Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 85

Find some other way to feel. Then you won’t feel sad. Good luck.

70. Gone South – Robert R. McCammon

I’ve been looking at this book on my mother’s bookshelf for a long time and it’s one hell of a novel. I did not expect a single thing that happened in it; I didn’t know I was going to be reading such a tense, fantastical story that included some Elvis, some serious amounts of sweating, a fairy tale garden, drug dealers, obstinate ladies, and a conjoined twin. I felt like I understood it better after having lived in Mississippi (it takes place in south Louisiana) and I definitely know where the areas that the story took place are on a map – mainly it reminded me that there are some things about living in the South that I cannot explain to anyone. It’s retained its sense of wildness and a weirdness that is heavily on display in Gone South. And living there truly demonstrated to me that there are some things that can never be fixed, some things that will work themselves out regardless of how much I worry, and some things that are just doomed. My darling Duncan was one such doomed individual and you can see her sweet little profile in the photo below, she’s with her mother Murderface. She died four years ago today, the first of my herd of eight to pass, of cancer. She was only nine months old and time was obviously not on her side. No it wasn’t.

I think about Duncan a lot and regardless of whether or not I want them to, some of my pigs’ death days sneak up on me. I’m pretty sure one of the currently living pigs’ death day is soon to come and so the death days are reminders of what I’ve gone through and what I will go through again and again, as long as I choose to keep these little rapscallions. Granted, the benefits of having guinea pigs for me far outweigh the non-benefits. Lost my words there a bit. Oh well. Anyway, another reason that Duncan’s death day is weighing heavy four years on is that Ned Vizzini committed suicide recently. He was only a year older than me and was living a chunk of my dream career- he’s had four books published, he allowed a movie to be made of one horrifically affecting novel (that meant a lot to me), and he was writing for television. He also may have had enough money for his family to live on at any given time. And some people have to write- regardless of whether or not it’s ever going to get anywhere that anyone notices- and some people get paid too. It’s hard to understand where that kind of accomplishment would go south on you. But maybe he lost his anchors or maybe he was being pressured to just “get over it” too much, as that seems to happen to people with serious depression. I definitely lost my anchor and, just a quick public service announcement, try not to choose anchors that can die.

Murderface and Duncan Hills, brutally cute, also brutal reminders of how short the lifespan of guinea pigs can be. Happy Holidays, Mr. Hobbes!

I wish American Horror Story: Coven and Top Chef would quit making me miss New Orleans so much.

69. Twilight – William Gay

I picked this up at a thrift store on Magazine Street that no longer exists as far as I can tell and used to have a silver rocking horse hanging above it. I’ve never really been sure what it was called. Mr. Cheese and I had a lot of fun there, they had a new stuffed Gizmo in a bird cage and this lovely calendar from a Chinese restaurant with especially lovely rabbits on it…it’s also the place I bought Mr. Cheese his second sugar urn, i.e. a sugar bowl that, for the un-tea-cultured poors like me, looks more like an urn than it does a sugar bowl. He found his first one in Iowa.

Anyway, I bought this book because the description made it sound like it was going to be a southern gothic version of Phantasm. There’s a funeral director doing questionable things with the bodies and a young man who must stop him. Well, it’s not like Phantasm. For one thing, there’s no Reggie character. And it not being like Phantasm has sort of clouded my judgment. You see the sentences, they are pretty. I am rarely in the mood for pretty sentences, if ever, so I can appreciate this for what it is – a well written story about a young man who has gone into the local wilderness trying to get to a sheriff before he gets killed by the local psychopath (who was hired by the funeral director). There’s some poetically written nature, some Odyssey-like characters, and some mysteriousness that reminded me a bit of The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale but not as nasty- but it just wasn’t working for me as a reader. Especially when the actions that started the story were resolved in two sentences, at the very end, and the sentences came from a character who was supposedly important throughout the book but didn’t end up doing anything but resolving the starting action. It’s a journey story and usually I really like those, but I just wasn’t able to get into this one once I realized it wasn’t quite what I thought it was going to be.

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“No Tall Man? No ice cream truck? Why even bother writing a creepy funeral director character if he’s not pursued by a team of misfits and the resolution to his story basically occurs off-page?” Pickles has my back, because I put words in her mouth, but still, she would have my back.

“Gortran caca.”

56. City of Devils – Justin Robinson

Long time, no see, eh? Let’s just say that moving, starting a new job, renewing my ongoing battle with eczema (Now on my neck! Very visibly! You can’t see me!), most of my allergies, and trying not to engage with the fatalist part of my brain every second has been distressing. However, October is my favorite month and this book was FUN and I’m trying very hard.

When reading a book that engages heavily with pop culture, as this one does, I cannot help but think back to every writing workshop I’ve brought part of Night of the Squirrels to with the “But will everyone get it? Why are you referencing anything at all if everyone won’t get it?” questions. I get why people ask that. I get why workshops are concerned with that- they typically seem designed to make everyone’s work as accessible and therefore generic as possible. Some people don’t like pop culture, won’t appreciate references, have no sense of humor, etc. That’s fine. They’re fine. I believe the generic story with broad emotions and no pop cultural references humans are already being catered to very handily by several writers. Not me. Not Justin Robinson in City of Devils.

I do have to say I was initially skeptical when a vast variety of monsters were mentioned and I was especially skeptical when one of the characters was a gremlin named “Brows.” Full disclosure, probably not a surprise, I adore Gremlins (and Gremlins II) and I don’t want to see anybody mangle anything about either of those films, including the gremlins that scared me to death when I was little. Hi ho.  Thankfully, Robinson has enough respect for this subject matter and the necessity of red herrings in mystery stories and not leaving loose ends (or maybe I should say stringy, pulpy ends as I was pretty happy with how the pumpkin-head, not the Henriksen movie one with too big scapulas -more like Jack from Return to Oz, ended up being more than just a lawn visitor). Maybe he also has a Gremlins lunchbox. Even if he doesn’t, I really appreciate having a solid example of how smoothly references can work to truly deepen the possibilities of appreciation in a funny, original story.

The meshing of horror movie monsters (the werewolves vs. wolfmen distinctions were particularly amusing to me) with noir tropes and humor in sweaty post-war L.A.’s secretive studio system and underworld really worked for me. I was expecting it to be like what the movie Dylan Dog wanted to be and it easily met and exceeded that expectation, which makes it seem like I’m lowballing but I had high hopes for the Dylan Dog movie. City of Devils was more fun. I am also now concerned about the whereabouts of a toad.

If Thaddeus ever eats after midnight and becomes a Gremlin of the scariest kind, his name will be “Bolt.” I will not allow him to move to L.A. though, not even Louisiana, where I have spent many extremely sweaty days and nights.

Death and melons

I know that no one can live forever, but I’m very sad to hear about Elmore Leonard’s  passing. He’s definitely leaving a seriously impressive body of work behind, including Out of Sight, which was such a thoroughly solid and fun reading experience – so rare – that I just wanted to read it again when I was done the first time. I was planning to post my semi-positive review of Mr. Majestyk tomorrow, but I guess I’ll post it today because of all the authors I could have been planning to review, I chose Elmore Leonard again. And that’s probably not significant – but regardless of any missteps, the man was a national treasure and a master of dialogue.

14. Mr. Majestyk – Elmore Leonard

So it’s been slim readin’s around these parts this summer and that may continue for a while. At least the next two months or so. I finally got myself a real library job that’s suited to my wants and talents and that involves one aspect of librarianship I have no experience with…this last part seems like an odd reason to hire me, but I’m glad they did. Unless it goes horribly wrong somehow- I’ve only been applying for five years and I have a mere nine full years of experience to my name in the field, I’m always filled with uncertainty. And I’m definitely not alone in that when it comes to employment. Anyway, good news makes me nauseous, and right now I’m trying to move, and that also makes me nauseous – so, reviewish time!

My path through Elmore Leonard’s works so far has been totally haphazard and I enjoy his writing a fair bit; however, sometimes I’m just not into it. Mr. Majestyk was interesting, like reading an action movie, but I wanted more. The female character was no Karen Sisco, I can tell you that. I don’t even remember her name and I totally read this book this year. This year! I remember that there was one other female character and she could have easily traded places with Bridget Fonda’s character in the film Jackie Brown (I have read Rum Punch, that was slow compared to Out of Sight) except that she reads instead of endlessly watching TV.

I feel like Mr. Majestyk could have said “Get off my lawn” at some point. I’m also not sure what kind of melons he had. I would like to know about the melons. They could be honeydews or my nemesis from childhood breakfasts at places where they didn’t know my preferences cantaloupes aka muskmelon aka creeping bad taste in the back of my throat. If I don’t know if I like your produce, I’m not sure I can side with you, vengeful farmer Mr. Majestyk. Although I certainly understand the issues of spoilage, from a harvesting and a use standpoint. Speaking of: Seriously, plastic-box packaged salad providers, if I have to toss half the butter lettuce when I open the lid and peel back the plastic, which is always on the same day I bought the package because the guinea pigs demanded a new treat- you got the use-by date wrong and I hate you (this has happened to me three times now). And Ozymandias will eat your souls when he finds you. The boy needs his butter lettuce. He can’t have romaine, man, he’s susceptible to bladder stones.

“Tell me more about these melons; Pammy is bogarting all the parsley.” – Thaddeus

If the apocalypse comes, beep me.

47. Hater – David Moody

David Moody is a hit or miss author for me thus far. I was totally underwhelmed (“if that’s a word, I know it’s not ’cause I looked it up,” hee hee, Sloan) by Autumn and so I chose not to read the rest of the series. It probably got better. Hater and Dog Blood were both recommended to me before I knew that they were by the same author – and I have to say, I was much happier with the pacing, the characters, and the setting of Hater and its sequels. There’s an end of the civilized world for everyone. Some of them are more interesting than others and more action packed.

I’ve read that Guillermo del Toro has the rights to Hater, although not much seems to be happening with it. The recent World War Z adaptation made me think of what would happen if you forced the Haters from this series to mate with the dead on a global scale, and I’m not sure that’s necessarily good. World War Z was all right, as nearly the universe is aware by now; not much like the book I love so very, very much, but tense to watch and it followed an interesting journey. It was actually kind of nice to see so many location changes in a zombie movie, especially when each one was ruined in short order. I guess the global scale was the part of World War Z the film writers thought was useful.

Belvedere was really, really good at biting people in places where there wasn’t much between skin and bone. He’d be good in a epidemic biting plague.

Twist ending, shmist ending

39. Twisted – R. L. Stine

For the most part, I have been enjoying acquiring and re-reading the work of luminaries of the 1980s and 1990s YA pulp-paperback-size book boom. It’s been fun finding the patterns that R. L. Stine, Caroline B. Cooney, and Richie Tankersley Cusick (especially these three, oh, the 90s) use and reliving some of my own middle school patterns of devouring stories rather than really engaging with them. As I may have mentioned previously, I spent a long period reading practically nothing but literary fiction. When I started working at a public library, I was reminded that I enjoy genre fiction and that I had a shitload of reading options and I’ve gone back to the devouring pattern – although the two books I’m reading right now necessitate some concentration. Spooky. Anyway, Twisted was my first hop back into the “Really? This is all there is to this story?” feeling. Some stuff happens that’s vaguely interesting, but I called the twist on the first page. And I can be kind of an oblivious reader because of the devouring pattern, so I am always surprised when I get the twist…especially on the first damn page. Bummer.

Oh, and speaking of pulp-paperback-sized book booms, guess what? Point Horror is back! With Defriended, ooh, ominous and timely… If Scholastic and I were friends, surely they would hire me to write some of these and I would kick ass at it and be so, so terribly committed. The random horror story is practically my reason for living. And I’ve managed to lampoon or honor nearly everything I like about random horror in the two books I have available from the Night of the Squirrels trilogy – Dawn of the Interns and Day of the Robots (the last in the trilogy will take care of the rest).

“Is the call coming from inside the house?” – Pammy, inquisitive, sort of bearded.
“It always is if the writer’s phoning it in.” – Twiglet, hiding her face because I assigned her this technically sad-joke dialogue.

You’re supposed to be setting a good example, now will you get back to your coffin immediately!

40. Summer of Night – Dan Simmons

About two days before I started reading this book, I got stuck behind a rendering truck on a two-lane highway. I currently live in a town where dead animals are processed. The rendering truck picks them up and takes them to the plant where they are minced. And I am familiar with the smell of animal death as I have a specific burial place for my little pig family and the pig family members rarely pass away less than an hour from the burial place. To be fair, only two pigs have ever been less than frozen en route to the site; but that smell does not go away and few things make me feel more guilty than gagging over the smell of my little friends. So, when the rendering truck was chasing after several main characters, it was easy for me to be absolutely horrified. And strangely enough, Summer of Night is set along a stretch of Illinois that I am utterly familiar with from driving up and down I-74 on a regular basis. I once stopped in Brimfield to clean winter shit off my windshield, I drive by Bradley University in Peoria every time I go to or return from Mississippi (and very recently I was driving by on my way to and from Ohio), and the Spoon River rest stop tends to be my last call before I’m all the way home. It’s also a location where I stare at my gas gauge and wonder if I’m going to have to pay exorbitant Illinois gas prices before I can cross the bridge into Iowa (side note, I-70 is a total shitstorm of dips and holes, we do in fact need massive infrastructure spending, I-55 is like a beautiful red carpet in comparison). My familiarity with the scent of animal rendering and the area made reading Summer of Night pretty fun. It’s the first Dan Simmons book I’ve made it through – I’ve only tried to read The Terror, and I have now put it down twice even though I really want to read it. That one creeps too slowly.

Anyway, I really, really liked this book. I’ve read some other books about haunted schoolhouses and teenagers in earlier decades facing evil, and I’m happy to say that Dan Simmons made the narrative perspectives work and didn’t spend so much time having the kids ruin and change clothes . However, I may never forgive Dan Simmons for one of the death scenes. It was a really awesome way to go, but I wanted that character to see it through to the end. And it was totally cliché to kill that character even if it happened in an awesome way.

Ozymandias and Danger Crumples eagerly await an update on Duane’s research into the Old Central School’s bell. Surely the rendering truck won’t find them on this decade-appropriate chair.

You’re standing on my neck

It has been sequeled.

Heeeeere’s Duncan.

The Guinea Pig-style first edition of Night of the Squirrels: Day of the Robots

It’s the sequel to Dawn of the Interns and the middle section of the Squirrelpocalypse trilogy, and it is internationally available on Amazon right this very second. I said it would be finished in May 2013 and I was not lying or catastrophically impaired, even if I didn’t say anything about it until June.

Verbal trailer (think about “O Fortuna” for trailer integrity or the book’s real theme song, Ween’s “It’s Gonna Be a Long Night,” off Quebec): In a world where things start with “D,” the cover model’s name is Duncan, the title is Day of the Robots, Danger Crumples still exists, I’ve been watching a lot of the show Daria lately and I bought the second season of Deadwood on DVD recently; and Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost films also involve robots, Day of the Robots now exists to wreak its combination of Gremlins II and Cabin Fever on readers.

It’s gory…and romantic. It’s revolutionarily cynical…and idealistic. There are shiny objects…and decaying furniture. A nose will be lost. One kind of plague will be contained. The responsibilities of a field jacket will be assumed. Origins will be explored. It’s not going to end well because it’s a sequel and the middle part of a trilogy, that’s also why origins will be explored – but you surely already knew that and I won’t call you “gentle reader” because that’s kind of patronizing. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that it won’t end well. “Well” doesn’t always mean what you probably think it means. So there.

The Vanishing…Vanishing Point…easy to confuse titles, very different plots

29. Edge of Darkness – Joan Banks

This is one of those lovely little horror paperbacks I found at the Salvation Army in basically mint condition. And it’s not really horror, it’s a suspenseful thriller, but whatever. There’s nothing in here that’s remotely supernatural except for this one guy who plays that “developmentally challenged magic person” role. It starts off like The Vanishing, which is a movie that scares me nearly to death (not the Keifer one, I haven’t even seen the Keifer one) and always enters my mind on road trips with Mr. Cheese – we don’t get to see each other enough as it is, the idea that he disappears from the gas station… I don’t like to think of it and I shouldn’t because I’m already anxious as hell. Also, I’m the one who is supposed to disappear from the gas station but I’m not sure I would, because clearly kidnappers would sense that I’m the one that’s the most paranoid about it.

Anyway, this couple stops at a diner and the husband goes to the restroom and NEVER RETURNS. So, his wife does what any sane person would do in a town that clearly follows its own rules: she goes home, comes back in disguise, and takes matters into her own hands. With her machine gun leg – I wish. Really, she becomes a waitress and then tries to avoid being hit on by the sheriff, by the pregnant other waitress’s boyfriend, by this guy with a belt buckle, and also tries to avoid her insane landlady. Someone puts a dead rat on her pillow, which shocked me to no end. You can’t just wash the pillow case in that situation. She eventually finds another person in disguise that is also looking for her husband and somehow her boss at her hometown-not-a-disguised-waitress-job cares enough about her to show up in the town and bring her stuff. The town’s economy, shock, runs on pot, and they don’t like outsiders. It’s a story about the triumph of the human spirit.

Is Mr. Cheese under the pillow, Morty? We know he’s in the state where that picture was taken.

Viva Mose!

35. Dead Ever After – Charlaine Harris

The end of Sookie, except, I guess until October when there’s something else about this universe coming out. I do think that knowing that there is one more book, whether it’s just supposed to be a coda or not, cheapens things a bit. Especially since I felt like everyone and their dog – hey, Terry’s Catahoula Annie (I believe that’s her name) – showed up in the last one plus a new character or two.

I think that with all those cameos and all those “they seem like they’ll be okay or they’re far away” sort of endings, a coda isn’t really necessary. Every series has its end. Sookie has to be persecuted and kidnapped, Quinn has to show up in an outfit that will haunt me, Eric has to be a dick, the vampires in general mess with everyone’s schedule because they’re so bureaucratically ridiculous about their state-based marriages, and basically all is as it should be in the ending. It’s fine. Not unlike The Office finale, it’s mostly about checking in and tightening up loose ends. But I have to admit, I cried a lot during The Office finale (the Phyllis flamingo killed me, as did Mose gazing over at the scarecrow, and Dwight describing his relationships with his employees and calling Pam his best friend, sniff) and I barely registered the end of the Southern Vampire Mysteries – no tears. Normally, I cry very easily, it’s almost impressive how I can think “this should be an emotional moment” and my eyes are immediately twitching, even if I’m not really personally interested in participating in the emotions that are happening. I guess I thought the Sookie Stackhouse books meant more to me than they do. Just like watching every single season of The Office, I committed to reading all of those books, even when they seemed like placeholders and I was irritated.

That said, it’s impressive to write such a long series with such vibrant characters and so much going on. It spawned a ridiculous and enjoyable television show, the covers are neat-o, and there’s a coda coming out this year so no one ever has to feel any longing to know what happened for the rest of time! It’s a whole. I’ll never know if Mose managed to get that scarecrow to gaze back.

Even Twiglet and Pammy have ends. Fuzzy ones.