David Schwinghammer's Blog, page 12

Vinegar Girl

Tyler wrote VINEGAR GIRL for the Hogarth Shakespeare project. It is based on “The Taming of the Shrew”.

Kate Battista is the Kate from the original play. Having quit college in her sophomore year, she has a job as a preschool assistant teacher for four-year olds. At first she is intriguingly sarcastic as when a parent complains that her daughter is sucking her index and pinky finger. Kate advises him to have patience; she'll get over it when she pokes out her eye. As a result, Kate is always in the principal's office being threatened with termination if she doesn't mend her ways. Kate hates herself because she has a crush on one of her fellow teachers, Adam. She doesn't see herself as the kind of girl who gets all calf-eyed when a man is around, but she kind of does.

Then her scientist father comes to her with a request. Will she agree to marry his assistant Pyotr Shcherbakov who will lose his visa within the year? He is close to a cure for auto-immune deficiency, and he considers Pyotr indispensable to his research. This is where the story starts going down hill. Kate agrees to do it. Her sister, Bunny, who is sort of an empty-headed, boy-crazy fourteen-year, is outraged that her father would ask Kate to do this, which is way out of character. Pyotr is a hoot. He gets a kick out of American sayings like “Step up to the plate.” He thinks it means step up to the dinner plate. He always seems to be in a good mood; he even gets along with his land lady and her caretaker, and he has permission to plant a garden in the backyard, which Kate would love, as she was studying Botany. We never do find out why she quit, although Pyotr is about to ask her at one point. He wants her to go back to school at Johns Hopkins near where they live. Okay, by now you know where this is going. Kate doesn't have any friends; she's walks around with her head down, hoping people won't try to talk to her.

So . . . what do you think will happen? This book isn't up to Tyler's standards in nuance and unpredictability. It was obvious written for that Shakespeare project, and she didn't put her whole heart and soul into it.

Dark Matter

In order to get the most out of Crouch's DARK MATTER, the reader should be familiar with String theory or M theory. A good source might be Michio Kaku's PARALLEL WORLDS, in which he posits the possibility of parallel universes.

But this is fiction, so it seems a little extreme at moments when all the Jason Dresson clones start popping up, in search of his wife Daniela and his son, Charlie. Jason Dresson was a brilliant scientist who was working on this cube-like device that would allow people to enter a box and visit parallel worlds, where they'd find themselves living a different life. Jason's big decision was to marry Daniela and give up his super star status as the next Einstein. He chose the life of a physics professor and Daniela, while his friend, Brian Holder, got the scientific accolades. Even Brian feels Jason was the one who should've received the awards. Jason attends a celebration for Brian; on his way home, he's kidnapped and wakes up battered and blue in another universe. He's a hero there because he's the first to return from an episode inside the box. But he escapes, visits his former home where he lived with Daniela and Charlie, but everything is a bit off. It smells like loneliness and everything is a bit too ritzy for a college professor.

Eventually Jason finds out he was kidnapped by himself, a man he calls Jason 2, who made the opposite decision he made on Earth. He chose the scientific career and invented the multi-universe box, but then he observed Jason 1's life in Chicago with Daniela and Charlie and was jealous. So . . . he took Jason's place.

In Jason's new world Daniela is a famous artist. He has a romantic interlude with her, but she's not HIS Daniela. The leaders in Jason new world are willing to do anything to keep the box, including pulling a Darth Cheney on Jason; you know the torture route. Amanda, one of the aides feels sorry for him, helps him enter the box, and they begin to open doors. They find places that are too cold, other places that are suffering from a deadly pestilence. Finally they realize that you have to be in the right frame of mind to find the world you're after, but something is always just a little bit off. I'll let you read the book to find out how Jason finds his original home.

There's not enough science in this book. If you've never heard of String Theory, you'll think it's not even good science fiction. As I said above, other Jasons start to show up looking for Daniela. There are hundreds of them, and they seen to anticipate Jason 1's every move. They're terrible people. They're willing to kill to get what they want. They kill each other; one would think they'd retain some of Jason 1's basic goodness, which Daniela fell in love with.

I have never had it clearly explained to me, not even after reading Kaku, why a version of ourselves would exist in these other universes. I understand that there may have been more than one Big Bang or maybe lots of them, which would explain the parallel universes, but why would we exist in these places as president of the United States or head of a giant corporation or maybe even as a member of the opposite sex or a homeless person. If you can think of it, it exists on another planet in another universe. Don't scoff. The mathematical formula works. Einstein worked his entire career to find a theory of everything, which made the macroverse (the solar systems, the stars, the galaxies) and the microverse (atoms, protons, quarks) jive. He never found it, but String Theory seems to explain them both, only with ten dimensions (in some versions) seven we can't see.

The Bell

I had read in several places that Iris Murdoch was one of our better short story writers, but when I looked all I could find were novels. And so I chose THE BELL, not a wise choice.

I also read in her bio that she had been a philosophy professor at Oxford for many years. Oh, boy, I'm in for some solid theorizing about the human psyche. No such luck, unless you consider religion an intriguing topic.

The story starts with Dora Greenfield joining her husband Paul at an Anglican lay community attached to a convent, where the nuns sound like the Poor Claires. They never come out of the abbey. Paul, Dora's former art teacher, is studying a fourteenth century manuscript at the convent. At one point he tells her, “I love you, but I don't respect you.” She doesn't respect herself much either, or she wouldn't put up with that.

Michael Meade is the other major character. He is the head of the lay community, but for years he has been struggling with his homosexuality. He thinks he's got it under control. He's never really acted on this predilection, but he's come close with Nick Fawkes, a former student, who turned him in for holding hands. At least that's all he ever admitted to. Nick is at the lay community to be with his twin sister, Catherine, who is joining the nunnery. For some insane reason he is given a roommate, Toby, an eighteen-year-old, who's just there to check the place out before attending his first year of college. But it's Michael who gives in to his urges after he and Toby spend the afternoon together. He gives in to an impulse to kiss Toby, and Toby, who hasn't had any experience with either sex, is confused. He thinks about all the women he knows and how he feels about them. Catherine is too cold; he settles on Dora; she turns him on. Then he goes swimming one day and finds the ancient convent bell, mired in the muck. The convent has invested in a new bell and there's an installation ceremony coming up. Dora wants to pull a switch and be given credit for pulling off a sort of miracle.

Okay, so this novel is about how even religious characters struggle with their foibles. No big surprise there, eh? But Murdoch knows she's got to pull a twist here and there. Events don't turn out as planned. There's a suicide and a near suicide. The ending just fades away. Things are looking up for Dora, but Michael tells her she should go back to her husband eventually. No way, Jose. If these were real people, I would hope she'd never do that. Will this community survive? The question I had was “What the heck was the bell doing in the lake in the first place?” Murdoch mentions a legend, but it impressed me so much I don't remember what it was, and there's no way I'm going through 296 pages of small print to find it.
Almost forgot, there's an introduction by A.S. Byatt, the Booker Prize winner. Don't read it. It's esoteric. This book was published in 1958. There are indications that Murdoch may have been religious herself, so that might explain why she cares about a group of lay Anglicans connected to a convent. I didn't care about any of them, beyond being fellow humans, that is.

Barkskins

BARKSKINS is Annie Proulx's opus about lumber barons and the destruction they've caused, not only in the U.S. but worldwide.

The novel starts with two indentured servants, Rene' Sells and Charles Duquet, landing in New France (Canada) in the early 17th century. They've traded three years of lumber cutting for their passage and a chance to own land. Sells marries a Mi'kmaw woman and starts the Native American line of descendants. Duquet runs away almost immediately and begins to establish connections with lumber companies. He has a knack for business. Both come to horrific ends.

Proulx's novel will remind you of James Michener's massive tomes. It took me a month to read. It is extremely hard to keep track of the characters. Luckily Proulx provides a family tree at the end for each of the original characters. Interestingly they reconnect later in the story, when Kuntaw, Rene's grandson, marries Beatrix Duquet.

Charles Duquet had a son and a daughter, but his adopted sons later become the leaders of Duke lumber company. Nicholas and Mercy produce Sedley, the more conservative of the third generation who eventually runs the company. His son James is sent off to sea as a young teenager. He barely knows his father. When his father dies, James is a ship's captain. He returns home for his father's funeral and almost drowns, saved by the daunting Posey Breeley. He wants her bad, and she knows he's got lots of money. He's inherited half the company. This is where one of the Duke family murders occurs (there are a lot of them); you see, Posey is already married. She may have been molested by her own father, and she treats her husband like he's the girl.

James and Posey have a daughter, Lavinia, who's a chip off the old feminine block, only she has the business acumen of a man, and it's not long before she's running the company.

Early on the characters (or I should say Proulx) makes a point of saying that the forests of New Brunswick, Maine, and Michigan are so massive that they'll never run out of trees. Of course they do. Luckily Lavinia marries a forester from Germany, Dieter Breitsprecher. He tries to save the forests; she humors him. At one point the Duke company hears about the fabulous trees of New Zealand. During a dry spell for the Duke company, she has most of the huge Kauri trees cut down, leaving, unintentionally, a small preserve.

Lavinia makes a mistake prior to her marriage. She has no family. She's worried about an heir, so she hires two detectives to find a distant relative. He unearths the Sell family; when she finds out they're Indians, she destroys the evidence. But they pop up again later, which leads to another murder.

The last part of the book is about the descendants of the Sell family and even some of the Duke family trying to preserve what's left of the forests. They know about the Amazon bason's billions of trees. Surely no one could possibly cut them all down before they grew back. I recently heard that 40% of the world's oxygen comes from the rain forests, and we all know what's happening in Brazil. Read the handwriting. This book isn't much for characterization or plot; it's all about theme, hence the unusual title.

As Good As Gone

AS GOOD AS GONE is set in 1963. Calvin Sidey, who's been pretty much a hermit since his French wife died has been called home to take care of his grandchildren while his son Bill accompanies his wife to Missoula for an operation.

It's surprising that Calvin agrees since he left his family when his wife died, but he's in his seventies and thinks it wouldn't be so bad to reenter civilization in his declining years. Meanwhile his grandson Will is having trouble with his so-called friends who want to get a look at his sister naked through her bedroom window. They've got a plan, and he has one to stop them. The other grandchild is being stalked by her ex-boyfriend who was an ideal mannerly boyfriend until he wouldn't take “no” for an answer.

Calvin also establishes an intimate relationship with the woman next door, Beverly, who doesn't entirely understand why she's acting the way she is. She's been celibate since her husband died in the thirties, but she's thrilled that a man finds her attractive in that way, despite the age difference.

One day an Indian shows up and threatens the family if they won't leave his wife alone. Calvin's son, Bill, is a real estate agent and she's not paying her rent. He wants her out, but he's in Missoula.

Let's back up to Calvin. He's a WWI vet. That's where he met his wife Pauline. He wanted to stay in France; her family was thrilled that she had a chance to go to America, and she agreed. He's also a hard-nosed cowboy who doesn't think twice about a physical confrontation. But he's not good with personal relationships. Hell hath knows no such fury when he finds out Ann, his granddaughter, is being stalked. He tells her she's the spitting image of her grandmother.

Cal jumps to a terrible conclusion, tied to the peeping dilemma and the eviction threat, and he's got a gun. He'll use it if he can't handle it in hand to hand combat. So a bunch of the people above have to save Calvin from himself. Will they be able to? What are the odds?

Larry Watson is the Western version of Richard Russo of “Nobody's Fool”, “Empire Falls” fame. Most of this is about a stubborn old man and people trying to change him, but there are some action scenes that you won't be able to read fast enough, and you're going to need a translator at the end. So am I. Did I forget to mention that Calvin reads Latin like other people read mysteries?

Prayers the Devil Answers

PRAYERS THE DEVIL ANSWERS is not a continuation of the Ballad series. This one is set in 1936 and is based on a real life story when a woman in Owensboro, Kentucky, served out the term of her late husband and officiated during a hanging.

McCrum can not resist oldtime superstitions, and she starts the book with one called the Dumb Supper, where young girls prepare a meal for their future husbands. Only two boys show up. During the ceremony the girls must not look at the table, they bring the silverware, plates and food to the table backwards. But one of them, Celia, drops a knife; when she picks it up, she looks at the table. Bad, bad luck.

We jump ahead to 1936 when Ellie, one of the girls at the Dumb Supper, is nursing her husband, who has pneumonia. She finally calls a doctor, whom they can't afford, but by then it's too late. He just happens to be sheriff of the country, having been elected three months early, thanks to some political gamesmanship. But he was a good sheriff. She gets the crazy idea to ask the chief commissioner for the job, so she can feed her two young boys. What seals the deal is when she shows him her scar from a dog bite. The dog had rabies and she branded the bite with a red hot poker, which possibly saved her life.

Next we meet Lonnie Varden, an artist who has been hired by the government to paint a mural in the post office. McCrum shows the preparations involved. You don't just paint the wall. He's going to paint an Indian attack on a local fort. But he has no idea what the fort looks like, so he goes to the schoolhouse to ask the teacher, Celia of course, if she has any historical pictures he can look at. She does. They start courting and eventually get married. Three years later they go for a walk, his wife looking for something beyond flowers and trees she can take pictures of with her new camera she got for Christmas. They go to “The Hawk's Wing” a cliff way up on the mountain where you can see forever. She walks out onto the cliff to get a better picture. He is wrestling with himself about how to tell her something he did. But instead of telling her, he pushes her off the cliff, and there are witnesses, other lovers out for a walk.

So then, the suspense involves when we're find out why he did it. He seemed like such a likable person. I'll admit I didn't think he did it. We're also wondering whether a nice little woman like Ellie will be able to hang him.
There's some questionable behavior at the end that just doesn't fit Ellie's character. I guess McCrumb is trying to tell us we're all capable of a mean streak.

End of Watch

The last number in Stephen King's mystery is a bit stranger than the first two, and there's a very big believability factor. Even King seems to know that as he spends more time explaining how what happens could be possible. Maybe in a robotic future.

Bill Hodges, the retired detective, has always suspected that Brady Hartsfield, Mr. Mercedes, from the first book, was still somewhat lucid behind his brain dead mask. He'd been hit in the head by a bag of ball bearings before he could blow up a concert where thousands of teeny boppers were in attendance. The nurses were telling stories about Brady turning on the TV, rattling the shades, among other telekinesis episodes. But eventually Bill stopped going to see Brady to avoid harassment charges.

Enter Library Al with a defunct Zappit Game Boy. There's a game on it called the Fishing Hole that's somewhat hypnotic, and Brady uses it to get inside Al's head. Another culprit is Dr. Babineau, a neurologist who thinks he might have a cure for Brady's condition. Thing is it hasn't been approved for humans by the FDA. It works, and Brady begins to grow back brain cells. Brady still has murder on his mind. There's this nurse who has a wee bit of an epilepsy problem. During her weak moments, Brady finds he can see out the window while still helpless in bed. He's seeing the world through the nurse's eyes.

By using Library Al to distribute the Zappit and another former IT coworker , Freddi Linklatter, to adapt the Fishing Hole to his needs, Brady is able to target former attendees at the concert, convincing them to commit suicide. When he takes aim at Barbara Robinson, Jerome Robinson's sister, Bill takes notice. Jerome is Bill's former lawn boy and helper, along with Holly Gibney, who is now Bill's partner is a detective agency called Finder's Keepers, the title of the second book. Barbara walks into traffic due to the hypnotic effects of the Zappit's pink fish, but a boy saves her life. Jerome is presently helping build houses for Habitat for Humanity; he's only reachable by phone or text, so it's mostly Bill and Holly against the nefarious Brady, who has also set up a web site encouraging suicide.

Bill and Holly must find Freddi Linklatter, who is on Brady's visitor list. She's the key to stopping the suicide epidemic.

But I've said too much. This is the most enjoyable King book/books since MISERY. The characters are likable if not lovable, especially Bill and Holly, who used the ball bearings to take out Brady in the first place. As I've said above, this one stretches believability a bit too much, but I was able to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy it. I highly recommend all three. King won the Edgar Award for MR. MERCEDES. King doesn't usually win literary awards.

The Round House

Louise Erdrich is a frequent contender for the National Book Award. She finally won it for THE ROUND HOUSE. Could it be because she used a more novelistic approach this time around?

Those familiar with Erdrich style know that most often she uses a WINESBERG, OHIO style, what seems like a collection of short stories held together by common characters and a persistent theme. It's off putting for some readers. Personally I prefer LOVE MEDICINE to THE ROUND HOUSE. It's a better book by leaps and bounds.

THE ROUND HOUSE is about a group of thirteen-year-old boys who seem to be into a lot of mischief we don't associate with boys that age. They drink the hard stuff, they drive cars, one has a serious relationship that seems to have been consummated. But the plot revolves around the rape of Geraldine Coutts, the main character's mother. She's sort of a tribal social worker. Early on we get a suspect; as a mystery fan, I thought he had to be a red herring. But all the evidence points toward him, and Joe, the main character, wants revenge. He does something terrible and has bad dreams about what he did.

Joe has three best friends: Cappy, Zack, and Angus. Cappy has to beat the girls off with a stick. The other two guys might as well not be in the story. They're flat characters, in the vernacular. Besides his parents, Sonja and Whitey as featured quite a bit. Sonja is a knockout. Joe is always trying to sneak a peak at her breasts. Whitey is really jealous, and when she starts sporting diamond earrings he beats her. Mooshum represents the older generation. He celebrates what sounds like his hundredth birthday. Sonja gives him a strange present. She does a sort of strip tease for him. I thought that was a bit over the top.

Erdrich seems to be making a point about the evil thing that Joe did in the conclusion. “What goes around comes around” would fit the bill. Prior to the ending, Erdrich provides some forshadowing. The events of the story are happening in 1988, and Joe is telling the story from the future where he's become a lawyer and is doing the job his father did before him, tribal judge. So we already know it's not Joe who pays the price. There's also a point where Joe learns that his father doesn't have much authority as a tribal judge. The reservation is split between free holding, the reservation, and federal pockets. Geraldine doesn't remember where she was raped; as a result the man who raped her will be tried under federal jurisdiction, and let's just say her case is not a high priority. So then there's a question we need to think about: Was Joe justified in doing what he did?

Everybody's Fool

The “fool” in the title is Doug Raymer, the Bath chief of police. Although Russo's usual hero, Donald Sullivan “Sully,” is featured quite a bit, this story is more about Raymer's poor self confidence.

We first see him attending the funeral of a local judge who thought he was incompetent. Raymer promptly falls into the grave, loosing a key piece of evidence that may lead to whomever his wife Becka was about to leave him for. She fell down the stairs and broke her neck before she could do so. So . . . he's in mourning as well as angry.

Sully has also struck it rich, hitting the trifecta at the race track a couple of times, selling the lot where his decrepit home used to be to the city, and inheriting his landlady Ms. Beryl's house when she dies. So now his dimwitted friend, Rub Squeers, who idolizes Sully, has no one to do scut work with anymore. Sully can be kind of mean. He names his dog, whose name used to be Reggie, after Rub.

Then there's Roy Purdy, Sully's former girlfriend Ruth's son-in-law, who hates Sully's guts. He's out of jail and looking for a way to get even with Sully, who ridicules him every chance he gets and thinks Janey can do a whole lot better than this tool.

If you don't like a lot of characters or if you can't keep them straight, you won't like this book. Sully's son, an adjunct college professor, makes an appearance; he lives on the bottom floor of Ms. Beryl's house with Sully's grandson, Will. Sully's former boss, Carl Roebuck, who hass lost his house, lives upstairs. Sully lives in a trailer out back.

Sully has also gotten a death sentence from the doctors. He's got a bad heart; he needs a defibrillator, but is too stubborn to get one.

Doug Raymer's dispatcher Charice, who keeps putting him on her list for various infractions, is a new love interest for Doug, although he's not sure she likes him back. Her brother Jerome, a 6' 6” black man, looks to be competition for Doug's job, but he's got a secret only Charice is aware of.

You may find yourself thinking, “Where's the plot?” as you're reading, but this is more about Russo's quirky characters and their humdrum lives (except when they're not) than any suspenseful plot.

Extreme Prey

Author John Sandford and the lead character in his PREY novels, Lucas Davenport have made some big moves lately. Sandford has moved to New Mexico, and Lucas has quit his job working for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

But Lucas is back in the saddle when governor Elmer Henderson, who is running for president in the Iowa caucuses, asks for his help. Seems like these two weirdos have been hounding him to move to the center so leading democratic candidate Michaela “Mike” Bowden (think Hillary) doesn't win the democratic nomination.

Sandford likes to show you who we're dealing with and why they are the way they are. So he introduces us to Marlys and Clay Purdy early on. She's an old sixties radical and he's done time in the Middle East with the National Guard and is suffering from some form of PTS.

Henderson has a hunch these two are planning some kind of dangerous scheme. He has a description for Lucas; she has white curly hair and he has gray eyes. Lucas still has connections in the BCA, and he compiles a list of possible radical organizations who might have a gripe against Bowden. Then, as usual in a PREY novel people start dropping like flies.

Sandford also has another motive. Lucas needs a badge. He's having trouble enough getting the head of the Iowa state cops to give him some support. It takes a tongue-lashing by the governor to get the jealous director to give him four state cops to help him track these people down. Bowden isn't helping either; she insists on doing a “walk through” during the Iowa State Fair, the worst possible place to provide security with thousands of people milling about.

This is an instructive book for beginning writers. If your character is tied up in a chair waiting for the axe to drop, you can't have him/her reach into a desk drawer and find a knife. That's too convenient. You need to plant that knife earlier in the story. Lucas does track down the Purdys, but they're gone by the time he finds their farm. There's a workshop in the hayloft and Lucas finds several bolts; he can't quite make the connection, but he does in the nick of time. The dummy should've known what they were for, but he was concentrating on snipers. There's evidence Clay is a crack shot.

Sandford does accomplish his goal because Lucas always gets his man, at least ninety-nine percent of the time. At the end of the story, somebody owes him one (I think you can guess who that might be) and that something turns out to be a job.