edited by Sarah Weinman

 "Everybody Needs a Mink" by Dorothy B. Hughes 

There is no crime in this story. A woman shopping at an upscale department store and wishing she had the money to buy some of the beautiful goods she sees is asked by a clerk to model a mink coat for an elderly man standing nearby. She agrees and the mink is a perfect fit. Joyfully she dashes to a mirror to see herself in it. The clerk comes over and asks her initials for a monogram and her address to have it delivered. Of course the woman thinks this is all a gag but gives her the information. 

The coat is delivered and when she tells her family about this they are befuddled too but her husband says, "Wear it. Everybody needs a mink." When later on TV she sees a man being carted off to prison and somewhat similar to the man in the stores, she tells them this was the man. And she wears it after that, wishing she could properly thank the man but glad he saw her joy in modeling it.

"The Purple Shroud" Joyce Harrington

Every summer the Moons go to an artist colony where she weaves and he paints. He also recruits a young woman to be his consort for the summer. Finally having had enough of this, Mrs. Moon weaves a shroud and murders him then sews him into the shroud and dumps him into the lake. As the story ends she is headed out to Minneapolis where this summer's consort lives. This is a gorgeously written story that takes its time with her weaving...and murdering. No one will mourn the death of this womanizer.

 Kevin Tipple

TracyK

George Kelley 

Richard Robinson 

Todd Mason

Monday, Monday

 

Lots of stuff to watch. BOSCH, LEGACY is a solid return to form although the commercials are a mood kill. How did we ever tolerate them.

THE STAIRCASE-well, it will be hard to top the excellent docu-series of a few years ago. So many children to keep track of.

Saw two movies at the movie theaters: THE DUKE. Charming and well done if a bit too cute. So much a flaw in many British productions. SECRET CITY with Sandra Bullock was fun if slight. She certainly looks great at age 57. 

Speaking of 57, Gary Cooper was 57 in LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON, playing opposite a 27 year old Audrey Hepburn. He looked older than 57 too. It was a bit creepy but since she always seemed to play opposite older men, it wasn't as scary as it might have been.  Megan did a podcast about Billy Wilder's lesser known films and this was one of them.

A few lovely days here although the race track outside my windows is hard to take on a Saturday night. Some state ordinance is holding the local cops from ticketing these hooligans. They have fixed their

exhaust systems to make a lot of noise.  Can't bear the thought of the Woodward Dream Cruise in August.

But this has already started for me. I have a front row window onto it. 

The legs problem is a result of the estrogen-blocking drug I am taking. So I will have to try to get used to it. Thirty percent of the women taking it suffer leg pains. The side effects are considerable but how can I not take it. 

LOVED THE POWER OF THE DOG by Thomas Savage. Also enjoying HOMEGOING. Hard to read about the suffering of the Black people but the story is too powerful not to read. 

What about you?

Happy Mother's Day

 

Miss you every day, Mom.

FFB: American Wife, Curtis Sittenfeld

AMERICAN WIFE by Curtis Sittenfeld is fictional account of a wife much like Laura Bush. Sittenfeld had always been interested in Mrs. Bush and she does a bang-up job of capturing her. Laura/Alice grows up in a Wisconsin town, a typical midwestern girl. You have trouble understanding what she sees in George/Charlie beyond money and charm. But love is strange and Sittenfeld is good at giving him just enough charm to persuade you a nice girl might marry him. The Bush family is even less likable. It's all here: the car accident when she was a teen, the drinking, the combination of ambition as an entitlement more than something you work for with little feeling for the people he will serve. In light of our current president, he doesn't seem that bad but like Will Ferrel reminded us on SNL, he was. And there are some striking similarities.

I am an admirer of Sittenfeld's writing and this is some of her best although the last third is far too ruminative. And no, he never comes off well.

Four years later, and there is a SHOWTIME series on three first ladies. Laura Bush would have been an interesting inclusion. I am pretty sure neither she nor her daughters are Trumpers. 

 

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY, "Public Transporation" Lee Child from Phoenix Noir

 

Either the twist makes a story or sinks it. In this case, it sunk it for me because the twist with no buildup to why it would happen just is irksome. A journalist is asking a cop about a murder in Chandler, AZ. The cop doesn't want to tell about a unsolved murder  but eventually gives the journalist the details. How the cops determined due to the GPS on an iphone (fairly new in 2009) that the perpetrator had to be on a bus. Except he wasn't when they got there. His phone was though. 

SPOILER: So it turns out the journalist is the perp. Now why would he murder a fourteen year old girl and why would he introduce himself to cops that worked on the crime. The writing is good, the setup is fine, atmosphere great, but that twist gave me wrist burn. 

Kevin Tipple

George Kelley 

Richard Robinson 

Steve Lewis

Monday, Monday

Took a few nice walks this week with friends although my legs have been bothering me a bit. Hope it's temporary. Everything is blooming at once. We are usually warmer by now.

Finished off PACHINKO and SEVERANCE, (Apple) which were both very good. Having trouble with SLOW HORSES though.

Reading HOMEGOING for my book group and having considerable trouble getting into it. Each chapter moves forward in time with a new character. Most of them are women being tortured. Awfully hard to read. Still enjoying THE SHOOTING OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY but I am reading it too slowly.

I booked tickets to DC for the first week in June and it literally took me four hours because Delta will not talk to you. I needed to change my address, credit cards, etc. Why is spending all that time with someone on online chat app better. than a phonecall  She told me if I want to talk to someone, I had to come to the ticket desk at the airport. I eventually figured it out by erasing all the old information except my frequent flyer number. My age  is three years off but they wanted a passport downloaded to fix that.  

Well, they are tearing up my street this summer for new sewers' lighting, landscaping etc.I am sure it will look nice in the end but a difficult summer for parking, shopping,etc.

Big book sale at my new library in two weeks. Do I start refilling shelves or exercise control? I will have to exercise control because I have no shelf space left. 

What's up with you?