Louis Arata's Blog, page 7

Book Review: Tony and Susan

This was a new experience reading a book:  bored and intrigued.
Austin Wright’s novel Tony and Susan has a promising premise.  Susan receives a manuscript from her former husband, Edward, with a request for her honest opinion, because Susan was always his best critic. 
Susan reads Edward’s novel, Nocturnal Animals, which focuses on Tony Hastings, whose wife and daughter are kidnapped and murdered by three men who forced Tony and his family off the road one night.  Suffering survivor’s guilt, Tony must work with Detective Bobby Andes to bring the three men to justice.
Tony becomes aware that justice for a terrible crime is also tempered by his keen sense of how ineffectual he was in protecting his family.  He ends up being forced along a dodgy path of revenge by the rule-bending Bobby Andes.
As Susan is caught up in the characters and plot of Edward’s novel, she also experiences her own recollection of her marriage to Edward, and she can’t help but feel that he is telling her something.
As I said, intriguing premise.  I admit I was chilled by Tony’s horrifying encounter with the three men, and I remained compelled enough to find out how Tony’s story (and Susan’s) would end.  I kept wondering what the author Austin Wright was up to.  What sort of secrets would emerge?  Why did Edward write his novel?  What is the nature of Susan’s memories?
Wright has an admirable literary style:

 “The new day stitches across the night’s wound as if her conscious life were continuous.” 

“Her dead memory of Edward was stored in bound volumes years ago, while the new living Edward flies around outside uncaught.”

 “What she remembers now is not so much happiness as places where happiness occurred.”

Yet, here’s the thing:  Wright’s novel has the quality of a page-turner, except my interest waned from time to time.  How is that possible?  A large part of it was due to Wright’s prose itself, which frequently devolved into disjointed sentence fragments to convey a character’s internal monologue.  Usually I don’t mind the judicious use of fragments, but Wright’s often jarred me out of the story because they would unaccountably shift from third-person to first-person narration, and past to present tense.
Wright’s novel ended as you might expect, but I kept waiting for the big reveal:  exactly how does Susan’s life tie into to Edward’s novel?  I’m not suggesting that the connection was missing altogether, but rather that the connection left me wanting more. Wright’s prose certainly had subtlety and nuance over the nature of Edward and Susan’s relationship, but ultimately I left the book with a modicum of “So what?”  I don’t think I overlooked anything; rather, I just wasn’t terribly satisfied.
So, in the end: more boring than intriguing.

Book Review: Invisible Life

When E. Lynn Harris’s Invisible Life was first published in 1991, a story about a Black man who is gay would have been something of a taboo subject.  Raymond Tyler, Jr., an up-and-coming attorney in New York City, learns what it means to keep your private life a secret.
Much of the novel addresses the question of identity.  Ray identifies as gay or bisexual.  He is “passionately attracted to women and sexually attracted to men.”  What does that make him?  Whatever the label, Ray recognizes that he is who he is.  Sexual desire is only a portion of who he is.  Many coming-out stories focus on the shame of sexual attraction, even when the person recognizes that they were born this way, and over the course of the story they come to accept who they are.  What makes Ray’s story different is that he has a fair amount of confidence.  He recognizes that the world may not accept his lifestyle.  Only in a perfect world would he be permitted to love whoever he chooses, regardless of gender.  Until that world comes to pass, Ray keeps his personal life invisible.
Overall, I respect E. Lynn Harris’s approach to sexuality, though he leaves certain questions unexplored.  In the first chapter, Ray describes his first same-sex relationship, during his senior year of college.  Up until this point, Ray has never been attracted to a man.  Then Kelvin shows up, and something is unlocked inside Ray.  Next, the story jumps forward six years, and now Ray is comfortably living a gay lifestyle in New York City.  No explanation of how he has gone from this moment of unexpected discovery to acceptance.  Ray expresses no shame, no uncertainty, merely a curious awareness that he now desires men. This transition could have used a little unpacking.
Which leads to another problem with the narrative.  At times, Ray’s emotional response to a situation comes out of the blue.  I couldn’t always grasp what prompted the depth of feeling.  For example, on a flight home after seeing his parents, Ray states that he has had a rough life.  To be sure, he and his father have a mildly strained relationship, but up until this point, Ray has only described his family as loving and supportive.  For him to suddenly bemoan deep-seated difficulties made me want to know precisely what they are.
The narrative covers a number of issues:  being Black, gay, bisexual, as well as the prejudice within the African-American community based on skin tone.  Ray’s ruminations on these themes are crucial to the story, but much of this examination only occurs at the novel’s conclusion.  As he pulls together the puzzle pieces, he has moments of revelation.  These light-bulb moments are efficient in terms of storytelling, but I found myself wanting Ray to have some of these awarenesses earlier on in the tale.  It would have given his story arc a bit more intentionality.  As it is, Ray has various encounters with gay and bisexual men, without gaining insight until the story’s climax requires it.
My single largest criticism of the story – and even this isn’t that serious – is that every character is beautiful.  Green-eyed Ray, gorgeous Nicole, strapping Kelvin, and muscular Quinn are all perfect models of human beings.  Plus, everyone wants to sleep with Ray.  Everyone.  He is described as so attractive that everyone is hankering to take him to bed.  Curiously, though, Ray does not come across as vain.  Instead, he is often noting how beautiful the other characters are. 
Invisible Life is very readable.  Harris’s writing style is a mixture of efficient description and a fair amount of emotional resonance:  “Protected by a crisp, cloudless sky, I sipped iced tea on the dusty wooden deck of my parents’ home.” 
While sentences like this do a good job in setting tone, I often hoped that Harris would relax a little.  He is so attentive to composing careful word-craft that he never allows his prose to have any form of idiosyncrasy.  As a narrator, Ray is serviceable, albeit a bit detached.
Ray’s story continues in Just As I Am and Abide with Me.

Book Review: You Don't Even Know Me

“Go forth and shine.” 
That is Sharon Flake’s message to each of her characters in You Don’t Know Me, a collection of short stories and poems about African-American teenage boys.
Her stories and poems   She crosses a wide spectrum of social environments, including inner-city Philadelphia and affluent suburbs.  No matter where her characters reside, they all face moral crises that will define their futures.
address the conflicting pressures that teenagers experience – from early love to family responsibilities, from fitting in to being yourself.

All on the cusp of adulthood, the boys in these stories recognize that they must make choices to become the person they wish to be.  Every challenge sends their moral compasses spinning, but so long as they maintain their integrity and self-respect, they will come through the fire, and not necessarily into a peaceful land.  The land beyond that fire will have more challenges, as well.  The only way to navigate the terrain is to have the courage and conviction to make the hard choices.
In the opening story, “Scared to Death,” sixteen-year-old Towe-Kaye is literally at the altar saying “I do” to his fiancé, Cindella (fifteen and pregnant).  Though he is ready to throw up from nerves, he does not want to run away.  Despite his father’s advice to give up the foolish notion of marrying his girlfriend, Towe-Kaye recognizes that he truly does love Cindella and does want to do right by her.  Yet in the backseat of the limo, on the way to the reception, he lets slip that he doesn’t want to be married.  What follows is a vulnerable moment of honesty and love between a boy and his father-in-law, who promises to stand beside him, no matter what.
In “Gettin’ Even,” a boy wants revenge against the person who murdered his grandfather for a pair of penny loafers.  Torn between exacting street-level justice and abiding by his grandmother’s wishes to leave it alone, the narrator must choose which path to take.  When two younger boys, Kareem and Llee, also fantasize about revenge, it becomes clear that they lack true comprehension of what that would entail.  Knowing that violence begets violence, the narrator learns that sometimes taking the high road is essential, if you wish to be a good role model for the next generation.
"To all who read and find my words,
I give you the light that they
all lit up in me." In “Fat Man Walking,” young Harvey and his obese father are heading to the store for a special pair of sneakers.  Along the way, Pops is subjected to disgusted stares and unspoken criticism.  Fiercely protective of his father, Harvey stays by his side every step of the way.  Only when he rushes ahead to the store does Harvey face a moment of independence from his father’s stigma.  But the relief is short-lived, because when Pops doesn’t appear, Harvey fears the worst and goes to find him.  Outside, he finds that Pops has collapsed and is now in the hands of caring strangers.  Love and loyalty are worth more than any status-ranked sneakers.
Flake is a great storyteller.  The story, “My Hood,” is wrought with energy and danger, but at its hearts is a love paean for a Philadelphia neighborhood:

“But if [my stepfather] saw Raven.  If he had that lady’s sweet potato pie, or if he saw all that money on the porch or those people line dancing and grilling in the dark, then he’d know why I love North Philly. … That’s why I like it, though – like living here, feeling the heat, watching people walking the streets – knowing that it ain’t all bad; ain’t all good, neither.  It’s just where I live.  My hood.”

What strikes me about the stories is how they address questions of integrity and self-respect without resorting to cloying sentimentality or preachiness.  Flake is a fine writer, focusing on the human aspect of every struggle, rather than on the message.  People are only as good as their convictions. Her characters are vibrantly alive with the immediacy of their choices.
The title, “You Don’t Even Know Me,” speaks to the assumption that African-American teenage boys are more invested in posturing than in deep contemplation.  But as Flake consistently reveals, her characters recognize that their lives are complex, so don’t write them off.  They are stronger than they realize, and in each story, they come to realize that the hard choices are the first steps into maturity.

The Top Ten Books (I've Read) of 2017

Going over the list of books I’ve read in 2017, I see a decided emphasis on one topic:  Henry David Thoreau.  I’m currently working on a novel which uses Walden as a springboard, so I spent a good part of the year reading about Walden Pond, Thoreau, and Transcendentalism.
Other subjects included children’s literature, westerns, Superman, and Kolchak, the Night Stalker (one of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid).
In no particular order, here are my ten favorite books of 2017:



Destry Rides Again, by Max BrandThe Jimmy Stewart movie is one of my favorites, so when I came across a copy of the original novel, I had to read it.  I knew that the plot would be completely different, but that did not detract from a great story.  Destry is wrongly accused of a crime, and when he is paroled ten years later, he returns to town to exact revenge on the crooked jury as well as the mastermind behind the crime.  Along the way Destry learns to address his own shortcomings: in his youth, he was naïve and gullible, so he takes responsibility for his part of his downfall.



World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks
I read both The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z.  My favorite is definitely the latter.  Brooks takes the Studs Terkel approach to storytelling, in that his characters narrate personal incidents and insights about the Zombie War.  A deftly handled fictional history that also speaks volumes about how governments work and how people choose to survive.



Leverage, by Joshua C. CohenHigh school football players bully boys on the gymnastics squad, igniting an escalating battle that results in rape and death.  Harrowing and compelling, the story keeps turning up the heat to an (almost) satisfying conclusion.  While I found the ending a little weak, it did not detract from the overall power of the story.



Shantytown, USA: Forgotten Landscapes of the Working Poor, by Lisa GoffComplete transparency here:  Lisa Goff is my sister-in-law.  Her work lands her on this list because she brings to light a marginalized segment of society.  Shantytowns are nothing new in the US; they have been part of the landscape from the 1800s through the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression.  Goff analyzes how they form but also how the residents adapt to the landscape.  Traditional society has never known what to do with people who do not conform to the norm:  “Throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, shantytowns were putty in the hands of social critics, policymakers, and cultural commentators intent on shaping perceptions of poor people by making moral judgments about the landscapes they occupied – or in the case of shantytown residents, that they created.”  An unexpected history.  

It, by Stephen KingOkay, so I wrote in my earlier review that I found the novel long-winded and boring.  Yet it lands on my favorite books list because I haven’t stopped thinking about it.  That must mean something.



Walden Pond: A History, by W. Barksdale MaynardEveryone knows about Walden Pond because Thoreau built a cabin there.  Maynard traces the curious history of the park itself – how the woods were trod by Transcendentalists then became a personal memorial to Thoreau and eventually morphed into the destination for many pilgrims.  The author raises interesting questions about how we preserve our sacred spaces.





We Need to Talk about Kevin, Lionel ShriverOne of the first books I read this year, and at the time I predicted it would be on my Best of …list.  A chillingly insightful novel that examines a mother’s sense of culpability in her son’s crimes.  It also opens up the debate about possible causes of the increasing violence in our society.  The best image of the novel is Kevin wearing clothes that are too small for him:  he may be a child but he has committed adult-sized murder.





Drood, by Dan SimmonsIs it a thriller? A biography? It’s both.  Seemingly supernatural elements may be the catalyst of the story as Simmons’ unreliable narrator Wilkie Collins takes us on a wild ride through the last years of Charles Dickens’ life.  Very readable.




The Return of the Shadow: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part One, by J.R.R. TolkienTolkien’s son Christopher cobbles together the earliest drafts of The Fellowship of the Ring, which reveals that J.R.R. barely had a clue about where his story was heading.  What initially started as a charming sequel to The Hobbit was destined for something much bigger.  This book reveals the author’s creative process – from naming Hobbit families to figuring out who the heck the Black Riders are anyway.  I’m not sure if this book is for die-hard LOTR fans, scholars, or wannabe writers.  In any case, I found it fascinating and plan to read the next volumes in the series.


Superman: The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero, by Larry TyeI got onto a Superman kick: a volume of the original comic books, an encyclopedia of the characters, and Tye’s history of the franchise.  Tye’s narrative style is serviceable, but it’s the story he tells that is fascinating – from Siegel and Shuster’s original character to the various ages of the hero (Golden Age, Silver Age, and Bronze), from the TV shows to the movies.  What it reveals is that many creative minds have come together to form this powerful mythology.





Here’s the complete list of books I’ve read in 2017:
Being Henry David, Cal ArmisteadThe Secret of Terror Castle: (Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, #1), Robert ArthurGreen Shadows, White Whale:  A Novel of Ray Bradbury’s Adventures Making Moby Dick with John Huston in Ireland, Ray BradburyDestry Rides Again, Max BrandWorld War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max BrooksThe Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, Max BrooksIf You Spent a Day with Thoreau at Walden Pond, Robert BurleighThe King in Yellow, Robert W. ChambersTaking the Leap:  Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears, Pema ChodronLeverage, Joshua C. CohenNo Thoroughfare, Charles Dickens and Wilkie CollinsA Tale of Two Cities, Charles DickensDrinks before Dinner, E.L. DoctorowThe Heroines, Eileen FavoriteShantytown, USA:  Forgotten Landscapes of the Working Poor, Lisa GoffPlotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Patricia HighsmithGoodbye, Mr. Chips, James HiltonThe Resurrectionist: The Lost Works of Dr. Spencer Black, E.B. HudspethDubliners, James JoyceKolchak the Night Stalker: Volume I, Stuart M. KaminskyIt, Stephen KingThe Long Ride Home, Louis L’AmourInside Inside, James LiptonHow Green Was My Valley, Richard LlewellynScary Out There, ed. Jonathan MaberryThe Kolchak Scripts, Richard MathesonWalden Pond: A History, W. Barksdale MaynardThe Children of the New Forest, Frederick MarryattThe Mugger, Ed McBainWalden Then and Now: An Alphabetical Tour of Henry Thoreau’s Pond, Michael McCurdyOmbria in Shadow, Patricia A. McKillipWalking Towards Walden: A Pilgrimage in Search of Place, John Hanson MitchellNemesis, Jo NesboA Dog of Flanders, OuidaHarry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2, J.K. RowlingWe Need to Talk about Kevin, Lionel ShriverThe Superman Chronicles, Vol. 9, Jerry SiegelDrood, Dan SimmonsPhilomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search, Martin SixsmithThe Art of Racing in the Rain, Garth SteinNightmare Hour, R.L. StineThe Thoreau You Don’t Know: What the Prophet of Environmentalism Really Meant, Robert SullivanAll That Man Is, David SzalayThe Portable Thoreau, Henry David ThoreauThe Testament of Mary, Colm ToibinThe Return of the Shadow: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part One, J.R.R. TolkienSuperman: The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero, Larry TyeSuperman: The Ultimate Guide to the Man of Steel, Daniel WallaceThe Tall Book of Make-Believe, Jane Warner WatsonThe Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder

Book Review: Drood

The Mystery of Edwin Drood was only half finished when its author, Charles Dickens, died.  Lacking any notes or outlines, it is impossible to determine how Dickens would have completed the story.  Scholars have sifted through the text for clues, and most have determined who the murderer is, but the question remains what plot twists the author would have employed.


In the novel Drood, Dan Simmons speculates an extensive backstory for the creation of this half-novel.  Through the narrator Wilkie Collins, the reader is introduced to elements of mysticism, paranoia, and excessive usage of opium, until reality is bent.  Pieces of truth are vigorously blended with fantasy, until you question what is real.  Even the nightmare elements present their own version of the truth.
Please ignore the beetle
in my brainWilkie Collins was a successful writer in his own right, penning thrillers/mysteries such as The Moonstone and The Woman in White.  In Drood, Collins acts as narrator.  His crippling gout leads him to resort to ever increasing dosages of laudanum (an opium derivative) and morphine, until his world view becomes a fever dream of jealousy and paranoia.  Eventually, the reader begins to doubt much of what Collins relates, but for him it is the absolute truth.
There is no beetleSimmons sets up a Salieri/Mozart relationship between Collins and Dickens.  At the time, Collins was highly popular, but soon he begins to suspect that his legacy will slip away, while the Inimical (his term for Dickens) will be remembered in posterity.
Simmons incorporates plenty of actual events for verisimilitude, so that the novel also acts as a biography of Dickens.  The novel opens with the Staplehurst accident, where a train derailed while crossing a viaduct.  The first-class coach that Dickens was traveling in wound up dangling over the edge.  Dickens managed to climb out, rescuing his mistress Ellen Ternan and her mother before helping the wounded.  The incident continued to haunt Dickens for the remainder of his life.  Other actual events include Dickens’ extensive reading tours that contributed to his declining health; his melodramatically theatrical approach to performing the scenes all but wrecked his constitution.
Simmons’ novel is a page-turner, albeit a long one.  He wisely keeps Collins’ narration engaging, even as it goes over chronological details.  Only a few times does the story begin to drag, particularly around the time of Dickens’ trip to America, when Collins is busy producing their play, No Thoroughfare.  Once Drood reappears on the scene, the novel then takes on a breakneck pace to the end.
I was impressed by how Simmons blended history with thriller, and how he reimagined The Mystery of Edwin Drood with Dickens and Collins as Edwin and Jasper respectively.  A great piece of story-craft.

Book Review: The Return of the Shadow

Bingo = FrodoTrotter = StriderAragorn = ShadowfaxMarmaduke = MerryFolco, Faramond, Frodo, Odo = various incarnations of PippinSam = Sam
As a writer, I take great heart in the fact that Tolkien appeared unsure about what he was doing when it set about writing The Lord of the Rings.  All he knew was that he was writing a sequel to The Hobbit, but what the story would be remained a sketchy mystery.
In The Return of the Shadow (Volume VI of The History of Middle-Earth and Part One of The History of the Lord of the Rings), Christopher Tolkien gathers together various drafts, notes, maps, and head-scratchings of his father in the early stages of composition.  He assembles in as comprehensible fashion as possible the five or six stages of Frodo’s journey from the Shire to the Mines of Moria.
I’m not sure who this book is intended for.  Is it for the die-hard LOTR fan who craves more details about Middle-Earth?  If so, you get fascinating glimpses into the genesis of the story.  Tolkien ponders the significance of the One Ring, not even initially sure what that would entail.  Is it merely one of many magical rings or does it have more nefarious powers?  Does Bilbo give it up willingly or does the Ring orchestrate its own transfer from uncle to nephew?  
Or is Shadow for the Tolkien scholar who wants to understand how a sequel to The Hobbit blends with The Silmarillion?  As a linguist, Tolkien spent particular time crafting various Elvish languages with their own vocabulary and syntax.  There is also Tolkien’s naming convention for the Hobbits – which range from Adelard, Caramella, Everard, Isumbras, Paladin, Uffo, Vigo, and Yolanda – that touches on the Eldar Edda of Norse legends.
Or perhaps Shadow is reassurance for the aspiring writer who doubts the meandering path of creating a story.  Personally, I was grateful to see how Tolkien was struck with inspiration in the very act of writing.  For example, when the uber-Frodo and his Hobbit companions are fleeing the Shire, they encounter a hooded figure on a horse.  In LOTR, this menacing figure is a Black Rider.  However, in Tolkien’s initial draft, it is Gandalf come looking for the Hobbits.  But it appears that as soon as he wrote it, Tolkien struck out Gandalf’s name and introduced the initial villains of the piece.
But it’s not only the moments of inspiration that are reassuring.  I also was relieved to see Tolkien struggle and write and rewrite and go back and move forward in a stumbling manner, all toward figuring out what the heck he was writing.  If I were to only take the finished LOTR as a model for storytelling, I would feel intimidated and frustrated that I cannot instantly fashion a complex and cohesive story.  Yet, in reading Shadow, I witnessed that there are many uncertain steps along the way, and the end product may still be marvelous.
Bingo Baggins
Bingo Bolger
Bingo Bolger-Baggins ...
Screw it, I'm calling him Frodo
Christopher Tolkien tries to make sense of his father’s writing process, but there is a fair amount of guesswork.  J.R.R. Tolkien’s handwriting is often difficult to decipher.  Add to this the fact that he initially composed in very light pencil then wrote over the text in black ink then again in red ink, along with making numerous insertions and deletions.  Christopher Tolkien’s wrangling together a cohesive story thread is a testament to his patience and perseverance.
That isn’t to say that The Return of the Shadow doesn’t drag in places.  The Hobbits’ original journey from the Shire to Rivendell goes through at least six drafts.  Tolkien placed particular emphasis on the chronology of events, down to the phases of the moon.  Add to that the constant changing of character names from Odo to Frodo to Folco to whatever, and the minutiae takes such precedence, but to very little significance.  I suppose Tolkien scholars would eagerly devour these sections.
Overall, Shadow is fascinating.  Christopher Tolkien pays wonderful homage to his father’s creativity:

“But as often in the history of The Lord of the Rings much of the earliest writing remained, for example in the detail of conversation, and yet such conversation appears later shifted into new contexts, given to different speakers, and acquiring new resonance as the ‘world’ and its history grew and expanded.”

Tolkien was on the journey of the Ring, as much as Frodo and Gandalf were.  He was encountering new landscapes and unusual characters that hinted at the history that was to be discovered.  If he hadn’t taken such care in constructing LOTR, then the sequel to The Hobbit would have been another There-and-Back-Again adventure that, no doubt, would have been entertaining.  But the reason that The Lord of the Ringscontinues to captivate readers is that the history of Middle-Earth runs deep, and Tolkien needed time to discover it.
The History of the Lord of the Rings continues in The Treason of Isengard, The War of the Ring, and Sauron Defeated.

A very brief movie review: It

The movie version of Stephen King's novel It is excellent.  Think Stand by Me meets Poltergeist.

By telling only the child half of the novel, the film is able to focus on the important elements of the story:  the friendship of the Losers' Club and the creepiness of Pennywise.  Bill Skarsgard gives an inspired performance.

Book Review: It

Stephen King’s It has been on my To-Read List for quite some time.  With the movie’s release this fall, I finally set to it.  It was surprisingly difficult to get my hands on a copy; they seemed in scarce supply – possibly in preparation for a movie tie-in edition.  Itis a malevolent force that exists beneath the town of Derry, ME.  Manifesting as a person’s worst nightmare, It takes on various forms – from werewolf to leper to a gigantic Paul Bunyan statue – but its preferred appearance is as Pennywise the clown.
Ever since the founding of Derry, there have been an unsettling number of mysterious deaths.  No adults really want to talk about it.  They may hint about the phenomena, but they prefer to be resigned to the tragedies and to go about their lives in bitter and willful ignorance.

Children, on the other hand, can see It very clearly.  In fact, It tends to prey on children; every 27 years the number of deaths spikes, and then things settle down again, and life continues in a facsimile of normality.
"Good books don't give up
all their secrets at once."King carefully examines the wounded nature of childhood.  Bill loses his younger brother, Georgie.  Asthma-ridden Eddie is a victim of Munchausen-by-proxy, thanks to his mother.  Bev endures her father’s physical abuse.  Overweight Ben is bullied at school. 
King layers these day-to-day traumas against the supernatural terror of It.  “We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones,” he says.  Primarily because the kids already face real-life difficulties, they discover they have the courage and fortitude to confront It. 
The novel is a hefty tome, at 1100 pages, which gives King plenty of room to explore of the lives of the seven members of the Loser’s Club.  He also examines the extensive history of Derry, which suggests that evil is a form of radioactivity, with a half-life measurable in geological time.
Okay, I'm creeped outWhat surprised me most about the novel – and this is something I never expected to say about a Stephen King novel – is that I was frequently bored.  Great concept, interesting characters, creepy villain … and tedious build-up.  King spends excessive time in relating the pervasive presence of the evil force, but all it does is cause the plot to drag its feet.  Every time I thought the pace was about to pick up, there was another pause in the action.
King uses an interesting parallel framework for the storytelling.  He alternates between the 11-year-olds of the Losers’ Club and their 38-year-old selves come back to Derry to confront It one last time.  This parallelism allows him to intimate what happened in the past through flashes of suppressed memories.
The technique reminds me of John Irving, whose novels often follow a circular nature so that the reader knows the fate of the characters but not the manner in which their lives unfold.  In King’s case, the parallel style should have developed a sense of anticipation, yet instead it felt like the dramatic moments were always being delayed.
Stephen King has many phenomenal works.  The ones that scared me the most are Pet Sematary, Misery, and Desperation (which was a fascinating meditation on faith and God-bombs).  My favorite novel is The Green Mile, and I learned a lot about writing from On Writing. 
Itcertainly feels like a seminal work of Stephen King, and the story will stay with me.  I saw the 1990 mini-series version and remember enjoying it.  And this week I plan to go see the 2017 version.  So there must be something in the story that intrigues me.  Yet, it surprises me to say that It is my least favorite Stephen King novel.

Book Review: Walden Pond: A History

While at the New Orleans Writers’ Residency, I am writing the first draft of a novel that has many connections to Thoreau’s Walden.  Over the last four weeks, I have been busily reading Walden (again), various Thoreau essays, a bio entitled The Thoreau You Don’t Know, by Robert Sullivan, and W. Barksdale Maynard’s Walden Pond: A History.
Maynard’s history of the pond starts with the Transcendentalists, particularly Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott, as they troop daily around the woods and pond.  Plenty of excerpts from their journals and letters convey that they experienced something special about this location, as it came to represent the physical manifestation of their philosophy. 
Maynard does a good job in explaining how the precepts of Transcendentalism played out in the Concord community.  Transcendentalism was a call to awaken the individual in an increasingly industrialized society that dehumanized its workers.  As Emerson promoted a return to nature as a means of re-grounding yourself, others endeavored to put it into practice.  One such effort was Brook Farm, an experiment in communal living, where the residents would blend manual labor with intellectual pursuits.  The community ended up failing, but Maynard suggests that the concept may have been one influence on Thoreau’s decision to build his solitary cabin alongside Walden Pond.  Thoreau was showing by example how the individual could live deliberately as a means to build a better society.
After Thoreau’s death, his family and friends wished to commemorate his life, and that is the moment that Walden Pond as an institution came into existence.  Maynard traces the curious history of the park.  What started as a personal memorial to Thoreau became the destination of many pilgrims.  Readers of Walden wanted to experience what Thoreau described so beautifully, so they came to the pond to get in touch with his memory.  Reality, however, proved something else entirely.
W. Barksdale MaynardCirca 1880, Walden Pond became Lake Walden, which included a bathing house, an amusement park, and a football field.  The Red Cross had its own beach to teach swimming to urban children in need of a nature getaway.  The constant flood of visitors brought threats of erosion, along with some criminal activity and violence.

What fascinated me about the history was the extent of fighting among groups wishing to preserve the park.  Each group claimed to speak for Thoreau:  “Henry would have wanted this” or “Thoreau never would have approved of that.”  Over time, the increasing amount of tourism was turning Thoreau’s contemplative spot into a capitalist mecca. 
Maynard’s history raises interesting questions about how we preserve our special places.  Near the parking lot stands a replica of Thoreau’s cabin, while on the northwestern side of the pond is a cairn of stones on the actual site of his cabin.  So, which is the true experience:  getting to see what the cabin would have looked like or visiting the exact spot on the cabin? 
Thoroughly ThoreauAs environmental preservation becomes critical in the face of climate change, we are faced with how to protect what is natural.  Walden Pond has changed significantly since Thoreau’s time -- the number of forest fires that occurred is staggering -- but the greatest change may be in how we honor his memory there.  The park has become a tangible destination for what was a spiritual undertaking.   We have invested it with personalized meaning even as we endeavor to identify precisely what Thoreau was writing about.
After all the descriptions of fighting among the preservationist groups, I found myself wondering what Thoreau would think of Walden Pond now.  Probably he would have fought hard to preserve the natural beauty.  But I also found myself thinking of the following quote from Walden:
“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there.  Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.”
In other words, we continue to grow.  Walden Pond is part of us now.

New Orleans Writers' Residency: Part Two

To be honest, New Orleans was not one of my top travel destinations. It was somewhere further down the list, once I got to visit other sites.
I was wrong. 
Other writers may be able to describe the city in a more prosaic style, but here are some of my impressions.
New Orleans is unlike any other city I have ever been.  It is of a different time and place, where the history seeps from the buildings and streets.  People here seem to be passing through, while the city itself remains permanent.
With the disco ball, pay phone, and gas lamps, I feel like I’m reliving the 1970s.
The Writers’ Residency is located on the edge of the Faubourg Marignyneighborhood, which originally had been part of Bernard de Marigny’s plantation until he started selling lots in the early 1800’s.

A distinctive feature of the neighbor is the colorful houses:  peach, lime, rose, pink.  Not colors you typically expect for houses, but like so many things, it fits in New Orleans.  Also, houses are rarely only one color.  Trims, shutters, porch beams are painted in direct contrast to the primary color.  Also, many homes feature murals or mosaics of mirror-and-bead.
Having done plenty of house painting, I can attest that I absolute lack the patience to perform such detailed work.
One of my typical treks is down Frenchman Street to Royal.  Along the way, I cross Esplanade, a beautiful tree-lined street.  According to a historical marker, it was the location of Theophilus Freeman’s slave pen where Solomon Northrup, a free man from New York, was sold into slaveyr (12 Years a Slave).
Further along Royal, I pass the mansion of Delphine LaLaurie (c. 1780-1849), who tortured her slaves in hidden chamber at the top of the house.  According to one of the ghost tours, one window in the mansion has been permanently bricked up.  The story goes that a young girl who had been enslaved fell or was pushed from the window, and since then the window can never be kept whole.

In other words, some of the history of New Orleans is hard to take, but necessary to learn.


On the positive side, music – especially jazz – infuses the city.  It is ever-present and absolutely essential.  Jazz doesn’t simply pour out of the clubs at night, it lives in the streets.  There is always a trumpet, saxophone, or guitar somewhere within hearing.  Across the street from CC’s Café (where I am currently writing), a musician has set up her drum kit – not an instrument I would expect on a street corner, but it definitely fits here.
Since I’m here to work on my novel, I typically hit a coffee shop during the day.  Because of the swarming crowds, even in July, Café du Monde has been inaccessible.  Our residency hosts have recommended going there after midnight when it is easier to get a table.  However, I have yet to pass by, no matter the time, where there hasn’t been a line out the door.
More to come.