David Schwinghammer's Blog, page 17
January 7, 2015
All the Light We Cannot See
The title ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE is a double entendre. It’s about a blind girl during WWII, but it also shows us some light that shown through the horrible events.
Marie-Laure has congenital cataracts, but she probably sees more than most of us. At one point in the story, she describes to another girl what she sees. She sees colors, not darkness. Her father, a locksmith at a Paris museum, makes a miniature model of their neighborhood, and she must memorize it with her fingertips. He takes her six blocks from their apartment and tells her she must lead him back to their apartment. She’s terribly frustrated at first, but she eventually does it, and then she knows there’s virtually nothing she can’t do.
The second main character is a German, Werner, who is kind of an electronic genius. Doerr ties him to Marie-Laure in that he and his sister Jutta listen to her grandfather’s radio broadcasts about science. Werner and Jutta are orphans, and another “light” in the story is Frau Elena who treats her wards like her own children. There’s a parallel in Marie-Laure’s story where Madamn Manec, her great uncle’s housekeeper, is a freedom fighter who can make soup out of stones. I’m not exaggerating much.
Werner wins a spot at a school for the best of the Hitler youth where the technical teacher gives his charges an assignment: make something out of spare parts. Werner is able to make several devices, and he becomes the teacher’s research partner. There were people in Germany who hid their Jewish friends. Not everybody was a skunk. One was Frederick, Werner’s bunk mate, at the Hitler Youth camp. When the students are required to pour cold water on a prisoner to show they will follow orders, Frederick refuses. That makes him a weakling in the director’s eyes, and he’s got a big target on his back, but we know Frederick is really another one of the “lights” in the story.
When the teacher is promoted, Werner is sent to Russia to ferret out partisans who are sending out radio signals. Here he is reunited with Volkheimer, the giant student who served as an enforcer for the camp director. Only Volkheimer likes and respects Werner. At first we think Volkheimer is a stone cold killer, but we gradually learn that he was swept up in events just like millions of other people who would never have thought to do in everyday life what they did in the war. At the end of the book, we see what a mensch Volkheimer really is under the rough exterior.
Marie-Laure’s father and his daughter escape from Paris prior to the Nazi invasion, taking them to St.-Malo, an island where his uncle lives in a house with six floors, plus an attic. He hasn’t left the building in years, thanks to a gas attack during WWI. Madamn Manac prods Etienne into using the giant radio in the attic to help the partisans.
Another parallel between the two stories is the American invasion at Normandy and the French partisans who are helping the Allied army find German coastal artillery. Werner is sent to Saint-Malo. There’s another plot line involving the Sea of Flames, a great diamond the director of the museum may have given Marie-Laure’s father to protect. It’s one of four, but three are fakes. Marie-Laure’s father doesn’t know if he has the real one. A German sergeant major thinks he knows where it is.
I usually look for character-driven novels, and Marie-Laure and Werner are two of the best I’ve encountered since I read Kent Haruf’s PLAINSONG with the two wonderful bachelor farmers. When you reach the climax, pay close attention. Doerr often suggests rather than tells what’s happening. If you don’t, you’ll only have to go back and reread it.
Marie-Laure has congenital cataracts, but she probably sees more than most of us. At one point in the story, she describes to another girl what she sees. She sees colors, not darkness. Her father, a locksmith at a Paris museum, makes a miniature model of their neighborhood, and she must memorize it with her fingertips. He takes her six blocks from their apartment and tells her she must lead him back to their apartment. She’s terribly frustrated at first, but she eventually does it, and then she knows there’s virtually nothing she can’t do.
The second main character is a German, Werner, who is kind of an electronic genius. Doerr ties him to Marie-Laure in that he and his sister Jutta listen to her grandfather’s radio broadcasts about science. Werner and Jutta are orphans, and another “light” in the story is Frau Elena who treats her wards like her own children. There’s a parallel in Marie-Laure’s story where Madamn Manec, her great uncle’s housekeeper, is a freedom fighter who can make soup out of stones. I’m not exaggerating much.
Werner wins a spot at a school for the best of the Hitler youth where the technical teacher gives his charges an assignment: make something out of spare parts. Werner is able to make several devices, and he becomes the teacher’s research partner. There were people in Germany who hid their Jewish friends. Not everybody was a skunk. One was Frederick, Werner’s bunk mate, at the Hitler Youth camp. When the students are required to pour cold water on a prisoner to show they will follow orders, Frederick refuses. That makes him a weakling in the director’s eyes, and he’s got a big target on his back, but we know Frederick is really another one of the “lights” in the story.
When the teacher is promoted, Werner is sent to Russia to ferret out partisans who are sending out radio signals. Here he is reunited with Volkheimer, the giant student who served as an enforcer for the camp director. Only Volkheimer likes and respects Werner. At first we think Volkheimer is a stone cold killer, but we gradually learn that he was swept up in events just like millions of other people who would never have thought to do in everyday life what they did in the war. At the end of the book, we see what a mensch Volkheimer really is under the rough exterior.
Marie-Laure’s father and his daughter escape from Paris prior to the Nazi invasion, taking them to St.-Malo, an island where his uncle lives in a house with six floors, plus an attic. He hasn’t left the building in years, thanks to a gas attack during WWI. Madamn Manac prods Etienne into using the giant radio in the attic to help the partisans.
Another parallel between the two stories is the American invasion at Normandy and the French partisans who are helping the Allied army find German coastal artillery. Werner is sent to Saint-Malo. There’s another plot line involving the Sea of Flames, a great diamond the director of the museum may have given Marie-Laure’s father to protect. It’s one of four, but three are fakes. Marie-Laure’s father doesn’t know if he has the real one. A German sergeant major thinks he knows where it is.
I usually look for character-driven novels, and Marie-Laure and Werner are two of the best I’ve encountered since I read Kent Haruf’s PLAINSONG with the two wonderful bachelor farmers. When you reach the climax, pay close attention. Doerr often suggests rather than tells what’s happening. If you don’t, you’ll only have to go back and reread it.
December 25, 2014
Empire of Sin
EMPIRE OF SIN is about New Orleans, but it’s divided into three segments. Gary Krist, that author, starts with a hook, the murders or near murders of grocery store owners in the Italian part of town, thought to have been committed by The Black Hand.
The second aspect of the book deals with Storyville. The mayor, council members, and businessmen were worried that the city had a bad reputation as a crime-ridden Babylon. They were willing to look the other way while prostitution houses, gambling, and what they considered sin went about its business, but they wanted to segregate it to one part of town, and that was Storyville. Krist centers on two vice lords, Tom Anderson and Josie Arlington. Arlington was a madam; Anderson ran several dance halls, with a hand in prostitution etc, ran an oil company on the side, and was a Congressman for almost the entire twenty years Storyville existed.
The third area Krist concentrates on is jazz music which evolved in the prostitution houses and dance halls of storyville. I was surprised to find that one man was given credit for the origination of the music. Buddy Bolden played with such passion and volume that he influenced such previously staid musicians as “Jelly Roll” Morton, a Creole who played piano in some of the prostitution houses. Eventually we get to Louie Armstrong, who wasn’t among the first wave of jazz musicians. He was born to a fifteen-year-old girl and started playing in a band at the Home for Wayward boys.
Eventually the reformers win out, thanks mostly to prohibition and World War I. The War Department didn’t want its soldiers falling prey to the degradation and disease that existed in Storyville. A railroad terminal was also built on the border of Storyville and the passengers had to pass houses of ill repute in order to get where they were going. So, New Orleans was clean for a while, but the city was still playing second fiddle to Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas, and the city leaders finally realized that they could sell what was formerly known as vice, mainly the music and the partying (See Mardi Gras). Most of the great musicians, including Armstrong, had already left when their livelihood dried up. Something else unexpected occurred. Prior to the reform movement the blacks, creoles and whites intermixed and got along about as well as anyplace in the South. Afterwards, Jim Crow reared its ugly head.
About a hundred a fifty pages after he first introduces was the mayor thought was a serial killer, Krist returns. More murders are occurring. Many of them have the same M.O. The intruder cuts out the lower panel of a back door, he stages the scene to look like a robbery, and he uses an axe he finds on the property, and he leaves it there when he’s finished with his grisly business. In the last section of the book, Krist identifies a possible killer, but he can’t prove it, so the case remains unsolved.
Kudos go out to Krist for including a bibliography, and index, and footnotes, something that pseudo historians these daysdon’t seem to find necessary. Krist also includes about a dozen pictures, usually at the beginning of chapters or sections. I enjoyed this book immensely and highly recommend it to history lovers and those who just like the city and are curious about how it evolved.
The second aspect of the book deals with Storyville. The mayor, council members, and businessmen were worried that the city had a bad reputation as a crime-ridden Babylon. They were willing to look the other way while prostitution houses, gambling, and what they considered sin went about its business, but they wanted to segregate it to one part of town, and that was Storyville. Krist centers on two vice lords, Tom Anderson and Josie Arlington. Arlington was a madam; Anderson ran several dance halls, with a hand in prostitution etc, ran an oil company on the side, and was a Congressman for almost the entire twenty years Storyville existed.
The third area Krist concentrates on is jazz music which evolved in the prostitution houses and dance halls of storyville. I was surprised to find that one man was given credit for the origination of the music. Buddy Bolden played with such passion and volume that he influenced such previously staid musicians as “Jelly Roll” Morton, a Creole who played piano in some of the prostitution houses. Eventually we get to Louie Armstrong, who wasn’t among the first wave of jazz musicians. He was born to a fifteen-year-old girl and started playing in a band at the Home for Wayward boys.
Eventually the reformers win out, thanks mostly to prohibition and World War I. The War Department didn’t want its soldiers falling prey to the degradation and disease that existed in Storyville. A railroad terminal was also built on the border of Storyville and the passengers had to pass houses of ill repute in order to get where they were going. So, New Orleans was clean for a while, but the city was still playing second fiddle to Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas, and the city leaders finally realized that they could sell what was formerly known as vice, mainly the music and the partying (See Mardi Gras). Most of the great musicians, including Armstrong, had already left when their livelihood dried up. Something else unexpected occurred. Prior to the reform movement the blacks, creoles and whites intermixed and got along about as well as anyplace in the South. Afterwards, Jim Crow reared its ugly head.
About a hundred a fifty pages after he first introduces was the mayor thought was a serial killer, Krist returns. More murders are occurring. Many of them have the same M.O. The intruder cuts out the lower panel of a back door, he stages the scene to look like a robbery, and he uses an axe he finds on the property, and he leaves it there when he’s finished with his grisly business. In the last section of the book, Krist identifies a possible killer, but he can’t prove it, so the case remains unsolved.
Kudos go out to Krist for including a bibliography, and index, and footnotes, something that pseudo historians these daysdon’t seem to find necessary. Krist also includes about a dozen pictures, usually at the beginning of chapters or sections. I enjoyed this book immensely and highly recommend it to history lovers and those who just like the city and are curious about how it evolved.
December 16, 2014
Science at the Edge
SCIENCE AT THE EDGE is a compilation of summarized interviews edited by John Brockman, author of THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS: SCIENCE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. His emphasis is on cooperation between traditional scientist such as physicists and cosmologists with more humanistic scientists such as psychologists and philosophers.
The above may have been his intent, but the various essays tend to address artificial intelligence and possible theories unifying relativity and quantum mechanics. The most jaw-dropping essay is one done with Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and entrepreneur who belongs to the U.S. Patent Office’s National Inventors Hall of Fame. Kurzweil is high on artificial intelligence. He says “We’ll make 20,000 years of progress in the twenty-first century, which is about 1,000 times more technical change than we saw in the twentieth century.” He maintains artificial intelligence is increasing exponentially and that by mid century we ought to be able to create a human-like robot much more intelligent than we are. Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and musician, studying advanced applications for Internet 2, is much less impressed with the potential for artificial intelligence. He agrees the hardware is getting smarter, but he doubts we will be able to create software to run these machines. He bases this opinion on the bugginess and unreliability of current software. It’s always breaking down, freezing, and is prone to viruses and malware. After the recent Sony event one might side with Lanier.
The second battle of the minds involves the two theories concerning a unification theory of gravity and quantum theory. Paul Steinhardt is the Albert Einstein Professor in Science and a professor in both the Departments of Physics and the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton. He’s more of a string theory guy with a twist. Steinhardt believes the universe is infinite and other galaxies and clusters are racing away from us at a tremendous rate of speed. In Steinhardt’s theory, all known matter sits on something called a “brane,” short for membrane. There are two of them, but we can only see one. When the brane is completely barren of matter and radiation it bounces off the other brane, creating another “bang” and we start all over again. This happens every couple of trillion years or so. There’s another dimension or dimensions between the two branes, but Steinhardt doesn’t go into that much in this summary.
Lee Smolin is the founder of something called Loop Quantum Gravity. I’m sure you’ve heard it mentioned on “The Big Bang Theory.” Smolin doesn’t disagree with string theory. He even trades information with scientists who work in the field. Smolin is more concerned with unifying proven science. We have evidence relativity and quantum theory exists, but you can’t do experiments with something you can’t see, and you can’t see the extra dimensions predicted with string theory. He gets a little snarky at times, claiming string theorists are too concerned with “pretty” mathematics. String theorists have formulas that predict the extra dimensions.
Smolin and most of the other scientist in this book were interviewed prior to the opening of the Hadron Super Collider, which produced evidence that the Higgs boson particle exists, and that it degrades into even smaller particles, so that may have opened a new kettle of fish.
The above may have been his intent, but the various essays tend to address artificial intelligence and possible theories unifying relativity and quantum mechanics. The most jaw-dropping essay is one done with Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and entrepreneur who belongs to the U.S. Patent Office’s National Inventors Hall of Fame. Kurzweil is high on artificial intelligence. He says “We’ll make 20,000 years of progress in the twenty-first century, which is about 1,000 times more technical change than we saw in the twentieth century.” He maintains artificial intelligence is increasing exponentially and that by mid century we ought to be able to create a human-like robot much more intelligent than we are. Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and musician, studying advanced applications for Internet 2, is much less impressed with the potential for artificial intelligence. He agrees the hardware is getting smarter, but he doubts we will be able to create software to run these machines. He bases this opinion on the bugginess and unreliability of current software. It’s always breaking down, freezing, and is prone to viruses and malware. After the recent Sony event one might side with Lanier.
The second battle of the minds involves the two theories concerning a unification theory of gravity and quantum theory. Paul Steinhardt is the Albert Einstein Professor in Science and a professor in both the Departments of Physics and the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton. He’s more of a string theory guy with a twist. Steinhardt believes the universe is infinite and other galaxies and clusters are racing away from us at a tremendous rate of speed. In Steinhardt’s theory, all known matter sits on something called a “brane,” short for membrane. There are two of them, but we can only see one. When the brane is completely barren of matter and radiation it bounces off the other brane, creating another “bang” and we start all over again. This happens every couple of trillion years or so. There’s another dimension or dimensions between the two branes, but Steinhardt doesn’t go into that much in this summary.
Lee Smolin is the founder of something called Loop Quantum Gravity. I’m sure you’ve heard it mentioned on “The Big Bang Theory.” Smolin doesn’t disagree with string theory. He even trades information with scientists who work in the field. Smolin is more concerned with unifying proven science. We have evidence relativity and quantum theory exists, but you can’t do experiments with something you can’t see, and you can’t see the extra dimensions predicted with string theory. He gets a little snarky at times, claiming string theorists are too concerned with “pretty” mathematics. String theorists have formulas that predict the extra dimensions.
Smolin and most of the other scientist in this book were interviewed prior to the opening of the Hadron Super Collider, which produced evidence that the Higgs boson particle exists, and that it degrades into even smaller particles, so that may have opened a new kettle of fish.
November 28, 2014
The Bone Clocks
THE BONE CLOCKS is a hodgepodge of fantasy, parapsychology, and futurism held together by a “normal” young girl, Holly Sykes, who has a degree of ESP.
Holly hears voices as a young girl and is visited by a strange woman (Immaculee Constantine) in her sleep, although she could almost swear she was awake. Holly calls these visitors the Radio People. She is cured by a Chinese doctor via what she thought was acupuncture, touching a spot on the back of her hand and the middle of her forehead. The voices go away, but she experiences a greater tragedy; her eccentric brother, Jacko, disappears.
Holly has a tiff with her mother over a young man (he’s twenty-four and she’s fourteen) her mother doesn’t want her to see. She catches him cheating on her with her best friend; she plans on going home but is picked up hitchhiking by these two people who end up dead. Although she didn’t know it at the time, that was her first experience with the Horologists and the Anchorites.
The story then jumps ahead to a new character, Hugo Lamb, who’s sort of a creep. He’s a scholarship student at Cambridge, but he cheats at cards and deserts his friends when they’re threatened by pimps during a Swiss vacation. Holly is a waitress at a fancy restaurant there, and she and Hugo share a night together, before he, too, disappears. Immaculee Constantine and her college, Mr. Pfenninger, are also on the scene. They’re both Anchorites, and they’ve identified Hugo as one of them. Anchorites never age, but they need to consume the souls of others with the Chakra eye (that’s where the forehead comes in. They also have a holy place called the Dusk Chapel of the Blind Cathar. The Horologists are the Anchorites enemies. When they die, they reincarnate into the body of a young child who’s dying anyway, which may have been what happened to Jacko. Let’s just say the Chinese doctor wasn’t practicing acupuncture.
Author Mitchell jumps to 2015 where he introduces author Crispin Hershey, a faded literary novelist who meets Holly at a writers’ festival. This guy is self absorbed and conceited. Holly has recently published a memoir entitled, RADIO PEOPLE; it’s selling like the proverbial hotcakes. He’s jealous, but he recognizes a truly decent person in Holly, and they become friends. Hershey doesn’t have any psychic powers. He’s only in the story to keep the Holly story thread going and to introduce a female poet who tries to get Hershey to read her work. It’s about the Anchorites and presumably the Horologists. He doesn’t read her poetry, but we see the Anchorites still after Holly who was apparently a target when she was a child. Hugo also shows up as an Anchorite, although Hershey doesn’t know that, cross examining him about what he knows about the Blind Cathar, anchorites, the Dusk Chapel etc.
The next major character is Marinus, a Horologist who in her present life is a psychotherapist. We get Marinus’s back story as a Russian serf who is taken in by two other Horologists, although she doesn’t know it at the time.
Marinus is sort of the leader of the pack, and it’s her story that leads to a climactic battle between the Horogolists and the Anchorites at the Dusk Chapel of the Blind Cathar. The Blind Cathar guy is like a supernatural being, but he’s asleep when the Horologists sneak up on him, shown the way by an apparent traitor. Let’s just say that two of these people survive, a Horologist and an Anchorite.
Now we move to the most dismal part of the book in the year 2043. Holly is living in a cottage at Sheep’s Head in Ireland. China is now a super power. An English nuclear power company has begun a meltdown; the Chinese company that runs England (the yuan is Holly’s currency) either doesn’t care or is incapable of stopping the meltdown. Holly lives with her a grandchild and an adopted son. This is an era of depression. Food is rationed, there isn’t enough fuel, and when China decides this area of Ireland isn’t worth saving, there’s anarchy. A militia steals a neighbor’s solar panels. The Net is down.
Curiously Mitchell’s version of 2043 isn’t that technically superior to 2014, and it’s hard to believe that America would be a non entity in world affairs in such a short amount of time. The ending leaves something to be desired as well. Two rather major characters are ignored. Mitchell isn’t much for suspension of disbelief either. There’s plenty of science that would justify a cluster of human beings who never die; we’ve identified the aging gene and eventually somebody will clone a human being if it hasn’t happened already. He chooses the fantasy/religion route instead. Oil and diesel are also important fuels in 2043, but they‘re running out; we already have fuel cell technology in California and there’s talk that we’re close to a solution for the cold fusion problem. Think of all the recent innovations and ask yourself if this dire situation is realistic.
Holly hears voices as a young girl and is visited by a strange woman (Immaculee Constantine) in her sleep, although she could almost swear she was awake. Holly calls these visitors the Radio People. She is cured by a Chinese doctor via what she thought was acupuncture, touching a spot on the back of her hand and the middle of her forehead. The voices go away, but she experiences a greater tragedy; her eccentric brother, Jacko, disappears.
Holly has a tiff with her mother over a young man (he’s twenty-four and she’s fourteen) her mother doesn’t want her to see. She catches him cheating on her with her best friend; she plans on going home but is picked up hitchhiking by these two people who end up dead. Although she didn’t know it at the time, that was her first experience with the Horologists and the Anchorites.
The story then jumps ahead to a new character, Hugo Lamb, who’s sort of a creep. He’s a scholarship student at Cambridge, but he cheats at cards and deserts his friends when they’re threatened by pimps during a Swiss vacation. Holly is a waitress at a fancy restaurant there, and she and Hugo share a night together, before he, too, disappears. Immaculee Constantine and her college, Mr. Pfenninger, are also on the scene. They’re both Anchorites, and they’ve identified Hugo as one of them. Anchorites never age, but they need to consume the souls of others with the Chakra eye (that’s where the forehead comes in. They also have a holy place called the Dusk Chapel of the Blind Cathar. The Horologists are the Anchorites enemies. When they die, they reincarnate into the body of a young child who’s dying anyway, which may have been what happened to Jacko. Let’s just say the Chinese doctor wasn’t practicing acupuncture.
Author Mitchell jumps to 2015 where he introduces author Crispin Hershey, a faded literary novelist who meets Holly at a writers’ festival. This guy is self absorbed and conceited. Holly has recently published a memoir entitled, RADIO PEOPLE; it’s selling like the proverbial hotcakes. He’s jealous, but he recognizes a truly decent person in Holly, and they become friends. Hershey doesn’t have any psychic powers. He’s only in the story to keep the Holly story thread going and to introduce a female poet who tries to get Hershey to read her work. It’s about the Anchorites and presumably the Horologists. He doesn’t read her poetry, but we see the Anchorites still after Holly who was apparently a target when she was a child. Hugo also shows up as an Anchorite, although Hershey doesn’t know that, cross examining him about what he knows about the Blind Cathar, anchorites, the Dusk Chapel etc.
The next major character is Marinus, a Horologist who in her present life is a psychotherapist. We get Marinus’s back story as a Russian serf who is taken in by two other Horologists, although she doesn’t know it at the time.
Marinus is sort of the leader of the pack, and it’s her story that leads to a climactic battle between the Horogolists and the Anchorites at the Dusk Chapel of the Blind Cathar. The Blind Cathar guy is like a supernatural being, but he’s asleep when the Horologists sneak up on him, shown the way by an apparent traitor. Let’s just say that two of these people survive, a Horologist and an Anchorite.
Now we move to the most dismal part of the book in the year 2043. Holly is living in a cottage at Sheep’s Head in Ireland. China is now a super power. An English nuclear power company has begun a meltdown; the Chinese company that runs England (the yuan is Holly’s currency) either doesn’t care or is incapable of stopping the meltdown. Holly lives with her a grandchild and an adopted son. This is an era of depression. Food is rationed, there isn’t enough fuel, and when China decides this area of Ireland isn’t worth saving, there’s anarchy. A militia steals a neighbor’s solar panels. The Net is down.
Curiously Mitchell’s version of 2043 isn’t that technically superior to 2014, and it’s hard to believe that America would be a non entity in world affairs in such a short amount of time. The ending leaves something to be desired as well. Two rather major characters are ignored. Mitchell isn’t much for suspension of disbelief either. There’s plenty of science that would justify a cluster of human beings who never die; we’ve identified the aging gene and eventually somebody will clone a human being if it hasn’t happened already. He chooses the fantasy/religion route instead. Oil and diesel are also important fuels in 2043, but they‘re running out; we already have fuel cell technology in California and there’s talk that we’re close to a solution for the cold fusion problem. Think of all the recent innovations and ask yourself if this dire situation is realistic.
November 4, 2014
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Joshua Ferris was a finalist for the National Book of the Year for his novel, THEN WE CAME TO AN END; he was also a finalist for the Man Booker Award for this effort, TO RISE AGAIN AT A DECENT HOUR.
Ferris is an extremely original writer. It takes a lot of guts to make your main character a dentist. We learn all about the frustrations of the profession. Dr. Paul O’Rourke is a Park Avenue dentist in New York City, but he gets his share of eccentrics. He shows one patient three cavities, but the man decides not to have them filled because they don’t hurt. The man religiously goes to the dentist twice a year, because you’re supposed to.
The fact that O’Rourke is a dentist is almost coincidental. This book is really about identity theft and atheism. O’Rourke is down on social networking, although his receptionist and head hygienist would like him to advertise his practice via Facebook etc. One day Betsy, his crackerjack hygienist, shows him his new Facebook page, congratulating him on coming out of the dark ages. Problem is it’s not him, although the page identifies him as the owner.
Okay, identity theft is a serious problem in our society, but that’s still not what this book is about. O’Rourke is a sad man. He had a serious relationship with his receptionist, Connie, who happened to be an Orthodox Jew, apparently in name only. Paul fell in love with her family, especially Uncle Stuart, a father figure. His own father committed suicide. But Connie wanted kids and Paul didn’t want that responsibility. About the only thing Paul has left, besides his practice, is his love for the Red Sox, but even that is hampered when they actually win the World Series in 2004, after an 86 year lapse. These days they’re more like the hated Yankees, adopting some of their methods, buying free agents etc. It’s more fun to pull for a bunch of loveable screw-ups.
Ferris pulls another switcheroo when whoever is harassing the doctor, begins posting weird comments in his name about an ancient religion that was massacred by the Israelites, the Ulms, whose main theology was “doubt” about the existence of God. Paul establishes an e-mail relationship with the man who’s impersonating him and he meets several other people who are supposedly descended from the Ulms. He becomes so absorbed in the Ulms that his practice begins to suffer. Eventually a woman comes to see him who gives him a detailed genealogy which seems to prove that he was indeed descended from the Ulms. And a antiquities expert finds a copy of their holy book, written in Yiddish.
At one point one of the characters claims atheists and agnostics are the most discriminated against group in America. But that’s not what this book is about; Paul O’Rourke, although he is an atheist, is a searcher, trying to find a place or group to belong to. In most respects we all are.
Ferris is an extremely original writer. It takes a lot of guts to make your main character a dentist. We learn all about the frustrations of the profession. Dr. Paul O’Rourke is a Park Avenue dentist in New York City, but he gets his share of eccentrics. He shows one patient three cavities, but the man decides not to have them filled because they don’t hurt. The man religiously goes to the dentist twice a year, because you’re supposed to.
The fact that O’Rourke is a dentist is almost coincidental. This book is really about identity theft and atheism. O’Rourke is down on social networking, although his receptionist and head hygienist would like him to advertise his practice via Facebook etc. One day Betsy, his crackerjack hygienist, shows him his new Facebook page, congratulating him on coming out of the dark ages. Problem is it’s not him, although the page identifies him as the owner.
Okay, identity theft is a serious problem in our society, but that’s still not what this book is about. O’Rourke is a sad man. He had a serious relationship with his receptionist, Connie, who happened to be an Orthodox Jew, apparently in name only. Paul fell in love with her family, especially Uncle Stuart, a father figure. His own father committed suicide. But Connie wanted kids and Paul didn’t want that responsibility. About the only thing Paul has left, besides his practice, is his love for the Red Sox, but even that is hampered when they actually win the World Series in 2004, after an 86 year lapse. These days they’re more like the hated Yankees, adopting some of their methods, buying free agents etc. It’s more fun to pull for a bunch of loveable screw-ups.
Ferris pulls another switcheroo when whoever is harassing the doctor, begins posting weird comments in his name about an ancient religion that was massacred by the Israelites, the Ulms, whose main theology was “doubt” about the existence of God. Paul establishes an e-mail relationship with the man who’s impersonating him and he meets several other people who are supposedly descended from the Ulms. He becomes so absorbed in the Ulms that his practice begins to suffer. Eventually a woman comes to see him who gives him a detailed genealogy which seems to prove that he was indeed descended from the Ulms. And a antiquities expert finds a copy of their holy book, written in Yiddish.
At one point one of the characters claims atheists and agnostics are the most discriminated against group in America. But that’s not what this book is about; Paul O’Rourke, although he is an atheist, is a searcher, trying to find a place or group to belong to. In most respects we all are.
October 27, 2014
The Drop
Bob Saginowski is an intriguing character. He’s a bartender who works in a “drop” bar where Chechen mobsters deposit their drug, gambling, and prostitution money as a way to avoid the DEA catching them with thousands if not millions in cash.
Bob is a lonely guy who doesn’t do well with women; he’s tried church picnics and such, but nothing seems to work. His titular boss, Uncle Marv, orders him to collect the bar tab from a regular from a nearby senior citizens home who nurses a Tom Collins for hours to avoid going back to the home. Bob has saved his money and has no problem paying the tab for the old woman. He also finds a puppy in a garbage can that has been abused and left for dead. The can belongs to a woman named Nadia who teaches Bob how to care for the dog. Bob doesn’t even get mad when the dog craps on his mother’s rug. Nadia has a dirt bag ex-boyfriend who claims the dog is his and he wants it back.
Then there’s a hold up, and Bob blabs to the cops about what one of the guys looked like. Uncle Marv, Bob’s cousin, once ran his own “crew”; Bob was one of the hard guys who worked for Marv. That’s the first indication we get that Bob may not be who we think he is.
Bob goes to church every day; coincidentally the detective investigating the hold-up also attends the same church. There’s an unsolved case. Richie Whelan, a regular at the bar, disappeared, and is presumed dead. Detective Torres, suspects that Bob had something to do with, because he never takes communion. Torres has been demoted from the homicide unit and he has an extra incentive to solve the case.
Lehane is one of our better writers because he presents an ethical dilemma. Can someone who has committed a horrible crime still be a good person? Can he redeem himself? Robert Browning covered the same territory when he used the term “Tender Murderer” in one of his poems.
Bob is a lonely guy who doesn’t do well with women; he’s tried church picnics and such, but nothing seems to work. His titular boss, Uncle Marv, orders him to collect the bar tab from a regular from a nearby senior citizens home who nurses a Tom Collins for hours to avoid going back to the home. Bob has saved his money and has no problem paying the tab for the old woman. He also finds a puppy in a garbage can that has been abused and left for dead. The can belongs to a woman named Nadia who teaches Bob how to care for the dog. Bob doesn’t even get mad when the dog craps on his mother’s rug. Nadia has a dirt bag ex-boyfriend who claims the dog is his and he wants it back.
Then there’s a hold up, and Bob blabs to the cops about what one of the guys looked like. Uncle Marv, Bob’s cousin, once ran his own “crew”; Bob was one of the hard guys who worked for Marv. That’s the first indication we get that Bob may not be who we think he is.
Bob goes to church every day; coincidentally the detective investigating the hold-up also attends the same church. There’s an unsolved case. Richie Whelan, a regular at the bar, disappeared, and is presumed dead. Detective Torres, suspects that Bob had something to do with, because he never takes communion. Torres has been demoted from the homicide unit and he has an extra incentive to solve the case.
Lehane is one of our better writers because he presents an ethical dilemma. Can someone who has committed a horrible crime still be a good person? Can he redeem himself? Robert Browning covered the same territory when he used the term “Tender Murderer” in one of his poems.
October 20, 2014
The Big Crowd
Kevin Baker is a historian; hence his reliance on real life characters and fictionalized characters based on real people. That’s the case with Charlie O’Kane, an Irish immigrant who became mayor of New York, who is probably based on William O’Dwyer post WWII mayor who was also an Irish immigrant.
Charlie’s brother Tom is the main character in the novel. He’s an ADA and is trying to get his brother to tell him what really happened when mob witness Abe Reles was thrown or jumped from a safe-house window surrounded by at least a half dozen cops and other mob witnesses. This happened just as Reles, also a member of Murder Incorporated, was ready to testify against Albert Anastasia. Before all the mafia books and movies, I was fascinated with the mob. I remember pictures of Albert riddled with blood stains as he lay in his barber chair, well after the Kefauver investigations.
So then the plot thread is whether Charlie was involved in the Reles incident. Apparently most people thought he was because he wound up in Mexico City, dodging extradition. That’s where the sub plot occurs. You see, Tom is in love with Slim, Charlie’s wife. They’ve been carrying on a lurid affair for years. He can’t keep his hands off her when he sees her again in Mexico. She is loosely based on Pat McCormick, the four time Olympic diver, who was also a bullfighter. Slim is learning how against old tired bulls. Tom also has a girlfriend, fellow ADA, Ellie, who’s almost as beautiful as Slim but much more forgiving. The fool tells her all about Slim.
Mayor LaGuardia pops up for a few paragraphs and one of the major minor characters is Bill McCormack, Mr. Big of the New York City docks. Cardinal Francis Spellman is portrayed as an effeminate fop. We never meet Kefauver or Albert Anastasia, which would have been a treat.
I was first introduced to Kevin Baker when I read SOMETIMES YOU HEAR IT COMING, one of the better fictional baseball books I’ve read. Then I read the first of the City of Fire trilogy: DREAMLAND, about the history of Coney Island. Baker’s scholastic background definitely serves him as a reliable tour guide of the Big Apple.
Charlie’s brother Tom is the main character in the novel. He’s an ADA and is trying to get his brother to tell him what really happened when mob witness Abe Reles was thrown or jumped from a safe-house window surrounded by at least a half dozen cops and other mob witnesses. This happened just as Reles, also a member of Murder Incorporated, was ready to testify against Albert Anastasia. Before all the mafia books and movies, I was fascinated with the mob. I remember pictures of Albert riddled with blood stains as he lay in his barber chair, well after the Kefauver investigations.
So then the plot thread is whether Charlie was involved in the Reles incident. Apparently most people thought he was because he wound up in Mexico City, dodging extradition. That’s where the sub plot occurs. You see, Tom is in love with Slim, Charlie’s wife. They’ve been carrying on a lurid affair for years. He can’t keep his hands off her when he sees her again in Mexico. She is loosely based on Pat McCormick, the four time Olympic diver, who was also a bullfighter. Slim is learning how against old tired bulls. Tom also has a girlfriend, fellow ADA, Ellie, who’s almost as beautiful as Slim but much more forgiving. The fool tells her all about Slim.
Mayor LaGuardia pops up for a few paragraphs and one of the major minor characters is Bill McCormack, Mr. Big of the New York City docks. Cardinal Francis Spellman is portrayed as an effeminate fop. We never meet Kefauver or Albert Anastasia, which would have been a treat.
I was first introduced to Kevin Baker when I read SOMETIMES YOU HEAR IT COMING, one of the better fictional baseball books I’ve read. Then I read the first of the City of Fire trilogy: DREAMLAND, about the history of Coney Island. Baker’s scholastic background definitely serves him as a reliable tour guide of the Big Apple.
September 30, 2014
The Painter
The first Peter Heller novel I read was THE DOG STARS, a dystopia about a blood disease that wipes out the world population, except for a few stragglers here and there. THE PAINTER is entirely different, although quite violent in its own way.
Jim Stegner, the main character, is an artist plagued by the loss of his daughter and a temper that gets the best of him. Prior to her death he shot a suspected pederast who said he wanted to “train” his daughter as a projectionist in his movie theater. Besides art, Jim’s other passion is fly fishing, and that’s what he’s doing when he runs across an “outfitter” who’s beating his horse. This is after his daughter’s death, and in his mind Jim associates the little roan with his daughter. Let’s just say that doesn’t bode well for the outfitter.
The book includes many scenes where Jim is working on a painting. Each chapter heading includes the dimensions and the subject of a new painting.
It gets psychological after a while. One focuses on a man digging a grave. That one was unfortunate because the detective investigating the death of the outfitter sees the painting and immediately makes the connection.
Heller must have great respect for law officers. There are two in the novel, affectionately known as “Sport”, the one above, and “Wheezer,” a really nice guy who’s not in the best of health. Wheezer goes so far as to chart a way out for Jim.
I had a little trouble believing some of the violent incidents in the book, especially the second. There’s another outfitter who happens to be the first one’s brother and he goes looking for Jim. What happens there is hard to believe. And there’s another relative, a trucker, who stalks Jim after the second brother gets his just desserts. Only this guy is essentially a nice guy, too, who provides the ending for the novel. I liked the way Heller handled the epilogue. It’s hard to believe Jim would actually do what the trucker suggests, considering his obsessions with painting and fly fishing.
I should say something about the women in Jim’s life. He’s been divorced twice, and he is currently having a relationship with his model, Sofia, who makes a move on him. Stephen Lily, Jim’s agent, is also significant in that he has a schizophrenic relationship with Jim’s art. He wants Jim to do commissions, but he also respects his talent.
This is a decent read if you like a theme with your plot. You might be reminded of Robert Browning’s poem where he refers to a “tender murderer”.
Jim Stegner, the main character, is an artist plagued by the loss of his daughter and a temper that gets the best of him. Prior to her death he shot a suspected pederast who said he wanted to “train” his daughter as a projectionist in his movie theater. Besides art, Jim’s other passion is fly fishing, and that’s what he’s doing when he runs across an “outfitter” who’s beating his horse. This is after his daughter’s death, and in his mind Jim associates the little roan with his daughter. Let’s just say that doesn’t bode well for the outfitter.
The book includes many scenes where Jim is working on a painting. Each chapter heading includes the dimensions and the subject of a new painting.
It gets psychological after a while. One focuses on a man digging a grave. That one was unfortunate because the detective investigating the death of the outfitter sees the painting and immediately makes the connection.
Heller must have great respect for law officers. There are two in the novel, affectionately known as “Sport”, the one above, and “Wheezer,” a really nice guy who’s not in the best of health. Wheezer goes so far as to chart a way out for Jim.
I had a little trouble believing some of the violent incidents in the book, especially the second. There’s another outfitter who happens to be the first one’s brother and he goes looking for Jim. What happens there is hard to believe. And there’s another relative, a trucker, who stalks Jim after the second brother gets his just desserts. Only this guy is essentially a nice guy, too, who provides the ending for the novel. I liked the way Heller handled the epilogue. It’s hard to believe Jim would actually do what the trucker suggests, considering his obsessions with painting and fly fishing.
I should say something about the women in Jim’s life. He’s been divorced twice, and he is currently having a relationship with his model, Sofia, who makes a move on him. Stephen Lily, Jim’s agent, is also significant in that he has a schizophrenic relationship with Jim’s art. He wants Jim to do commissions, but he also respects his talent.
This is a decent read if you like a theme with your plot. You might be reminded of Robert Browning’s poem where he refers to a “tender murderer”.
September 17, 2014
The Farm
Tom Rob Smith is the author of CHILD 44, one of the better thrillers I’ve ready in recent years. It was about a Russian serial killer, apparently based on a real case. Since then he’s written three more novels, two of them part of the Russian trilogy: THE SECRET SPEECH and AGENT SIX. I read them all.
THE FARM is a departure for Smith in a big way. According to Smith’s bio he has a Swedish mother and a British father. So does Daniel the protagonist of the new novel. Daniel’s parents have retired to a farm in Sweden, and Daniel is searching for a way to tell them that he’s gay, living with his partner, in Mark’s apartment when he receives a phone call from his father. His mother has been released from a mental hospital and is headed his way. She’s been acting strangely for a while, writing nonsense on the walls of the farm house.
During most of the story, we hear Tilde’s side of the story. She has a satchel in which she keeps the evidence of her descent into so-called madness. She’s positive she can convince Daniel that she’s the victim of a conspiracy to shut her up. We discover that his parents had very little money, having lost most of their savings in the recession, making bad real estate investments. The farm was cheap and Tilde had plans to attract tourists with salmon from the river and produce from a huge vegetable garden, but a land-hungry neighbor, Hakan, wants their land, and Chris, her husband, seems inclined to sell it to him for three times what they paid for it. Hakan has an adopted daughter, Mia, whom he adopted from Africa. Tilde believes Mia was a sex slave, and so were other adopted children in the area. She believes Mia was murdered when she threatened to tell the police. Amazingly she believes Chris is part of the sex ring, as is Hakan, the town mayor, a police detective, and the psychiatrist who treated her. Daniel doubts his gentle and kind father could ever change so much in a matter of months.
So . . . we’re left with the question, “Is Tilde telling the truth or is she delusional?” She seems to have all of her ducks in a row. She insists on presenting her evidence chronologically, and she backs her case up with seemingly concrete evidence. Then Chris calls to say he’s coming to London. Tilde has predicted he would.
As a novelist myself, I have to give credit to Smith’s originality; he doesn’t persist in his bread and butter Russian thriller series. This effort is totally original. I also had no idea what was going to happen in the climax. As an inveterate mystery fan, I usually know long before the denouement. I first chose Smith as an alternative to Martin Cruz Smith, as I was a big GORKY PARK fan, and I’ve read all of Cruz’s novels since, but I wasn’t disappointed to see Tom Rob Smith go in a different direction.
THE FARM is a departure for Smith in a big way. According to Smith’s bio he has a Swedish mother and a British father. So does Daniel the protagonist of the new novel. Daniel’s parents have retired to a farm in Sweden, and Daniel is searching for a way to tell them that he’s gay, living with his partner, in Mark’s apartment when he receives a phone call from his father. His mother has been released from a mental hospital and is headed his way. She’s been acting strangely for a while, writing nonsense on the walls of the farm house.
During most of the story, we hear Tilde’s side of the story. She has a satchel in which she keeps the evidence of her descent into so-called madness. She’s positive she can convince Daniel that she’s the victim of a conspiracy to shut her up. We discover that his parents had very little money, having lost most of their savings in the recession, making bad real estate investments. The farm was cheap and Tilde had plans to attract tourists with salmon from the river and produce from a huge vegetable garden, but a land-hungry neighbor, Hakan, wants their land, and Chris, her husband, seems inclined to sell it to him for three times what they paid for it. Hakan has an adopted daughter, Mia, whom he adopted from Africa. Tilde believes Mia was a sex slave, and so were other adopted children in the area. She believes Mia was murdered when she threatened to tell the police. Amazingly she believes Chris is part of the sex ring, as is Hakan, the town mayor, a police detective, and the psychiatrist who treated her. Daniel doubts his gentle and kind father could ever change so much in a matter of months.
So . . . we’re left with the question, “Is Tilde telling the truth or is she delusional?” She seems to have all of her ducks in a row. She insists on presenting her evidence chronologically, and she backs her case up with seemingly concrete evidence. Then Chris calls to say he’s coming to London. Tilde has predicted he would.
As a novelist myself, I have to give credit to Smith’s originality; he doesn’t persist in his bread and butter Russian thriller series. This effort is totally original. I also had no idea what was going to happen in the climax. As an inveterate mystery fan, I usually know long before the denouement. I first chose Smith as an alternative to Martin Cruz Smith, as I was a big GORKY PARK fan, and I’ve read all of Cruz’s novels since, but I wasn’t disappointed to see Tom Rob Smith go in a different direction.
September 8, 2014
Fourth of July Creek
Who would imagine a social worker would be confronted with shady side of human existence to this extent? The first part of this book is such a downer that you will be tempted to quit reading. Don’t do it. It’s one of the best novels I’ve read all year.
Pete Snow is a social worker plying his craft near the Montana Wilderness. In one of the first scenes, he’s called to a local school to deal with a boy loitering the halls, who seems to have come in out of the wild. He’s disheveled and doesn’t smell all that good. This boy is Benjamin Pearl, son of Jeremiah Pearl, a survivalist living in the hills. Pete takes Ben back to his father, and the two soon develop a rather live-and-let-live relationship. Pete sees Ben as a client and occasionally leaves food and clothes where the boy might find them. Jeremiah believes we’re in the end times, and that government script isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Pete is also having problems in his personal relationships; his wife has cheated on him, and he moves out. She moves to Texas, taking their daughter Rachel (who wants to be known as Rose) with them. Rachel soon runs away, and Pete spends the rest of the novel trying to track her down. Pete’s brother Luke has also run afoul of the law, and has jumped his parole. His parole officer thinks Pete knows where he is.
Smith Henderson has a unique style, especially during the Rachel viewpoints. He asks questions, then narrates Rachel’s answers. This is a technique that lots of writers use, asking their characters questions to get to know them, but I’ve never seen one put them in the book in this fashion. It sounds rather like the reader asking the author what’s happening with Rachel.
Rachel has two boyfriends during her escapade; the second one is a street kid named Pomeroy, who dyes his hair black. We get a good look at street life and what kids think they have to do to survive.
FOURTH OF JULY CREEK is a unique perspective on American life. I mean, when the social worker gets drunk, gets in fights, and is accused of harboring a criminal, who can you trust? Not that Pete doesn’t have a good heart. He truly loves his daughter; and he shows Jeremiah Pearl more understanding than he probably deserves.
Pete Snow is a social worker plying his craft near the Montana Wilderness. In one of the first scenes, he’s called to a local school to deal with a boy loitering the halls, who seems to have come in out of the wild. He’s disheveled and doesn’t smell all that good. This boy is Benjamin Pearl, son of Jeremiah Pearl, a survivalist living in the hills. Pete takes Ben back to his father, and the two soon develop a rather live-and-let-live relationship. Pete sees Ben as a client and occasionally leaves food and clothes where the boy might find them. Jeremiah believes we’re in the end times, and that government script isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Pete is also having problems in his personal relationships; his wife has cheated on him, and he moves out. She moves to Texas, taking their daughter Rachel (who wants to be known as Rose) with them. Rachel soon runs away, and Pete spends the rest of the novel trying to track her down. Pete’s brother Luke has also run afoul of the law, and has jumped his parole. His parole officer thinks Pete knows where he is.
Smith Henderson has a unique style, especially during the Rachel viewpoints. He asks questions, then narrates Rachel’s answers. This is a technique that lots of writers use, asking their characters questions to get to know them, but I’ve never seen one put them in the book in this fashion. It sounds rather like the reader asking the author what’s happening with Rachel.
Rachel has two boyfriends during her escapade; the second one is a street kid named Pomeroy, who dyes his hair black. We get a good look at street life and what kids think they have to do to survive.
FOURTH OF JULY CREEK is a unique perspective on American life. I mean, when the social worker gets drunk, gets in fights, and is accused of harboring a criminal, who can you trust? Not that Pete doesn’t have a good heart. He truly loves his daughter; and he shows Jeremiah Pearl more understanding than he probably deserves.
