Short Story Wednesday, From THE NEW YORKER, "Frenzy" Joyce Carol Oates

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/24/the-frenzy-fiction-joyce-carol-oates

 Thankfully the story is read by Joyce Carol Oates and not AI.

A forty-sixish man and his teenage mistress (his constant term for her, not mine) are on the way to Cape May. He is married and has children but is sort of besotted with this nineteen year old-although much of it seems to rest on her age. He has, in fact, rented a condo in Manhattan, with the idea of leaving his wife and kids and taking up with this girl who is the daughter of friends.

This story reminds me so much of a John Updike story, not any particular one, but many of them. Especially as it's told from the male POV.  The girl's interest in him seems more experimental than born of any passion. His interest in her is in his ability to attract a nineteen year old. Of course, it is a well-written story but I am betting-like Updike-Oates has written a dozen stories like this. There is nothing that sets it apart except perhaps its title, which came from an earlier boat trip when he watched a feeding frenzy with fish. Now the frenzy is his. 

George Kelley

Jerry House 

TracyK

Monday, Monday

 

                                            Josh's birthday many years ago.
Saw THE BLACK BAG (Stephen Soderbergh), which sort of left me cold. Spy dramas often do except for SLOW HORSES and a few of the Smiley books. Both leads are pretty aloof, as in most of their films, and I also had some hearing issues as did all four of us who went.

Loving THE RESIDENCE on Netflix. And LUDWIG on BRTIBOX. About to finish SEVERANCE. THE WHITE LOTUS seems too much like the first two seasons to be very enjoyable. ADOLESCENCE on Netflix was amazing although very dark. Stepen Graham is an amazing actor but so were the two teen actors.

Not so dark the movie EVERY LITTLE THING, on Kanopy.

About to start THE COLORS OF THE DARK by Chris Whittaker.

Went to a lecture on the BLACK BOTTOM and PARADISE VALLEY, areas of Detroit that were vibrant centers for black life in the early 20th century. There were hundreds of Black businesses there until they figured out how to push them out by crisscrossing freeways. Also heard a great jazz guitarist. Both of these were at our great senior center. Here is the website of the historian/photographer Rod Arroya https://city-photos.com/detroit-history/

For Tracy's Glen, a book called SICK HOUSES (Leila Taylor) reviewed in the NYT today might be of interest to you. 

What about you? 

(Sorry this one got away from me early)

 

FFB: WITH OR WITHOUT, CHARLES DICKINSON

 

Set in family homes, factories, shops, small-town streets, backyards-the familiar landscapes of our everyday lives-these stories take us by surprise as they plumb the complex and often tenuous connections that exist between child and parent, husband and wife, friend and friend, the individual and his own thoughts:

- The unwitting jinx at a garbage collection company-accidents happen around him, not to him-avoids becoming the company pariah when he’s shown a way to make his “powers” work to everyone’s advantage…

- A man taught by his father’s example to disdain work, and who married into a family obsessed with it (his sever brothers-in-law, carpenters, built his house while he passed out the beers), may have found his calling at last-in sophisticated self-amusement…

- On a picket line-across months of long, cold nights-a man and a woman are drawn together by a shared desperate optimism and by the scent of the woman’s perfume…

- The game of Risk played habitually-obsessively-by a group of friends becomes a strangely unsettling reflection of their own tangled lives…

- Facing a middle age and a growing sense of emptiness, a man convinces himself that his dead friend-whose life he always envied, whose approval would validate his own life-has never died…

- When his teacher, and then his parents, dub him a “goof,” a young boy hesitantly unveils graphic proof that he’s already mastered his father’s dream of being an artist…

In each of the ten stories, Charles Dickinson puts a spin on the ordinary. It is the pleasure of these stories that they enable us to see what would perhaps otherwise remain hidden: humor in the most mundane situation, eloquence in a simple human gesture, the quirky, telling, sometimes ennobling moments in the day-to-dayness of life.

 

I read this collection in March of 1988. The description here is from Barnes and Noble website. I thought very highly of this book,  but the subject matter of short stories is hard to recall.  Dickinson has also written several well thought of novels, and I especially remember THE WIDOW'S ADVENTURE. 

Short Story Wednesday" FROM HARD-BOILED

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

Browsing in the Dawn Treader bookstore in Ann Arbor, 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 old friends, 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 differ, both stories are rich in atmosphere, tension, 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.

 

Todd Mason 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple

Monday, Monday

                                    Jeff, Patti, Dad circa 1957 in Ocean City, NJ

A rough ride home and the plane was two hours late. I spent all day today unpacking and grocery shopping. But a great trip, great weather, lots of botanical gardens, hikes, various beaches, museums, music at several places, a visit with my brother, and so much great food. Highly recommend Sarasota. The theater and music scene is excellent, so too the beaches.  I am thankful I was able to get away for three weeks. Because of the hectic pace, any longer would be too exhausting. Whew!

So what about you?

Monday, Monday

 

Monday, Monday

 

Monday, Monday

 

Ed Gorman's "THE FACE" which is truly amazing. Hope he got the credit for writing it it deserves.

 https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v084n04_1993-04_Lenny_Silv3r-dtsg0318-SLiV/page/n2/mode/1up

Thanks to Jerry House for finding it. 

FFB: RAZZMATAZZ, Jack Early (Sandra Scoppetone)

 

• 

---

Sandra Scoppettone

Razzamatazz (A Crime Novel) 

by Sandra Scoppettone (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

---

The last thing veteran reporter Colin McGuire , fleeing his job on a big-city newspaper in the wake numbing personal tragedy, expects to find in sleepy little Seaville on Long Island’s North Fork is murder. In a few short weeks Seaville has brought him friends, some comfort and perhaps more in the person of Annie Winters, who is also trying to build a new life. But as the murders multiply, so, too, do the questions and the doubts. Friends suspect friends, lovers suspect lovers and sooner or later a lot of people begin to suspect Colin.

This is one of those down-to-the-wire stories, very well written, guaranteed to keep you flipping the pages.

Haven't heard from Sandra in many years. She was a terrific writer. Hope she is still around. 

Why I read short stories

 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/06/the-world-at-an-angle-reasons-to-love-short-stories

A very nice piece on the art of the short story if you have a bit of time. She makes some good points-especially how nice it is that you can carry the entirety of a short story in your head. 

I read and write short stories for the love of words, for enlightenment and insight into a character or situation, because I can finish reading it in one sitting and thus mull it over when it is fresh in my mind. I don't read them to be entertained really. I am happy when that occurs but I don't really expect it. I don't think many crime short stories work well because the plot is so important in a crime story. My favorite crime short is, of course, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor. 

Although ones about a crime's affect on a victim or villain can be powerful.

Why do you read short stories?  Can you choose a favorite?

 

Short Story Wednesday: "Tiny, Smiling, Daddy" Mary Gaitskill

 

"Tiny, Smiling, Daddy" Mary Gaitskill 

(from the archives) 

 "Tiny, Smiling, Daddy" is in the collection Because They Wanted To. Gaitskill is an extremely dark writer and pleasure (for me) is derived from recognizing truths in her stories and in the quality of her writing. I like a story that makes me examine issues I have known or been made aware of in myself and others and this one does. Who doesn't know a father (or mother) who lacks what they need to connect with their child.

In this story a father has shunned his daughter since her teenage announcement that she is a lesbian.  His feelings toward her had already been affected by things like nose piercings and her failure to set the table correctly. As a small child, Kitty was close to her parents but that changes as she changes. This announcement leads to Stew (and his wife) telling Kitty she's free to leave and make her own way in the world. 

The story begins with a phone call from a friend telling Stew that Kitty has published a story about their relationship in a magazine titled "Self." Stew gets a copy of the magazine and although there is really nothing surprising in her article, it sort of sums up what their relationship has been, which is sad and shocking for Stew. He then thinks back on his relationship with his father, which was distant, harsh and short. 

The success of this story for me is that although Stew behaves badly in this story, by the end you feel some sympathy for him because he is so clueless about nearly everything in his life. You know he won't change.

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

TracyK 

Todd Mason

Monday, Monday

 

A really difficult week both politically and weather-wise. And this week looks like our coldest yet. 

Really liked LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON renting on Amazon for $3. I have seen several movies by this director (Hirokazu Koreeda), all featuring children and liked them all. Also watched THE PIANO TEACHER (Haneke), which was a bit too erotic for me. Huppert is always good though.

Watching the ARE MURDERS on Netflix. (Set in Sweden)It's not as good as I had hoped from the review. I guess I have seen too many of these murders in a small, snowy Scandinavian town series.

Starting my next book club book, MARTYR by Kaveh Aktar.  Still making my way through the Hollinghurst book too. I am alternately interested and not so much in it.

I am going to post an empty post for the next three weeks so I can hear what you are doing and you can communicate with each other. 

How about this week?

FFB: THE BEET QUEEN, Louise Erdrich

 

This was the second book I read in 1987. What a long career Louise Erdrich has had.

My comments were: this was the story of a group of interrelated people in North Dakota in the 1930s through the 1980s. Some of the characters were introduced in LOVE MEDICINE.

This from a review- The Beet Queen deals primarily with marginal people who live socially and culturally displaced lives. This marginality is a source of both strength and grief for Erdrich's characters.

I kept up with Erdrich for a long time but haven't read anything recently although she continues to write praised novels. 

Short Story Wednesday: "The Ice Palace" F. Scott Fitzgerald

This morning two children froze to death in a car parked in the lot at a casino in Detroit. It is not clear how this happened. It seems they were possibly living in the car because the mother could not get anyone to help them. Things are only going to get worse, I'm afraid.

 FSF wrote this story when he was 24, and it was published in the Saturday Evening Post and later in the collection FLAPPERS AND PHILOSOPHERS.

A Southern Belle is choosing amongst beaus, much like Scarlett O'Hara in GWTW. She decides on a northerner despite her deep hatred of the cold. He takes her home to meet his family. (Probably in Minnesota where FSF was from and where there are natural Ice Palaces). It doesn't go well, the stark differences between north and south are emphasized. He takes her out one night to a party in the ice palaces where she gets lost and almost freezes. Needless to say, she goes back to Georgia and begins her search again. Sounds a lot like a Zelda story, doesn't it?

Amazing story for a 24 year old.  And a strange choice for Valentine's Day as well.  Have a happy one.

 TracyK

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

Todd Mason

Monday, Monday

                                                                Kevin at 17.

 I'm Still Here was terrifying but very good. Brazil 1970 v  US 2024 not so different. It took Brazil 25 years to get rid of a dictatorship. Hope it's not that long for us. Phone your congress reps. Flood their phone lines.

Also enjoyed watching ANNIE HALL, probably for the tenth time. Sticking with SEVERANCE but not really keen on it. ASURA is very good on Netflix. All CREATURES might be over. Oh, no.

Still reading OUR EVENINGS by Alan Hollinghurst. So much like Brideshead Revisited to me.

My DIL just finished listening to every Agatha Christie on Audible. What a feat! The gang are on their way to Amsterdam and Bruges for Kevin's spring break. Trying to decide also where he will go to school next year. It looks like he's interested in Public and Environmental Policy. Of course, both of my kids changed their majors along the way. As did Phil and I.  The University of Michigan received a record 105,142 applications for the fall 2024 semester

Lots of cold, snowy temps here. Florida can't come soon enough.  

What about you?

FFB: WE WERE DREAMERS, James Lehrer

Ran across a journal listing the books I read from 1987-89. I read so much more then. No Internet to suck my time for one thing. I wasn't working full-time and my kids were pretty much grown. I read lots of story collections, lots of mysteries but also lots of more literary books-ones by Faulkner, Wharton, Morrison, Capote, etc. And a ton of books by writers I don't remember at all. Also a lot more non-fiction. Just a lot more everything. 

Has your reading material/interest changed over time? Book groups have changed mine too. 

Here's the first entry from January 4, 1987

We Were Dreamers, James Lehrer

The story of the attempts of the Lehrer family to run a small bus company in Kansas in 1946-47.  PW wrote: "The material is slim and repetitious, and Lehrer lacks the tragicomic touch to give it added dimension." Lehrer was a news anchor at the time. I wonder why I chose this to read? 

I had a rule for myself: One mystery, one literary writer, one collection of stories, one non-fiction. I doubt I much kept to it though from the books in here.

Short Story Wednesday: From THE NEW YORKER, "My Friend, Pinnochio" David Rabe

 

 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/02/10/my-friend-pinocchio-fiction-david-rabe

 

From the playwright and fiction writer, David Rabe, comes a story of the long relationship between two men, both with connections to LA and the film industry. They meet in college, and meet up again and various moments in their lives. David Rabe reads the story to great affect on the NEW YORKER site. Their lives have similarities but also great differences. But being of that same generation gives them a jumping off point for disease, marriage, career, friendship, the interests of men. the things that the sixties era wrought. Reads like a memoir more than a story. No precise explanation from me for the title. 

George Kelley

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple

Monday, Monday

Do you ever wonder how twenty-somethings can afford a restaurant that makes me blanch at the prices? It was a wonderful sushi restaurant in a restored Victorian house down the street. I almost fell getting there (so icy) but it was worth it. Only a few people I know eat sushi so I am not that up on what to order. But it was outstanding--whatever it was I ate. We were the oldest people in there by fifty years. Do you like sushi?

Attending a series of lectures on the continent of Africa, also hearing the music, the food, seeing artwork from Africa. So lucky to have the senior center we have.

Watching All Creatures (PBS), High Potential (Hulu), Severance (Apple), Asura (Netflix), Mo. Would like to watch The Pitt on Max because everyone is raving about it, but I can't do hospital shows. Why do I feel more uneasy around medical procedures on hospital shows than around people getting shot on cop shows.

THE BRUTALIST was a great movie but I missed a lot of it. It needed closed captions.

Reading OUR EVENINGS by Alan Hollinghurst. It reads like a novel from sixty years ago and that's a good thing right now. Reminds me a bit of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED.

How are you holding up in Great America?

FFB: EPITAPH FOR A TRAMP, David Markson

 (reviewed by Bill Crider in 2010)

I first read this book a few decades ago, and I have copies of both the Dell and Berkley editions. But for some reason I picked up another copy the other day. I guess I couldn't resist. Markson wrote a sequel, Epitaph for a Dead Beat, that I also read, but he didn't write crime novels much longer. He moved on to become the highly regarded author of such postmodern novels as Wittengenstein's Mistress, a book much praised by the likes of David Foster Wallace.

For all that, the two books about Harry Fannin are more or less conventional private-eye novels, with maybe a few more literary allusions than most. In this one, Fannin finds himself in a classic situation. His ex-wife dies at his doorstep, and there's a lot of missing money that other people are looking for. Fannin and his cop buddy investigate, and the first solution isn't the right one. I remembered the second solution from my first reading, but it was probably obvious even then.

I liked the voice of the book quite a bit, and I liked the writing. I was bothered a little by the gay-bashing, which I probably didn't even notice forty years ago. I remember thinking that Markson must have read Ross Macdonald, though that didn't seem so obvious this time. Macdonald handles some gay issues in The Drowning Pool, and he does so more circumspectly than Markson. But Markson's book was published in 1959, some years after Macdonald's. Some of the dialogue might seem dated to modern ears, but to mine it was still amusing. I'd certainly recommend this novel, and if you run across a copy, give it a try.

Ten New Authors I Tried in 2024

 TracyK listed ten new writers to her on her blog this week. I went though my list and here are ten new writers I read. There were several non-fiction books but for the sake of reflecting what the majority of my reading is like, here are ten novels from 2024. I starred my favorites.

LIFE IMPOSSIBLE (this was for one of my book groups and I didn't much like it nor did the majority of the group. Although many liked his earlier work, MIDNIGHT LIBRARY

SALVATION OF A SAINT, Keigo Higashina* earlier review

BRIAN, Jeremy Cooper * a man constructs a life around attending movies

SHRED SISTERS, Betsy Lerner writes about how an autistic sister makes family life revolve around her.

THE BIRDWATCHER, William Shaw,* a cop becomes embroiled in the death of his neighbor

YELLOWFACE, R. Khang, a white woman steals a manuscript from her Asian friend-not sure of my final opinion on this one

GOD OF THE WOODS, Liz Moore* very strong mystery set at a summer camp

JAMES, Percival Everett, * best novel of the year. Retelling of Huck Finn from POV of Jim

THERE, THERE, Tommy Orange *, 12 natives headed toward a Pow Wow. Explosive ending

REAL AMERICANS, Rachel Khong, three generations of an Asian family in America

 

Any new fiction writers for you? 

Short Story Wednesday: "Torch Song" John Cheever

 

 

Jack Lorey and Joan, both natives of Ohio, meet up again in New York City in the 1930s. Joan is a "big" handsome girl and after failing at a try at modeling becomes a hostess in a restaurant. Jack and Joan meet up, mostly at her parties, over a number of years. Each time, she is with another man who is either ill or will become ill soon after. Is she attracted to such men or is it bad luck? Jack also had a number of bad relationships and more and more they are drawn to each other. The war comes and goes and both of them age and Jack at some point resembles the ne'er do wells Joan is attracted to. 

At the story's end Jack accuses Joan of being a crow, who comes into feed on the sick and dying. I read this story in American Fantastic Tales and it took me quite a few pages before I began to see how it fit into this book. Why was it a fantastic story because it many ways it read like a typical Cheever story about suburbia. By the end, I believed Joan was a carrion, feeding on such men. Or is she a vampire feeding on the blood of the men. Or possibly she is death itself, bringing illness to every man who comes home with her? A very interesting story and of course, wonderfully written. You can find it online, I think. The New Yorker published it too. 

George Kelley

TracyK 

Jerry House

Kevin Tipple 

Monday, Monday

Really enjoying MUM, which is on Britbox. Remind me a lot of "FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER. Also watching JOAN-not sure about that one yet.

Have seen two eps of SEVERANCE and still weighing in on that. It has to stick the landing and I am not sure it will. Started a Japanese series on Netflix called ASURA.

Watched THE QUIET GIRL, (Prime) based on FOSTER by Claire Keegan. Such a great and faithful film. Both of Keegan's books are more like novellas and I highly recommend them. You can read them in a couple of hours. Although you want to linger on every word. I went to a discussion at the library on SMALL THESE LIKE THESE (it was below zero) and everyone loved it.  Keegan also has several short story collections.

Saw THE ROOM NEXT DOOR (novel title: WHAT ARE YOU GOING THROUGH) and was so-so on it. I think Almodovar really doesn't have American characters and dialog in his head and all three leads (Moore, Swinton and Turturro) seemed overly formalistic and sometimes wooden in their line delivery. I loved the book (Sigrid Nunez). My favorite novel by her, THE FRIEND, comes out in a movie in March (Naomi Watts)

Seeing THE BRUTALIST tomorrow. Hope I can make it through. 

Reading YELLOWFACE (R. KUANG). Amazing to me that anyone not in the publishing business would want to know so much about what she covers.  

I got (via Abe Books) another book by William Shaw: SALT LANE. 

GO BILLS AND EAGLES!

So what's going on there?

FFB: THE BIRDWATCHER, William Shaw

 

When the neighbor and fellow birdwatcher of a police sergeant is murdered, Bill gets pulled into the investigation and also into the life of his new boss and her daughter. This was a very absorbing book with good characters,a nice ambience, and a past story that was as good as the contemporary one.  I was disappointed that although the series continues, it seems to be with the crime squad but not the police sergeant. But maybe I am wrong about that.

Short Story Wednesday: "Blythe Spirit" from NORMAL RULES DON'T APPLY, Kate Atkinson

 

‘Blithe Spirit’ concerns a ghost called Mandy who was formerly an assistant to a junior minister in the Department of Health. This is a ghost story, which I always enjoy and the writing is lovely. Mandy is a low level employee is the Ministry of Health and I won't tell you how she died. Actually she is not all that sure of that or anything. She is waiting for someone to mentor her in her new state and that doesn't happen. This is pretty delightful and has the happiest ending you can imagine for an English ghost. 

George Kelley

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple

TracyK 

Casual Debris 

On what would have been my 58th anniversary.

 

The photographer didn't show up so these photos were from my aunt's brownie camera. It was a lovely day for January. We had the reception at Sunken Gardens Restaurant in Philadelphia. They has a house band, which saved us a lot of money.  No honeymoon. Back to school for Phil in a week. And I moved back to my parents until I could get transferred from Bell of PA to New Jersey Bell.

Monday, Monday

 

It is about to be very, very cold. A friend visited from Brooklyn. Well, she was actually here for a funeral but we had dinner. Her husband (now deceased) took writing classes with me in the 90s. I miss a lot of people nowadays.

I watched the four- part treatment of EMMA from 2009, which was excellent and am thinking of devoting myself to watching every version of Austen novels I can find online since there is not too much else. I did watch SEVERANCE and have still not make up my mind about it. A show like that has to stick the landing and will it? Also watching INSIDE NO 9, which is good enough. I don't demand too much from 30 minutes shows. I enjoyed BLACK TULIP but maybe not enough to watch a second series. Am enjoying ALL CREATURES.

Certainly the Lions didn't stick the landing. But man, it was a fun 17 games until that one. 

About to start YELLOW FACE for one of my book groups. I would like to read a second book by William Shaw but it looks like the central character in BIRDWATCHER doesn't come back. Am I willing to pay $13 on Kindle because my library only has BIRDWATCHER. Listening to THE YEAR OF LEAR by Shapiro.

Delta has changed our flight BACK from Sarasota three times now. We should have flown into Tampa, I guess. 

Going to see SING SING today. Been waiting for that to arrive here since the Fall. 

What about you? 

FFB: NORWOOD, Charles Portis

 Norwood, Charles Portis

This was Portis' first book and I can see the growth that took place in his writing between this and TRUE GRIT.

The book follows its protagonist on a misadventurous road trip (driving a car across country) from his hometown of Ralph, Texas, to New York City and back. During the trip, Norwood is exposed to a comic array of personalities and lifestyles.
Right from the get-go the dialog in this is terrific. Norwood is a likable character and his eventual romance a winning one. But somewhere along the line it ran out of steam for me. The desire to keep the ball in the air with humor and oddball characters and situation for the length of the book felt forced or strained.

If I had read this before reading TRUE GRIT, would I have enjoyed it more? I am sure I would have. But TG is such a tour de force that anything would pale in its wake. And this one did.

DOGS OF THE SOUTH awaits me but I think I will let it sit a while longer.

Short Story Wednesday:Hinges, Graham Swift

 (from 2022)

 

Graham Swift is one of my favorite writers. He won the Booker Prize for LAST ORDERS and was short listed for several other books. MOTHERING SUNDAY, WATERLAND, SHUTTERCOCK and LAST ORDERS have all been made into films.  

In this story, the two adult children of a man who died taking his golf clubs out of the trunk have gone to a minister to tell him about their father's life so he will have something to say, (about a man he didn't know) at his funeral. Funny how often this seems to happen in stories.

The woman thinks back over her father's life to an incident when she was nine and her father had called a carpenter to fix the hinges on their door. Although the carpenter was far from a young man, she is attracted to him--the first time she has experienced anything like this. And it becomes apparent that "Joe Short" is something of a Lothario in their neighborhood.

At the funeral, she considers telling this story, how her father held her hand while they waited to have their front door put back on. But in the end, she reads the poem that appears on the program. Of course, it is the writing that makes this story work. There is no eureka moment, no mystery solved, no problem overcome, just people going through a situation we have all gone through so its familiarity is soothing. And perhaps gaining some insight into their life (and ours). 

George Kelley

TracyK 

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House

Monday, Monday

Enjoying reading THE BIRDWATCHER. I am sure someone mentioned it to me but can't remember who. Really enjoyed the films streaming on PRIME: GOOD ONE and TOUCH. Also watching BLACK TULIP on PBS, which is stretched out way too long. It has been so cold here I have hardly been out of the house although I began rewatching with two friends: BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. I don't remember the Oxford students as being quite so obnoxious as they seem now. Having trouble getting into so many TV series. Lots of podcasts. Especially enjoy BACKLISTED, a British one.

What are you up to?

FFB:WHERE MEMORIES LIE, Deborah Crombie

Thinking of Tracy today and the fires in CA. Hope she is safe.

Where Memories Lie: Deborah Crombie 

(from TracyK)

Description from my paperback edition:

A lifetime ago, Erika Rosenthal and her late husband, David, fled to England to escape the Nazis—which is all Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Gemma James truly knows about her secretive friend's past. But Erika needs Gemma's help now. A family heirloom, stolen during their flight, is being sold at a prestigious London auction house. Who has had it all these years? And was Erika's husband's death more sinister than it appeared?

The two  protagonist's of this series, Inspector Gemma James and Superintendent Duncan Kincaid of Scotland Yard, are living together and both have one child from a previous relationship. This novel, the 12th in the series, begins with the discovery of the long-lost piece of jewelry and then gets combined with an investigation into the death of an employee at the auction house. Are the two related? Also included are flashbacks to the previous investigation of the death of Erika's husband (in 1952) which was eventually ruled to be suicide.

My thoughts:

This type of story that blends a current case with an older case and includes multiple points of view is usually appealing to me. The Holocaust and the pain that remains for the Jewish victims who lived through it is a compelling basis for the story. I enjoyed those aspects of this novel. There were many plot threads, some related to the crimes, some not. Gemma's mother has a serious illness and her relationship with her father is uncomfortable; more background of Erika's life before and after she left Germany are revealed; there are upsets in the balance of relationships in the various police teams. These all felt realistic but there were too many unrelated threads for me. The book is not that long and some of these separate elements seem like padding, not fully developed parts of the story.

Other views:

This review at Reviewing the Evidence is very good, both in exploring the good points  and pointing out the bad points of this book and Deborie Crombie's books in general.  I agree very much with this statement from that review:

Deborah Crombie's James and Kincaid series is something of an enigma in that the entries within it tend to vary quite substantially in terms of quality. Fortunately this is one of the better efforts. There are quite substantial soapy elements here which will appeal most to series aficionados; anyone coming to this as their introduction to Gemma and Duncan might find them not only intrusive, but also feel that they are missing out.

Summing up:

I highly recommend the first books in the series. I read the first eight books back in 2002 and loved them all. After that point, I found the emphasis on the home life and trials and tribulations of the couple and their children to be distracting, and to detract from the main plot. I don't see how these could be read as stand alone books, since so much of the couple's history informs the situation in each book. However, I can tell from the many reviews I read on the books in this series that the family life of Duncan and Gemma are the main drawing point for many readers. Thus I would caution that many readers will find these elements to be positives, not negatives.

Possibly it is my love for the earlier novels that leads to my criticism of the later novels. I expect much more from the author. I also like the character of Duncan Kincaid more than Gemma James, and the focus of the most recent books that I have read seem to be on Gemma.

Why do I continue to read this series by Deborah Crombie when I have reservations about them? First, because I still have some books in the series. Mainly, because I love the maps in the later books, created and illustrated by Laura Maestro. I have bought two of the later hardcover books solely because of the maps. Seriously. If you are interested in the maps, you can read about them at Deborah Crombie's website.

Short Story Wednesday: "Stunts" Ace Atkins from THE BEST MYSTERY STORIES OF THE YEAR, 2024

 Ace Atkins uses two characters from his Quinn Colson novels in this delightful if sad story.

Jason Colson is a stuntman for actors like Burt Reynolds and he is being feted at the end of his career in this tale of a meet and greet for movie fans. It's the details and the characters that make his story work so well. It makes you want to hunt down Colson's appearance (and also his daughter's) in the series. 

TracyK

GeorgeKelley 

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House

Monday, Monday

 

A friend had an extra ticket so I saw A BEAUTIFUL NOISE-a very weak book, but the music and choreography was good. I was in the minority among a sea of adoring fans. Sold out at the huge Fisher Theater. 

Finished Megan's book EL DORADO DRIVE, which was great. Of course, I am her mother and it takes place in our hometown. But still, that kid can write. Also finished THE LIFE IMPOSSIBLE by Matt Haig, which I didn't much like. Magical realism has always eluded me.

Loved the movie EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS with Andre Holland. I think I rented it on Amazon. He should be nominated for an Oscar but the movie is probably too small. 

Watching VERA and SHETLAND, one episode at a time. I have never had to wait for them before. (Britbox)

Josh and Julie had me over for a birthday brunch and I fell getting up from the table. Big bruise but no real injury. 

How about you?

FFB: CROSS COUNTRY, Herbert Kastle

 From Ed Gorman (2014)

Forgotten Books: Cross Country by Herbert Kastle

Herbert D. Kastle wrote a number of science fiction stories in magazines of the 1950s. That's where I first read him. Later in the 1960s he was writing those fat sexy bestseller-type novels that owed more to marketing and Harold Robbins than his presumed muse. Then in 1974 he wrote CROSS COUNTRY. Here's a quote from one of the reviews: "This novel seems to occupy the same dark and twisted territory as the works of Jim Thompson. Characters interact in a dance of barely suppressed psychopathological urges and desires that is as grotesquely fascinating as a multi-car pileup on the freeway. It may leave you feeling unclean afterwards, but chances are you will not forget it."

Damn straight. It really is a sewer of sex and terror and blood-soaked suspense. I read it in one long sitting. If it's trash, as some called it at the time, it is spellbinding trash.

IMDB sums up the story line succinctly: "After a woman is found butchered in her New York apartment, suspicion falls on her estranged husband, an ad executive who has suddenly left town on a cross-country road trip. He takes along a beautiful girl he met in a bar and a drifter he picked up along the way. A cop sets out after the husband, but he's more interested in shaking him down than bringing him back."

Kastle masterfully controls his long nightmare journey and you buy into his paranoia. He shows you an American wasteland of truck stops, motels, convenience stores connected by interstate highway and darkness. By book's end, everyone will betray everyone else. This is survival of the fittest enacted by a Yuppie businessman, sociopathic hippies and a crooked cop. The sheer nastiness of Kastle's existential vision make this book impossible to forget. Thirty-some years after I first read it I still think of it from time to time when hundreds of other novels have fled from memory.

It's a vision of hell that fascinates you as it troubles your conscience.

Short Story Wednesday: SIGNAL, John Lanchester HAPPY NEW YEAR

 https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-writers-voice/john-lanchester-reads-signal

 Originally published in 2017, this is its second appearance and an odd story it is. A man takes his wife and two children to visit his very rich friend in his enormous country house. Many other guests are there too. Not much happens except the children seem to wander around in the company of a very tall man who is always on his cell despite no one else seemingly able to get much of a signal. After its last appearance in 2017, there is a variety of readers responding to what they thought the story was about.  Although well-written I did not feel there was much to recommend it. What do you think? 

Jerry House

TracyK 

Casual Debris