Libby Cone (Author of War On The Margins)

Libby Cone made a comment in the group readers advisory for all — fiction with a blind protagonist topic

"I just added my book, Flesh and Grass, which features a blind protagonist, Cornelis Boom. He is the son of the founder of an ill-fated Mennonite settl...more "

Libby Cone joined the readers advisory for all group.

Libby Cone gave

to:

One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel García Márquez

My rating:

Libby Cone voted on a poll

Where do you get most of the books you read?

she voted for buy online: amazon.com (not including ebooks)

Libby Cone gave

to:

Miriam's Journey
by Sally Freedman

My rating:

Libby Cone gave

to:

Wherever You May be Searching
by Wes Patterson

My rating:

A weird work, in e-book format. A motormouth know-it-all boy has a creepy, borderline-incestuous relationship with his sister, who is just a couple of years younger than he. I think he's supposed to be a "bend-the-rules,” “different drummer” sort, bu...more

Libby Cone gave

to:

Finitude
by Hamish McDonald

My rating:

In this fast-paced novel, global warming/climate change is a reality and not a topic for debate. Various groups are working out solutions. A Government Coalition is trying to capitalize on the changes in the environment, taking advantage of citizens...more In this fast-paced novel, global warming/climate change is a reality and not a topic for debate. Various groups are working out solutions. A Government Coalition is trying to capitalize on the changes in the environment, taking advantage of citizens of other lands for cheap labor, as it readies a project to dim the sun and, at the same time, harness and monopolize solar energy. Other groups, seen as enemies of the Government, have cobbled together various lifestyles aimed at conserving what is left of resources and avoiding the deadly new dangers posed by the environment, including tigers and methane clouds.

Set against this backdrop is one Jeremy Chutter, an insurance agent who realizes the meaninglessness of insurance as his coastal home slowly floods. He is in mourning for his twin sister and his lover, who died in an automobile accident with Jeremy at the wheel. This understandably causes him to focus on himself and his own needs to the exclusion of most others, except his parents. After learning from his meteorologist friend "Des" Despendra that bundling his folks off (on the airline industry's "Last Flights Day") to the region of Iktyault may have put them in danger, he strikes out with her and new friend Victor, an ecotravel agent, to rescue them from environmental disaster.

The prose is witty and the futuristic touches are amusing: Jeremy subscribes to a service called "Tinfoil Hat" that blocks out aggressive advertising. Everyone consumes a processed food called "Mete®," the source of which turns out to be only a little less ghastly than that of Soylent Green.

The journey is compelling but the editing is poor. MacDonald is inordinately fond of the word "leapt," using it in some cases three times on one page. In a society where auto accidents still occur, huge ships are described as zipping about and parking like MiniCoopers: "...the Prime Minister turned and gestured at the vast ship pulling up to a stop in the harbour behind him..." "...A grey ship the size of a building rumbled past, making the little rescue-dinghy wobble dangerously...the grey ship docked, extending a ramp down from its front..." I think there are pilots and towboats involved when these behemoths come into port. The sun, too, performs some neat tricks: "The sun was lowering behind them, sending shafts of golden light filtering down the streets, turning every color into a perfected version of itself." That is all well and good, but a few pages later: "The rising sun leached the colour out of the scenery." I thought the rising and setting sun always looked more golden, giving us the term "the magic hour"?

Jeremy finds new love with a kind and brave truck driver, and Victor early on with Despendra, and each becomes more attuned to the needs of others in the process. As they wander the polluted landscape, the awkward sentences become obstacles akin to the rocks, ice, and tigers in the narrative. But unlike the fish that are going extinct, this book can be saved by more editing.(less)

Libby Cone gave

to:

Low Light: Birth Of Organized Crime In Jazz Age Atlantic City
by Stan Cutler

My rating:

This book has a very engaging plot, dealing with a possible explanation for the legendary FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover's predilection for persecuting anyone he deemed Communist or otherwise subversive, while leaving the great organized crime networks of...more This book has a very engaging plot, dealing with a possible explanation for the legendary FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover's predilection for persecuting anyone he deemed Communist or otherwise subversive, while leaving the great organized crime networks of the US relatively untouched. It is common knowledge now that J. Edgar preferred the company of men; it was a career-destroying piece of information in the Twenties, and the only lever with which he could be controlled.
I have lived in Philadelphia for twenty years, and have been to Atlantic City once or twice, and find Cutler's descriptions of old Philly and the honky-tonk sounds and smells of Atlantic City to be quite evocative. He tells a tale of photographer Al Rubin, who has built a life in the United States after arriving as a penniless immigrant. Still mindful of the racism and anti-Semitism rife in everyday polite American society, he has been able to situate himself in the middle class. Of course, a middle class life in those days could be destroyed if you were a naturalized citizen with too much familiarity with labor unions, Socialists, and the like. The author mentions the Palmer raids: roundups and deportations of immigrants, legal and illegal, naturalized and nonnaturalized, that were named after Woodrow Wilson's Attorney General. It was best to keep a low profile. In an interesting digression towards the end of the book, Al reflects on the gangsters who have tapped him for his services, namely Meyer Lansky and Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, and their ways of smoothing the cognitive dissonance inherent in the trade:
"Meyer was of the Robin Hood school; laws were enacted by an elite group to manage society for its own, narrow benefit. He, born poor, had an obligation to take from them..." Johnson, the Treasurer of Atlantic County, boss of the Republican political machine, and "Czar of the Ritz," "...saw himself as the benevolent engineer who kept everything running smoothly." Al, in too-infrequent moments of introspection, sees himself being sucked into this demimonde, attracted by the wealth and luxury. He gradually acquires his gangster sea-legs as the plot progresses, to the point of using his boyhood boxing experience without hesitation to get out of a jam. Does he have photos of Hoover in a negligee? Does Meyer? Are the photos destroyed? Hoover is kept guessing, and his weakness for the ponies as well as for tall men is played like a violin.
I would have liked to see a bit more depth in Al's infrequent soliloquies on being drawn into the life. These are the only portions where Cutler ditches show-don't-tell (" The room pulled at me -- I wanted to gamble"..."I didn't want to understand her; I had been completely seduced"). A bit more mention of some characters, such as investigators Dixon and Whitehead, would have been nice, so I didn't have to keep going back to the prologue (or whatever one is to call the pages before Part One), in which Al is spying on, and trying to photograph, Hoover and his lover Clement Talbot in flagrante delicto. The prologue would be perfectly fine in chronological order. But Cutler is spot-on in his research (indeed, I had forgotten that Woodrow Wilson, who is briefly mentioned, died in 1924; I thought he had died in 1920, but my plans to make snarky comments about this being an historical vampire novel were happily foiled). Other minor flaws were mentions of Al and his wife taking mass transit on Shabbos to Meyer Lansky's Bar Mitzvah, which had me busily dog-earing pages, only to be followed several chapters later by the mention that they were Reform Jews, and rather lapsed at that. A little more explanation earlier on would remedy that. I was very amused at one point where, when offered a lobster, Al turns it down in favor of a club sandwich (which contains bacon). It is a brilliant evocation of one of the little cognitive-dissonance smoothings many of us no-longer-really-kosher Jews do. Oh, no, not a big lobster! A little bacon buried in a sandwich? OK. But in Al's case, we have already seen him rationalize blackmail.
Now for the editing. As Al's wife Ida and I both tend to say when perturbed, vay is mir! I will be the first to point out the difficulties of self-publishing: it is extraordinarily difficult to keep some of the conventions in mind, such as not indenting a line of dialogue that starts a paragraph (I am guilty of this and am beating my chest right now). But, oy, the backwards quotation marks! On almost every page yet! Sometimes he uses single quotes, it seems, just for the hell of it. Plus "alright" used so many times, a middle school English teacher would plotz! The restaurant at Nucky's Ritz is called "The Bath and Turf Club." Bath and Turf? Is that a steak on a plate with a loofah? And why do the waitstaff keep changing genders?
The other things that bothered me were the portentous subtitles on the front and back covers. "Birth of Organized Crime in Jazz Age Atlantic City" and "Blackmail FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover," besides being non-grammatical, make the book sound like nonfiction. I only figured out it was a novel when I began reading the contents. A little subtlety instead of subtitles would be nice.
That said, it was an enjoyable read. I hope Mr. Cutler's style and editing really shine in the second and third volumes of what is to be a trilogy.

-reviewed for The New Podler Review of Books(less)

Libby Cone gave

to:

This Unhappy Planet
by Marc Horne (Goodreads Author)

My rating:

An elementary schoolteacher, a ravenous entrepreneur, and a New Age drifter form a company in Southern California to offer one-stop shopping for any kind of spirituality their well-off clientèle might wish. This sounds like the beginning of a joke, a...more

Libby Cone gave

to:

The Album
by Sandra White

My rating:

Ms. White gets brownie points from me for correct usage and spelling of the words “pored” and “its.” However, after wading through onslaughts of telling-and-not-showing, I was finally defeated by this bit of dialog: “ 'It's beautiful out here, Jack....more

Libby's Bookshelves

Libby's Friends (14)

Libby's Fans (5)

Libby Cone

Goodreads author profile

2 posts
Libby Cone's Blog

combine editions
Books by Libby Cone

Upcoming Events

Libby's Writing

rss
Libby's Recent Updates

recent posts
Libby's Groups

Libby's Friend Comments

Flag Abuse

	War On The Margins 3.55 avg rating — 20 ratings — 4 editions	My rating:
	Flesh and Grass 3.29 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2010 — 4 editions	My rating:

Libby Cone made a comment in the group readers advisory for all — fiction with a blind protagonist topic "I just added my book, Flesh and Grass, which features a blind protagonist, Cornelis Boom. He is the son of the founder of an ill-fated Mennonite settl...more "
Dec 02, 2011 06:26am
Libby Cone joined the readers advisory for all group.
Dec 02, 2011 06:22am · see group
Libby Cone gave to: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez	My rating:
Aug 29, 2011 10:24am
Libby Cone voted on a poll Where do you get most of the books you read? she voted for buy online: amazon.com (not including ebooks)
Nov 20, 2010 05:18pm · take the poll
Libby Cone gave to: Miriam's Journey by Sally Freedman	My rating:
Nov 08, 2010 09:50am
Libby Cone gave to: Wherever You May be Searching by Wes Patterson	My rating:
A weird work, in e-book format. A motormouth know-it-all boy has a creepy, borderline-incestuous relationship with his sister, who is just a couple of years younger than he. I think he's supposed to be a "bend-the-rules,” “different drummer” sort, bu...more
Jun 13, 2010 08:02am · see review
Libby Cone gave to: Finitude by Hamish McDonald	My rating:
In this fast-paced novel, global warming/climate change is a reality and not a topic for debate. Various groups are working out solutions. A Government Coalition is trying to capitalize on the changes in the environment, taking advantage of citizens...more
Jun 12, 2010 06:16pm · see review
Libby Cone gave to: Low Light: Birth Of Organized Crime In Jazz Age Atlantic City by Stan Cutler	My rating:
This book has a very engaging plot, dealing with a possible explanation for the legendary FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover's predilection for persecuting anyone he deemed Communist or otherwise subversive, while leaving the great organized crime networks of...more
Jun 12, 2010 06:09pm · see review
Libby Cone gave to: This Unhappy Planet by Marc Horne (Goodreads Author)	My rating:
An elementary schoolteacher, a ravenous entrepreneur, and a New Age drifter form a company in Southern California to offer one-stop shopping for any kind of spirituality their well-off clientèle might wish. This sounds like the beginning of a joke, a...more
Jun 12, 2010 06:04pm · see review
Libby Cone gave to: The Album by Sandra White	My rating:
Ms. White gets brownie points from me for correct usage and spelling of the words “pored” and “its.” However, after wading through onslaughts of telling-and-not-showing, I was finally defeated by this bit of dialog: “ 'It's beautiful out here, Jack....more
Jun 12, 2010 05:56pm · see review

Libby Cone

Goodreads author profile

Upcoming Events

rssLibby's Recent Updates

Flag Abuse

rss
Libby's Recent Updates