Michael Schmicker's Blog, page 5
February 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Features Witch of Napoli
I'm honored. Kirkus Reviews has selected The Witch of Napoli to be included in its February 2015 issue. The Witch of Napoli is one of only 20 Indie books reviewed in the issue. The other 344 books reviewed in the issue are all from major publishers like Simon & Schuster, Knopf, Penguin, etc. Each month, less than 10% of Kirkus Indie reviews are chosen for this honor. Kirkus Reviews is the bible of the book reviewing industry in the U.S. (along with Publishers Weekly), and is sent out to over 5,000 industry professionals (librarians, publishers, agents, etc.). Meanwhile,I will be on a national virtual blog tour from Feb. 16-March 20. It includes author interviews, book reviews, and guest posts on 24 blogs. Should be a lot of fun! Here's the schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/thewitc...
October 31, 2014
HOLY WAR (Book Review)
What do you get when you mix Ivanhoe, Horatio Alger and a dash of Simone de Beauvoir?
You get Helena Schrader’s “Knight of Jerusalem: A Biographical Novel of Balian d’Ibelin” – a cultured, captivating, 12th century love story packing a feminist punch.
Balian, a young, landless knight dispossessed by primogeniture, heads for Jerusalem to try his luck. By the grace of God, Christian Crusaders now occupy the Holy City, having wrested it from the heathen Muslims in 1099 – who themselves snatched it, inshallah, from the infidel Byzantine Empire in 638; whose pagan Roman forefathers, with Jupiter’s divine blessing, seized it from the Jews in 36 BCE; who, following their tribal God’s command, expropriated the city from its Canaanite owners a thousand years earlier. But it's 1171 now, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem is tense, anxious. Salah-ad-Din’s Saracen hordes are closing in on the tiny, Christian enclave. The wily Sultan of Damascus and Cairo is preaching jihad, determined to drive the godless Western invaders out of the Levant.
Balian finds the royal court crowded with young men from every noble house in France and England pestering the sovereign for favors and appointments. King Amalric quickly sizes up the penniless, idealistic d’Ibelin and makes him an offer – the promise of an orphan heiress if he agrees to teach horsemanship to young, crown prince Baldwin, son of his discarded first wife. The catch? Baldwin is a leper; it could be a death sentence. The pious Balian wrestles with his conscience. To refuse the boy help would be cowardice, perhaps even a sin (leprosy is a “holy disease,” a possible sign of Divine grace). Balian reluctantly accepts, and the relieved King turns his attention back to his pretty doll-child bride, determined to sire another male to replace his defective first.
Eighteen-year-old Queen Maria Zoe Comnena knows she’s simply a baby machine, gifted to Almaric at age 13 by her great-uncle, the Emperor of Constantinople, to cement political ties between the two kingdoms. In five years, she’s only produced a worthless girl for her balding, muscle-going-to-fat husband. The court gossip is cruel and scary. The King is contemplating dumping her for a more fecund bedmate – perhaps a mature widow with the proven ability to pop out sons. The 18-year-old Queen and her 10-year-old diseased stepson share a bond of affection, and understanding of the realpolitik they face – both of them are expendable.
By chance, the Queen one day bumps into the crown prince and his gallant tutor saddling up their steeds at the stable. Balian’s kindness to Baldwin impresses Maria; his handsome looks stir forbidden longings. When the prince suggests she join them for a ride, she accepts, and the rest is (largely factual) historical fiction at its finest – Almaric unexpectedly dying of dysentery; squabbling and intrigues over succession; forbidden love blossoming between Dowager Queen Maria and a courageous Balian beginning his rags-to-riches ascent; Salah-ad-Dinh’s horde of 10,000 soldiers marching on a weakened Jesusalem defended by a desperate, outnumbered band of Christian knights.
Schraders description of the decisive battle of Montgisard (November 25, 1177) is a delight. From strategy (attack at dusk or dawn?); to cavalry tactics (compact formation, stirrup to stirrup, initial shock, use of infantry to to protect knights and their destriers during hand-to-hand combat); to battlecries (“Jerusalem!” “Vive Dieu St. Amour!” “Allahu Akbar!”), to yellow-turbaned Salah-ad-Dinh bursting from his tent, scimitar flashing – the scene is sustained, vivid, tightly-written.
Schrader masterfully works into her narrative a sobering subtext highlighting the sexism pervasive in Medieval times. Source material on gender and history continues to grow. Simone de Beauvoir’s 1949 classic "The Second Sex" (placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Vatican) included a groundbreaking look at sexist thought and practices in Western history. Her pioneering study – since augmented by volumnous research produced by women’s history programs – have made possible a wave of fresh, compelling historical fiction reflecting a female perspective. Schrader’s cast of women suffer a slew of historically accurate indignities, including forced, early marriages (by Canon Law, girls can “consent” to marriage at age seven); divorce if they can’t produce a boy (“Do they think we decide the sex of our children?” wonders Queen Maria’s maidservant); and sexual assault perversely turning the victim into a pariah. In one horrific scene, the fort at Ibelin is overrun by Muslims who gang-rape one of their own, a 13-year old girl who vainly recites the Koran to prove she is a Believer. The girl survives, and Balian’s forces retake the town, but the girl’s betrothed indignantly refuses to take her back because she’s now “unclean.” The girl meekly accepts his judgment. She’s now “worthless,” and “filthy,” and begs Balian’s sister-in-law to kill her. Hard times for women.
Schrader is eminently qualified to spin out a Balian biographical novel. She’s spent much of her life researching the Middle Ages and so far has penned six books set in this era, including her Knights Templar Trilogy. She also knows the Middle East. She’s presently on assignment as a diplomat with the U.S. Foreign Service in sub-Sahara Africa, 20 short miles across the Bab-el-Mandeb strait from the religious wars wracking the region today (including Jerusalem – which ISIL is vowing to retake as part of its 21st century caliphate.) Icing on the cake? Schrader’s a fanatical horsewoman who currently owns a hot, little Arabian stallion. Fighting on horseback, she emailed me, is something she can "visualize" with every muscle of her body. In short, she’s the perfect bard for Balian d’Ibelin.
Don’t miss this book. She’s nailed it.
You get Helena Schrader’s “Knight of Jerusalem: A Biographical Novel of Balian d’Ibelin” – a cultured, captivating, 12th century love story packing a feminist punch.
Balian, a young, landless knight dispossessed by primogeniture, heads for Jerusalem to try his luck. By the grace of God, Christian Crusaders now occupy the Holy City, having wrested it from the heathen Muslims in 1099 – who themselves snatched it, inshallah, from the infidel Byzantine Empire in 638; whose pagan Roman forefathers, with Jupiter’s divine blessing, seized it from the Jews in 36 BCE; who, following their tribal God’s command, expropriated the city from its Canaanite owners a thousand years earlier. But it's 1171 now, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem is tense, anxious. Salah-ad-Din’s Saracen hordes are closing in on the tiny, Christian enclave. The wily Sultan of Damascus and Cairo is preaching jihad, determined to drive the godless Western invaders out of the Levant.
Balian finds the royal court crowded with young men from every noble house in France and England pestering the sovereign for favors and appointments. King Amalric quickly sizes up the penniless, idealistic d’Ibelin and makes him an offer – the promise of an orphan heiress if he agrees to teach horsemanship to young, crown prince Baldwin, son of his discarded first wife. The catch? Baldwin is a leper; it could be a death sentence. The pious Balian wrestles with his conscience. To refuse the boy help would be cowardice, perhaps even a sin (leprosy is a “holy disease,” a possible sign of Divine grace). Balian reluctantly accepts, and the relieved King turns his attention back to his pretty doll-child bride, determined to sire another male to replace his defective first.
Eighteen-year-old Queen Maria Zoe Comnena knows she’s simply a baby machine, gifted to Almaric at age 13 by her great-uncle, the Emperor of Constantinople, to cement political ties between the two kingdoms. In five years, she’s only produced a worthless girl for her balding, muscle-going-to-fat husband. The court gossip is cruel and scary. The King is contemplating dumping her for a more fecund bedmate – perhaps a mature widow with the proven ability to pop out sons. The 18-year-old Queen and her 10-year-old diseased stepson share a bond of affection, and understanding of the realpolitik they face – both of them are expendable.
By chance, the Queen one day bumps into the crown prince and his gallant tutor saddling up their steeds at the stable. Balian’s kindness to Baldwin impresses Maria; his handsome looks stir forbidden longings. When the prince suggests she join them for a ride, she accepts, and the rest is (largely factual) historical fiction at its finest – Almaric unexpectedly dying of dysentery; squabbling and intrigues over succession; forbidden love blossoming between Dowager Queen Maria and a courageous Balian beginning his rags-to-riches ascent; Salah-ad-Dinh’s horde of 10,000 soldiers marching on a weakened Jesusalem defended by a desperate, outnumbered band of Christian knights.
Schraders description of the decisive battle of Montgisard (November 25, 1177) is a delight. From strategy (attack at dusk or dawn?); to cavalry tactics (compact formation, stirrup to stirrup, initial shock, use of infantry to to protect knights and their destriers during hand-to-hand combat); to battlecries (“Jerusalem!” “Vive Dieu St. Amour!” “Allahu Akbar!”), to yellow-turbaned Salah-ad-Dinh bursting from his tent, scimitar flashing – the scene is sustained, vivid, tightly-written.
Schrader masterfully works into her narrative a sobering subtext highlighting the sexism pervasive in Medieval times. Source material on gender and history continues to grow. Simone de Beauvoir’s 1949 classic "The Second Sex" (placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Vatican) included a groundbreaking look at sexist thought and practices in Western history. Her pioneering study – since augmented by volumnous research produced by women’s history programs – have made possible a wave of fresh, compelling historical fiction reflecting a female perspective. Schrader’s cast of women suffer a slew of historically accurate indignities, including forced, early marriages (by Canon Law, girls can “consent” to marriage at age seven); divorce if they can’t produce a boy (“Do they think we decide the sex of our children?” wonders Queen Maria’s maidservant); and sexual assault perversely turning the victim into a pariah. In one horrific scene, the fort at Ibelin is overrun by Muslims who gang-rape one of their own, a 13-year old girl who vainly recites the Koran to prove she is a Believer. The girl survives, and Balian’s forces retake the town, but the girl’s betrothed indignantly refuses to take her back because she’s now “unclean.” The girl meekly accepts his judgment. She’s now “worthless,” and “filthy,” and begs Balian’s sister-in-law to kill her. Hard times for women.
Schrader is eminently qualified to spin out a Balian biographical novel. She’s spent much of her life researching the Middle Ages and so far has penned six books set in this era, including her Knights Templar Trilogy. She also knows the Middle East. She’s presently on assignment as a diplomat with the U.S. Foreign Service in sub-Sahara Africa, 20 short miles across the Bab-el-Mandeb strait from the religious wars wracking the region today (including Jerusalem – which ISIL is vowing to retake as part of its 21st century caliphate.) Icing on the cake? Schrader’s a fanatical horsewoman who currently owns a hot, little Arabian stallion. Fighting on horseback, she emailed me, is something she can "visualize" with every muscle of her body. In short, she’s the perfect bard for Balian d’Ibelin.
Don’t miss this book. She’s nailed it.
October 12, 2014
SUPERNATURAL HAWAII (Book Review)
Everybody loves a ghost story, science be dammed.
Turn on your television any night (at least in the U.S) and you can shiver along with a half-dozen hit series, live or in rerun – Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International (SciFi); Ghost Adventures (Travel Channel); Ghost Lab, and A Haunting (Discovery Channel); and Paranormal State (A&E).
Today’s investigators descend on a house or graveyard and chase ghosts with a truckload of 21st century toys – hi-def videocams, digital tape recorders, EMF detectors, infrared thermal scanners, thermometers and walkie-talkies.
Judi Thompson’s book “Supernatural Hawaii” features tales from a quainter era when folklorists chased ghosts with a simple notebook and pen. Thompson started collecting her oral histories in 1984 while working as executive editor at the Institute for Polynesian Studies. Her decades-old stories and accompanying black-and-white photos give off a musty, bygone-era scent, but her scholarship is spiced up by a rich, cultural chop suey of ethnic story-tellers.
Native Hawaiians justifiably command center stage in this collection, surprised on a dark road by the volcano goddess Pele and her phantom dog Poki; avoiding danger with the help of ‘aumakua (ancestral spirits) manifesting in the form of a pueo (owl) or mano (shark); averting their eyes as the legendary Night Marchers, ghostly spirits of Hawaiian warriors, tramp their torch-lit, chanting way down the mountains to the ocean along traditional trails – through bedrooms and kitchens of modern buildings unluckily blocking their path. Auntie Harriet Ne of Moloka’i shares with Judi a lifetime of “chicken skin” (pidgin for goose bumps) experiences, including pre-World War II encounters with menehune, survivors of the legendary race of small, elfish stonemasons whom Polynesian voyagers found working fishponds when they first arrived in Hawaii in 500 AD. Kalaupapa leper colony survivors speak cautiously of Moloka’i kahuna (priests) who enjoyed a particular reputation as sorcerers of ana’ana (black magic), able to tell the future or kill people with evil spells. Both animist Hawaiians as well as Buddhist-believing Japanese immigrants working on the sugar plantations recount witnessing mysterious, floating orbs of light playing in the cane fields – fireballs each group regarded as spirits of the dead (the Nisei called them sinotama; the Hawaiians akualele). Back in modern Honolulu, Chinese and Portuguese firefighters in the Nu’uanu and Kaka’ako stations reluctantly admit to being attacked by Chokeneck, an evil spirit who yanks off bed sheets, tosses men bodily out of their bunks, and sits on their chest trying to suffocate them while they sleep. To protect themselves, they stuff ti leaves under their mattresses (ti leaves protect against evil spirits; watch a televised Hawaii football game and you’ll see Hawaii fans waving them to ward off touchdowns by their opponents).
Thompson’s Hawaii stories echo universally reported paranormal experiences – ghosts, orbs, poltergeists, guardian spirits. Chokeneck matches the Old Hag syndrome. Native Hawaiian scholar Rubelite Johnson, professor of Indo-Pacific languages at the University of Hawaii, shares a family story involving her great-grandmother Ekikela who suffered a classic near-death experience right out of Raymond Moody’s Life After Life. The old Hawaiians don’t bury the body right away; they keep it around for several days since they believe the spirit of the deceased can sometimes be persuaded by offerings or incantations to return to the body. Grandma did just that. She described how she felt ill while working in the garden; collapsed and rose out of her body, traveling upwards towards the sunrise (light); came to a partially-opened door (barrier); looked inside to see a beautiful, heavenly place; tried to enter but was stopped by a firm hand and a stern voice which told her “You are not ready yet. You have to go back to your body”; reluctantly returned to her corpse; wiggled back in through the big toe, then blacked out and re-awoke surrounded by her overjoyed family.
For some unexplained reason, Thompson took 25 years to publish her supernatural stories. During that period, two Hawaii writers beat her to market. Journalist and travel writer Rick Carroll put together his breezy, popular, six-book “Spooky Tales” series. The late American studies professor and Honolulu Ghost Walks tour operator Dr. Glen Grant tapped a darker vein with his “Obake Files” series (obake is Japanese for “ghost”). I admit I got so scared reading one particularly graphic murder/spirit possession case that I threw the book unfinished into the garbage.
Thompson’s stories don’t deliver the fright of Grant’s best, or the easy-reads featured in Carroll’s collection, but you’ll learn a lot about a hidden Hawaii infinitely more entertaining than Don Ho and hokey hulas.
Halloween’s coming. Let’s celebrate the truly spooky!
Turn on your television any night (at least in the U.S) and you can shiver along with a half-dozen hit series, live or in rerun – Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International (SciFi); Ghost Adventures (Travel Channel); Ghost Lab, and A Haunting (Discovery Channel); and Paranormal State (A&E).
Today’s investigators descend on a house or graveyard and chase ghosts with a truckload of 21st century toys – hi-def videocams, digital tape recorders, EMF detectors, infrared thermal scanners, thermometers and walkie-talkies.
Judi Thompson’s book “Supernatural Hawaii” features tales from a quainter era when folklorists chased ghosts with a simple notebook and pen. Thompson started collecting her oral histories in 1984 while working as executive editor at the Institute for Polynesian Studies. Her decades-old stories and accompanying black-and-white photos give off a musty, bygone-era scent, but her scholarship is spiced up by a rich, cultural chop suey of ethnic story-tellers.
Native Hawaiians justifiably command center stage in this collection, surprised on a dark road by the volcano goddess Pele and her phantom dog Poki; avoiding danger with the help of ‘aumakua (ancestral spirits) manifesting in the form of a pueo (owl) or mano (shark); averting their eyes as the legendary Night Marchers, ghostly spirits of Hawaiian warriors, tramp their torch-lit, chanting way down the mountains to the ocean along traditional trails – through bedrooms and kitchens of modern buildings unluckily blocking their path. Auntie Harriet Ne of Moloka’i shares with Judi a lifetime of “chicken skin” (pidgin for goose bumps) experiences, including pre-World War II encounters with menehune, survivors of the legendary race of small, elfish stonemasons whom Polynesian voyagers found working fishponds when they first arrived in Hawaii in 500 AD. Kalaupapa leper colony survivors speak cautiously of Moloka’i kahuna (priests) who enjoyed a particular reputation as sorcerers of ana’ana (black magic), able to tell the future or kill people with evil spells. Both animist Hawaiians as well as Buddhist-believing Japanese immigrants working on the sugar plantations recount witnessing mysterious, floating orbs of light playing in the cane fields – fireballs each group regarded as spirits of the dead (the Nisei called them sinotama; the Hawaiians akualele). Back in modern Honolulu, Chinese and Portuguese firefighters in the Nu’uanu and Kaka’ako stations reluctantly admit to being attacked by Chokeneck, an evil spirit who yanks off bed sheets, tosses men bodily out of their bunks, and sits on their chest trying to suffocate them while they sleep. To protect themselves, they stuff ti leaves under their mattresses (ti leaves protect against evil spirits; watch a televised Hawaii football game and you’ll see Hawaii fans waving them to ward off touchdowns by their opponents).
Thompson’s Hawaii stories echo universally reported paranormal experiences – ghosts, orbs, poltergeists, guardian spirits. Chokeneck matches the Old Hag syndrome. Native Hawaiian scholar Rubelite Johnson, professor of Indo-Pacific languages at the University of Hawaii, shares a family story involving her great-grandmother Ekikela who suffered a classic near-death experience right out of Raymond Moody’s Life After Life. The old Hawaiians don’t bury the body right away; they keep it around for several days since they believe the spirit of the deceased can sometimes be persuaded by offerings or incantations to return to the body. Grandma did just that. She described how she felt ill while working in the garden; collapsed and rose out of her body, traveling upwards towards the sunrise (light); came to a partially-opened door (barrier); looked inside to see a beautiful, heavenly place; tried to enter but was stopped by a firm hand and a stern voice which told her “You are not ready yet. You have to go back to your body”; reluctantly returned to her corpse; wiggled back in through the big toe, then blacked out and re-awoke surrounded by her overjoyed family.
For some unexplained reason, Thompson took 25 years to publish her supernatural stories. During that period, two Hawaii writers beat her to market. Journalist and travel writer Rick Carroll put together his breezy, popular, six-book “Spooky Tales” series. The late American studies professor and Honolulu Ghost Walks tour operator Dr. Glen Grant tapped a darker vein with his “Obake Files” series (obake is Japanese for “ghost”). I admit I got so scared reading one particularly graphic murder/spirit possession case that I threw the book unfinished into the garbage.
Thompson’s stories don’t deliver the fright of Grant’s best, or the easy-reads featured in Carroll’s collection, but you’ll learn a lot about a hidden Hawaii infinitely more entertaining than Don Ho and hokey hulas.
Halloween’s coming. Let’s celebrate the truly spooky!
October 4, 2014
THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT (Book Review)
Ghosts and Scotland go together.
What’s that oft-quoted, ancient Caledonian prayer? “From goulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us!” A sensible sentiment to most.
Writers, on the other hand, welcome them. Supernatural stories always find an audience, and historical fiction author Linda Root (writing here under the pen name J.D. Root) has come up with a stonking good one, as the Brits would say. Thea Jameson, a best-selling California author hawking her latest historical novel on a promo trip to Scotland, inexplicably time-slips back to 1612 and gets tangled up with the axe-wielding clan Kerr, and a mysterious entity called the “Green Woman.”
Our heroine – “a cross between Hillary Clinton and Angelina Jolie” – is a sassy, middle-aged, hard-drinking, Amex Gold card-toting divorcee who travels around with a bottle of Jameson’s, a pocket flask of V.S.O.P, and a fifth of Glen Livet, and happily pub crawls with rugby players. Drunks propositioning her she can handle; she’s taken self-defense lessons from the LAPD, and holds a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. The dead are another question. Returning inebriated to Ferniehirst Castle, the site of her imminent book-launch party, the bewildered Thea finds the castle’s Great Hall filled with Border reivers strutting around with daggers at their belts, women busy with needlework. Delirium tremens? A theme wedding? An evening bash of the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism? Fleeing up a back stairs which suspiciously wasn’t there before, she bumps into the specter of Sir Andrew “Dand” Ker (d. 1628) who instantly takes a strong liking to her – showing a “cow cumber in his britches,” as the quaint Scots saying goes – and our time traveler is swept backwards four centuries, into his arms, and into the adventures of the Kerrs of Ferniehirst, Catholic allies of the tragic Mary Queen of Scots.
It’s a demon-haunted era, and Root deftly exploits some of the more promising material. Dand’s cousin, the Earl of Bothwell, pops up repeatedly throughout the story. “Wild Frank” Stewart (1562-1612) enjoyed a reputation as a warlock, and in 1591 was arrested and accused of employing sorcery in an attempt to knock off Scotland’s King James VI (fact, not fiction). James VI bequeathed us the famous “King James” version of the Bible, the most widely printed book in history. Less known, His Highness also considered himself an expert on witchcraft, penned an 80-page treatise on demonology, and was personally involved in the infamous North Berwick Witch Trials which led to the torture (and in some cases, execution) of 70-plus victims. The “Green Lady” herself predates the 17th century; references can be traced back to pre-Christian Celtic folklore. Nowadays, the Scottish Tourism Board promotes a half-dozen castles haunted by a green ghost, but Root cleverly imagines for this now-garden-variety discarnate a complex, mythological backstory which will send readers scrambling for their Bulfinch’s.
Root originally wrote “The Green Woman” in three weeks as an exercise for the 2013 NaNoWritMo (National Novel Writing Month) contest; it challenges authors to come up with a 50,000 word novel in one month. Besides pulling off that rather remarkable feat, she managed to slip into her genre-busting fantasy a final plot twist which caught me completely by surprise.
Halloween is coming soon. My suggestion? Instead of plopping yourself down on the sofa and watching stale, Hollywood horror flicks this Oct. 31, download “The Green Woman” and enjoy a Scottish spooking.
What’s that oft-quoted, ancient Caledonian prayer? “From goulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us!” A sensible sentiment to most.
Writers, on the other hand, welcome them. Supernatural stories always find an audience, and historical fiction author Linda Root (writing here under the pen name J.D. Root) has come up with a stonking good one, as the Brits would say. Thea Jameson, a best-selling California author hawking her latest historical novel on a promo trip to Scotland, inexplicably time-slips back to 1612 and gets tangled up with the axe-wielding clan Kerr, and a mysterious entity called the “Green Woman.”
Our heroine – “a cross between Hillary Clinton and Angelina Jolie” – is a sassy, middle-aged, hard-drinking, Amex Gold card-toting divorcee who travels around with a bottle of Jameson’s, a pocket flask of V.S.O.P, and a fifth of Glen Livet, and happily pub crawls with rugby players. Drunks propositioning her she can handle; she’s taken self-defense lessons from the LAPD, and holds a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. The dead are another question. Returning inebriated to Ferniehirst Castle, the site of her imminent book-launch party, the bewildered Thea finds the castle’s Great Hall filled with Border reivers strutting around with daggers at their belts, women busy with needlework. Delirium tremens? A theme wedding? An evening bash of the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism? Fleeing up a back stairs which suspiciously wasn’t there before, she bumps into the specter of Sir Andrew “Dand” Ker (d. 1628) who instantly takes a strong liking to her – showing a “cow cumber in his britches,” as the quaint Scots saying goes – and our time traveler is swept backwards four centuries, into his arms, and into the adventures of the Kerrs of Ferniehirst, Catholic allies of the tragic Mary Queen of Scots.
It’s a demon-haunted era, and Root deftly exploits some of the more promising material. Dand’s cousin, the Earl of Bothwell, pops up repeatedly throughout the story. “Wild Frank” Stewart (1562-1612) enjoyed a reputation as a warlock, and in 1591 was arrested and accused of employing sorcery in an attempt to knock off Scotland’s King James VI (fact, not fiction). James VI bequeathed us the famous “King James” version of the Bible, the most widely printed book in history. Less known, His Highness also considered himself an expert on witchcraft, penned an 80-page treatise on demonology, and was personally involved in the infamous North Berwick Witch Trials which led to the torture (and in some cases, execution) of 70-plus victims. The “Green Lady” herself predates the 17th century; references can be traced back to pre-Christian Celtic folklore. Nowadays, the Scottish Tourism Board promotes a half-dozen castles haunted by a green ghost, but Root cleverly imagines for this now-garden-variety discarnate a complex, mythological backstory which will send readers scrambling for their Bulfinch’s.
Root originally wrote “The Green Woman” in three weeks as an exercise for the 2013 NaNoWritMo (National Novel Writing Month) contest; it challenges authors to come up with a 50,000 word novel in one month. Besides pulling off that rather remarkable feat, she managed to slip into her genre-busting fantasy a final plot twist which caught me completely by surprise.
Halloween is coming soon. My suggestion? Instead of plopping yourself down on the sofa and watching stale, Hollywood horror flicks this Oct. 31, download “The Green Woman” and enjoy a Scottish spooking.
September 18, 2014
MASKED MURDER (Book Review)
Venice didn’t invent the mask, but no society in history ever wore them more frequently.
In most societies, they’re merely worn for an evening masquerade, or a Mardi gras parade. In Venice, from the 1200s clear up until Napoleon conquered the Italian Republic in 1797, citizens of every class routinely spent three months (or more) in disguise, donning their Carnival masks the day after Christmas and sporting them until Shrove Tuesday and the start of Lent in early March – an understandable invitation to trouble. An anonymous populace could get involved in a lot of mischief in three months, from illicit sex and spying to assassination and murder.
What more could a writer wish for?
In her new, supernatural thriller “The Mascherari,” author Laura Rahme turns her imagination loose, inventing a delicious, dark tale of witchcraft, byzantine political intrigue, and bacchanalian mayhem played out between the feasts of Natale (Dec. 25) and Epiphany (Jan. 6).
It’s the winter solstice, 1422. Tuscan widower and retired crime investigator Antonio da Parma has just returned to Venice following the death of his wife. He’s been re-hired as an inquisitor by Almoro Donato and the secretive, Consiglio dei Dieci, a group of ten powerful men which oversees the Republic’s internal security, coinage and morality. Heading for the Ducal Palace, he comes across a wealthy masked merchant, Giacomo Contarini, and his aristocratic friends, roughing up an elderly Milanese mascheraro (mask maker) fallen behind on his loan. When da Parma tries to intervene, he’s dragged into an alley and beaten up himself. Two days later, Donato informs him the Signori di Notte (secret police) have discovered the cadavers of Contarini, three of his partners, and his daughter. Contarini appears to be an easily explainable murder; the other four deaths are more troubling, coincidentally odd, even bizarre. Donato hands da Parma the police file – quietly investigate, and report back to the nervous Council. Da Parma quickly discovers that Contarini on the morning he was murdered received a mysterious delivery of five, unordered but exquisitely-crafted Carnival masks. Who sent the phantasmagorical creations is unclear, but their magical workmanship was too exceptional and tempting to not wear them to a party that night.
Deadly mistake.
Rahme employs letters, diaries, journal entries and sworn testimonies to deliver the account of da Parma’s unsettling investigation and horrific discoveries, as various characters disclose their secrets, and the sinister, witching power of the masks is revealed.
Along the way, we’re educated about the sex life of medieval Venice. The Republic encouraged unmarried men to visit the bordellos in Carampane in order to discourage homosexuality (sodomy and cross-dressing merit capital punishment); puttana (prostitutes) wore yellow shawls, and flaunted their wares on the Ponte delle Tette (Bridge of Tits); some convents were de facto whorehouses, warehousing superfluous daughters discarded by their families – rebellious girls bereft of any religious vocation or interest in a celibate life.
Fifteenth-century Venetian cuisine pops up frequently, and sounds intriguing: leek and goat cheese pie; garlic and bean soup (whew!); pork and quail on skewers; eel pie, squid pie, Sarde in Saor (Rahme’s handy Glossary at the end of the book defines a half-dozen, different Carnival masks, but I had to Google this dish, which turns out to be sweet and sour sardines).
Historical curiosities constantly entertain: Parchment is slowly being replaced by paper – “a Mohammedan invention” denounced by the Church. The government kept prisoners in the “Wells,” a subterranean jail beneath the Doge’s palace, where they applied the euphemistic “Question” (were tortured). Fiore dei Liberi was the era’s reigning master of fencing (swordsmanship features large in the novel). Venetians used cinnamon mouthwash (bet you didn’t know that).
The author’s personal life is as exotic as her fiction. Rahme was born in Dakar, Senegal, of Lebanese, French and Vietnamese heritage; grew up speaking French; holds degrees in Psychology and Engineering (Aerospace Avionics); lives Down Under; idolizes Khalil Gibran; and set her first novel in early Ming China.
If you’re a book buyer looking for an entertaining tale, or a book blogger looking for an entertaining interview, you’ve just found it.
In most societies, they’re merely worn for an evening masquerade, or a Mardi gras parade. In Venice, from the 1200s clear up until Napoleon conquered the Italian Republic in 1797, citizens of every class routinely spent three months (or more) in disguise, donning their Carnival masks the day after Christmas and sporting them until Shrove Tuesday and the start of Lent in early March – an understandable invitation to trouble. An anonymous populace could get involved in a lot of mischief in three months, from illicit sex and spying to assassination and murder.
What more could a writer wish for?
In her new, supernatural thriller “The Mascherari,” author Laura Rahme turns her imagination loose, inventing a delicious, dark tale of witchcraft, byzantine political intrigue, and bacchanalian mayhem played out between the feasts of Natale (Dec. 25) and Epiphany (Jan. 6).
It’s the winter solstice, 1422. Tuscan widower and retired crime investigator Antonio da Parma has just returned to Venice following the death of his wife. He’s been re-hired as an inquisitor by Almoro Donato and the secretive, Consiglio dei Dieci, a group of ten powerful men which oversees the Republic’s internal security, coinage and morality. Heading for the Ducal Palace, he comes across a wealthy masked merchant, Giacomo Contarini, and his aristocratic friends, roughing up an elderly Milanese mascheraro (mask maker) fallen behind on his loan. When da Parma tries to intervene, he’s dragged into an alley and beaten up himself. Two days later, Donato informs him the Signori di Notte (secret police) have discovered the cadavers of Contarini, three of his partners, and his daughter. Contarini appears to be an easily explainable murder; the other four deaths are more troubling, coincidentally odd, even bizarre. Donato hands da Parma the police file – quietly investigate, and report back to the nervous Council. Da Parma quickly discovers that Contarini on the morning he was murdered received a mysterious delivery of five, unordered but exquisitely-crafted Carnival masks. Who sent the phantasmagorical creations is unclear, but their magical workmanship was too exceptional and tempting to not wear them to a party that night.
Deadly mistake.
Rahme employs letters, diaries, journal entries and sworn testimonies to deliver the account of da Parma’s unsettling investigation and horrific discoveries, as various characters disclose their secrets, and the sinister, witching power of the masks is revealed.
Along the way, we’re educated about the sex life of medieval Venice. The Republic encouraged unmarried men to visit the bordellos in Carampane in order to discourage homosexuality (sodomy and cross-dressing merit capital punishment); puttana (prostitutes) wore yellow shawls, and flaunted their wares on the Ponte delle Tette (Bridge of Tits); some convents were de facto whorehouses, warehousing superfluous daughters discarded by their families – rebellious girls bereft of any religious vocation or interest in a celibate life.
Fifteenth-century Venetian cuisine pops up frequently, and sounds intriguing: leek and goat cheese pie; garlic and bean soup (whew!); pork and quail on skewers; eel pie, squid pie, Sarde in Saor (Rahme’s handy Glossary at the end of the book defines a half-dozen, different Carnival masks, but I had to Google this dish, which turns out to be sweet and sour sardines).
Historical curiosities constantly entertain: Parchment is slowly being replaced by paper – “a Mohammedan invention” denounced by the Church. The government kept prisoners in the “Wells,” a subterranean jail beneath the Doge’s palace, where they applied the euphemistic “Question” (were tortured). Fiore dei Liberi was the era’s reigning master of fencing (swordsmanship features large in the novel). Venetians used cinnamon mouthwash (bet you didn’t know that).
The author’s personal life is as exotic as her fiction. Rahme was born in Dakar, Senegal, of Lebanese, French and Vietnamese heritage; grew up speaking French; holds degrees in Psychology and Engineering (Aerospace Avionics); lives Down Under; idolizes Khalil Gibran; and set her first novel in early Ming China.
If you’re a book buyer looking for an entertaining tale, or a book blogger looking for an entertaining interview, you’ve just found it.
August 23, 2014
THE BEY'S DAUGHTER (Book Review)
It takes a certain literary sang-froid for a writer to feature a female hero in a Mongol yarn.
The Mongol in modern imagination is the definition of alpha male – brutal, barbaric and bloodthirsty. "A man's greatest work is to break his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all the things that have been theirs, to hear the weeping of those who cherished them,” declared Genghis Khan (1162-1227). Historians estimate that the Mongol hordes slaughtered anywhere from 20 to 60 million people in the process of conquering an empire that stretched from China to the Caspian Sea. In one massacre alone, 700,000 people were reportedly killed. We’re talking traditional “man’s work” here – buckets of blood and destruction of civilizations.
But author C.P. Leslie knows what most readers (including me) would never suspect – Mongol women weren’t simply passive, timid camp followers providing bed entertainment and dishwashing for the boys. They enjoyed surprising respect and status within this supremely testosterone-driven society. Mongol women had the right to inherit property from their deceased husbands; could divorce. They wore trousers, drove carts, loaded camels, rode horses, routinely received military training, and could put an arrow through you at full gallop. Mongolian Empress Queen Manduhai the Wise (1449-1510) led an army in battle while pregnant (once while carrying twins), reunifying and ruling the eastern Mongol empire. Princess Khutulun was famous for both her beauty and her physical strength. According to Marco Polo, she refused to marry any man who couldn’t beat her in wrestling. A hundred men tried and failed, forfeiting a hundred horses each, and she died a spinster with a corral full of steeds. Apocryphal in some details, perhaps, but you get the point. Mongol women weren’t shrinking violets.
“The Winged Horse,” then, isn’t some politically-correct re-imagining of Mongol gender roles. Leslie’s feisty heroine Firuza (“turquoise” in Persian) is both possible and historically accurate.
It’s July 1534, midsummer evening. We’re crowded into a felt tent on the grassy steppe north of Crimea, and Firuza’s father, Bahadur Bey, aging leader of a fractious horde of nomadic Tartars, is feasting on a quail leg. Short hours later, he’s dying – of what? Indigestion? Poison? He summons clan leaders to his deathbed and makes them swear to accept Bulat Khan’s 19-year-old son, Ogodai, as the horde’s new overlord. Bulat is Bahadur’s blood brother and a descendent of Genghis Khan. He’s powerful and well-connected, tight with the encroaching Christian Russians. The two qarindash have also agreed that 18-year-old Firuza will marry Ogodai and become his chief wife.
Not everyone is happy with the deal. A dissident faction backs Bulat’s estranged son Tulpar, arguing for an alliance with the Muslim Khan of Crimea, and the plotting and intrigue begin. When Ogodai arrives to claim his horde and bride, he discovers he’ll have to win over a divided council – as well as Firuza. She can cast her lot with either Ogodai or Tulpar, and the man who wins her hand must accept her as an equal partner. She’s no harem beauty, but she’s tough, intelligent, and has a plan of her own for the clan’s future – delivered to her in a vision by the “Grandmothers.”
Firuza’s Nogai band is only nominally Muslim. In daily life, they practice shamanism and ancestor worship. The clan’s dead grandmothers travel in a tent on a wooden cart – a moveable shrine filled with spirit dolls dressed in clothes and lined upon an altar. They communicate through dreams of instruction and wisdom, like the one Firuza receives; they also deliver through the horde’s entranced shaman a surprise that propels the plot forward. Leslie’s priestess is a memorable creature. An old crone dressed in ragged skins, strips of leather, ropes and bells, with tinkling shells dangling from the brim of her fur-trimmed hat, she chants and mumbles snatches of Arabic as she circles the fire, rattle in hand, tossing mare’s milk and bits of meat fat into the flames before falling into a trance, allowing the dead Bahadur Bey to deliver his shocker.
“The Winged Horse” is rich with cultural exotica and imaginative re-creation. We’re swept backwards five centuries to an Eastern Europe of leather armor and Ottoman daggers, wrestling matches and horse races, a hooded eagle on a shoulder, a sheep’s head on a platter. As the horde packs up to decamp, Firuza is roused from her sleep by the “fragrance of rose petals and jasmine, citrus and lavender, wafting from veils, tunics and robes.” Historical dates are given in both Gregorian and Islamic calendars, reminding the reader that for Muslims time starts in our 622 A.D. We learn Chagatai Turkic served as the diplomatic language of the polyglot Tartar khanates (like French played in 18th-19th century Europe, and English does globally in the 21st). We discover that the deadly “black widow” spider is native to Central Asia – an entomological tidbit the author weaves into a clever assassination attempt perpetrated by a khan’s catamite (Ironically, “black widow” is a label given by the Russian press in 2002 to black-hijab- robed female suicide bombers from Muslim Chechnya).Horse lore provides the novel’s title, and peppers the pages. The heroine rides a “Turkmen palomino.” When forced by thirst, Tartars drank the blood of their horses. The winged horse Tulpar (Pegasus in Greek mythology) carried dying souls to the celestial hunting grounds. Small details that collectively create entertaining historical fiction, even without the gore.
Only one head rolls in Leslie’s novel (CNN today is twice as graphic), but the strong-willed spirit of Genghis Khan’s descendants infuses this fresh take on a much-maligned culture.
If you’re suffering from Regency romance fatigue, “The Winged Horse” is the perfect antidote.
The Mongol in modern imagination is the definition of alpha male – brutal, barbaric and bloodthirsty. "A man's greatest work is to break his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all the things that have been theirs, to hear the weeping of those who cherished them,” declared Genghis Khan (1162-1227). Historians estimate that the Mongol hordes slaughtered anywhere from 20 to 60 million people in the process of conquering an empire that stretched from China to the Caspian Sea. In one massacre alone, 700,000 people were reportedly killed. We’re talking traditional “man’s work” here – buckets of blood and destruction of civilizations.
But author C.P. Leslie knows what most readers (including me) would never suspect – Mongol women weren’t simply passive, timid camp followers providing bed entertainment and dishwashing for the boys. They enjoyed surprising respect and status within this supremely testosterone-driven society. Mongol women had the right to inherit property from their deceased husbands; could divorce. They wore trousers, drove carts, loaded camels, rode horses, routinely received military training, and could put an arrow through you at full gallop. Mongolian Empress Queen Manduhai the Wise (1449-1510) led an army in battle while pregnant (once while carrying twins), reunifying and ruling the eastern Mongol empire. Princess Khutulun was famous for both her beauty and her physical strength. According to Marco Polo, she refused to marry any man who couldn’t beat her in wrestling. A hundred men tried and failed, forfeiting a hundred horses each, and she died a spinster with a corral full of steeds. Apocryphal in some details, perhaps, but you get the point. Mongol women weren’t shrinking violets.
“The Winged Horse,” then, isn’t some politically-correct re-imagining of Mongol gender roles. Leslie’s feisty heroine Firuza (“turquoise” in Persian) is both possible and historically accurate.
It’s July 1534, midsummer evening. We’re crowded into a felt tent on the grassy steppe north of Crimea, and Firuza’s father, Bahadur Bey, aging leader of a fractious horde of nomadic Tartars, is feasting on a quail leg. Short hours later, he’s dying – of what? Indigestion? Poison? He summons clan leaders to his deathbed and makes them swear to accept Bulat Khan’s 19-year-old son, Ogodai, as the horde’s new overlord. Bulat is Bahadur’s blood brother and a descendent of Genghis Khan. He’s powerful and well-connected, tight with the encroaching Christian Russians. The two qarindash have also agreed that 18-year-old Firuza will marry Ogodai and become his chief wife.
Not everyone is happy with the deal. A dissident faction backs Bulat’s estranged son Tulpar, arguing for an alliance with the Muslim Khan of Crimea, and the plotting and intrigue begin. When Ogodai arrives to claim his horde and bride, he discovers he’ll have to win over a divided council – as well as Firuza. She can cast her lot with either Ogodai or Tulpar, and the man who wins her hand must accept her as an equal partner. She’s no harem beauty, but she’s tough, intelligent, and has a plan of her own for the clan’s future – delivered to her in a vision by the “Grandmothers.”
Firuza’s Nogai band is only nominally Muslim. In daily life, they practice shamanism and ancestor worship. The clan’s dead grandmothers travel in a tent on a wooden cart – a moveable shrine filled with spirit dolls dressed in clothes and lined upon an altar. They communicate through dreams of instruction and wisdom, like the one Firuza receives; they also deliver through the horde’s entranced shaman a surprise that propels the plot forward. Leslie’s priestess is a memorable creature. An old crone dressed in ragged skins, strips of leather, ropes and bells, with tinkling shells dangling from the brim of her fur-trimmed hat, she chants and mumbles snatches of Arabic as she circles the fire, rattle in hand, tossing mare’s milk and bits of meat fat into the flames before falling into a trance, allowing the dead Bahadur Bey to deliver his shocker.
“The Winged Horse” is rich with cultural exotica and imaginative re-creation. We’re swept backwards five centuries to an Eastern Europe of leather armor and Ottoman daggers, wrestling matches and horse races, a hooded eagle on a shoulder, a sheep’s head on a platter. As the horde packs up to decamp, Firuza is roused from her sleep by the “fragrance of rose petals and jasmine, citrus and lavender, wafting from veils, tunics and robes.” Historical dates are given in both Gregorian and Islamic calendars, reminding the reader that for Muslims time starts in our 622 A.D. We learn Chagatai Turkic served as the diplomatic language of the polyglot Tartar khanates (like French played in 18th-19th century Europe, and English does globally in the 21st). We discover that the deadly “black widow” spider is native to Central Asia – an entomological tidbit the author weaves into a clever assassination attempt perpetrated by a khan’s catamite (Ironically, “black widow” is a label given by the Russian press in 2002 to black-hijab- robed female suicide bombers from Muslim Chechnya).Horse lore provides the novel’s title, and peppers the pages. The heroine rides a “Turkmen palomino.” When forced by thirst, Tartars drank the blood of their horses. The winged horse Tulpar (Pegasus in Greek mythology) carried dying souls to the celestial hunting grounds. Small details that collectively create entertaining historical fiction, even without the gore.
Only one head rolls in Leslie’s novel (CNN today is twice as graphic), but the strong-willed spirit of Genghis Khan’s descendants infuses this fresh take on a much-maligned culture.
If you’re suffering from Regency romance fatigue, “The Winged Horse” is the perfect antidote.
July 29, 2014
WHORING MONKS AND PAINTED JANETS
Hallowe’en night. 500 years ago.
Superstitions rule sixteenth-century Scotland, and Macpherson opens her sumptuously-detailed novel with a sly nod to the spirit of Macbeth (though the Bard won’t be born for another half century). Elizabeth Hepburn and her two teenage sisters are tossing nuts into a blazing fire, as their witch-cum-nursemaid Betsy divines their futures by the way the shells sputter and pop. Then, well-primed for ghosts and ghouls, the feardie trio slip out into the dark night clutching a neep lantern and rowan twigs to ward off evil spirits and thrice circle a sheaf of dead cornstalks, determined to see the specters of the men they will someday marry – per Betsy, carefully following the ritual will grant the girls visions of their future sweethearts. As bats swoop through the sky and a pease-bogle (scarecrow) shakes in the wind, they suddenly hear voices, see shadowy black figures approaching, and flee for their lives. Elizabeth tumbles down a hill, topples into a stream, and is dragged out half-drowned by David Lindsay, come to fetch her back to the castle. She falls head over heels in love. Tapsalteerie. Whigmaleerie.
And the turbulent affair between our two star-cross’d lovers is off and running.
John Knox plays a decided second fiddle to Elizabeth and David in The First Blast of the Trumpet, the initial book of Macpherson’s ambitious, three-volume, re-imagining the life of the Scottish Reformation’s founding father. Here she focuses on the violent, brutish, superstitious world into which Knox will be born. Larger forces capriciously play with the lives and dreams of our two lovers – a destructive war between England and Scotland; the intensifying confrontation between papists and protestants; infighting between avaricious clans; plague and starvation. Fate rules people’s lives. As Betsy warns Elizabeth in the opening line of the book, “There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Your destiny is already laid doon.”
Macpherson’s award-winning novel glows with a luminous sense of time and place, the writing ripe and heady with a wantonly rich Scottish vocabulary. You not only see the 16th century – you hear it. The author holds a Ph.D. in Russian and English; has taught language and literature throughout Europe; and her affection for her native tongue is infectious. She mines a proud literary vein. Burns, Scott and Stevenson globally popularized the Scots vernacular through their poems, songs, stories and novels, and “Auld Lang Syne” is sung around the world on New Year’s Eve. Scots-Irish immigrants like my mother’s forebears brought wisps of words and phrases with them to America in the 18th century. When someone teased me in grammar school in the late 1950s, I retorted with the words my mother (of the clan Boyd) taught me: “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Imagine my delight to discover that Scottish children were spouting the same phrase in 1511. For fun, I started keeping a list of the poetic slurs Macpherson puts in the mouths of her backbiting Scottish women who fling them against their rivals – gilpie, cow-clink, clumsy kittok, skirling shrew, cankart carlin, dowdy dunnock, brazen besom, vauntie-flauntie, and skrinkie-faced with froggy eyes. And you feared First Trumpet would be some dull, pious, religious tract? You silly gowk!
First Trumpet is closer to bawdy, vulgar Shakespeare than Sir Walter Scott’s airy-fairy world of chivalric romance. Gluttonous Dame Janet, Elizabeth’s aunt and prioress of St. Mary’s Abbey, powders her face with white lead, plucks her eyebrows, and rouges her cheeks. Sucking on a marche de pain bonbon, she sets Elizabeth straight about love and marriage. Forget Lindsay and wedlock, she advises. “When you’re not bleeding you’re breeding.” Men aren’t to be trusted. “Every man is in thrall to his pistle.” Besides, what’s so great about fyking? “...a few spurts of pleasure for them mean untold grief and agony for us.” Better to be a nun than a wife. And if postulant Elizabeth gets the itch? No problem, just be cautious. “If you fancy a tumble in the hay with the stable lad, make sure you’re not bairnt.” After all, “…a quick fyke can be over in the wink of an eye, leaving a troutie in the well.” Like the well-fed prioress in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Macpherson’s worldly Janet is a memorable literary creation. Drooling over the fare at a feast, the prioress smacks her lips at the stag testicles poached in honeyed sauce, declaring, “Just how I like them: soft, squidgy and sweet. Tastier than a strumpet’s teats.” Victorian prudery is still 350 years into the British future. We’ve got brides’ cherries being picked; crowds marching upstairs to oogle the newlyweds as they consummate their marriage; legions of bastards being born “on the other side of the blanket”; and even get a frank lesson in female pleasuring. Who says history has to be boring? Characters are nuanced. You feel a twinge of sympathy for Prioress Janet. She never wanted to become a nun, any more than her brother, Elizabeth’s uncle John, wanted to become a priest and Prior of St. Mary’s. But someone in the Hepburn clan needed to step up so the family could retain control of the abbey’s wealth, lands, granaries, mills, orchards and breweries. “You maun dree your weird,” as the Scots say – you accept your fate; you endure your destiny. Likewise, Elizabeth will eventually take her vows, and succeed Janet; David Lindsay will sacrifice Elizabeth to serve the King.
And John Knox, finally making his late bow in the tale?
Saved at birth by a puff of breath into his lungs from nun Elizabeth, he becomes her godson and gravitates towards his own fate. Raised in her protective shadow, he trains for the priesthood but, offended by whoring monks and painted Janets, by simony and religious superstition, the young Knox falls under the spell of the Lollardy heresy and embraces the Protestant cause, determined to tear down Elizabeth’s all too-human church. Tellingly, he embraces Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. No amount of prayers or papal indulgences can change your fate. Instead, an inscrutable God decides each man’s destiny – heaven or hell – before they’re born.
The First Blast of the Trumpet is rich intellectual fare, and Macpherson thoughtfully includes a handy map of Scotland, family trees, and a complete cast of characters for the history-challenged. But any reader bringing to the novel a basic familiarity with the Western canon will quickly pick up the thread.
First Trumpet is double-timely. 2014 marks the 500th anniversary of Knox’s birth. It’s also the year Scottish voters determine the fate of their country. Will she remain united with England (which she joined in 1707) or regain her sovereignty? When the next installment of Macpherson’s captivating Knox Trilogy appears in bookstores, bonnie Scotland may once again be independent.
Superstitions rule sixteenth-century Scotland, and Macpherson opens her sumptuously-detailed novel with a sly nod to the spirit of Macbeth (though the Bard won’t be born for another half century). Elizabeth Hepburn and her two teenage sisters are tossing nuts into a blazing fire, as their witch-cum-nursemaid Betsy divines their futures by the way the shells sputter and pop. Then, well-primed for ghosts and ghouls, the feardie trio slip out into the dark night clutching a neep lantern and rowan twigs to ward off evil spirits and thrice circle a sheaf of dead cornstalks, determined to see the specters of the men they will someday marry – per Betsy, carefully following the ritual will grant the girls visions of their future sweethearts. As bats swoop through the sky and a pease-bogle (scarecrow) shakes in the wind, they suddenly hear voices, see shadowy black figures approaching, and flee for their lives. Elizabeth tumbles down a hill, topples into a stream, and is dragged out half-drowned by David Lindsay, come to fetch her back to the castle. She falls head over heels in love. Tapsalteerie. Whigmaleerie.
And the turbulent affair between our two star-cross’d lovers is off and running.
John Knox plays a decided second fiddle to Elizabeth and David in The First Blast of the Trumpet, the initial book of Macpherson’s ambitious, three-volume, re-imagining the life of the Scottish Reformation’s founding father. Here she focuses on the violent, brutish, superstitious world into which Knox will be born. Larger forces capriciously play with the lives and dreams of our two lovers – a destructive war between England and Scotland; the intensifying confrontation between papists and protestants; infighting between avaricious clans; plague and starvation. Fate rules people’s lives. As Betsy warns Elizabeth in the opening line of the book, “There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Your destiny is already laid doon.”
Macpherson’s award-winning novel glows with a luminous sense of time and place, the writing ripe and heady with a wantonly rich Scottish vocabulary. You not only see the 16th century – you hear it. The author holds a Ph.D. in Russian and English; has taught language and literature throughout Europe; and her affection for her native tongue is infectious. She mines a proud literary vein. Burns, Scott and Stevenson globally popularized the Scots vernacular through their poems, songs, stories and novels, and “Auld Lang Syne” is sung around the world on New Year’s Eve. Scots-Irish immigrants like my mother’s forebears brought wisps of words and phrases with them to America in the 18th century. When someone teased me in grammar school in the late 1950s, I retorted with the words my mother (of the clan Boyd) taught me: “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Imagine my delight to discover that Scottish children were spouting the same phrase in 1511. For fun, I started keeping a list of the poetic slurs Macpherson puts in the mouths of her backbiting Scottish women who fling them against their rivals – gilpie, cow-clink, clumsy kittok, skirling shrew, cankart carlin, dowdy dunnock, brazen besom, vauntie-flauntie, and skrinkie-faced with froggy eyes. And you feared First Trumpet would be some dull, pious, religious tract? You silly gowk!
First Trumpet is closer to bawdy, vulgar Shakespeare than Sir Walter Scott’s airy-fairy world of chivalric romance. Gluttonous Dame Janet, Elizabeth’s aunt and prioress of St. Mary’s Abbey, powders her face with white lead, plucks her eyebrows, and rouges her cheeks. Sucking on a marche de pain bonbon, she sets Elizabeth straight about love and marriage. Forget Lindsay and wedlock, she advises. “When you’re not bleeding you’re breeding.” Men aren’t to be trusted. “Every man is in thrall to his pistle.” Besides, what’s so great about fyking? “...a few spurts of pleasure for them mean untold grief and agony for us.” Better to be a nun than a wife. And if postulant Elizabeth gets the itch? No problem, just be cautious. “If you fancy a tumble in the hay with the stable lad, make sure you’re not bairnt.” After all, “…a quick fyke can be over in the wink of an eye, leaving a troutie in the well.” Like the well-fed prioress in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Macpherson’s worldly Janet is a memorable literary creation. Drooling over the fare at a feast, the prioress smacks her lips at the stag testicles poached in honeyed sauce, declaring, “Just how I like them: soft, squidgy and sweet. Tastier than a strumpet’s teats.” Victorian prudery is still 350 years into the British future. We’ve got brides’ cherries being picked; crowds marching upstairs to oogle the newlyweds as they consummate their marriage; legions of bastards being born “on the other side of the blanket”; and even get a frank lesson in female pleasuring. Who says history has to be boring? Characters are nuanced. You feel a twinge of sympathy for Prioress Janet. She never wanted to become a nun, any more than her brother, Elizabeth’s uncle John, wanted to become a priest and Prior of St. Mary’s. But someone in the Hepburn clan needed to step up so the family could retain control of the abbey’s wealth, lands, granaries, mills, orchards and breweries. “You maun dree your weird,” as the Scots say – you accept your fate; you endure your destiny. Likewise, Elizabeth will eventually take her vows, and succeed Janet; David Lindsay will sacrifice Elizabeth to serve the King.
And John Knox, finally making his late bow in the tale?
Saved at birth by a puff of breath into his lungs from nun Elizabeth, he becomes her godson and gravitates towards his own fate. Raised in her protective shadow, he trains for the priesthood but, offended by whoring monks and painted Janets, by simony and religious superstition, the young Knox falls under the spell of the Lollardy heresy and embraces the Protestant cause, determined to tear down Elizabeth’s all too-human church. Tellingly, he embraces Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. No amount of prayers or papal indulgences can change your fate. Instead, an inscrutable God decides each man’s destiny – heaven or hell – before they’re born.
The First Blast of the Trumpet is rich intellectual fare, and Macpherson thoughtfully includes a handy map of Scotland, family trees, and a complete cast of characters for the history-challenged. But any reader bringing to the novel a basic familiarity with the Western canon will quickly pick up the thread.
First Trumpet is double-timely. 2014 marks the 500th anniversary of Knox’s birth. It’s also the year Scottish voters determine the fate of their country. Will she remain united with England (which she joined in 1707) or regain her sovereignty? When the next installment of Macpherson’s captivating Knox Trilogy appears in bookstores, bonnie Scotland may once again be independent.
July 12, 2014
THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY (Book Review)
Luz de Maria is going nowhere.
Three, short chapters into author Carmen Amato’s gutty telenovela, her weary heroine leans against a bus window and stares out at Mexico City, a rundown, smog-choked metropolis of 28 million struggling souls.
“The bus passed block after block of sooty concrete cut into houses and shops and shanties and parking garages and mercados and schools and more shanties where people lived surrounded by hulks of old cars and plastic things no one bothered to throw away. Sometimes there wasn’t concrete for homes, just sheets of corrugated metal and big pieces of cardboard that would last until the next rainy season. It was the detritus of millions upon millions of people who had nowhere to go and nothing to do and were angry about it.”
Everyone is on the take. The police and government are corrupt; drug cartels battle and behead their rivals; the rich live behind 20-foot high walls topped with rolled barbed wire and security cameras; private police in bulletproof vests guard upscale malls while the pampered teens of the upper crust shop for their Prada totes and Hermes scarves ; drug money and dollars sent home from family members working legally and illegally in "El Norte" account for half the national income – and unmarried, 29-year old Luz de Maria Alba Mora, scraping by as a housemaid on $500 a month while struggling to support her brother and pregnant, unmarried sister, dreams of escaping the barrio for New York to become an artist.
You’re hooked.
Amato nails the gritty setting, the tug of a dream, and Luz’s despair at her dead-end job just before aristocratic, handsome Eduardo Cortez Castillo accidentally bumps into her and her sketchpad in Chapultepec Park, where both have gravitated to in their loneliness. Dressed in a well-cut leather blazer and a pair of Ray-Bans, hero “Eddo” is a (rare) honest detective, risking everything to investigate a powerful superior in the Ministry of Public Security suspected of drug-dealing with vicious narco-kingpin “El Toro.” It seems there’s hope for poor Mexico yet – and for our muchacha Luz who gets drawn into his dangerous world and his comforting arms. The next morning, he says he loves her and wants to see more of her. Dare she love him back? Mexico’s rigid class system looms disapprovingly. Eddo is castellano; he can trace his family’s roots back to royal Castile, home of kings and conquistadores. Luz is a mestizo of mixed Spanish-Indian blood, a domestic from the barrio. Mama Maria’s hard advice to her daughter? “You keep with your own kind.”
"The Hidden Light of Mexico City" is a gritty, political thriller – with dark, violent Mexico in the cross-hairs. It’s also 19th century Dickens redux. The great Victorian novelist knew how to create a commercial best-seller, but he also employed his pen to illuminate the crushing poverty, institutionalized social injustice, and stifling class system which defined Victorian England. Amato originally imagined Hidden Light as a non-fiction look at Mexico's social pyramid, and infuses her fictional novel with a similar, quiet, moral subtext. In Luz’s world, maids do the homework for their rich employers’ spoiled brats; mom irons 40 shirts a day for a miserable twenty cents each; cars left overnight on the street get stripped; you carry your money in a zippered sweatshirt to avoid pickpockets; the rich cut in line at the bank, confident the poor won’t make a peep; medical care is a crowded charity clinic; half the nation completes only six years of primary school (25 percent of adults are functionally illiterate); and everyone knows someone who’s tried to cross the border into "El Norte."
A lousy place to live poor, but great grist for a novel.
The next time drugs and immigration pop up on Fox or CNN, turn off the talking heads, pick up "Hidden Light,"" and let Luz de Maria explain to you why so many proud but discouraged mexicanos are dying – literally – to start a new life north of the border.
Amato lived ten years in Mexico and Central America. In addition to Hidden Light, she’s penned a suite of well-reviewed thrillers featuring a female cop in Acapulco simultaneously battling narco gangs and Mexico’s entrenched culture of machismo. The third and latest, Diablo Nights," just debuted on Amazon.com.
Three, short chapters into author Carmen Amato’s gutty telenovela, her weary heroine leans against a bus window and stares out at Mexico City, a rundown, smog-choked metropolis of 28 million struggling souls.
“The bus passed block after block of sooty concrete cut into houses and shops and shanties and parking garages and mercados and schools and more shanties where people lived surrounded by hulks of old cars and plastic things no one bothered to throw away. Sometimes there wasn’t concrete for homes, just sheets of corrugated metal and big pieces of cardboard that would last until the next rainy season. It was the detritus of millions upon millions of people who had nowhere to go and nothing to do and were angry about it.”
Everyone is on the take. The police and government are corrupt; drug cartels battle and behead their rivals; the rich live behind 20-foot high walls topped with rolled barbed wire and security cameras; private police in bulletproof vests guard upscale malls while the pampered teens of the upper crust shop for their Prada totes and Hermes scarves ; drug money and dollars sent home from family members working legally and illegally in "El Norte" account for half the national income – and unmarried, 29-year old Luz de Maria Alba Mora, scraping by as a housemaid on $500 a month while struggling to support her brother and pregnant, unmarried sister, dreams of escaping the barrio for New York to become an artist.
You’re hooked.
Amato nails the gritty setting, the tug of a dream, and Luz’s despair at her dead-end job just before aristocratic, handsome Eduardo Cortez Castillo accidentally bumps into her and her sketchpad in Chapultepec Park, where both have gravitated to in their loneliness. Dressed in a well-cut leather blazer and a pair of Ray-Bans, hero “Eddo” is a (rare) honest detective, risking everything to investigate a powerful superior in the Ministry of Public Security suspected of drug-dealing with vicious narco-kingpin “El Toro.” It seems there’s hope for poor Mexico yet – and for our muchacha Luz who gets drawn into his dangerous world and his comforting arms. The next morning, he says he loves her and wants to see more of her. Dare she love him back? Mexico’s rigid class system looms disapprovingly. Eddo is castellano; he can trace his family’s roots back to royal Castile, home of kings and conquistadores. Luz is a mestizo of mixed Spanish-Indian blood, a domestic from the barrio. Mama Maria’s hard advice to her daughter? “You keep with your own kind.”
"The Hidden Light of Mexico City" is a gritty, political thriller – with dark, violent Mexico in the cross-hairs. It’s also 19th century Dickens redux. The great Victorian novelist knew how to create a commercial best-seller, but he also employed his pen to illuminate the crushing poverty, institutionalized social injustice, and stifling class system which defined Victorian England. Amato originally imagined Hidden Light as a non-fiction look at Mexico's social pyramid, and infuses her fictional novel with a similar, quiet, moral subtext. In Luz’s world, maids do the homework for their rich employers’ spoiled brats; mom irons 40 shirts a day for a miserable twenty cents each; cars left overnight on the street get stripped; you carry your money in a zippered sweatshirt to avoid pickpockets; the rich cut in line at the bank, confident the poor won’t make a peep; medical care is a crowded charity clinic; half the nation completes only six years of primary school (25 percent of adults are functionally illiterate); and everyone knows someone who’s tried to cross the border into "El Norte."
A lousy place to live poor, but great grist for a novel.
The next time drugs and immigration pop up on Fox or CNN, turn off the talking heads, pick up "Hidden Light,"" and let Luz de Maria explain to you why so many proud but discouraged mexicanos are dying – literally – to start a new life north of the border.
Amato lived ten years in Mexico and Central America. In addition to Hidden Light, she’s penned a suite of well-reviewed thrillers featuring a female cop in Acapulco simultaneously battling narco gangs and Mexico’s entrenched culture of machismo. The third and latest, Diablo Nights," just debuted on Amazon.com.
June 29, 2014
SEX, SERIAL KILLERS, AND ESP
It sounds like an urban legend, like the alligator living in the city sewer. A woman about to go out on a date with a nicely-dressed man suddenly senses something horribly evil about him, cancels the date, and later discovers the man was a homicidal killer.
Could it be more than just a legend? Possibly.
When I was working on my book "The Gift: ESP," a friend of mine who owns a technology consulting company in Mystic, Connecticut, emailed me an account of a teenage girl in eastern Connecticut who reported using ESP to avoid a date with notorious serial killer Michael B. Ross.
"A number of years ago when my niece Cynthia was living with her parents as a fifteen year-old teenager, she hitchhiked a car ride home from a young man in his twenties," he wrote. "During the ride, they exchanged pleasantries and the man, named Michael, revealed that he was in the insurance business. Michael asked Cynthia for a dinner date and she accepted.
"When she told her parents an insurance man had asked her for a date, even though they didn't want her to go out with boys until age sixteen, they were delighted. Her mom had been anxious about the caliber of people that Cynthia chose to associate with. It was a typical concern that moms often have for teenage daughters, especially those who are as attractive and well developed as Cynthia was at this age. Her mom had seen Cynthia dropped off before by longhaired, tough guys on motorcycles, known for late nights and drinking. Getting a date with a guy who wore a suit and tie was a very welcome sign.
"When Michael arrived for the date, he was met by Cynthia's mother and father and was escorted into the living room to wait for Cynthia to finish getting ready. The parents were very impressed with Michael and were trying their best to make a good impression on him." When Cynthia finally joined everyone, before she could utter a word, her eye caught Michael's eye. She immediately retreated to her bedroom. Her confused parents tried to smooth over the social infraction, writing it off to the immature behavior of a teenager.
"After an uncomfortable ten minutes, her dad went to find Cynthia in her bedroom and encourage her to speed it up, as it was starting to get embarrassing. Cynthia said she was not going anywhere with Michael. She told her father there was something wrong with Michael, and she would not be with him alone. Her father pleaded with her, pressuring her to fulfill her commitment to the date. He finally demanded that she come out and tell her date directly.
"Cynthia composed herself and approached Michael with extended hand. She told him frankly that, while he was probably a very nice guy, she was sorry but there was something about him that made her very uncomfortable, and she didn't want to go alone with him. Michael left and never returned.
"Cynthia, who never locked or even closed her bedroom door before, locked the door and windows that night. Several years later Michael was on the front page of all the Connecticut papers.
"He was Michael Ross, the serial killer who murdered six young women in eastern Connecticut before he was caught."
It's a dramatic story, but it remains just that.
The Rhine Research Center's collection of over 14,000 spontaneous ESP experiences - the largest database of spontaneous ESP reports in the world - contains a small number of similar reports from women who believe ESP helped them avoid sexual predators intent on inflicting everything from date rape to murder. We featured over 200 stories from this collection in our book The Gift: ESP.
But in the introduction, we remind readers that these stories don’t constitute scientific proof for ESP. Proof can only be established in the laboratory, using repeatable experiments.
Stories like Cynthia's simply offer us food for thought – anecdotal evidence typically incomplete and heavily dependent on the honesty and the memory of the experiencer.
In Cynthia's case, however, the experience was dramatic enough to entice me into a little digging. Her story seems consistent with known facts.
Serial killer Michael Ross was born, lived, worked and killed six of his eight victims in a relatively confined area of eastern Connecticut - all within an hour of the town where Cynthia herself lived at the time of her encounter. Some snatchings were uncomfortably close. One 19 year-old girl was killed in the town of Norwich, a five-minute drive from Cynthia's house. Another four victims came from the town of Griswold, just 20 minutes down the road. Ross clearly trawled Cynthia's home turf for victims.
Ross primarily targeted teenage girls. Five of the six Connecticut victims were age 17 or younger (two were 14 years old). The 15 year-old Cynthia fits the profile of his preferred victim.
Ross grabbed all six Connecticut girls while they were hitchhiking or walking along the road, just like Cynthia was doing that day. Victim Robin Williams was last seen thumbing a ride when she disappeared; Deborah Taylor had run out of gas and was backtracking down the road to find a filling station when she was abducted; Wendy Baribeault was walking down State Highway 12 to a convenience store; April Brunais and Leslie Shelley were walking home from the movies together; Robin Stavinsky disappeared while hitchhiking in Norwich. Cynthia had skipped school that day and was hitchhiking to the mall.
Ross wasn't committing murder in the winter of 1979, when Cynthia had her encounter with the "insurance salesman." He killed his first known victim - a co-ed at Cornell - in Spring 1981, over a year later. But court documents do confirm that Ross was already stalking and raping women by 1979.
Still, some parts of her story puzzled me, so I phoned Cynthia.
The story sent to us didn't say anything about her ESP going off when he first picked her up. I found that somewhat odd.
Cynthia explained that she had sensed something very wrong with the man that day but didn't know how to extricate herself from the situation. "I didn't want to freak him out by asking him to let me out of the car. I felt very vulnerable." She filled in additional details of that day. The man said he would teach her how to drive a car, and they ended up in nearby, deserted Mohegan State Park - an ideal place for a rape if the stranger had that on his mind. But Cynthia's turn at the wheel was short-lived. The car skidded on the ice and she hit a guardrail. He seemed nervous about the car. She pointed out it was getting late and he said he would drive her home.
Why would she let him take her home? Wasn't she afraid he would find out where she lived? Cynthia had an explanation.
"The school books I had on the front seat of the car had my name on them. All he had to do was look up my address in the phone book. So he already knew how to find me. Also, it was late, and I needed to get home quickly. He couldn't return me to school, because I knew the school bus had already left for the afternoon." She had him drop her off across the street from her house, but her brother saw her get out of the car. When her parents asked about her ride, she told them he was a man she had met at their local hospital, where Cynthia sometimes volunteered as a Candy Striper. He was a nice guy, she reassured her parents. An insurance agent.
That turned out to be a mistake, and the reason Cynthia gives for her subsequent, puzzling agreement to go out on a date with him. Her parents were very excited that their rebellious daughter had finally found someone decent to go out with, instead of the bad crowd she hung around with. They pushed her to accept a date. She felt trapped. "I felt a tremendous pressure not to disappoint my parents," she says.
How eager were they to make it work? When her well-dressed date showed up at the house, her parents rolled out the red carpet for him - in this case, a seat of honor on the prize gold sofa in the formal living room the family used only for special occasions. Under this significant pressure, Cynthia was actually resigned to going through with the date until the moment when, "like the snap of a finger," she simply "knew" without the shadow of a doubt, the man she was looking at meant to do her harm. From that moment on, nothing her parents could say, or threaten, or do could make her leave the house with him. The next day, according to Cynthia's uncle Bob, her mom was on the phone to her sister bemoaning the "poor judgment" Cynthia exhibited by turning down such a "nice guy."
Coincidentally, shortly after my interview with Cynthia, I mentioned her experience to a friend of mine in Hawaii. It turned out that his brother, Patrick Clifford, was the Superior Court judge in New London, Connecticut who actually sentenced Michael Ross to death – and Judge Clifford had a strange experience of his own. At 2:01 AM, Friday, the 13th of May, 2005, the judge woke with a start from a deep sleep - at the precise moment they gave Ross the lethal injection at Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, Connecticut.
Psychic intuitions or impressions like the one Cynthia got are accompanied by a strong feeling of certainty, of conviction that the warning must be immediately acted upon. More intense conviction is associated with these sudden hunches, in fact, than with any other form of ESP. They're also quite common, making up about a third of the 14,000 reported spontaneous ESP experiences in the Rhine database.
In a neat bit of synchronicity, the day after I and my co-author shared Cynthia's scary story on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, a 58-year old woman who had been listening in Seattle sent us an email. Janet (not her real name) had her own story to share - one she says that has "haunted me for over 30 years."
It turned out to be another woman's possible brush with a serial killer.
"I was twenty four at that time, and living in Seattle, Washington in a suburban house on Sand Point Way, a busy road that leads from the U. of Washington to the north end of Seattle," Janet wrote. "It was Valentine's Day, 1969. I had been turning the soil over in my garden that morning. It began to rain so I went in the house for lunch. My dining table was by the window that looked out at ground level on the front walk I looked up and saw a really good looking, well-barbered, well-dressed young man standing at the window staring at me. I was married to a pretty disreputable hippie then, and the two of us lived a very uninhibited life style. The man staring in my window was a really good looking guy and in those days that was sometimes all the introduction necessary.
"In those days my boundary awareness was woefully lacking. I never locked my doors; friends were encouraged to just walk on in. I would open the door to strangers and chat with them. I was not the timid type. I even used to hitchhike down to San Francisco by myself. So nothing should have made me afraid of him. Yet something immediately compelled me to race to that door as fast as I could and put the chain on it. It was completely out of character for me. But I felt absolutely he was a danger to me.
"I opened the door a crack and asked the man what he wanted. He said he knew my husband, and that my husband had told him it would be OK to stop in and use our phone if he was in the area. The man said this in the most polite, sincere and charming way.
"I remember thinking I was being totally irrational, but the feeling of panic was simply overwhelming. I said 'No!' and slammed the door on him and locked it. He stood looking through the window as if he were weighing the situation. I went to the phone and picked it up; he could see me do it. As I began to dial, he ran - he didn't walk, he raced - to the street and I saw him jump into a light colored VW bug and drive off. Later, my husband said he had never met the man I described, let alone say he could use our phone. Shortly after that I left my husband and moved to Bainbridge Island.
"Five years later, when pictures of serial killer Ted Bundy started appearing in the media, I recognized the man who had come to my door.
"I sometimes lie awake at night and wonder why I was warned," she mused in her email. "There have been other instances of ESP in my life, but this one taught me to listen to that voice of warning. I am sure it saved my life." She added a P.S." Thanks for letting me tell you this, I have been carrying it around for years and haven't told it to many people - it almost is too unbelievable."
Fascinated by the similarity of Janet's experience to Cynthia's, I googled serial killer Ted Bundy's life.
Called the "poster boy for serial killers," Bundy admitted to killing 40 women in a dozen states over a period of four years in the 1970s. Matching up Janet's creepy experience with what I learned about Bundy's murderous method of operation, I discovered her description of the man she met and the events she described fit Bundy quite well.
At the time of the encounter, Janet matched Bundy's typical victim profile: young, Caucasian, light brown hair, parted in the middle.
Bundy was a student at the U. of Washington, and Sand Point Way is a major highway leading from the University to North Seattle. So it's likely he passed up and down the street Janet lived on.
Janet described the man at her door as "a really good-looking man" who spoke in a "polite, sincere, charming way." Almost everyone who encountered Bundy described him in the exact, same way. Stephen Michaud, author of "The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy," found women who met Bundy routinely described him as "sincere" and "courtly around women....More than one woman used the term ‘beautiful' to describe Ted Bundy." At his trial, groupies swooned and some women even sent him letters asking to marry him.
Janet didn't notice him until she saw him "standing at the window staring at me." Bundy admitted to the police that he often stalked the streets of the Seattle/Tacoma area - where Janet lived - "peeping into women's windows." When he stalked women, Bundy "approached them on a pretext," a method of operation eerily similar to Janet's stranger who tried to gain entry into her house by asking to "use the phone" since he was in the area.
Finally, when the panicked Janet picked up the phone, the stranger "ran to the street, and I saw him jump into a light-colored VW bug and drive off." According to Bundy biographer Michaud, "(Bundy's) happiest moment during his first year of college came when he bought a ‘58 Volkswagen bug for $400. The little car meant freedom to Ted. He could get in it and drive and be alone whenever he wanted, a reprise of his early boyhood when he and his collie, Lassie, would disappear out into the trees for hours. Ted loved VWs. He would own two in his life; the second one, a light brown ‘68, eventually would yield evidence of his secret life." The stranger Janet locked the door on not only drove a VW bug; it was a "light-colored" car. Janet was "90 percent sure it was him." She had been saved from Ted Bundy.
The evidence suggests it might have been him. But Janet is wise to leave a margin for doubt.
At one point, I was convinced it couldn't have been Bundy. According to one biography found on the Web, at the time Janet encountered the stranger knocking on her door, Feb. 14, 1969, serial killer Ted Bundy was supposedly living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, attending Temple University. It's hard to be in two places at once. Case closed?
Ironically, my co-author's good friend is well-known paranormal writer Leslie Rule, author of "Coast to Coast Ghosts," and "Ghosts Among Us: True Stories of Spirit Encounters." Her mother, best-selling crime writer Ann Rule, wrote the definitive biography of Ted Bundy, "The Stranger Beside Me." Hoping to confirm Bundy's whereabouts that Spring, I telephoned Leslie and asked if she could check with her mom. It turns out that Bundy did visit Philadelphia during that period, but there's no record of him spending all Spring there. Case re-opened a crack.
But Leslie added a word of caution. "When my mother's book came out, she got hundreds of stories from women who believed they had escaped death at the hands of Ted Bundy." A serial killer on the prowl can appear to be everywhere."
For her part, Janet knows who she saw that day. "The guy left an indelible picture in my memory from the incident." She majored in graphic design in college. "I am a very visual person. I remember people's faces, even when I meet them only once."
If Janet were wrong about the stranger being Bundy, might her intuition have still been right - that the polite, young man at the door, Bundy or not, intended to do her harm?
Janet reports a history of puzzling intuitions which have come true. "I have had many instances of 'knowing' - the account of the man at my window was of course the most dramatic," she explained to my co-author Dr. Feather in a follow-up email. "One very early instance I remember was as a child. My pet cat didn't come home one evening and my family was worried about her. I got a very clear picture in my mind of the cat lying on the side of the road above our house. I insisted that my dad go look there. He took a flashlight and found her exactly as I had said. Unfortunately she was dead - hit by a car. I had known that too, but I had so hoped it wasn't true.
"A happier incident was in 1990. I saw in one of our local stores a drawing for a trip to France. I have never really felt inclined to enter any contests but I 'knew' I would win this one. I told my husband as I was writing my information on the slip that we would be going to France. He thought I was silly. The day of the drawing came and went; I didn't hear anything and I was really very puzzled because I had seldom 'known' anything so acutely. Two days later the phone rang - it was the store congratulating me for winning the big prize. My husband doesn't doubt my 'knowings' anymore."
So the stranger at her door that Valentine's Day in 1969 could have meant her harm; she's had intuitions come true. But it's also possible that the young man really wanted nothing more than to make a phone call.
In the end, we're left hanging. Did Janet and Cynthia save themselves from death at the hands of two of America's most notorious serial killers, or simply chase off two poor souls frightened by false intuitions? Short of an expensive, time-consuming, professional investigation, we'll never know for certain.
One can understand why most parapsychologists, frustrated by such ultimately inconclusive human experiences, have turned for solace to the repeatable lab experiment. But leaving a large portion of reported reality unacknowledged and unexamined is fundamentally dishonest science, not to mention unfair to people like Janet and Cynthia who show the courage to share their experiences. One way or another, we must find a way to deal with these stories.
To paraphrase Fox Muldar, "The experiences are out there," they're in the millions, and they show no signs of going away.
Ironically, my investigation of Cynthia and Janet's experiences ended up being published in the Anomalist anthology "The Universe Wants to Play," but their stories still make me shiver.
Could it be more than just a legend? Possibly.
When I was working on my book "The Gift: ESP," a friend of mine who owns a technology consulting company in Mystic, Connecticut, emailed me an account of a teenage girl in eastern Connecticut who reported using ESP to avoid a date with notorious serial killer Michael B. Ross.
"A number of years ago when my niece Cynthia was living with her parents as a fifteen year-old teenager, she hitchhiked a car ride home from a young man in his twenties," he wrote. "During the ride, they exchanged pleasantries and the man, named Michael, revealed that he was in the insurance business. Michael asked Cynthia for a dinner date and she accepted.
"When she told her parents an insurance man had asked her for a date, even though they didn't want her to go out with boys until age sixteen, they were delighted. Her mom had been anxious about the caliber of people that Cynthia chose to associate with. It was a typical concern that moms often have for teenage daughters, especially those who are as attractive and well developed as Cynthia was at this age. Her mom had seen Cynthia dropped off before by longhaired, tough guys on motorcycles, known for late nights and drinking. Getting a date with a guy who wore a suit and tie was a very welcome sign.
"When Michael arrived for the date, he was met by Cynthia's mother and father and was escorted into the living room to wait for Cynthia to finish getting ready. The parents were very impressed with Michael and were trying their best to make a good impression on him." When Cynthia finally joined everyone, before she could utter a word, her eye caught Michael's eye. She immediately retreated to her bedroom. Her confused parents tried to smooth over the social infraction, writing it off to the immature behavior of a teenager.
"After an uncomfortable ten minutes, her dad went to find Cynthia in her bedroom and encourage her to speed it up, as it was starting to get embarrassing. Cynthia said she was not going anywhere with Michael. She told her father there was something wrong with Michael, and she would not be with him alone. Her father pleaded with her, pressuring her to fulfill her commitment to the date. He finally demanded that she come out and tell her date directly.
"Cynthia composed herself and approached Michael with extended hand. She told him frankly that, while he was probably a very nice guy, she was sorry but there was something about him that made her very uncomfortable, and she didn't want to go alone with him. Michael left and never returned.
"Cynthia, who never locked or even closed her bedroom door before, locked the door and windows that night. Several years later Michael was on the front page of all the Connecticut papers.
"He was Michael Ross, the serial killer who murdered six young women in eastern Connecticut before he was caught."
It's a dramatic story, but it remains just that.
The Rhine Research Center's collection of over 14,000 spontaneous ESP experiences - the largest database of spontaneous ESP reports in the world - contains a small number of similar reports from women who believe ESP helped them avoid sexual predators intent on inflicting everything from date rape to murder. We featured over 200 stories from this collection in our book The Gift: ESP.
But in the introduction, we remind readers that these stories don’t constitute scientific proof for ESP. Proof can only be established in the laboratory, using repeatable experiments.
Stories like Cynthia's simply offer us food for thought – anecdotal evidence typically incomplete and heavily dependent on the honesty and the memory of the experiencer.
In Cynthia's case, however, the experience was dramatic enough to entice me into a little digging. Her story seems consistent with known facts.
Serial killer Michael Ross was born, lived, worked and killed six of his eight victims in a relatively confined area of eastern Connecticut - all within an hour of the town where Cynthia herself lived at the time of her encounter. Some snatchings were uncomfortably close. One 19 year-old girl was killed in the town of Norwich, a five-minute drive from Cynthia's house. Another four victims came from the town of Griswold, just 20 minutes down the road. Ross clearly trawled Cynthia's home turf for victims.
Ross primarily targeted teenage girls. Five of the six Connecticut victims were age 17 or younger (two were 14 years old). The 15 year-old Cynthia fits the profile of his preferred victim.
Ross grabbed all six Connecticut girls while they were hitchhiking or walking along the road, just like Cynthia was doing that day. Victim Robin Williams was last seen thumbing a ride when she disappeared; Deborah Taylor had run out of gas and was backtracking down the road to find a filling station when she was abducted; Wendy Baribeault was walking down State Highway 12 to a convenience store; April Brunais and Leslie Shelley were walking home from the movies together; Robin Stavinsky disappeared while hitchhiking in Norwich. Cynthia had skipped school that day and was hitchhiking to the mall.
Ross wasn't committing murder in the winter of 1979, when Cynthia had her encounter with the "insurance salesman." He killed his first known victim - a co-ed at Cornell - in Spring 1981, over a year later. But court documents do confirm that Ross was already stalking and raping women by 1979.
Still, some parts of her story puzzled me, so I phoned Cynthia.
The story sent to us didn't say anything about her ESP going off when he first picked her up. I found that somewhat odd.
Cynthia explained that she had sensed something very wrong with the man that day but didn't know how to extricate herself from the situation. "I didn't want to freak him out by asking him to let me out of the car. I felt very vulnerable." She filled in additional details of that day. The man said he would teach her how to drive a car, and they ended up in nearby, deserted Mohegan State Park - an ideal place for a rape if the stranger had that on his mind. But Cynthia's turn at the wheel was short-lived. The car skidded on the ice and she hit a guardrail. He seemed nervous about the car. She pointed out it was getting late and he said he would drive her home.
Why would she let him take her home? Wasn't she afraid he would find out where she lived? Cynthia had an explanation.
"The school books I had on the front seat of the car had my name on them. All he had to do was look up my address in the phone book. So he already knew how to find me. Also, it was late, and I needed to get home quickly. He couldn't return me to school, because I knew the school bus had already left for the afternoon." She had him drop her off across the street from her house, but her brother saw her get out of the car. When her parents asked about her ride, she told them he was a man she had met at their local hospital, where Cynthia sometimes volunteered as a Candy Striper. He was a nice guy, she reassured her parents. An insurance agent.
That turned out to be a mistake, and the reason Cynthia gives for her subsequent, puzzling agreement to go out on a date with him. Her parents were very excited that their rebellious daughter had finally found someone decent to go out with, instead of the bad crowd she hung around with. They pushed her to accept a date. She felt trapped. "I felt a tremendous pressure not to disappoint my parents," she says.
How eager were they to make it work? When her well-dressed date showed up at the house, her parents rolled out the red carpet for him - in this case, a seat of honor on the prize gold sofa in the formal living room the family used only for special occasions. Under this significant pressure, Cynthia was actually resigned to going through with the date until the moment when, "like the snap of a finger," she simply "knew" without the shadow of a doubt, the man she was looking at meant to do her harm. From that moment on, nothing her parents could say, or threaten, or do could make her leave the house with him. The next day, according to Cynthia's uncle Bob, her mom was on the phone to her sister bemoaning the "poor judgment" Cynthia exhibited by turning down such a "nice guy."
Coincidentally, shortly after my interview with Cynthia, I mentioned her experience to a friend of mine in Hawaii. It turned out that his brother, Patrick Clifford, was the Superior Court judge in New London, Connecticut who actually sentenced Michael Ross to death – and Judge Clifford had a strange experience of his own. At 2:01 AM, Friday, the 13th of May, 2005, the judge woke with a start from a deep sleep - at the precise moment they gave Ross the lethal injection at Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, Connecticut.
Psychic intuitions or impressions like the one Cynthia got are accompanied by a strong feeling of certainty, of conviction that the warning must be immediately acted upon. More intense conviction is associated with these sudden hunches, in fact, than with any other form of ESP. They're also quite common, making up about a third of the 14,000 reported spontaneous ESP experiences in the Rhine database.
In a neat bit of synchronicity, the day after I and my co-author shared Cynthia's scary story on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, a 58-year old woman who had been listening in Seattle sent us an email. Janet (not her real name) had her own story to share - one she says that has "haunted me for over 30 years."
It turned out to be another woman's possible brush with a serial killer.
"I was twenty four at that time, and living in Seattle, Washington in a suburban house on Sand Point Way, a busy road that leads from the U. of Washington to the north end of Seattle," Janet wrote. "It was Valentine's Day, 1969. I had been turning the soil over in my garden that morning. It began to rain so I went in the house for lunch. My dining table was by the window that looked out at ground level on the front walk I looked up and saw a really good looking, well-barbered, well-dressed young man standing at the window staring at me. I was married to a pretty disreputable hippie then, and the two of us lived a very uninhibited life style. The man staring in my window was a really good looking guy and in those days that was sometimes all the introduction necessary.
"In those days my boundary awareness was woefully lacking. I never locked my doors; friends were encouraged to just walk on in. I would open the door to strangers and chat with them. I was not the timid type. I even used to hitchhike down to San Francisco by myself. So nothing should have made me afraid of him. Yet something immediately compelled me to race to that door as fast as I could and put the chain on it. It was completely out of character for me. But I felt absolutely he was a danger to me.
"I opened the door a crack and asked the man what he wanted. He said he knew my husband, and that my husband had told him it would be OK to stop in and use our phone if he was in the area. The man said this in the most polite, sincere and charming way.
"I remember thinking I was being totally irrational, but the feeling of panic was simply overwhelming. I said 'No!' and slammed the door on him and locked it. He stood looking through the window as if he were weighing the situation. I went to the phone and picked it up; he could see me do it. As I began to dial, he ran - he didn't walk, he raced - to the street and I saw him jump into a light colored VW bug and drive off. Later, my husband said he had never met the man I described, let alone say he could use our phone. Shortly after that I left my husband and moved to Bainbridge Island.
"Five years later, when pictures of serial killer Ted Bundy started appearing in the media, I recognized the man who had come to my door.
"I sometimes lie awake at night and wonder why I was warned," she mused in her email. "There have been other instances of ESP in my life, but this one taught me to listen to that voice of warning. I am sure it saved my life." She added a P.S." Thanks for letting me tell you this, I have been carrying it around for years and haven't told it to many people - it almost is too unbelievable."
Fascinated by the similarity of Janet's experience to Cynthia's, I googled serial killer Ted Bundy's life.
Called the "poster boy for serial killers," Bundy admitted to killing 40 women in a dozen states over a period of four years in the 1970s. Matching up Janet's creepy experience with what I learned about Bundy's murderous method of operation, I discovered her description of the man she met and the events she described fit Bundy quite well.
At the time of the encounter, Janet matched Bundy's typical victim profile: young, Caucasian, light brown hair, parted in the middle.
Bundy was a student at the U. of Washington, and Sand Point Way is a major highway leading from the University to North Seattle. So it's likely he passed up and down the street Janet lived on.
Janet described the man at her door as "a really good-looking man" who spoke in a "polite, sincere, charming way." Almost everyone who encountered Bundy described him in the exact, same way. Stephen Michaud, author of "The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy," found women who met Bundy routinely described him as "sincere" and "courtly around women....More than one woman used the term ‘beautiful' to describe Ted Bundy." At his trial, groupies swooned and some women even sent him letters asking to marry him.
Janet didn't notice him until she saw him "standing at the window staring at me." Bundy admitted to the police that he often stalked the streets of the Seattle/Tacoma area - where Janet lived - "peeping into women's windows." When he stalked women, Bundy "approached them on a pretext," a method of operation eerily similar to Janet's stranger who tried to gain entry into her house by asking to "use the phone" since he was in the area.
Finally, when the panicked Janet picked up the phone, the stranger "ran to the street, and I saw him jump into a light-colored VW bug and drive off." According to Bundy biographer Michaud, "(Bundy's) happiest moment during his first year of college came when he bought a ‘58 Volkswagen bug for $400. The little car meant freedom to Ted. He could get in it and drive and be alone whenever he wanted, a reprise of his early boyhood when he and his collie, Lassie, would disappear out into the trees for hours. Ted loved VWs. He would own two in his life; the second one, a light brown ‘68, eventually would yield evidence of his secret life." The stranger Janet locked the door on not only drove a VW bug; it was a "light-colored" car. Janet was "90 percent sure it was him." She had been saved from Ted Bundy.
The evidence suggests it might have been him. But Janet is wise to leave a margin for doubt.
At one point, I was convinced it couldn't have been Bundy. According to one biography found on the Web, at the time Janet encountered the stranger knocking on her door, Feb. 14, 1969, serial killer Ted Bundy was supposedly living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, attending Temple University. It's hard to be in two places at once. Case closed?
Ironically, my co-author's good friend is well-known paranormal writer Leslie Rule, author of "Coast to Coast Ghosts," and "Ghosts Among Us: True Stories of Spirit Encounters." Her mother, best-selling crime writer Ann Rule, wrote the definitive biography of Ted Bundy, "The Stranger Beside Me." Hoping to confirm Bundy's whereabouts that Spring, I telephoned Leslie and asked if she could check with her mom. It turns out that Bundy did visit Philadelphia during that period, but there's no record of him spending all Spring there. Case re-opened a crack.
But Leslie added a word of caution. "When my mother's book came out, she got hundreds of stories from women who believed they had escaped death at the hands of Ted Bundy." A serial killer on the prowl can appear to be everywhere."
For her part, Janet knows who she saw that day. "The guy left an indelible picture in my memory from the incident." She majored in graphic design in college. "I am a very visual person. I remember people's faces, even when I meet them only once."
If Janet were wrong about the stranger being Bundy, might her intuition have still been right - that the polite, young man at the door, Bundy or not, intended to do her harm?
Janet reports a history of puzzling intuitions which have come true. "I have had many instances of 'knowing' - the account of the man at my window was of course the most dramatic," she explained to my co-author Dr. Feather in a follow-up email. "One very early instance I remember was as a child. My pet cat didn't come home one evening and my family was worried about her. I got a very clear picture in my mind of the cat lying on the side of the road above our house. I insisted that my dad go look there. He took a flashlight and found her exactly as I had said. Unfortunately she was dead - hit by a car. I had known that too, but I had so hoped it wasn't true.
"A happier incident was in 1990. I saw in one of our local stores a drawing for a trip to France. I have never really felt inclined to enter any contests but I 'knew' I would win this one. I told my husband as I was writing my information on the slip that we would be going to France. He thought I was silly. The day of the drawing came and went; I didn't hear anything and I was really very puzzled because I had seldom 'known' anything so acutely. Two days later the phone rang - it was the store congratulating me for winning the big prize. My husband doesn't doubt my 'knowings' anymore."
So the stranger at her door that Valentine's Day in 1969 could have meant her harm; she's had intuitions come true. But it's also possible that the young man really wanted nothing more than to make a phone call.
In the end, we're left hanging. Did Janet and Cynthia save themselves from death at the hands of two of America's most notorious serial killers, or simply chase off two poor souls frightened by false intuitions? Short of an expensive, time-consuming, professional investigation, we'll never know for certain.
One can understand why most parapsychologists, frustrated by such ultimately inconclusive human experiences, have turned for solace to the repeatable lab experiment. But leaving a large portion of reported reality unacknowledged and unexamined is fundamentally dishonest science, not to mention unfair to people like Janet and Cynthia who show the courage to share their experiences. One way or another, we must find a way to deal with these stories.
To paraphrase Fox Muldar, "The experiences are out there," they're in the millions, and they show no signs of going away.
Ironically, my investigation of Cynthia and Janet's experiences ended up being published in the Anomalist anthology "The Universe Wants to Play," but their stories still make me shiver.
June 15, 2014
Brown-nosing the Nazis (Book Review)
Before I swiped the first page of Liza Perrat’s captivating novel of Occupied France, I already knew I would enjoy it.
“Wolfsangel” is in my wheelhouse.
I’m fascinated with World War II, familiar with the sordid story of French Marshal Petain and his puppet Vichy government’s collaboration with the Nazis, and lived two months in the Rhone-Alpes region of France where Perrat sets her colorful roman-a-clef.
In 1967, I was an American college student determined to push my schoolbook French beyond “bon jour,” and spent that summer in a tiny village in the Loire, working as a personal chauffeur and companion for Madame A_____, an imperious, 70-year old, aristocratic widow whose ancient and noble family owned most of the commune. Each June, she departed her elegant city apartment in Lyon and traveled 75 kilometers back to her 30-room ancestral chateau to pass the summer. She didn’t drive of course – that was my job, along with picking up her croissants at the patisserie, and formally dining with her each evening. We sat there three hours nightly, just the two of us, working our way through the soup to nuts repast, me dutifully filling my notebook with French expressions while Madame discoursed on Jacques Maritain and excoriated Danny the Red, the Marxist-anarchist student leader whose antics that summer filled the pages of the Paris newspapers. Madame was staunchly Catholic, socially conservative, and her late husband – a Supreme Court lawyer and Chevalier de la Legion d’honneur – had worked for the government. Her natural sympathies lay with law and order, and though she declined to talk about the recent war, I suspect they supported Petain and the Vichy government during the Occupation.
Who did exactly what during the Occupation remains a touchy subject in France.
French citizens faced three choices following the spectacular, sudden, and humiliating collapse in June 1940 of the French army: They could join the Resistance; collaborate with the Germans; or simply keep their heads down, shut up, stay out of the way, and survive. The list of heroes is short, and many prefer to forget, but French historians like Henry Rousso, author of “The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944,” have forced the country to look itself in the mirror.
Celeste Roussel, the plucky, impatient narrator of “Wolfsangel “ knows what she wants to do – join the Resistance. Her brother Patrick and his male friends are blowing up Bouche trains; her saintly, older sister, a nun, is hiding Jews and guns in the local convent.
Celeste’s sour maman, hiding a secret of her own, is determined to wait it out on the sidelines until the Allied army, pushing up through Italy, can arrive and liberate the village. The Vichy government has dragooned her husband to work in Germany, leaving her to support Celeste and the family. She’s an herbalist (legal) dispensing omelets of oats and sawdust to cure snake bites; but also an abortionist (illegal), a “maker of angels,” as the unique French expression goes, using soapy water and a brew of mugwort and rue to terminate pregnancies. If she’s caught, she’s done for. Performing an abortion was a capital crime under the harsh natal laws enacted by the Vichy government – in 1943, convicted abortionist Marie-Louise Giraud famously lost her head to the guillotine. Petain and Hitler shared the belief that the primary duty of patriotic women was to produce cannon fodder for their country. Some of maman’s clients are getting pregnant by village boys; others by the occupying German soldiers. Human nature. They’re lonely perhaps – plus, fraternizing with the enemy earns you chocolate, lipstick and nylons.
When the local Resistance assigns Celeste to chat up German officer Martin Diehl to collect intelligence, she also finds herself falling for the handsome, seemingly honorable soldier who only wants to get back home to Germany, and the novel takes off.
Celeste and Martin surreptitiously hide notes for each other behind the cistern in the toilet of the Au Cochon Tue bar, and secretly rendezvous in the woods. They have sex, but she’s troubled. Is he simply using her? Will she slip and betray information that will compromise lives? Can she ever truly love a man who serves, even reluctantly and indirectly, a Nazi evil which imprisons and tortures her brother? And what if she’s seen by someone in the village who mistakes her for a collaborator? Perrat lets Celeste explore her increasingly confused feelings with the reader as she deepens her involvement in the Resistance, Martin turns jealous and suspicious, and General Eisenhower successfully executes his monumental gamble at Normandy. Everyone in the village of Lucie-sur-Vionne now knows that the Germans will pull out.
At this critical moment, with victory in sight, Celeste Roussel commits the mistake of her life. Perrat’s final chapters sing – taut, tense writing, clocked down by the minute, until the story reaches its horrific conclusion.
Oddly enough, the author of this novel of Occupied France is Australian.
Perrat, a nurse and midwife, met her husband on a bus in Bangkok, Thailand, but she’s lived in France for twenty years now. Her assimilation is complete. She tosses singularly French cuisine references into her tale – “tripe gratin, lamb’s foot salad and clafoutis moist with cherries.” She evokes south France in a simple phrase, describing “the scent of lavender, peppermint and thyme” that clings perpetually to maman’s apron. She uses all five senses in her writing. Early in the novel, Celeste goes skinny-dipping in the river, then dries herself on the bank in the summer sunshine. “It was so quiet I could hear the flutter of feathers in nests, the sound of pecking on bark, the fidgeting of insects in the grass.” For the lover of history, there’s ersatz café Petain; brushes with the Milice, the infamous French SS equivalent; and French Jews filling railroad cars bound for concentration camp.
For the student of the French language there’s some choice slang. Madame A_____ taught me a lot of French that summer, but she didn’t deign to share vulgarisms. Perrat taught me a winner. Celeste’s brother Patrick confronts a village girl, cozy with a German soldier, who defends grandpa Petain and the Vichy collaborationists.
“You’re nothing but a Nazi leche-cul,” he spits back.
Love it! Just don’t tell Madame I’ve added it to my vocabulary.
“Wolfsangel” is in my wheelhouse.
I’m fascinated with World War II, familiar with the sordid story of French Marshal Petain and his puppet Vichy government’s collaboration with the Nazis, and lived two months in the Rhone-Alpes region of France where Perrat sets her colorful roman-a-clef.
In 1967, I was an American college student determined to push my schoolbook French beyond “bon jour,” and spent that summer in a tiny village in the Loire, working as a personal chauffeur and companion for Madame A_____, an imperious, 70-year old, aristocratic widow whose ancient and noble family owned most of the commune. Each June, she departed her elegant city apartment in Lyon and traveled 75 kilometers back to her 30-room ancestral chateau to pass the summer. She didn’t drive of course – that was my job, along with picking up her croissants at the patisserie, and formally dining with her each evening. We sat there three hours nightly, just the two of us, working our way through the soup to nuts repast, me dutifully filling my notebook with French expressions while Madame discoursed on Jacques Maritain and excoriated Danny the Red, the Marxist-anarchist student leader whose antics that summer filled the pages of the Paris newspapers. Madame was staunchly Catholic, socially conservative, and her late husband – a Supreme Court lawyer and Chevalier de la Legion d’honneur – had worked for the government. Her natural sympathies lay with law and order, and though she declined to talk about the recent war, I suspect they supported Petain and the Vichy government during the Occupation.
Who did exactly what during the Occupation remains a touchy subject in France.
French citizens faced three choices following the spectacular, sudden, and humiliating collapse in June 1940 of the French army: They could join the Resistance; collaborate with the Germans; or simply keep their heads down, shut up, stay out of the way, and survive. The list of heroes is short, and many prefer to forget, but French historians like Henry Rousso, author of “The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944,” have forced the country to look itself in the mirror.
Celeste Roussel, the plucky, impatient narrator of “Wolfsangel “ knows what she wants to do – join the Resistance. Her brother Patrick and his male friends are blowing up Bouche trains; her saintly, older sister, a nun, is hiding Jews and guns in the local convent.
Celeste’s sour maman, hiding a secret of her own, is determined to wait it out on the sidelines until the Allied army, pushing up through Italy, can arrive and liberate the village. The Vichy government has dragooned her husband to work in Germany, leaving her to support Celeste and the family. She’s an herbalist (legal) dispensing omelets of oats and sawdust to cure snake bites; but also an abortionist (illegal), a “maker of angels,” as the unique French expression goes, using soapy water and a brew of mugwort and rue to terminate pregnancies. If she’s caught, she’s done for. Performing an abortion was a capital crime under the harsh natal laws enacted by the Vichy government – in 1943, convicted abortionist Marie-Louise Giraud famously lost her head to the guillotine. Petain and Hitler shared the belief that the primary duty of patriotic women was to produce cannon fodder for their country. Some of maman’s clients are getting pregnant by village boys; others by the occupying German soldiers. Human nature. They’re lonely perhaps – plus, fraternizing with the enemy earns you chocolate, lipstick and nylons.
When the local Resistance assigns Celeste to chat up German officer Martin Diehl to collect intelligence, she also finds herself falling for the handsome, seemingly honorable soldier who only wants to get back home to Germany, and the novel takes off.
Celeste and Martin surreptitiously hide notes for each other behind the cistern in the toilet of the Au Cochon Tue bar, and secretly rendezvous in the woods. They have sex, but she’s troubled. Is he simply using her? Will she slip and betray information that will compromise lives? Can she ever truly love a man who serves, even reluctantly and indirectly, a Nazi evil which imprisons and tortures her brother? And what if she’s seen by someone in the village who mistakes her for a collaborator? Perrat lets Celeste explore her increasingly confused feelings with the reader as she deepens her involvement in the Resistance, Martin turns jealous and suspicious, and General Eisenhower successfully executes his monumental gamble at Normandy. Everyone in the village of Lucie-sur-Vionne now knows that the Germans will pull out.
At this critical moment, with victory in sight, Celeste Roussel commits the mistake of her life. Perrat’s final chapters sing – taut, tense writing, clocked down by the minute, until the story reaches its horrific conclusion.
Oddly enough, the author of this novel of Occupied France is Australian.
Perrat, a nurse and midwife, met her husband on a bus in Bangkok, Thailand, but she’s lived in France for twenty years now. Her assimilation is complete. She tosses singularly French cuisine references into her tale – “tripe gratin, lamb’s foot salad and clafoutis moist with cherries.” She evokes south France in a simple phrase, describing “the scent of lavender, peppermint and thyme” that clings perpetually to maman’s apron. She uses all five senses in her writing. Early in the novel, Celeste goes skinny-dipping in the river, then dries herself on the bank in the summer sunshine. “It was so quiet I could hear the flutter of feathers in nests, the sound of pecking on bark, the fidgeting of insects in the grass.” For the lover of history, there’s ersatz café Petain; brushes with the Milice, the infamous French SS equivalent; and French Jews filling railroad cars bound for concentration camp.
For the student of the French language there’s some choice slang. Madame A_____ taught me a lot of French that summer, but she didn’t deign to share vulgarisms. Perrat taught me a winner. Celeste’s brother Patrick confronts a village girl, cozy with a German soldier, who defends grandpa Petain and the Vichy collaborationists.
“You’re nothing but a Nazi leche-cul,” he spits back.
Love it! Just don’t tell Madame I’ve added it to my vocabulary.
