David Schwinghammer's Blog, page 5

Wolves of Eden

It's rather surprising to see an Irish author write about the Indian battles in the West after the Civil War. McCarthy explains that by mentioning the high number of Irish soldiers who fought at the Battle of Little Big Horn, the Fetterman Massacre and other battles.

This is really two stories in one. Brevet Captain Malloy and brevet Sergeant Kohn are sent to investigate who killed the sutler (general store owner) at Fort Phil Kearny. The sutler's relatives don't believe it was Indians. Malloy is a drunk; Kohn is a Jewish Indian hater; they hate him back. The other story involves the O'Driscoll brothers, Tom and Michael (this is a pseudonym necessary to rejoin the army after the Civil War, after trying to make it as farm hands). Tom was shot in the mouth and has trouble being understood; he speaks mostly Gaelic to his brother who interprets for others. They met Malloy, who saved them for being branded as cowards for leaving the field of battle after Tom was shot. They meet up again at Fort Phil Kearny, although Malloy doesn't remember saving them.

The fort is in the process of being built and the woodtrain goes out to cut and plane trees just about every day. Red Cloud's Sioux warriors are waiting to ambush them. Nerves are raw as lots of soldiers are killed guarding the train. During their time off, they visit the sutler's house of ill repute. The Indian women who work there are “cut nose” prostitutes who were caught cheating. Tom falls in love with one of them and that leads to more murders. The description of what the Indians do to soldiers they capture is stomach-turning. McCarthy doesn't mention that scalping originated with French and English fur traders who put a bounty on Indians. Bounty hunters took their scalps as proof. One of the white Indian fighters also takes scalps.

One of the minor characters is a photographer whose favorite models are the women who work at the whore house. He bears no ill will against anybody including the sutler. It's not clear how he met his end.

Michael is writing his confession to Lt. Malloy, and we hear his voice alternating with that of Kohn throughout the novel. Malloy doesn't seem to care who killed the obnoxious sutler, and Kohn is obsessed with punishing the culprits.

The novel has psychological elements. Tom was a good-looking man before he was wounded and is haunted by the war as is Lt. Malloy, who falls off his horse and breaks his leg, causing him to abstain from rot gut booze. As a reader, you want this man to see the light. It might be too late.

A Spark of Light

The last book I read with an abortion theme was “Cider House Rules”. It was definitely pro-choice. I thought Jon Irving was risking his career by doing that in a fictional novel. But they made a movie out of it so he got away with it. A SPARK OF LIGHT is much more middle of the road.

It's about a shooting in the only abortion clinic left in Mississippi. Picoult saves her opinion until her author notes at the end of the book. Some of the factoids she reveals are highly enlightening. For instance, in the 50's, 1.2 million unsafe abortions were performed annually. She doesn't give a figure for 2019, but the number of abortions is going down.

The shooter in this instance is a man named George who has a definite point of view. His daughter had an abortion, and he's blaming the clinic for the fact that she didn't tell him.

Watch for a character named Beth. She's not at the clinic when George starts shooting. As a reader you'll wonder what the heck she's doing in the book. The other characters were there. Beth is under arrest for murder. She ordered an abortion pill online when it was too late for her to get it done at the clinic. But Picoult has a reason for including her beyond that. It's a twist you won't expect.

The other main character is the negotiator Hugh McElroy who tries to get George to release his hostages. One of them just happens to be Hugh's daughter who just happens to be there to get a prescription for birth control. Coincidentally, Hugh's sister, Bex brings her to the Clinic and she's there when George starts shooting. Hugh is supposed to hand the job over to someone without a personal relationship, but he can't bring himself to do it.

The main problem with the book is that Picoult is jumping all over the place trying to give everybody who was at the clinic a voice. One of them is a spy from the demonstrators who also has a personal angle. She's had an abortion herself and she can't forgive herself for it. When you find out why, she had the abortion, you'll find it hard to believe she's a Pro-lifer, much less a spy, hoping to get the nurses or the doctor to admit they're selling baby parts.

Picoult end notes are much more liberal than the book itself. Her solution to the abortion problem is to make contraceptives available to everyone. Science is making steady progress toward male contraceptives. Maybe that'll do it. Right.

Virgil Wander

Leif Enger first came to fame when he published PEACE LIKE A RIVER in the early 2000's. It was a about a dad and his daughter who loved Robert Service's Alaska poems and tried to write her own. She was a great character. He has since published two more novels, VIRGIL WANDER being the third.

This book is mostly character-driven. Virgil, the narrator, runs a run-down movie theater in Greenstone, Minnesota, on the shores of Lake Superior. He's just been involved in a car accident, driving off a cliff into the lake. A good Samaritan happened to see his car fly through the air and splash down and save him.

The plot, such as it is, starts with the disappearance of Alec Sandstrom, a Mark Fidrych like character whose erratic fastball, he called the Mad Mouse was good enough to throw a perfect game for the Duluth Superior Dukes. Alec disappeared when he flew a small plane over the lake and never returned, leaving behind a wife, Nadine, and a small son, Bjorn.

So we want to know what happened to Alec and we want to know about the weirdo Adam Leer, who was once a Hollywood producer, but only produced one hit movie. The book is also about kites. A character named Rune shows up in Greenstone; he just happens to be Alec's father, although he didn't know about it until it was too late. Now he's a master kite builder and flyer who makes these amazing flying machines, one of which is a big dog.

Virgil hires Bjorn to work at the theater; in no time at all he becomes a better projectionist than Virgil and also brings in new movie-goers with his charming pre-movie pitches. Virgil has a thing for Bjorn's mother, although she's a lot younger. Virgil also has an illegal stash of old movies, one of which, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” was Alec's favorite movie. Bjorn loves it. Virgil didn't steal the movies, and he's looking for a way to send them back to the studios without being blamed for stealing them. He's not the original owner.

There are a few twists later on in the novel, but they don't amount to much. This is about Virgil, Nadine, Bjorn, Rune and a few other minor characters who live in the seemingly dying town of Greenstone, which has lost its taconite mine. But they're a sturdy bunch and fun to hang out with for the time it takes to read 300 quality paperback pages.

My Sister, the Serial Killer

MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER, the subject of a recent TIME magazine review, was written by a Nigerian novelist, Oyinkan, Braithwaite, and as such is an intriguing read.

The book is not so much different than any other serial killer novel in respect to voice. There's only the occasional dialect reference. Instead of the Canadian “eh?' we get an “o”. Instead of maam we get “ma,” at least that's my best guess, but it's mostly told in standard English by an educated narrator.

The book starts with the murder of Koreda's younger sister's Ayoola's boyfriend with a knife. She's only 5' 2” and he's over six feet tall, but he wasn't expecting her to stab him with a six inch pig-sticker she got from her father's desk after he died. Rather than call the cops, Koreda, who happens to be a nurse, helps her clean up the mess and get rid of the body. We're told this is the third boyfriend, which makes Ayoola a serial killer.

Koreda loves her sister; they slept together and occasionally still do, but only as normal sisters would. Nothing hinky there. There is lots of jealousy on Koreda's part. Ayoola is very beautiful and she attracts men with little effort. Koreda is rather plain. Koreda is also in love with Tade a good-natured doctor at the hospital.

Koreda visits a man who has been in a coma for some time, thinking he'll never wake up. She tells him all about her sister and the angst involved in not being able to bring herself to do anything about the murders. She's implicated herself, after all.

Ayoola is also a fashion designer, her schooling paid for by a sugar daddy who also helped her start her business. They go off on a vacation in Dubai. Prior to this Koreda has easily snatched Tade away from Koreda, but she doesn't seem to think there's anything unusual about running off with another man. During the vacation, she changes her M.O. a bit. Of course she puts the weight on Koreda.

Oh, yes, the girls' father was abusive; there's a scene where he punishes Ayoola with his belt; Koreda tries to save her but gets in the way of the belt more than helping Ayoola.

So . . . Koreda uses their upbringing as an excuse for why Ayoola is doing what she's doing. There's another scene where Ayoola takes the blame for something Koreda did.

The climax arrives with a big complication. Somebody besides Koreda knows what Ayoola has been doing. Think about who that might be. And Ayoola is stabbed herself. Let's just say she asked for it, but the wrong person pays when Koreda continues to protect her sister.

How will it all end?

Unsheltered

UNSHELTERED is set in two different centuries at the same address. The house had foundation problems in both centuries and was falling down.

In the 21st century around the time Trump was campaigning for present, Willa Knox had lost her job as a magazine writer and was freelancing. Her husband, Iano, has finally found tenure as a college professor, but the college is in danger of closing and wants to sign him on a yearly basis. It's up to Willa to sell an article for a decent price to fix the house. Her daughter Tig (Antigone), all four feet ten inches, eighty pounds of her is twenty-six and could care less about money; she works as short order cook with her boyfriend, Jorge. She had suddenly appeared after being missing for several years. She was in Cuba embroiled in a romance with a married man. We learn a lot of good things about Cuba that our propaganda stations don't tell us. Education is free right on through Phd, for instance. If you need a ride anyplace, you go up to this guy wearing a yellow coat, who will find somebody to take you, usually stopping a car that's not fully occupied and asking where they're going. Willa's other child, Zeke, is a financier, trying to set up a hedge fund, but he's down in the dumps, as the mother of his child, Dusty, has committed suicide; she just never wanted a baby. Both Willa and Tig want Dusty. Zeke has yet to bond with the kid.

In the 19th century, Thatcher Greenwood is in his first year as a science teacher, trying to make it relevant to kids who could care less. But his main problem is his principal who will interrupt his class at any time and go into a religious rant, attacking science, usually Charles Darwin's contention that we evolved from apes. His wife, Rose, is into horses and the rich Dunwiddle family who let her ride their horses. Her little sister, Polly, is smitten with Thatcher and thinks he should marry her. She's just a teenager, though. The villain of this part of the story, besides the principal, is the town dictator, Landis who will remind you a lot of Henry Ford and other model city tyrants like Pullman who created working class homes for their employees, charged them rent and set up a whole string of requirements and rules you had to conform to if you wanted to live there, including periodic inspections. Landis also owned a lecture hall; he would bring in speakers for the edification of the townspeople at fifteen cents a pop. That's how Thatcher and his principal got involved in a debate on Darwin's evolutionary theory, which sealed his fate as a teacher. Thatcher did have one ally, a Mr. Carruth, who ran a newspaper critical of Landis's heavy-handed ways and of his ailing wife. That's where the climax for that part of the story arrives. Landis runs his own newspaper, which is highly complimentary of Landis's doings. Landis hates Carruth. What will he do about the insult (satirical though it is) to his wife and will he get away with it? I think we can see why the book is entitled UNSHELTERED and not only because both houses are falling down.

The Sisters Brothers

The Sisters brothers, Eli and Charlie, are hired guns, working for a crime boss named the Commodore during the California gold rush. They have been assigned the job of murdering Hermann Kermit Warm who has a formula that causes gold to rise from the bottom of a body of water to the top.

Eli and Charlie have a number of adventures before they can get to California, one of them involving a prospector who has struck it rich and Is spending his money as fast as he made it. Eli and Charlie end up with his gold, which they hide under a pot bellied stove in the basement of the prospector's hotel and there's a gun fight during which they cheat.

The Sisters have a Commodore contact in California names Morris, but by the time they get there, Morris has joined forces with Warm who had shown Morris his formula worked; they are now in the process of experimenting it on a larger body of water, a Beaver pond.

The problem is that Warm used some kind of acid in the formula and both Warm and Martin now have blisters on there feet and legs. This causes a bit of a problem for the reader in respect to suspension of disbelief. One of them falls in, and the other, who's supposed to be a brilliant inventor, jumps in after him to save him. Meanwhile the Sisters have met up with Warm and Morris and are helping them gather the gold; the formula actually works! But, being a little brighter, they prepare soap and water, to wash their legs and feet after they're finished collecting the gold.

One more thing: Charlie seems to be a sociopath, but the narrator, Eli, has a number of qualms about shooting people. Charlie gets greedy when pouring the formula into the Beaver pond, losing a hand in the process. We're supposed to believe that this changed Charlie's personality.

It's rather hard to believe that THE SISTERS BROTHERS was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize as there are no real twists in the novel, and the ending seems to be a bit too good to be true, considering who we're talking about here. I don't mean to say there's no comeuppance involved but it's purely monetary, and Eli doesn't even seem to care.

Pride

PRIDE is short for PRIDE and PREJUDICE as IbI Zoboi has accepted a world-wide challenge to write her version of a classic. Perhaps the most famous so far is Anne Tyler's VINEGAR GIRL her take on THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

Zoboi sets her version in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn where Yuppies are changing the familiar landscape. The protagonist is Zuri Benitez who lives with her four sisters in an apartment across from a remodeled mini-mansion. A twist on our expectations is that an upper class black family is moving in, and the two boys are really handsome. Her sister, Janae, falls for Ainsley right away. Darius Darcy acts like he's too good for the girls.

So . . . we know what to expect. Zuri is Elizabeth Bennett and she will eventually fall for Darius, who unbeknownst to us already likes her. She finds out for sure when they both make a college visit, she at Howard, him at Georgetown in Washington DC. His sister Gigi also goes to boarding school in Washington DC, a minor plot device. He compliments her on a poem she reads at a college hangout when she notices him in the audience.

Zuri is a proud black American, and she's not about to fall for some boy just because he's rich and good-looking, and she's deeply offended when one of Darius's relatives implies exactly that. Zoboi overdoes this aspect of Zuri's personality. A boy from the projects, with whom she goes on a “not a date” says he's always wanted to “get with” one of the fat a**sed Benitez girls, and she doesn't hand him his head. It's unusual that Zuri is so touchy since Janae, the oldest, doesn't do that at all, nor do her little sisters who are just as boy crazy as a Valley girl. This could be necessary, however, as Elizabeth Bennett was notably head strong.

I liked the fact that the Darcy boys were black and were still considered Yuppi invaders. We know that's the case in some black circles where a lighter shade of skin puts a person higher on the hierarchy or desirability. It's never adequately explained why the Darcy parents picked Bushwick as their new home. They had lived in a smaller house so perhaps it was a matter of affordability. The grandmother, however, lives in what sounds like a mansion.

It's rather hard to keep the character's straight. One of the sisters is away at Duke, and there's also the owner of the apartment, Madrina, who teaches Zuri what sounds like voodoo. There are, after all, originally from Haiti. Zuri also has a sister named Marisol. I still don't know where she fits in the family.

Laurentian Divide

Sarah Stonich is from Minnesota. Hence, the Laurentian Divide, the setting of this novel, must be The Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a wilderness area in northern Minnesota where motor vehicles are not allowed and Hatchet Inlet, the town featured in the story would probably be Ely, Minnesota, the Gateway to the Boundary Waters.

The novel is a frame story. Rauri Paar, the only remaining private owner in the Laurentian Divide, has not shown up after ice out on the lakes; he's usually a herald of spring. He spends the winter in his cabin on one of his islands, all by his lonesome. The residents of Hatchet Inlet think he's a victim of foul play or a heart attack or whatever. Only one of them, Pete Lahti is worried enough to try to find out what happened to him, and it almost gets him killed.

We don't find out what happened to Rauri until the end of the book, hence the frame. There are two other stories to keep us occupied: Pete's alcoholism (he's recovering) and his father, Alpo (No he wasn't named after the dogfood; he's Finnish) is getting married for the second time to Sissy who runs the local diner with her sister. Alpo is like sixty; Sissy is around forty.

So . . . this novel is really about the people of Hatchet Inlet. Stonich will occasionally throw in a long scene such as the one where she describes Alpo's
favorite fishing hole; the tourists haven't found it yet. Alpo draws a map for his new Kiwi friends from New Zealand. He trusts them to keep it secret. The scene doesn't drive the story, and it doesn't do much to give us a picture of the Laurentian Divide.

There's also a sort of sub plot about Sissy's mother who has Alzheimer's. She has her lucid moments when she can be kind of funny; they take her to Sissy's wedding, which she almost ruins, but she does strike up some surprisingly good harmony with the band at the reception.

I'm also from Minnesota, but I've never been up Nort (that's an intentional mistake) except for Duluth, which is a beautiful city if you've never been. It's the largest fresh water port in America, if not the world. Lake Superior will take your breath away. I was looking forward to a more detailed description of the BWCA; I guess I'll need to look for a non-fiction account.

Depth of Winter

I've always preferred Craig Johnson's novels to his TV show because there's more humor in the novels.

For instance, in this one, one of Walt's cohorts convinces a group of hostile Mexicans that Walt is Bob Lilly, the former great Dallas Cowboy defensive tackle. Walt, who once player offensive tackle in high school, fits the part and is willing to let them think what they want to think if it'll help find his daughter who's been kidnapped by a Mexican drug lord.

Walt quickly tracks her and the drug lord, an old nemesis called Bidarte, to a dilapidated monastery. A minor villain in the plot is Bidarte's lieutenant, Culpepper, who seems to be an American. They develop a sort of rapport, so much so that Walt keeps letting him go when he has the upper hand and Culpepper keeps turning up again under bad circumstances. Culpepper isn't the only one. Walt prevents one of his helpers from killing a fifteen year old member of a patrol they managed to subdue, providing he promises to stay away from Bidarte's hideout. You guessed it; he turns up again like a bad penny.

In another scene, Walt has a surprising conversation with Bidarte himself, where the drug lord tells him how much he respects him. The reader has to remind himself/herself this guy is holding Walt's daughter and has previously killed his son-in-law.

The book is liberally sprinkled with interesting characters from the blind Seer who is also missing his legs but is a good source of advice to a dead shot Apache assigned to help Walt find his daughter to the sexy Bianca a sister to a doctor who has formed a home defense unit against the drug lord's pack of wolves.

Bidarte has Walt in a bad predicament often during the story, but he doesn't seem to want him dead. So then, the reader should always be asking, “Why not?' I'd throw in a vulgarity in that question but I'd like my review posted.

Leave No Trace

LEAVE NO TRACE is about a boy who suddenly appears after being missing for ten years. He walks out of the Boundary Water Canoe Area in Northern Minnesota, one of the most pristine wilderness areas in the U.S.

Lucas Blackthorne's father, Josiah, is still missing. Lucas gets in trouble for breaking and entering an outfitter's store, attempted robbery and two counts of aggravated assault on the owners. Lucas is institutionalized because he can't or won't talk about where he's been or where his father is.

Maya Stark, a speech pathologist at the mental facility, is assigned the case. Gradually we learn that Maya was a former patient at the same facility. Eventually he says, “I know you.” We learn what that means later, but at least she's got him talking.

Maya works at getting a search party to find Josiah Blackthorn. Dr. Mehta, her superior finally agrees, but Lucas isn't comfortable among all these people and Dr. Mehta gets hurt. The search is cancelled.

Maya decides to take matters into her own hands, risking her career and possibly being charged with a felony.

Mostly we get Maya's first person account of what happens in the story, but once or twice, Josiah speaks for himself. He loves Lucas more than himself, and he teaches him how to survive in the wilderness, but we're not sure if Lucas actually knows where Josiah is or if he's still alive.

Maya was also abandoned by her mentally ill mother and she wants to know what happened to her; she begins to suspect Josiah Blackthorn, once she learns Josiah and Lucas had stayed in her mother's cabin for a time, hence the above statement, “I know you.” Maya looks a lot like her mother.

Author Mindy Mejia makes a valiant effort at describing the BWCA, but she should've tried harder to make it a character in the story. It's a beautiful place, but it can kill you if you don't know what you're doing. It's called the Boundary Water Canoe Area because motorized vehicles are not allowed and I imagine they feel the same way about technology in general. It's essentially a string of lakes, extending all the way into Canada, although it goes by a different name there. I chose this book because it was set in the BWCA, but I have a feeling Mejia didn't know it as well as she should have. She gives credit to lots of different people in her acknowledgments, and I imagine they're the source of her descriptions. She does mention fellow voyagers who know how to make a mean “bear bag” so we know she did stick her toe in the water. One source she does mention is A YEAR IN THE WILDERNESS: BEARING WITNESS IN THE BOUNDARY WATERS by Amy and Dave Freeman.