Gordon Osmond's Blog: Gordon Osmond on Writing, page 3

My latest Bookpleasures review

Title: God’s Kingdom
Author: Howard Frank Mosher
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
ISBN: ISBN 978-1-250-06948-1 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4668-8200-3 (e-book) eISBN 9781466882003
A reader experiences a series of sensations when tucking into a truly wonderful book. First there is a sense of ease, perhaps relief, in knowing that the reader in the hands of a writer who knows how to write. Next comes the excitement of knowing that the writer is also a gifted story teller. Finally, there is the feeling of reward and satisfied pleasure that comes from knowing that these twin capacities have come together in a truly exciting tale artistically told.
Author Mosher’s account of the sentimental, heroic, poignant, and violent experiences of generations of a family living in Vermont near the Canadian border makes for truly splendid and speedy reading.
The central family is the Kinnesons and Jim Kinneson is its central member. The focus on Jim is so strong that readers might sometimes think that the stories are being told in the first rather than the third person. Jim, known as James by his wondrous lover, is a writer who like many successful writers (James Broderick comes to mind) started out as a cub reporter for a local newspaper.
The stories range from tales of violence and revenge to milder, but no less valuable observations of the human condition. Mosher’s concern for inhumanities imposed on man or moose is equivalent. The author’s insights and compassionate evaluations prevail throughout.
The many characters of this novel are vividly described; the reader feels like inviting them all to tea, or, in some cases, for something stronger. To help the reader locate the many members of the Kinneson Clan portrayed in the book, the author has appended a useful genealogical chart.
The author’s use of simile and metaphor add artistic texture to the telling of a basically rural series of tales. There are lots of words alien to city slickers, but Mosher makes their context so clear that it is totally unnecessary to verify their specific meanings.
Sometimes Mosher can be deliciously delicate:
“Soon the brook trout would don their matrimonial attire, in preparation for their annual fall spawning ritual.” I think this boils down to fish fucking.
Typical of the author’s lyrical use of language is the following:
“Yet, as he started his truck and headed over the height of land toward the other side of the hills, he knew in his heart that however far he might go, he would always take with him the stories, the mysteries, and the imperishable past of God’s Kingdom. For now, that was enough.”
It may be enough for Jim, but lovers of English and great story telling will crave lots more from the pen of Mr. Mosher.

What Aging Men Want, a Book Review

Title: What Aging Men Want--The Odyssey as a Parable of Male Aging
Author: John C. Robinson, Ph.D., D.Min.
Publisher: Psyche Books
ISBN: ISBN: 978 1 78099 981 4
To stick with the classics, you might say that this book, like all of Gaul, is divided, functionally, into three parts.
First, it is a skillful and erudite synopsis of the story of Homer’s The Odyssey. As I was reminded of the book’s twists and turns, I couldn’t help wishing that Anna (“I’m not making this up, you know”} Russell had done for it what she did for Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Robinson’s summary is done with a totally straight face, for which he deserves considerable credit.
Second, it contains an analysis of the story, equally incisive and impressive. I doubt that today’s students are troubling with the book any more than they are with the language in which it was originally written. Again, I found myself wishing that it had been around when I was studying Latin. I never used Cliffs Notes or lesser cheat sheets, but had I been tempted so to do, Robinson’s would clearly have been my first choice.
Third, Robinson seeks to apply the lessons of The Odyssey to the challenges facing modern men, particularly those who are approaching the inevitable end of their lives.
Robinson’s thesis would seem to be that Odysseus’ odyssey from Troy to Ithaca is not only a homecoming, but, more importantly, a personal transition from warrior to pussy cat or lap dog (choose the pet you prefer for both are famous for unconditional love, which Robinson clearly believes is a very good thing.)
In applying this model to today’s aging man, Robinson is obviously influenced by his own personal experience with aging, homecoming, and family reconciliation. This makes his accounts and advice especially vivid and heartfelt, particularly for elderly parents whose life anthem is Harry Chapin’s The Cat’s in the Cradle. However, this same strength and focus limits the value of his thinking to many other men who are facing retirement and beyond with totally different value systems and life experiences.
Robinson seems to assume that in warrior mode, men are oblivious to their softer, gentler, side, ignoring their wives and children, and have much to atone for later on as death approaches. He also seems to assume that death is a late-arriving surprise which takes men off guard.
Among the many premises of this book that many aging men will question, are:
• That ambition and achievement, like a siren, are destructively seductive, rather than a value that can inspire men or women from the beginning to the end of their lives
• That love is some sort of miasma which blesses all upon whom it spreads, especially friends and family members whoever they are and however morally valuable they may be
• That men have to be near death to access their Softer Side of Sears. There are many men who have lived with it and benefited from it since birth.

The book ends with suggestions for a ceremony that I found totally bizarre. It had elements of drug and alcohol interventions, college fraternity initiations without the hoods, macumba ceremonies, and exorcisms. I think I’d rather die than attend one in any capacity.
Men approaching death clearly need good advice: for example, butterflies are free but health insurance, especially these days, isn’t, so save up; friends and family members come and go but cannot, by virtue of that relationship alone, validate or invalidate your own life; love, rationally bestowed, can surely see one through one’s darkest days. Retirement does indeed usually involve the reduction of power over others, but money is a serviceable substitute. Nobody loves you when you’re down and out, so don’t be either.
There is a lot of the flower child in author Robinson. The linking of competition and aggression, the unconditional endorsement of indiscriminate love regardless of the merit of its recipients, the overweening value of family and friends in providing essential collective relief to the aging individual are clearly comforting concepts to many. However they are flaccid guideposts to others.
For the religious, faith-inclined reader, this book will be deeply satisfying. For those who posit reason as a force stronger than all the others, for those whose quest for achievement and the happiness it produces may need to be adjusted, but not abandoned by age, well…

Great Sex Anthology

Title: The Flesh Made Word—Erotic Tales about Writing
Authors: Various
Editor: Bernie Mojzes
Publisher: Circlet Press
IISBN-10: 1613901194
ISBN-13: 978-1613901199

Under a title that is itself a clever variation of the more frequently encountered Word Made Flesh, Editor Bernie Mojzes has assembled ten very sexy short stories written by as many authors. We cannot be absolutely sure about the number of authors because of the wacked-out biography of contributor, Sunny Moraine.

The editor’s call for submissions invited contributors to explore the connections among the trinity of writer, writing tools, and medium.

The response to this provocative stimulus is remarkable. Each of the stories is fresh, imaginative, and beautifully written. Forget about the cloying coyness and vocabularic (made that word up, caught up in the freedom of these stories) claustrophobia of contemporary romance novels wherein breasts are “cupped,” arms “snake,” cocks are “manhoods,” and clits are “mounds.”
Unfortunately, the tendency to “verbalize” nouns is not totally absent from this collection, for example, “when Kitty palms the door open…” I may be old-fashioned, but I’d be just as happy if Kitty just pushed the door open. I was equally unimpressed with, “It is exquisite agony.”

In some of the stories, the use of simile is so prevalent as to mimic today’s teenagers’ “like”- soaked conversations. For example,” tumbling into desire like an updraft. It hurts. His fingers are sharp, his body unyielding. She opens like a book in his hands…” Similes are, of course, one of a writer’s primary tools, based as they are, on a human’s abstractive capacity, but, as with all good things, their use can be overdone.

In some of the stories, the sex act is clearly the piece’s centerpiece; in others, it’s more of an integrated side dish. Some of the stories’ venues are realistic; others clearly fantastical and futuristic. In all cases, the descriptions are vibrant, admirable, and memorable.

The first story, All the Spaces In-Between by A.C. Wise, uses the author’s relationship with typewriters and their ancient ribbons to spool out a tale of sex and remembrance. It sets a high standard of excellence that the following stories more than maintain.

Because of my long exposure to the world of theatre and its fulsome foibles, Rival Pens by Benji Bright is probably my personal favorite. Featuring bitchiness worthy of Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker, two playwrights exchange letters which drool over actors they share, at least on stage and perhaps elsewhere. Great fun.

Editor Mojzes did such an outstanding job assembling the literary ejaculations of these outstanding artists that I am inclined to forgive him for his unbelievably trite, however true, finale to his introduction: “The stories I received exceeded my expectations. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.” Another arguable slip was allowing the use of “further” and “farther” within sentences of each other, each referring to a geographic comparison.

In this same introduction to the anthology, Mojzes reports that he would have preferred to be a story contributor rather than the collection’s editor. If his own short account of having his torn jeans inscribed by a party guest is an example of his wit and writing, ‘tis a shame the publisher didn’t allow him to function in both capacities.

Books in Series

Title: March and the Single Heart
Author: Vi Zetterwall
Publisher: CC Productions
ISBN: ISBN# 978-1499383669 Edition 3
In the worlds of contemporary romance books and action films, series are all the rage. From Harry Potter to Fast and Furious, the secret to success would seem to be being a link in a chain. Franchising is no longer the exclusive domain of fast-food restaurants.
Author Vi Zetterwall has clearly got the message in creating a mega-series based on the twelve months of the year. March and the Single Heart is the third in the calendar series. It is wisely described as a stand-alone novella.
In the young life of Marci Ramirez, the trials and tribulations occur in reverse order. The first part of the novella describes a truly depressing tale of physical impairment, parental abuse, employment exploitation, and romantic disappointment. The stakes are raised substantially when Marci is dragooned into serving as a runner for the local drug gang. This all comes to a head in the book’s final sections, which deal with the trial of Marci for her nefarious activities.
Given the life stations of the book’s principal characters— dry cleaning and grocery owners, checkers and baggers, a drunken widower, and Marci herself, it is not unexpected that their spoken language is on the basic side. Less justifiable is the author’s own voice which is comparably undergraduate. The descriptive passages of the book are long on street numbers and bus routes and short on sophisticated commentary.
The text is not totally devoid of charm or nuance. The exchange between Marci and the neighborhood pawnbroker is delightful.
With the exception of occasional confusion between possessives and plurals, the editing of the book is exemplary. On a more substantive level, it should be noted that banks don’t issue certified or bank checks on uncollected funds, and prosecutors don’t reserve the right to “redirect” defense witnesses.
The book’s subtitle is: A tale of unrequited love and final redemption. I won’t be a spoiler by commenting about the first tag, and I’ll leave to the book’s cleric to decide whether redemption was either necessary or appropriate.
Merchandising is also a key element of film production. You can achieve status as a Rocky aficionado by buying and wearing the tee-shirt. Not to be outdone, Ms. Zetterwall offers the opportunity to express one’s faith and hope in good luck and the Single Heart series for the modest price of $9.95 (not to be confused with $10) plus shipping and handling in payment for an authentic replica of the coin that connects the Single Heart Series. Creative, yes; cheesy, you bet.

The Rainbow Option:A Book Review

Title: The Rainbow Option
Author: Michael McCarthy
• Publisher: 30 Cubits Press; 1 edition (August 12, 2014)
• ISBN-10: 0692276394
• ISBN-13: 978-0692276396

For the millions who have read and been seriously affected by Ayn Rand’s epic novel, Atlas Shrugged, reading Michael McCarthy’s The Rainbow Option may seem like an easy stroll down Memory Lane. The correspondence between the two novels is almost omnipresent, not only in terms of the authors’ political orientations and epistemological inclinations but also as to specific plot elements the two authors use to tell their stories and make their points.
Like Rand, McCarthy is a committed capitalist, individualist, and limited government advocate. He distrusts those with political power and respects those who create value through hard work, be it manual or mental. Both authors get a lot of mileage by portraying the parasitic nature of non-producers. McCarthy succinctly restates Rand’s epistemology with the catchy, “Reality is not optional.” I also liked the author’s encapsulation of the well supported theory that rewarding the undeserving is counter-productive: “You got something for nothing, and it made you good for nothing.”
When a character says, “Those seeds? You didn’t build them,” there is little doubt that Obama and his ideological comrade, Elizabeth Warren, are clearly in the author’s crosshairs. Obama also takes it on an uplifted chin in search of coinage when McCarthy notes the president’s addiction to giving speeches.
One of the principal heroes in The Rainbow Option, Grace Washington, has developed a super seed that can go a long way in addressing global food shortages. (The discovery functions as Reardon Metal did in Atlas Shrugged.) Refusing to be victimized by politicians who believe that the invention is public property, viz., their property, and predicting, accurately, that the prevailing political processes will result in widespread famine and social disintegration, McCarthy’s producers shrug themselves into small communities called ARKs, a nice rhetorical connection with McCarthy’s earlier novel, The Noah Option. These communities become immediate targets of the totalitarians.
The struggles between these forces are fought and fraught with guns, germs, drones, spies, and cyber science. I pay the book no compliment by noting that many of its violent scenes would fit very comfortably on today’s wide screens or in video game arcades.
McCarthy clearly enjoys the novelist’s right to give names to the book’s fictional characters. Grace Washington is an obvious blend of religion and enlightened statesmanship. On the villain side, we have Special Agent Ms. Maudire VanJones, the real male Van Jones being a former Obama Czar (2009 to 2009 sic), who is now a panelist representing the Far Left on CNN. My favorite bad “guy” is Ms. Wasserwoman, probably from Florida. Other prominent liberals are given their real names from Obama to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Bill O’Reilly and Mark Levin, one of whose recent books is actually plugged along with the Bible, are also identified by their real names, representing the other side of the political spectrum. The text is also replete with acronyms and initialisms, some quite droll in terms of their political resonance. My particular favorite was the subtly delivered Concerns & Reassurance Address by the President.
Throughout the book there is a straddle between actual events like the Occupy Movements and Obamacare and fictional extrapolations thereof. It’s actually quite a bit of fun to distinguish between the two as one reads along, appreciating the author’s point that the real events of today and the constructed consequences of tomorrow are not all that distant from each other.
Love is represented on two levels, both rather superficially. Grace Washington and Isaiah Mercury are soul mates, and Joseph Wakini, a Shoshone Indian, and Cathy, a modern Calamity Jane, are more romantically, but briefly linked. Clearly, McCarthy has bigger fish to fry than to get deeply involved with lovers or sex of any stripe.
At an early point in the story, a judge is given a reading list to while away the time when he is struggling to survive in a wooded wilderness. The list includes the Bible and the works of Ayn Rand, the latter being McCarthy’s sole explicit recognition of Rand, clearly his literary ancestor. As the Bible and Rand’s writings are polar opposites in terms of the value of faith and the virtue of sacrifice, one wonders how, if at all, the judge managed to reconcile the two while foraging for food and firewood.
The Rainbow Option ends with an explanation of its title, which, by the way, has nothing to do with homosexuality. It is basically an edit of the USA’s founding documents, designed to state even more emphatically than before the importance of freedom, free enterprise, personal independence and property, self-reliance, and the illegitimacy of initiating violence, be it physical or by fraud.
These are valuable precepts well worth reviewing, and for those who like their messages delivered directly and explicitly in the context of current events and contemporary imagery, and, by the way, who can deal with the confusion of the deity dropping in now and again, The Rainbow Option is one they may well want to read about and hopefully exercise.

Dialogue Tag Lines

Dialogue Tag Lines
Recently, while editing a book for a client, I came across the following line, “’You bitch,’ she said.” In my angel innocence, I suggested that maybe “said” could be spiced up a bit to underscore the obvious inherent intensity of the line. I thought that perhaps the author would consider “screamed,” “hissed,” or “cried” as alternatives, depending upon the author’s view of the precise emotional underpinnings of the scene.

Well, I may as well have slapped the Pope. As a mother would inform a child that Santa Claus is a spirit rather than a real person, my client/author told me that dialogue tag lines were constitutionally limited to “said.”

This “rule” struck me as sufficiently restrictive and unreasonable as to require a bit of research on my part, and, lo and behold, there is respectable authority for this injunction.
The rationale would seem to be that by using “said” over and over, it becomes invisible, which is apparently a very good thing.

I have two problems with this. First, things which happen over and over, like the Chinese Water Torture and tightening screws on an assembly line, do not become invisible, only irritating. Also, it never occurred to me that as an author fashioning words on a page, I should strive, as a summum bonum, to make them invisible. I could achieve that effect by not writing at all.

Now that I’ve been enlightened, I’m acutely sensitive to dialogue tag lines used by other authors. I’m happy to report that this “rule” is honored more in the breach than in its observance.

Other rules presented to me were that adverbs are suspect, that the passive voice is felonious, and that sentences more than ten words long must be chopped up like Lizzie Borden’s parents. We’ll deal with these absurdities in later articles.

Book Review of Twisted

Title: Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles
Author: Bert Ashe
Publisher: Agate Bolden (June 9, 2015)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00XGX3YH4

In this free-wheeling, often dispersive memoir, Professor Ashe uses his feelings about, experiences with, and assessment of a hairstyle as the focal point for his thoughts about the tensions felt and struggles faced by him and his fellow African Americans in dealing with their status as a minority community within the United States for the past couple of decades.

The hairstyle in question is/are (depending upon whether or not you accept the author’s grammatical take on the matter) dreadlocks—a steroidal twisting of hair somehow related to, but clearly distinct from braids and cornrows.

As the interior text of this book is devoid of illustration, I supplemented my knowledge of dreadlocks by watching a YouTube video of the process and found it to be even worse than I had imagined. Admittedly, I was raised in a generation when young girls were warned of pulling ponytails too tight for fear of damaging hair and scalp. From this perspective, production of dreadlocks struck me as nothing short of tortuous and murderous. And my concerns for hygiene were hardly allayed by the author’s description of the shampooing schedule involved. Itches that dasn’t be scratched completed the picture of a procedure that one would have to have very strong political, social, or philosophical convictions to endure. It would seem that Professor Ashe has the lot.

The author talks a bit about hair tossing. With dreadlocks, particularly long ones with beads attached, a la Steven Wonder, this could be perilous. But when Rita Hayworth perfected the gesture in Gilda, the only casualties were any man within a ten-mile radius.

Professor Ashe’s courting, succumbing, and final murdering of dreadlocks makes for fascinating reading for the most part. His writing style is richly endowed with imaginative images, abundant word plays, and general erudition and imagination. At times imagination borders on drug-induced incoherence, but no matter. Flights of fancy often become a bit bumpy.

More concerning is the struggle between the author’s natural and highly gifted playfulness and his all-too-familiar politically correct agenda, which is often lacking in both perspective and humor. Does one have to be white to find more fun than fury in Al Jolson’s performance of Mammy, Betty Grable and June Haver’s performance of Darktown Strutters’ Ball, and even Judy Garland’s mostly mulatto rendition of Swanee? Does one have to be black to approve the Wayans Brothers whiteface performances in White Chicks? As far as I know, gays don’t have their leather underwear in a twist about rainbow-colored Afro wigs. Is a dreadlock wig really morally equivalent to a safari? I guess we’ll have to take Professor Ashe’s course on the subject to find out. If he’s as interesting in the classroom as he is in Twisted, it should be a gas.

Romeo's Revenge--a book review

As published on Bookpleasures, Bookideas, and Amazon: *****

Title: Romeo’s Revenge and Other Wisconsin Stories
Author: Byron Grush
Publisher: Create Space
ISBN: ISBN-10:1500776297
ISBN-13:978-1500776299
Byron Grush studied art and design and taught at The Art Institute of Chicago, creating a course in film animation in the mid-seventies. From his background as a visual, graphic, and electronic artist, Grush has turned his attention forward to a writing career and backward to the historical settings of the stories he tells. These odysseys will be welcome to any reader who appreciates exciting stories of the past told with prodigious literary skill.
Author Grush’s collection of short stories is centered in Devalin, Wisconsin, to which he has settled after residing in many other places. His affection for Devalin and its history is palpable. It is no surprise to learn that he is the grandson of a former mayor of a nearby city in Illinois.
The arrangement of the stories is strategic and satisfying. The title story is a riveting man against. beast tale full of passion and violence. Nature takes its turn as protagonist with the final two stories featuring the fury of fires on land and at sea. Stories exploring subtler moods of poignancy and reflection inhabit the space between the bombastic bookends.
Given the author’s proficiency with the pen, it may be some time before he returns to the brush. A rich vocabulary well serves Grush’s imaginative use of simile and metaphor to create a text which causes a reader to question whether the wonder is in the story itself or rather the skill with which it is being told.
Examples:
The long, slow kiss that followed had been inevitable and overdue for they had passed many furtive glances and spoken many trivialities which both knew were the hesitant meanderings of desire restrained by protocol and station.
Women wearing wild feathered headdresses and risqué sequined tights rode on the elephants’ shoulders while trunks were held high and undulated like giant serpents dancing to an Indian mystic’s flute.
He dresses in baggy clothes and you can almost hear the blues when you look at him.
…munching a cold piece of toast with red jelly dripping from it like tears.
Pushed by wind— earth’s very breath—
Some of those thus wounded tore at their clothing, ripping off flaps of skin that adhered to the cloth. Some jumped into the water to escape the agonizing pain and were drowned.
Flames burst from the two sides of the boat, flaring out and upward like giant hands that came together in a thunderous clap that propelled the combined inferno to an impossible height.
The editing is not perfect.
Timbers are “strained” not “trained” by an elephant’s weight
…couldn’t bare (sic) it when she…
She examined the mechanism the (sic) would soon lower the casket
The man is tall but lanky. [Why the”but”?]
for Gordon and myself (sic)
They barely glace (sic) up as Joey and Gabe enter.
All he could do now was lay (sic) back and hope.
Although rooted in periods beginning in the second half of the nineteen century, there is a lot of current relevance in these stories. For example, in the forest fire sequences, we are introduced to a deranged woman who claims that the fiery deforestation is God’s punishment for the rapacious loggers that are indiscriminately cutting down trees.
Eleanor Sorensen saw the destruction of the old-growth forests as a defilement of God’s plan: the desecration of Eden. She was zealously religious and often pontificated about the Wrath of God and the coming of the Apocalypse, the genesis of which, she maintained in her scurrilous manner, was the pillage and plunder of nature by mankind— to whit (sic): the lumber industry.
As crazy as she’s portrayed, this reviewer observed an odd correspondence between this loon and today’s radical environmentalists.
One question the author is determined not to go unanswered is whether the stories are fact, fiction, fact-based legend, or some homogenized blend thereof. No fewer than three sections of the book are devoted to clarification of this issue, the most interesting of which is a final section entitled, Some Instances of History, which also serves as a useful reflection on many of the delightful stories that have preceded it. The cumulative disclosures are sufficient to pass muster according to the strictest standards applicable to a SEC-vetted prospectus. From the book:
There was a speakeasy called “The Sewer” in the basement of the Lake Como Hotel. Jimmy Murray supplied it from his brewery in New Glarus. Bugs Moran, Baby Face Nelson and the Dillinger gang did hang out at the Lake Como Hotel in the 1930s. The original John Barleycorn on Belden Avenue in Chicago was a speakeasy during prohibition. It was accessed through the Chinese laundry. Barnum’s gold? Well, that’s debatable. The source… the only source for that story was an email sent to a local journalist in Walworth County. While adapting the tale for my story I had to change a few things to make it more credible. And where was the gold, you may ask? Why, in the whiskey case, of course.
This heightened candor may be comforting to a historian, but for one who enjoys good stories, artistically told, the proof is in the reading, not in the historical accuracy.
(c) 2015 Gordon Osmond

Upcoming Radio Interview

On Friday, May 8, 2015, I will be on Will Wilson's Indie Author broadcast for one hour to discuss a wide range of issues from my plays, my books, my blogs, and my thoughts about writing and publishing. I will also report on the plans of a U.K. publisher to release a non-fiction book later this year and a collection of three of my most successful stage plays.

The broadcast can be accessed live starting at 11:00 a.m. or later, both by clicking on this link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/indieboo...

Facebook Be Gone!

Why I Left the Book That Dares Not Face Its Name
Not Facebook’s fault.
Providing a forum for others to embarrass themselves is not the provider’s responsibility.
And perhaps there are means to restrict communications to those that have something more profound to share than their experience digesting their last meal.
For me the final straw was an exchange between an author, who joyously reported that her latest book had received a five-star review, the words of which scarcely outnumbered the stars. That was bad enough, but a comment said, “Awesome.” Now, the sunrise over Kilimanjaro may be awesome, but this review was surely not. “Awesome,” “sucks,” “amazing,” may have to be tolerated when spewed from the mouths of adolescents, but more is expected from adults.
So, with this final salvo, I exit the Temple of Trivia. If anyone wants to discuss anything consequential, I’m always available at fertile1@aol.com.