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059343675X
| 9780593436752
| 059343675X
| 3.98
| 2,504
| Apr 26, 2022
| Apr 26, 2022
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really liked it
| God save Nellie from the ladies’ pages. If a woman was lucky enough to get a job working for a paper—which spared her from working in a factory, or God save Nellie from the ladies’ pages. If a woman was lucky enough to get a job working for a paper—which spared her from working in a factory, or as a domestic or a wife (shudder)—she would have to spend her days writing about household hints and recipes, garden shows and charity luncheons. It was mind-numbingly tedious and she wanted to avoid it at all costs. It was one reason why she had left Pittsburgh.-------------------------------------- There is nothing worse than being told that you don’t know your own mind or body. If you aren’t mad when you go in, chances are you will be by the time you come out.When twenty-three-year-old Nellie Bly headed to New York City in 1887, she left a message for her boss at The Pittsburgh Gazette. I’m off for New York. Look out for me.Good advice. It was no easy task for Elizabeth (Elly) Jane Cochrane. Women in journalism were relegated to the “ladies’ page” when they were hired at all. And often had to use pen names to get their work into print. Persistence paid off, though, and Cochrane finally got a gig with The New York World, by promising to go undercover at the New York City Asylum for the Insane on Blackwell’s Island. (called Roosevelt Island today). The notorious institution had already been the subject of multiple journalistic examinations. But it was a tough place to get into, and, as it had changed from a co-ed institution to a women’s asylum in 1872, it would take a female to be able to get inside, one of the downsides to journalism being such a boys’ club. But Nellie’s self-confidence, and courage, knew no bounds, so she dove right in. [image] Maya Rodale - image from Open Shelf – photo by Elsa Ngan The Mad Girls of New York is a novelization of Bly’s actual early adventures in NYC. Some of the characters are taken from Bly’s seminal work, Ten Days in an Asylum, which was comprised of and expanded from the articles she had written for the New York World, a series that made her reputation. She persuaded those who needed persuading that she was mad, in order to be institutionalized as a patient. It was surprisingly easy. Once in, she experienced the horrors inflicted on the patients, although inmates would have been more accurate. The asylum was a physically cold place, and the residents were provided with painfully inadequate clothing and covers. The food was unspeakable, often insect-ridden, the physical accommodations spartan, the doctors dismissive, the nurses abusive, and the cleanliness regimen was cruel. It did not help that some of the help was recruited from the prison that was also on the island. [image] Nellie Bly - image from the Irish Times We meet several groups of characters. The journalism pack leads off. This includes the editors she interviews during a project on why the papers do not hire women. There is a fair bit of LOL to be had in this as she leaves them spinning and sputtering in their own contradictions. There are the other women journalists with whom she engages, a club of sorts, who help each other out, getting together in an establishment, The Ordinary, that serves women only. Such institutions did exist at the time. She has a competition going with a male reporter, Sam Colton, from Chicago. There is also a simmering attraction between the two, but it is not romancy enough to intrude into the story too much, thankfully. There is also a flirtation with the hunky, single mayor. When you learn that there was in fact a hot bachelor mayor of New York City named Hugh Grant, you must include it in your novel. - from Rodale’s Twitter feedRodale has produced numerous romance novels, (22 by my count, plus some novellas, a children‘s book and a couple of non-fics) so it would have been a shock if there were not some sparks flying in this tale. But if you are hoping for ignition into conflagration, you will have to check out her considerable romance work instead. [image] The New York City Asylum for the Insane - image from Wikipedia – cheery-looking, no? Then there are the patients. Anne is in need of care, but cannot afford decent treatment at a private institution. The Princess has a regal bearing but will only say three words, Rose, Daisy, and Violet, over and over. Tillie has a nervous condition, truly needs some rest, some peace and quiet, in a warm place, but her friends dumped her off at Bellevue (with friends like that…). Prayer Girl, who pleads with god to kill her ASAP, somehow never takes the initiative herself. Women are committed to this place for a variety of reasons, few of them good. Many devolve to a broad category of their being inconvenient, something Martha Mitchell might recognize. Then there is Mrs Grady, the Nurse Ratched of this enterprise, a cruel overseer, super control freak, eager to inflict pain and punishment and never willing to hear any of the real concerns of her charges. Toss in a few cruel cops and attendants, a clueless doctor, and another who at least shows some bits of humanity. [image] Newspaper Row in Lower Manhattan. That is City Hall in the foreground on the left. The domed building to the east of City Hall is the New York World Building. The Brooklyn Bridge had not yet been built when this shot was taken, but if it had, it would appear to the north (left) of the World Bldg) – image from Stuff Nobody Cares About Rodale’s focus is on how women were treated, not just in this horrid institution, but in all institutions of the wider world, using her story-telling skills to show us how women were regarded as a lesser life form, in politics, in journalism, in finance, in the overall world of work, well…paid work. Slaving at home for hubby and progeny was still just fine and dandy. She shows the struggles that smart, driven women had to endure in order to access the same level of opportunity and respect as men, just to be able to cover hard news. Bly was one of a group of women called “Girl Stunt Reporters,” daring women journalists who put themselves in peril in order to delve into many of the social wrongs of the late 19th century. [image] Hugh J. Grant two-term NYC Mayor – image from Wikipedia Rodale spices up the story, as if it needed additional condiments, with a mystery about a high-society spouse gone strangely missing, with the widower chomping at the bit to wed a younger, richer, woman. She incorporates actual historical events and people into the tale, sometimes with name changes, sometimes with tweaking of timelines. Some personages retain their names, including the aforementioned mayor, Hugh Grant, (who did not actually become mayor until 1889, two years after the events of this novel) Hetty Green (The Witch of Wall Street), Harriet Hubbard Ayer, a writer of articles about beauty and health for the New York World, and others. Despite the harshness of the conditions Bly, and now Rodale, reveal, there is no graphic violence or sexual behavior in The Mad Girls of New York. This helps make it perfectly suitable for younger readers, particularly girls, who may not know about Nellie, and what a pioneer she was. It is a very fluid, quick read. [image] Hetty Green – The Witch of Wall Street - image from wiki The book is listed as A Nellie Bly Novel #1, so we can presume there are more in the works. I do not have any inside intel on this, but I imagine that Nellie’s around-the-world-in-80-days challenge (she did it in 72) will be among the upcomings. Something to look forward to. Nellie’s story is a remarkable one. Rodale has done a very nice job of letting modern readers in on what Nellie faced as a gutsy, newbie reporter in New York, and what she accomplished, at least in the short term, encouraging us to learn more about this brilliant, dogged, remarkable woman. You’d have to be crazy to pass this one by. The madhouse had been horrible, but this part—writing it all down with the promise of seeing the atrocities in print, made it feel worthwhile. When she thought of the public reading her words and knowing about the suffering that happened at Blackwell’s, Nellie felt shivers. Do stunts, Marian had flippantly suggested. But Nellie had found her life’s work. Review posted – May 6, 2022 Publication date – April 26, 2022 I received an ARE of The Mad Girls of New York from Berkley in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating. Can I get a warmer blanket, please? [image] [image] [image] [image] This review has been, or soon will be, cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Instagram, and Twitter pages Interview -----Wine, Women and Words - Nerding out about Nellie with Maya Rodale with Michelle Leivas and Diana Giovinazzo Item of Interest from the author -----Lithub - The Real-Life Heroines of an Outrageous Era: A Gilded Age Reading List My obsession with the Gilded Age began with romance novels—I wanted to set a series in old New York in the world of Mrs. Astor’s ballroom and dollar Princesses, which felt like an updated version of the Regency Era. But in researching the time period I discovered that the best stories weren’t just uptown in Fifth Avenue mansions—they were everywhere. I also discovered that the Gilded Age was a golden age for independent, ambitious, boundary breaking real life heroines.Items of Interest -----Wiki on Nellie Bly -----Wiki on Hugh J. Grant - NYC’s 88th mayor -----Wiki on Hetty Green – “The Witch of Wall Street” - Marian goes to see her to get intel on Jay Wallace in chapter 24 -----Wiki on - Harriet Ayer - Nellie’s mentor in the book -----Library of Congress - Research Guide for Nellie Bly -----Gutenberg - Ten Days in a Madhouse - the full text -----Wiki on The Martha Mitchell effect -----Smithsonian - These Women Reporters Went Undercover to Get the Most Important Scoops of Their Day – an outstanding piece by Kim Todd, author of Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters -----Wiki on The Ladies Ordinary - a women-only establishment where Nellie meets with other reporters -----For a real blow to your consciousness, check out this site, for Octagon NYC. This part of the original asylum has been converted, as all things in NYC are, into luxury housing. The prices are insane. (a 540 sq ft studio is $3,028 a month, a 3 BR, 1,316 sq ft goes for $7500 a month) -----The American Journal of Psychiatry has a brief, but informative, piece - The Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island and the New York Press Reminds Me Of -----Leslie Parry’s 2015 novel, Church of Marvels, includes a look at Blackwell’s when one of the characters spends some time inside. -----One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - the film ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 18, 2022
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Apr 28, 2022
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May 04, 2022
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Paperback
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1250801745
| 9781250801746
| 1250801745
| 3.62
| 2,035
| Mar 15, 2022
| Mar 15, 2022
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it was amazing
| The comics business was messy—a slapdash sprint to meet immovable deadlines, a blur of pages flowing from production to editorial and back before b The comics business was messy—a slapdash sprint to meet immovable deadlines, a blur of pages flowing from production to editorial and back before being jettisoned out the door to the printer. Carmen loved it.-------------------------------------- Miami was a city, too, Carmen knew—but New York was something else. A disease that bubbled and expanded and multiplied and morphed, like some kind of magical, mystical being that seemed from another world.Carmen Valdez, late of Miami, is where she wants to be. She may not be exactly doing what she wants, but she is trying to get there. A New Yorker for the last year, Carmen is 28. She works at Triumph Comics, a third-tier publisher of such things, and is living the dream, if the dream is to be working as a secretary to a boss who cannot see past her gender, cannot even imagine a woman, let alone a Hispanic woman, actually writing stories for his press. But the stories are there, the ideas filling notebooks. She gives him some, but even if he bothers to read them, he dismisses the work out of hand. All she needs is a chance. And then one appears. [image] Alex Segura - image from Comicsbeat Harvey Stern is a junior editor there, young, friendly. They bond over a shared love of the medium (a love she had acquired from her father taking her out for father-daughter bonding that included the buying of comics). They are friendly without being quite friends. The house has a sudden need for a new character; Harvey is given the job of coming up with one, a female hero who will get a rise out of young male Triumph readers. Carmen sees her opportunity and offers to “help.” Their work together goes well. The story is mostly hers, of course, but Harvey has some skills. They produce a pretty good book. It does well. Problem is that no one other than she and Harvey knows the truth about how it came to be. Then Harvey suffers a BLAM! BLAM! leaving him with even less conscious corporeality than an invisible six-foot pooka. Guess who finds the body? And the noir gets dark. I’ve always been fascinated with Megan Abbott’s work and her ability to bring the tenets of noir to areas where you wouldn’t expect noir to exist—gymnastics, cheerleading, science, and so on. She crafts these narratives that are tense, fraught, and loaded with style outside of the typical noir settings. I remember reading Dare Me and just thinking, huh, wouldn’t it be cool to write a comic book noir? - from The Big Thrill interviewSegura had recently finished writing his Pete Fernandez Miami Mysteries, so has the chops to produce a pretty good whodunit. Carmen sees, in short order, that the police are not up to the task. She also knows that unless she can figure out why Harvey was killed, and by whom, she will never be able to get recognition for her work, or maybe sleep at night. Harvey is not the last person attacked by a mysterious villain. [image] The Legendary Lynx - from the book – image from The Firewire Blog Secret identities abound here. Carmen hides her true author self from the boss because of the sexism of the age. Everyone seems to have a secret. Harvey certainly she had to become someone else to surviveSegura has been busy in the comic book industry for many years, working on Archie Comics, while living in Miami, then moving to New York to work for DC. He has written detective novels, and a Star Wars book, stand-alone mysteries, short stories, a crime podcast, and probably an encyclopedia. He is married with kids, and I imagine that he must sleep some…time. Maybe he is one of the characters he writes about and his secret power is eternal wakefulness. Captain Insomnia takes on every request for writerly product, and satisfies them all. He has a particular soft spot for the 1970s in the comics industry, when the industry’s body was laid out on the street, bleeding money and readers. Who would come to its rescue? Well the comic book industry was really struggling at that time after the glory years of the 50s and 60s. Comics were struggling. It wasn’t like today, where we have shows about Peacemaker or obscure characters – it was considered a dying industry. So I wanted to use her passion for the medium and contrast it with comics at its lowest point, and then show her fighting to control this one thing she loves. - from the Three Rooms Press interviewThis was a time when comic books were sold only on newsstands or in small stores, before there were comic book conventions, before the steady drumbeat of blockbuster films based on comic book characters. There was plenty wrong with the industry at the time (there probably still is), with notorious cases of people stealing credit for the work of others. Some of those are noted here. In fact, there are many references made to well-known names in the comic book industry. I am sorry to say that most just slipped past me, as I am not the maven for such things that Segura and no doubt many readers of this book are. I can report, though, that not knowing all the references did not at all detract from my overall enjoyment, and recognizing the ones I did enhanced the fun. He even tosses in a nod to a character of his from another project, as that character’s story was set in the same time period. [image] The Legendary Lynx - from the book – image from The Firewire Blog There was plenty wrong with NYC at the time. I know. I remember. Fun City, originally a tossed-off line by a 1960s mayor facing multiple municipal crises (“It’s still a fun city.”) had not completed the shift to The Big Apple, itself a reconstitution of a city logo from the 1920s. The city, a political creation of the state, was starved by the state for the funds needed to provide the services it was required to offer, then was looked down on for that inability. It was a time when graffiti was ubiquitous, crime was up, and gentrification was beginning, as landlords were torching their properties to drive out residents so they could transform their buildings into co-ops. It was a time of white flight and a time when a local tabloid featured the infamous headline: Ford to City: Drop Dead, after NYC had turned to the federal government for aid. We get a taste with Carmen’s arrival. the drab, claustrophobic walls of the Port Authority giving her the most honest first impression of New York she could expect. As she wandered the cavernous transport hub, a concrete behemoth at the tail end of the Lincoln Tunnel, she got a heavy dose of what she’d only imagined. A city in disrepair, boiled down into this one sprawling bus terminal. Leaky ceilings, shadowy conversations, blaring horns, and unidentifiable smells all coalesced into an unbridled fear that gripped Carmen as she stepped out into the New York sunlight. [image] The Legendary Lynx - from the book – image from The Firewire Blog Carmen’s mission is to solve the crime of course (When a For example, did Carmen really believe that the boss would disbelieve her if she told him the truth about authorship of The Legendary Lynx? There is a scene in which Harvey gets weird and take off after a working-together session. Holy Tunnel Vision, Batman! No freaking out over that? And she lets Harvey take her notebooks, her primary and unbacked up material? Even the Daredevil wasn’t that blind. There was something else, of no real consequence, that really bothered me. There is a scene which entails Carmen walking from the East Side to the West Side of Manhattan without any mention of passing through Central Park, which is directly in the path, or walking around it. That just seemed odd, particularly coming from a guy who lives in New York. (view spoiler)[ Not really a spoiler, just wanted to spare most folks this aside. I used to live on the West side of Manhattan, for most of the 1970s, West 81st Street, then West 76th Street, and walked across the park to my grad school on the East Side. Walked back, too, so, speaking from experience. (hide spoiler)]Like I said, no consequence. One thing you will definitely enjoy is the inclusion in the book of seventeen pages from The Legendary Lynx. They presage events in the chapters that follow. It is a perfect addition to the book. Music permeates, including nods to the venues of the day, The Village Vanguard, CBGBs, The Bottom Line, et al. Her roommate, Molly, is a musician, rubbing shoulders with rising stars, like Springsteen and Patti Smith. Secret identity covers a fair bit of territory, an homage to a beloved industry in a dire time, a noir mystery, a look at the city where he now lives, when it was on its knees, while saluting the music of the time and the creators of the comic book industry, warts and all. And he tosses in a comic book for good measure. This is a fun read of the first order, even for those, like me, who may not be comic nerds. In producing this very entertaining novel, Alex Segura has revealed his true identity, at least for those who did not already know. Clearly, Seguro really arrived on this planet not in a Miami hospital ward, but probably somewhere in the Everglades, his ship originating in a galaxy far, far away. He may or may not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he clearly wields otherworldly power as a writer. POW! If it got published, I’d be ghostwriting it. . . . I mean, I’d get a shot, and if it did well we’d reveal my involvement, but. . . .” Review posted – March 11, 2022 Publication dates ----------Hardcover - March 15, 2022 ----------Trade paperback - February 7, 2023 I received an ARE of Secret Identity from, well, I can‘t tell you, in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks. And thanks to NetGalley for facilitating an e-galley copy. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review has been cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, FB, Instagram, and Twitter pages Interviews -----Crime Reads - SHOP TALK: ALEX SEGURA IS ALWAYS WRITING, EVEN WHEN HE'S NOT by Eli Cranor Mostly on Segura’s process and insane productivity -----The Big Thrill - Up Close: Alex Segura by April Snellings -----Three Rooms Press - Stand Up Comix:> An Interview with Author Alex Segura Item of Interest from the author -----Segura’s Sub-stack Items of Interest -----When a man’s partner is killed… -----pooka ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 21, 2022
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Mar 03, 2022
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Mar 09, 2022
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Hardcover
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B0881YDNDD
| 3.82
| 89,448
| Jul 14, 2020
| Jul 14, 2020
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it was amazing
| As my father lay dying, Donald went to the movies. If he can in any way profit from your death, he’ll facilitate it, and then he’ll ignore the fact As my father lay dying, Donald went to the movies. If he can in any way profit from your death, he’ll facilitate it, and then he’ll ignore the fact that you died.So, you think your family’s nuts? Usually we have to wait for historians to delve back through the years of a president’s life, digging through letters and writings, interviewing any who might have interacted with them, checking their letters and writings, to cull relevant bits, suss out impactful events, discern motivations and understand how that president came to make the decisions he (still only he) made. Also, sift fact from spin or worse in former presidents’ memoirs and other writings [image] Mary Trump - image from Inside Edition It is quite likely that Donald Trump may be the most written about person, let alone politician, in modern American history. And despite his attempts, many of them, sadly, all too successful, to protect his information from the world, (still waiting on those tax returns) there are so many eyes looking his way, so many searchlights in the darkness, that details continue to emerge, daily, it seems. But there are few who have the sort of access available to a family member. Reporters and historians did not have the personal experiences of dealing with him in a household setting. His remaining siblings have their own reasons to keep their counsel, despite the odd secretly-taped statement that finds its way to the public arena. But we have something pretty close, if a generation removed. Not a sibling, but Donald’s niece, Mary Trump, daughter of the eldest of Fred Trump’s children, Freddy. She is not only a family member but a clinical psychologist to boot. While she was not present when Donald was a child, (he was 19 when she was born) she was as familiar as one could be with family who had been, and had personal exposure to him all her life, in addition to the many tales she heard from family members of Donald’s earlier days. The stories she tells paint a picture of how Donald came to be the person he is. She does not offer a hard diagnosis on how much might be genetic and how much nurture, but the implication is clear that it was a substantial mix of both. Whereas Mary [Donald’s mother] was needy, Fred [his father] seemed to have no emotional needs at all. In fact, he was a highly-functioning sociopath. Although uncommon, sociopathy is not rare, afflicting as much as 3 percent of the population. Seventy-five percent of those diagnosed are men. Symptoms of sociopathy include a lack of empathy, a facility for lying, an indifference to right and wrong, abusive behavior, and a lack of interest in the rights of others. Having a sociopath as a parent, especially if there is no one else around to mitigate the effects, all but guarantees severe disruption in how children understand themselves, regulate their emotions, and engage with the world.There are better sources for the details of Donald’s lifelong crime spree. What Mary Trump offers is a look into the poisoned tree from which this rotten apple dropped. One thing that stands out is that, even though Fred Sr encouraged all Donald’s worst qualities, there is rarely any sense that Donald had any positive ones beyond a superficial charm. In the Stephanopoulos interview, though, Mary talks about there having once been some kind inclinations in Donald, but they were squashed by his father. Even as a child, he delighted in bullying children smaller than himself, to the extent that Fred was encouraged to take him out of a school on whose board Fred sat. That must have been a fun conversation. Pop relocated Donald to the New York Military Academy, six miles north of West Point, in upstate New York. It was the equivalent of being sent to reform school for rich kids. A lot of the book focuses on Mary’s father, Freddy, the oldest of the siblings, the one expected to take over the business. He presumed he would be the head of his father’s company, but Pop never really gave him a chance, sticking him with relatively menial work. He was a kid who was kind, had friends, and interests other than his father’s business. This got him labeled as weak and a failure. Fred Senior preferred someone with what he considered a “killer” instinct, which translated into being as sociopathic as he was. He offered zero support for Freddy’s interest in flying, even though he had joined the United States Air Force ROTC in college and put in mad hours flying and training. Even after he secured a choice position as a pilot with TWA, the elite airline of the stars, flying their new 707 from Boston to Los Angeles, a pretty big deal at the time, his father regarded him as nothing more than a bus driver in the sky. But even after abandoning his flying career, and crawling back to his father, Fred Sr. never really gave him a chance at gaining any real authority. Donald, the second son, eight years younger, was more than happy to step into the favorite son shoes. He clearly had the temperament, the narcissism and malignant regard for others that his father so wanted to see in a successor. Mary offers some details on the business disasters that Donald wrought, his business talent pretty much as non-existent as his talent for dishonesty and self-promotion was vast. Even Mary bought into the spin for a long time, not realizing that Fred Sr. had been keeping Donald afloat with hundreds of millions in loans and often illegal gifts. It was when Donald asked her to ghostwrite one of his books that she did some actual research into him, followed him around, and realized just what a totally empty suit he truly was. There are plenty of quotes from this book making the rounds, a passel of stories. I will spare you the full list. But there are few things worth noting. ----------Donald’s disregard for women tracks with his father’s disregard for his wife, and even Donald’s dismissive treatment of her. ----------Donald even tried to steal his siblings’ inheritance, a ploy that was only sidetracked because Fred Sr was having a rare lucid day and smelled a rat, when his lawyer, whom Donald had recruited for this will-rewrite task, asked him to sign some papers. It was Donald’s mother who saw to it that the plot was foiled. ----------It is telling to see how Donald has recreated in his role as president the model set by his father for always keeping his children from any feeling of security. ----------He has inherited pop’s complete incapacity and/or unwillingness to accept any responsibility for his actions. But at some point you become responsible for yourself, and it is clear that whether he has the capacity or not, Donald never will. He will remain a spoiled child, a bully, a danger to anyone near him, and now, as someone with the instruments of national power at his disposal, an actual menace to the planet. One of the overarching feelings I had while reading this book was sadness. However awful Donald is today (and has been almost all his life), it is still a very sad thing for anyone to grow up in a household where a father’s love was not only unavailable, but in which even wanting such affection would be considered a sign of weakness, and cause for rejection and humiliation. Add to this a mother whose narcissism combined with physical illness to ensure that their interactions would be all about her, and never about him. Mary’s relationship with her grandmother, Donald’s mother, is also heart-breaking. Materials from the book are all over the print and digital media. The understandable focus there is on the actual content of the book. What happened, where, and when, what was said, by whom? How did Donald become so awful and what awful things has he done or said that we do not yet know about? Usually unmentioned, or maybe noted in passing, is what a bloody good read this book is. I found myself rapt while poring through it, and not just fascinated by the major multi-car pileup that is Donald’s life, but actually moved, particularly by the other main story Mary tells, that of her father’s demise. What a waste of a life, of an opportunity, and at the hands of madness. Trumps are not known for writing their own books. But Mary had an interest rarely, if ever, seen in the Trump family. It was love of books that set her apart when she was growing up… in what she describes as a “shitty Trump apartment” in the gritty housing projects of Jamaica, Queens, quite different to the rarefied air of the nearby Jamaica Estates where the rest of the family lived. That gave her a grounding in reality. She took the subway to school. And she devoured literature. In her memoir, she recounts that her grandfather’s house did not display a single book until her uncle published his ghostwritten The Art of the Deal in the late 1980s. “I started reading when I was three and a half,” Trump says. “My horizons were already broader than anyone else in the family simply by virtue of that.” - from the Financial Times interviewWhile Mary Trump does not have the objectivity of a true outsider looking at the family, that does not mean that she leaves her clinical toolbox unopened. She has a PhD in clinical psychology. She has observed and had reliable reports on a large swath of Donald’s life, and the lives of other family members, a solid grounding for offering a very well-informed, and analytically incisive, opinion about Donald and other family members. Her personal take on 45 is the best we are likely to ever have in terms of understanding the psychological roots and early journey into madness of our Psycho President. It is a frightening picture. We can only hope that we all get to live long enough to fully appreciate just how valuable it is. Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York and currently the de facto leader of the country’s COVID-19 response, has committed not only the sin of insufficiently kissing Donald’s ass, but the ultimate sin of showing Donald up by being better and more competent, a real leader who is respected and effective and admired. Donald can’t fight back by shutting Cuomo up or reversing his decisions; having abdicated his authority to lead a nationwide response, he no longer has the ability to counter decisions made at the state level…What he can do in order to offset the powerlessness and rage he feels is to punish the rest of us. He’ll withhold ventilators or steal supplies from states that have not groveled sufficiently…What Donald thinks is justified retaliation is, in this context, mass murder. Review first posted – September 10, 2020 Publication date – July 14, 2020 [image] [image] [image] [image] =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s Twitter and FB pages Interviews -----ABC News – with George Stephanopoulos - George is a bit hostile, but it is a good interview overall -----Financial Times - Mary Trump: ‘At Least the Borgias supported the arts’ by Edward Luce -----The Guardian - Mary Trump on her Uncle Donald: ‘I used to feel compassion for him. That became impossible’ by David Smith -----Mother Jones - Watch: Mary Trump on Why Donald Trump Lies, Why He’s “Racist,” and Why She Wrote Her Book by David Corn -----MSNBC has chopped up Rachel Maddow’s interview with the author into bits. If I find a complete vid of that interview, I will add it here. Items of Interest -----Wikipedia entry for The Trump Family -----The Lincoln Project - Bloodlines ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 24, 2020
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Sep 05, 2020
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Sep 05, 2020
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Kindle Edition
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B084788BMF
| 3.97
| 2,181
| Aug 11, 2020
| Aug 11, 2020
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it was amazing
| For his heroic service, Cher Ami was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with palm. He was returned to the United States and died at Fort Monmouth, N.J For his heroic service, Cher Ami was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with palm. He was returned to the United States and died at Fort Monmouth, N.J. on June 13, 1919, as a result of his wounds. Cher Ami was later inducted into the Racing Pigeon Hall of Fame in 1931, and received a gold medal from the Organized Bodies of American Pigeon Fanciers in recognition of his extraordinary service during World War I. - from the Smithsonian-------------------------------------- …in a contest against passion, truth always makes a poor showing.Two kinds of heroism are on display in Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. The usual sort is displayed by a homing pigeon, Cher Ami of the title, braving and taking enemy fire to bring news back to base of the dire situation faced by a battalion caught behind enemy lines. The other was the courage Charles Whittlesey, the commander of that battalion, mustered to remain in place when the urge to retreat was almost overwhelming. Movement would have offered no assuredness of survival, and probably would have resulted in annihilation, the other option, surrendering to the surrounding German army, again offered no certainty of survival, but confidently promised the collateral damage of severe disgrace. A very Anthony Fauci decision, selecting the least of the available evils, but Whittlesey chose the one offering the greatest hope for the best results. [image] Kathleen Rooney and friends - image from her site This novel is a fictionalized account of a real-world event. Cher Ami is indeed in the Smithsonian. Charles Whittlesey did lead his men in dire circumstances. The Lost Battalion was a major media event in the waning days of World War I. [image] Cher Ami – image from the Air and Space Museum News coverage at the time had focused on the Metropolitan Division more than most segments of the Army prior to the event. It was made up primarily of New Yorkers, and thus a large contingent of immigrants, some of whom did not even speak English, many of whom were not yet naturalized citizens, draftees fighting for their home country of choice. So, there was much more news sent home about the 77th Division, of which the battalion was a part, than there might have been had the incident afflicted a less reported-on force. You could read all about the plight of The Lost Battalion in the New York papers, and then across the country. One of the main writers covering the story was a reporter for The New York American, a Hearst newspaper. He had a readership, based to a considerable degree on his sports journalism, but he was more than just a sports writer. You may have heard of him. His name was Damon Runyon. [image] Damon Runyon - image from FamousBirthdays.com Whittlesey’s piece of the 77th, part of an Allied offensive into France’s German-occupied Meuse-Argonne Forest in October 1918, did their jobs too well, continuing to advance, even when forces on either side of them had ceased their forward progress, unbeknownst to Whit. It is called a salient when you advance past enemy lines and find yourself surrounded by the enemy on multiple sides. Not a good thing. We get to see Whit’s decisions, and the efforts that had to be made to try to get word back to base, and the herculean task of keeping his soldiers’ spirits up, trying to keep them as safe as possible, countering any enemy moves while meting out diminishing supplies and tamping down those who would welcome capture just to end their awful situation. Each man was the miserable monarch of a kingdom that squirmed with vermin, one that consisted of the dirt and a bit of sky each one could see from the dirt, of their feet in their boots in the mud—a kingdom indistinguishable from a grave.But the battle and the heroism displayed is only one part of the story, albeit a compelling one. [image] Image from Chris Rice Cooper’s blog The periods portrayed are, like all Gaul, divided into three parts, the lead-up before their engagement in the war, wartime duties, and postwar experiences, including the psychological and political processes and actions that radiated from that Lost Battalion event. [image] Image from Chris Rice Cooper’s blogspot This is a tale of two narrators, Charles Whittlesey and the homing pigeon of the title, Cher Ami. Chapters alternate. Do not think that just because we have a pigeon narrating half this book that it is in any way a children’s tale. It most certainly is not. Cher is an amazing character whom Rooney uses to great effect. She has a rich social and emotional life, offers astute observations of human nature and behavior, and teaches us a lot. [image] Image from Chris Rice Cooper’s blogspot We meet her (yes, her, Cher was mis-gendered and named as a male, an error that persisted even into her descriptive display at the Smithsonian) in the present day, inhabiting, as she has for a century, a place of honor in the National Museum of American History in DC. It is from this perch that this highly decorated war hero looks back on her life, the events that led up to her heroic act, and her life after she completed her final wartime mission. Whittlesey is no longer with us, stuffed or otherwise, but tells his first-person tale in the present of his actions. [image] McMurtry was Whittlesy’s second in command and a fascinating character in his own right - Image from Chris Rice Cooper’s blog The alternating chapters cleverly share opening lines that lead each narrator to offer their cross-species perspectives on similar processes and events. Chapter 1, for example, opens with Monuments matter most to pigeons and soldiers. Cher addresses her long display at the museum, and gives us a look at her life, living and displayed. Whit has become something of a monument himself, widely lauded for his leadership under extreme duress. There is even a film being made of the horror of The Lost Battalion, in which Whit and some of the other survivors play themselves. He would much prefer being able to return to anonymity, particularly as he is a gay man in the Jazz Age, in which finding love on the run was a risky enterprise. And PTSD is never much fun, particularly when tinged with survivor’s guilt, and a feeling that he is nobody’s hero. [image] The Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Manhattans Upper West Side – image from Wiki - Whit names this as a significant locale for him early in the book In preparation for the adventure, Rooney shows us the stages Cher and Whit go through to become combat ready. For Cher, it is training to sharpen and strengthen her homing instinct, and she turns out to be a natural, a champion even. We learn a lot about how special pigeons are, what is involved in their training, and a bit of the history of homing pigeons being used in war. Whit’s training may not have involved flapping, but it is no less interesting, seeing how the military encouraged educated sorts to get a taste of military life, before having to sign up for real, a trial subscription, if you will. This was news to me, as was the makeup of this particular division. How Whit grows into his command is beautifully portrayed. We see Whit and Cher both in combat, and we see them both in love, with mirrored romantic interests. We see them both considering the madness of men and how veterans might be used as props for ignoble purposes. We see them both yearning for home, and giving their all. A particular strength of the novel is pointing out how media influences political, and even military decisions, and how real events can be used by the cynical to support less than laudable aims, why some are hailed as heroes, while others, equally meritorious, are abandoned to a dark fate. [image] Image from Chris Rice Cooper’s blog This is an incredibly moving book. I counted nine times in my notes the word “tears.” Have those tissues or hankies locked and loaded. It is rich with new info. Fun to learn of Damon Runyon’s involvement. Rewarding to learn so much about about what makes pigeons so much more than Woody Alan’s memorable “rats with wings” putdown, homing pigeons in particular, news to me, at least, and I expect news to most readers. It was fascinating to learn about military life and recruitment in 1918. The use of Cher as a narrator was a bold choice, and, IMHO, entirely effective. Well, I did have one gripe re Cher. Rooney stretches her consciousness way too far near the end, as she perceives in the mode of an omniscient narrator things she could have no way of knowing. I am willing to suspend disbelief for the conscious bird, but this was a step too far. The experiences of Cher and Whit may have been personal, but the importance of the issues raised is universal and still with us today. The War to End All Wars did no such thing. But if you are looking for a wonderful read, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey will end your search, at least until you finish reading it. Battle was said to harden a man—during my youth I’d heard this stated in the same offhand tones used to discuss first Communions and debutante balls—but in my case there had been no hardening, only a constant effort to hold together despite proliferating cracks. Review posted – August 28, 2020 Publication dates ----------August 11, 2020 - hardcover ----------August 11, 2021 - Trade Paperback I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley. I was able to find my way to it with no problem at all. ==========In the summer of 2019 GR reduced the allowable review size by 25%, from 20,000 to 15,000 characters. In order to accommodate the text beyond that I have moved it to the comments section directly below. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jul 29, 2020
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Aug 11, 2020
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Aug 10, 2020
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Kindle Edition
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1982121491
| 9781982121495
| 1982121491
| 4.04
| 4,493
| Nov 24, 2020
| Nov 24, 2020
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it was amazing
| “What did they see, Mama?” I murmured to her. “What was it that came to meet the birds that flew into the west?” “What did they see, Mama?” I murmured to her. “What was it that came to meet the birds that flew into the west?”--------------------------------------- …not all migrations end with a return home. Every memory begins to cut if you hold onto it too tight.Reading Zeyn Joukhadar’s The Thirty Names of Night is like walking through an incredibly rich and diverse aviary. Our attention is drawn to each flying thing as it comes into our visual range. No sooner do we coo at the beauty of the last than another feathered image hops into view. As in an actual aviary, there is an entrance and an exit. The flocks, and individuals, provide a landscape as we pass through dips and rises in the path, arriving at recognitions as we reach the end. There is a lot going on here. [image] Zeyn Joukhadar - image from his FB profile pix There are three generations and two alternating narrators in this beautiful novel. The twenty-something unnamed (well, for most of the book anyway) narrator is busy creating a mural in what once was Little Syria, before the neighborhood was mostly razed to make the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the World Trade Center. One of the last remnants is an old community house. Led by an owl (not the Hogwarts sort, although it does, in a way, carry a message) to a particular place inside the building, he discovers a hidden journal, left by a woman missing for sixty years, a woman his mother had very much admired. He had been looking for clues to his late mother’s life in her old neighborhood, so this is a rich find. [image] “The Syrian Colony” – image from Paris Review article Laila Z was a Syrian immigrant, whose family moved from their troubled home to New York in the 1930s, when she was a teenager. In addition to the usual emotional trauma of such a move, Laila was broken-hearted at having to leave the love of her life. In New York, she begins writing to her lost love, whom we know only as “B” or “little wing.” Laila’s journal makes up half the story. Our contemporary narrator tells his story as he talks to his late mother, whose ghost he can see. Chapters alternate. [image] Canada Goose Learning about Laila’s life reveals an unsuspected history of gay and trans people from another era. Laila and our unnamed narrator have much in common. Laila was born in Syria, the narrator was born in the USA of Syrian stock. Laila was a gifted painter of birds. Our narrator is as well, using chalk instead of aquatint. Laila, in the 1930s, dared to love outside the acceptable norms of her culture. Our narrator finds himself struggling to find his way while born into a female body. [image] A Hudhud or Hoopoe - image from Oiseaux.net There is a mystery at the center that keeps things moving along. Laila had made a name for herself in the USA as an exceptional artist, specializing in birds. One pair she drew was a new species she had seen, nesting in New York, Geronticus simurghus, a kind of ibis. It is known that she’d done so, but the final image had never been found. Through a friend, our contemporary narrator meets Qamar, the granddaughter of a black ornithologist who’d worked in the 1920s and 1930s. He had been the first to describe this new species, but had never been taken seriously, in the absence of corroboration. Laila’s missing artwork would provide that, and allow Qamar to complete her grandfather’s work. What happened to that piece, and what became of Laila? G. simurghus was named by its discoverer for a character in the Persian poem The Conference of the Birds. If Simorgh unveils its face to you, you will findThe central, peripheral, overhead, and underfoot imagery in this novel is BIRDS. This includes tales from ancient classics, like the one above. Joukhadar infuses nearly every page with birds, real, magically real, drawn, painted, folded, and sometimes by allusion. Flocks appear, to enhance events. Goldfinches swarm during a building demolition. Forty-eight sparrows fall from the sky on the fifth anniversary of the narrator’s mother’s death. The first funeral I attended was held under a black froth of wings. The deceased was a crow that had been gashed in the belly by a red-tailed hawk…That was the day my body started conspiring against me. I’d gotten my period.B makes Laila a gift, a piece of a dead kite they had tried to save, fallen feathers stitched back to make a magnificent silver-white wing. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Our narrator’s mother had been an ornithologist. A close friend of his mother operates a bird-rescue aviary in Queens. An evening at a club entails people dancing, using very bird-like movements. Birds are both expressions of freedom and reflections of a divine presence. They are manifestations of underlying forces and sources of purest love and beauty. They are a means by which people connect with other people. [image] Passenger Pigeon by Robert Havell - image from the National Gallery of Art As our contemporary narrator struggles through finding the answer to the rest of Laila’s story, and figuring out what had happened to that special aquatint, he struggles as well with defining who he is. This is something with which Joukhadar is familiar. Zeyn came out publicly in Spring 2019 as transgender, and is now using he/him pronouns. This is not the only transition he has gone through. After earning a Ph.D in Medical Sciences from Brown, and working as a researcher for several years, he moved on to pursuing writing as a full-time gig. He is very interested in the immigrant experience, and the status of Muslims in the USA. I am tied by blood to Syria, and the country where my father was born is suffering while the country in which I was born still views us as not fully American. Where, then, does that leave me? And for people of Syrian descent living in diaspora, particularly for the generation of children who will grow up in exile because their parents left Syria for safety reasons, what can we take with us? What do we carry with us that cannot be lost? - from the Goodreads interview [image] Yellow Crowned Night Heron - by John James Audubon - image from Wayfair Go slowly through this one. There is much to take in, from the avian imagery to the tales of Laila and our narrator, from the flight from Syria to making a home in Manhattan’s Little Syria, from the destruction of that neighborhood to its migration to Brooklyn, from bloody events summoning revelations to love and connection across generations, from the real to the magical, from a portrait of a long-ago place to a look at today, from a place of not knowing to seeing truths beneath the surface. The Thirty Names of Night is a remarkable novel. Spread your wings, catch a thermal and hover. Take in the considerable landscape of content and artistry provided here. This aviary is very tall and there is so much to see. We parted. I wiped my face with the back of my hand. Review posted – June 5, 2020 Publication dates ----------Hardcover was supposed to be May 19, 2020 – but got CV19’d to November 3, 2020 ----------Trade paperback - July 13, 2021 I received an ARE of this book from Atria in return for a few seeds, worms, and some extra twigs for nest fortifications. =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter, GR, Instagram, and FB pages Interviews - for his earlier book – recent interviews have eluded me -----The Booklist Reader- Syria and Synesthesia: An Interview with Debut Author Zeyn Joukhadar By Biz Hyzy -----Goodreads - Debut Author Snapshot: Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar Songs/Music -----Fairuz - Ya Tayr -----Little Wing - Hendrix (live) -----The Wind Beneath My Wings Items of Interest -----Paris Review - Little Syria by Angela Serratore -----Wikipedia- Little Syria -----The National - The battle to save New York's 'Little Syria' from being forgotten -----6SqFt - The history of Little Syria and an immigrant community’s lasting legacy- by Dana Schulz -----Adubon’s Birds of America -----Birds in Islamic Culture -----The Cornell Lab Bird Academy - Everything You Need To Know About Feathers by Mya Thompson ----- Public Domain Review - Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing by Qazwini -----Wikipedia - The Conference of the Birds by Maqāmāt-uṭ-Ṭuyūr ...more |
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May 10, 2020
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May 24, 2020
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May 10, 2020
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Hardcover
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0062854046
| 9780062854049
| 0062854046
| 3.78
| 269
| May 05, 2020
| May 05, 2020
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really liked it
| …she told about the coming resurrection, when our dead would rise from their graves and walk the Westside streets. …she told about the coming resurrection, when our dead would rise from their graves and walk the Westside streets.You can’t keep a good man down, or, apparently, a bad one. There seem to be some issues on the Westside around the dearly departed staying that way. Gilda Carr, the PI who found herself in some very strange sorts of peril in the 2019 release, Westside, that entailed a near civil war in the city, and a connection to a very strange place, is back for another go. The reimagined 1921 Westside of Manhattan from the first book remains extremely odd in 1922. Originally, Westside was imagined as a straight mystery, but as I found myself writing the early chapters, it occurred to me that the street scenes I was writing felt eerily empty. I wondered why that might be, and gradually (over the course of two or three very painful drafts) evolved the concept of a city where the Westside is desolate and isolated and the Eastside is vastly overcrowded. - from the Bidwell Hollow interviewIt still has a three story fence separating East from West, and some unusual characteristics that differ between the two sides. Things mechanical tend to fare poorly on the Western side, guns included, and the local flora tends to grow at an accelerated rate. Well, add one more touch of weirdness, as the Byrd family, long time cleric sorts, who spend considerable time and effort aiding the unfortunate, have been promising their parishioners, and any who will listen, that they will be holding a revivification lottery. Come on down to their place of worship, The Electric Church, buy a chance, and maybe your special passed-on-person can be brought back from the other side. Electric Resurrection they call it. Cash only. [image] W.M. Akers – image from Chapter16.org Gilda smells a rat. This is a bit much, even for the Westside, despite the strangeness she encountered first-hand in the first Westside book. As usual, she takes on a tiny case, looking for a very specific color for Enoch Byrd, a member of that clerical family, to which Byrd’s mother adds a search for the missing relic of a saint that was kept at their church. But Gilda’s small investigations tend to grow into epic life and death struggles, so of course… A notorious preacher has returned. Apparently, at about the same time, a woman has as well. A woman who somehow finds her way to Gilda’s home, looking for help, a woman who is all of twenty-one years of age, a woman with a keen wit and a driving, acerbic personality, a woman trying to find out what has happened to her boyfriend, who’d mysteriously disappeared, a woman who happens to be Gilda’s late mother, Mary Hall, nicely fitted out with amnesia and a wardrobe that seems a bit out of date. Insert Louis Black double take here, complete with bouncing jowls. So, where the first book in this series centered to a large degree around Gilda’s relationship with her father, this one focuses on her maternal lineage. There is a third book in the works. One wonders if more family members will be called on in that one. I can certainly imagine a successful Westside series volume some years down the line bringing in cousins once-removed. Gilda decides it is best to keep their future relationship under wraps for the moment, to better allow the two of them to work together. Well, working together may be putting it too kindly, as Mary keeps dragging Gilda about and complaining about her near total uselessness. How Gilda endures her returned mother, while trying to keep her from awareness of their relationship is a wonderful bit of fun. It is quite clear that Akers loves New York. But he is not exactly a native. I was born and raised in Nashville, Tenn. As early as six, I remember wanting to live in New York City—this probably had something to do with obsessive rewatching of Home Alone 2 and the fact that Eloise was one of my favorite childhood reads. Even after I learned that living in New York usually doesn’t mean life at the Plaza Hotel, I was infatuated with the city, where I moved for college in 2006… One of the many reasons why I’m thrilled to continue working on the Gilda Carr series is to give me a chance to hang out with my own imagined version of New York—where, coincidentally, the rent is very low. - from the Bidwell Hollow interviewLike many erstwhile New Yorkers, he was driven out by the excessive cost of living there, and now makes his home in Philadelphia, no doubt at a more brotherly rent. The visuals are great fun, as in volume one. One drinking establishment, Berk’s Third Floor, lacks electricity and heat, and operates in a building from which a considerable portion of the exterior structure has disappeared. Be careful where you step. It does, however, offer alcohol, a substance unavailable on the East side. Another, The Basement Club, operates underground, barely, offering a novel way to purchase the only drink in the house. I paid my nickel and cupped my hands under the hose, slurping up whatever didn’t run through my fingers. I wiped my hands on the patron to my left, who was glassy with drink, his mouth stained bloody by the beet red liquor.Local color abounds, tending toward the bluish, from the tiny mystery of Gilda trying to find a very specific shade of blue for a client, to an eldritch, and seemingly far too coherent, stream of crackling blue light that has peculiar qualities, to the color of one’s lips as winter takes its toll. That special bridge comes into play, as does the Roebling family, bridge builders of note, who might not be thrilled with their portrayal here. Unpleasant winter weather plays a role, as the tough winter at the beginning of the book takes a turn for the historical towards the end, in its level of cold, wind, snow, and misery. We get a further taste of the deep corruption that flows through the Westside, and a look at the source of some of that corruption, on the Eastside. [image] Brooklyn Bridge during a major blizzard – image from Wikipedia The cast of supporting characters is colorful and marvelous, as in Westside. Akers has succeeded in merging history, fantasy, and mystery, to concoct a wonderful take on old and imagined New York, and placing within it a compelling whodunit. There are very few saints in the Westside (any Westside without Zabar’s is decidedly unholy anyway), although there is one Cherub. Gilda will certainly not be offering herself for canonization, but you will enjoy hanging out with her. If you are fond of being transported (in a good way) to a strange but familiar place, crave a bit of mystery, and enjoy it all served with a chilled bowl of fantasy, you have come to the right place. Westside Saints is an infernally fun read. All I want is to help people—give them food, shelter, a midwife, a chance. But all that costs a hell of a lot of money, and crime is the only thing that pays. Review posted – May 8, 2020 Publication date – May 5, 2020 ----------May 5, 2020 - hardcover ----------April 13, 2021 - trade paperback =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal and Twitter pages and to his very fun newsletter, Strange Times Interviews - came across very little pertaining specifically to book #2 -----Harper Voyager - Live with W.M. Akers on Westside - Angela Craft -----Bidwell Hollow - W.M. Akers Dives Into a Divided New York City in His Debut Novel by Nicholas Barron My review of the first book in the series, Westside Items of Interest -----New Yok Times – March 13, 1888 - In A Blizzard’s Grasp -----Akers produces a newsletter/site that explores the weirdest news of 1921, one day at a time - Strange Times - check it out -----Crimereads.com - Tiny Mysteries From the Files of the New York Times - an intro to the above by the author with some fun samples -----John A. Roebling - designer of the Brooklyn Bridge ----- There is a Roebling Museum, but it is located in neither Brooklyn nor Manhattan, where one might expect it, but in Roebling, NJ, about 70 miles (about a three hour drive) from the bridge that brought them global renown. Of course, the Roeblings were involved in the construction of many bridges, including the Golden Gate. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Apr 07, 2020
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Apr 15, 2020
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Apr 29, 2020
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Hardcover
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0525535276
| 9780525535270
| 0525535276
| 3.97
| 79,457
| Sep 17, 2019
| Sep 17, 2019
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it was amazing
| …now I knew there were so many ways to get hung from a cross—a mother’s love for you morphing into something incomprehensible. A dress ghosted in a …now I knew there were so many ways to get hung from a cross—a mother’s love for you morphing into something incomprehensible. A dress ghosted in another generation’s dreams. A history of fire and ash and loss. Legacy.Melody is sixteen, having her coming out party in her home, her grandparents home, in Brooklyn’s Park Slope. We are introduced to her father, her grandparents, her bff, her world. She has chosen for her entrance music something that draws a line between her generation and those that came before, Prince’s Darling Nikki. The guests are thankful that the lyrics have been omitted. [you can see them at the end of EXTRA STUFF]. But it is the connections across generational lines that are at the core of Jacqueline Woodson’s latest novel. How the past persists through time, molding, if not totally defining us, informing our options, our choices, our possibilities, the impact of legacy. [image] Jacqueline Woodson - image from the New York Times Red at the Bone is a short book with a long view. (I have had people say, "I've read that in a day" and I'm like, "Yo, it took me four years to write that. Go back and read it again." - from the Shondaland interview) It is not just about race and legacy, but about class, about parenting, about coming of age, about the making and unmaking of families. Look closely. It’s the spring of 2001 and I am finally sixteen. How many hundreds of ancestors knew a moment like this? Before the narrative of their lives changed once again forever, there was Bach and Ellington, Monk and Ma Rainey, Hooker and Holiday. Before the world as they knew it ended, they stepped out in heels with straightening-comb burns on their ears, gartered stockings, and lipstick for the first time.Iris found motherhood too soon, was fifteen when she became pregnant with Melody. Buh-bye Catholic school. Buh-bye coming out party. And when her parents were unwilling to endure their neighbors’ scorn, buh-bye neighborhood. It’s tough to be a proper, upstanding family, respected by all, when the sin is so public, and the forgiveness element of their Catholic community is so overwhelmed by the urge to finger-point and shame. Class informs who we choose and the roads we take through our lives. Although paths may cross, as we head in diverging directions we can wave to each other for a while, but eventually, mostly, we lose sight of those who have traveled too far on that other bye-way. The baby-daddy, Aubrey, steps up, but, really, Iris does not think he is a long-term commitment she wants to make. She has been raised middle-class, and Aubrey’s background, ambitions, and interests do not measure up. When she looked into her future, she saw college and some fancy job somewhere where she dressed cute and drank good wine at a restaurant after work. There were always candles in her future—candlelit tables and bathtubs and bedrooms. She didn’t see Aubrey there.Her decision impacts her daughter, who grows up largely motherless, a mirror to her father, who had grown up fatherless, although without the resources his daughter has from her mother’s parents. One impact of history is how the Tulsa Massacre, specifically, cascades down through the generations, driving family members to achieve, and to zealously protect what they have gained, ever knowledgeable that everything might be taken from them at any time. (Melody is named for her great-grandmother, who suffered in the Tulsa Massacre.) Every day since she was a baby, I’ve told Iris the story. How they came with intention. How the only thing they wanted was to see us gone. Our money gone. Our shops and schools and libraries—everything—just good and gone. And even though it happened twenty years before I was even a thought, I carry it. I carry the goneness. Iris carries the goneness. And watching her walk down those stairs, I know now that my grandbaby carries the goneness too.The goneness finds a contemporary echo when a family member is killed in the 9/11 attack, a space that cannot be filled. Goneness appears in other forms, when Iris leaves her Catholic school, and, later, heads off to college. Music permeates the novel, from Melody’s name (and the person who had inspired it) to the atmosphere of various locales, from Po’Boy’s recollections to Aubrey’s parentage, from Melody’s coming out song to Iris’s college playlist. Who among us does not have music associated with the events of our life? Most good novels offer a bit of reflection on the narrative process. The person-as-a-story here reminded me of Ocean Vuong writing about our life experience as language in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. …as we dance, I am not Melody who is sixteen. I am not my parents’ once illegitimate daughter—I am a narrative, someone’s almost forgotten story. Remembered.There are many moments in this book that reach deep. In a favorite of these, Aubrey remembers the pedestrian things he liked in his peripatetic single-parent childhood, a Whitman-esque litany of physical experience, capped with an image of fleeting, unsurpassed beauty, and desperate longing that well mirrors his love for Iris, and is absolutely heart-wrenching. The stories within the novel are told from several alternating perspectives, Melody, Aubrey and Iris getting the most time, and Iris’s parents, Sabe and Po’Boy, getting some screen time as well. We see Iris and Aubrey as teens and adults, and are given a look at Aubrey’s childhood as well. Sabe and Po’Boy provide a contemporary perspective, but a connection back to their young adulthood too. Woodson’s caution to the fast-reader to go back and try again is advice well worth heeding. Red at the Bone is a tapestry, with larger images, created with threads that are woven in and out, and drawn together to form a glorious whole. You will see on second, third, or further readings flickers here that reflect events from there, see the threads that had gone unnoticed on prior readings. It is a magnificent book, remarkably compact, but so, so rich. Surely one of the best books of 2019. Review posted – December 27, 2019 Publication date – September 17, 2019 =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, FB, and Tumblr pages My review of Woodson’s prior novel, Another Brooklyn Interviews - Video/audio -----The Daily Show - Trevor Noah -----Longreads - “We’re All Still Cooking…Still Raw at the Core”: An Interview with Jacqueline Woodson - by Adam Morgan -----NPR – Weekend Edition - History And Race In America In 'Red At The Bone' - by Scott Simon -----Shondaland - Jacqueline Woodson Will Not Be Put in a Box - by Britni Danielle Items of Interest -----NPR - Jacqueline Woodson: What Is The Hidden Power Of Slow Reading? -----Wiki - The Tulsa Race Massacre -----Rollingstone - The Tulsa Massacre Warns Us Not to Trust History to Judge Trump on Impeachment - by Jamil Smith -----The Party - by Paul Lawrence Dunbar – read by Karen Wilson -----Sojourner Truth’s seminal speech - Ain’t I a Woman? Songs - both from the book and her stated playlist from the Longreads interview -----Prince - Darling Nikki -----Eva Cassidy - Songbird -----EmmyLou Harris - Don’t Leave Nobody But the Baby -----J. Cole - Young, Dumb, and Broke -----Etta James - I’d Rather Go Blind -----Erroll Garner - Fly Me to the Moon -----Erroll Garner - Jeannine, I Dream of Lilac Time -----The Chi Lites - Have You Seen Her? -----Boy George - That’s the Way -----5th Dimenion - Stoned Soul Picnic -----Phoebe Snow - Poetry Man Darling Nikki Prince I knew a girl named Nikki I guess you could say she was a sex fiend, I met her in a hotel lobby masturbating with a magazine, She said how'd you like to waste some time and I could not resist when I saw little Nikki grind. She took me to her castle and I just couldn't believe my eyes, She had so many devices everything that money could buy, She said "sign your name on the dotted line." The lights went out and Nikki started to grind. Nikki The castle started spinning or maybe it wa my brain. I can't tell you what she did to me but my body will never be the same. Awe, her lovin will kick your behind, she'll show you no mercy But she'll sure 'nough, sure 'nough show you how to grind Come on Nikki I woke up the next morning, Nikki wasn't there. I looked all… Sometimes the world's a storm. One day soon the storm will pass And all will be bright and peaceful. Fearlessly bathe in the, Purple rain Source: LyricFind ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 09, 2019
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Dec 16, 2019
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Dec 09, 2019
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Hardcover
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1982120967
| 9781982120962
| 1982120967
| 3.62
| 173
| Sep 17, 2019
| Sep 17, 2019
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really liked it
| That is what I believed: that time nibbles away at the future, and in that moment puts the present behind its back. The past retreats as each prese That is what I believed: that time nibbles away at the future, and in that moment puts the present behind its back. The past retreats as each present moment joins it, on and on. Yet that is far too simple. Inside us, time sways backwards and forwards from now to then, here to there, and nothing of it is lost or goes away, but it all hangs everywhere, translucent in the air. Some men turn away, and walk on, saying that the past contains only their former selves and ghosts of people and deeds. Others, like myself, live every day with it. One minute I am in Nieuw Amsterdam, the next pulled on a string into the other time that comes with me, so that here on the Heere Gracht, or as I walk across the marketplace, you and I talk.======================================== Looking back is a game for fools and not one that I like to play.It is 1664. Jan Brunt, a reclusive Dutch bachelor and engineer, lives in what will soon become New York. When he receives a letter announcing the arrival of an old friend, he looks back to the greatest professional and personal challenge of his life, the first his work as an engineer on one of the greatest European development projects of the pre-industrial age, The Great Level, a draining of five hundred square miles of wetland in southeastern England and transformation of it into farmland. The second, the relationship he forms with a local woman while working on that vast endeavor, the love of his life. His story flips back and forth between these two periods. [image] Stella Tillyard - image from BBC Call Upon the Water is an historical novel of a time, during an ongoing English Civil War, when there was much turmoil, and much change happening in the world. It offers powerful portraits of significant places of the era, London of the interregnum, for example, with surreptitious street vendors peddling images of a decapitated King Charles, and a very visible military presence, of the sort one might expect in an occupied country. Another picture, of what is now East Anglia, shows its idyllic appeal as a natural place, in which the residents fight no wars against the natural order that provides them their livelihoods, and then later offers a dark view of the modernization, the denaturing of the place, with the use of hordes of slave laborers, prisoners of war from England’s ongoing battles. We get a look at 1664 New York, well, Niew Amsterdam, Manatus Eylandt, as the Dutch development of it grows northward, when Wall Street was still a wall, and the swampy edges of the island, as well as many wet inland spots beckoned the real estate developers of the time, and provided ample employment for an experienced Dutch engineer. We witness its handover to the English, who rename it for a crown favorite. And we get a look at the Virginia of the time, heavy with indentured labor, not yet so heavy with slaves. It appears that in the latter 17th century, every place is in need of draining, and conversion of wet land at the edges of solid land is de rigeur for the advancement of certain sorts of civilization, regardless of how that land provided for the residents, who are regarded as primitives, whether they are English fenlanders or Native Americans. Colonialism both at home and abroad requires denigration of the displaced residents. [image] The fens - image from The Guardian Eliza is one such. During his early paddling through the vast area to be redesigned in The Great Level, Jan comes across a group of local women bathing. One disrobes as he draws near, unaware. Virginal Janny is shocked So I see her as I have never seen a woman, her whole nakedness, half in my plain sight, half reflected in the water. And in the same instant, or so it feels, she lifts her head and sees me there. Her furious eyes strip me of everything and make me as naked as herself.Well, not quite. Mortified Janny is smitten at the first instant of seeing his personal siren. When I look up I see the mere, the water and the sky, all unchanged. But I know that everything is altered and translated. I spin the coracle, work abandoned and paddle back to Ely, heavy with whatever is inside me. Guy never had a chance. Of course, he is bewitched in the way many a young man can be. (I was young once, I know) From that day on I live a different life. Something has happened to me…straight away I accept and ingest it. The woman I saw, who saw me, has taken up residence inside me… They begin to encounter each other on the water, then closer, then closer, then, well, you know, they become an item. Each has something to teach the other, she the ways of the fenfolk, who make use of the bounty of their watery land. Like Professor Doolittle, although not to win a bet, he teaches her to read, write, very much at her request. He is making her over, as his company is making over the land. But she is no passive recipient. He teaches her also how to measure, in essence how to be an engineer. One might see Eliza not only as a siren figure but as a personification of the land itself. From that day the sun shines on everything in the world. It feels to me as if I have a new knowledge, and that the change that came over me when you first fixed me with your glance was the beginning of it. This knowledge is not from a person or a book. It is a knowledge of what is, neither sacred nor profane, but just the world itself.Already open to such vision, he notes more and more of the nature of the place as he spends more time with Eliza. Stand still in a full silence and it’s loud with noises. A heron takes flight; he creaks like a ship in sail. Ducks scuffle in the reeds. I hear the beat of wings, the movement of creatures in the grass, water rippling, and the wind that accompanies me everywhere, sighing and roaring. Nature, that seems so quiet, pours out its songs. Even in the darkness there is a velvet purr of sound, of moles underground and field mice above.One of the powerful elements of the novel is the portrayal of Eliza as a powerful woman, not only surviving in the perilous world of men, but using the knowledge she gains to survive the challenges she faces on two continents, and to secure what she wants from the universe, and maybe take a shot or two at what she perceives as dark forces. One of the lesser elements of the book is the static nature of Jan. He is a bit stiff, personally, while possessing a naturalist’s feel for the untrammeled world. He has some notions of the sort of life he would like to build for himself, but seems unable to adapt to changes in his circumstances, remaining withdrawn and solitary. I hoped for more development of Jan’s character. Both Jan and Eliza are mostly about business, but Eliza seems much the livelier character of the two. Jan goes through little character development, only from a young engineer to an experienced and confident one. He remains stand-offish, and sinks into the swamp of his unwillingness to act. [image] The fens - image from The Guardian They share an appreciation for the beauty of the land, whether the fenlands of the Great Level or the new, exciting lands of the New World. Those are lyrical passages. This is a novel of man in and versus nature, of colonialism at home and abroad, of both people and landscapes being subdued by political and monetary forces. Land as a source of power and freedom is central. Consideration is given to how one perceives time, Jan holding to a notion that time is a flexible thing, that one can inhabit multiple times simultaneously. This is contrasted with a New World perspective, that disdains any sort of rearward vision, and focuses on material success. While Jan’s story makes up the bulk of the book, as he addresses his story to Eliza, she gets a chance to narrate towards the back of the book. I would have preferred to have seen their perspectives alternated, instead of being presented so separately, and would have liked learning much more about Eliza’s life before her home turf was so assaulted. A greater balance between their two tales would have been most welcome. There are elements of excitement and danger, as the prisoners forced to work on the Great Level are less than willing, but are held in check by a dark sort who would look perfectly lovely in an SS uniform. The locals, as well, are not ecstatic about seeing their entire way of life bulldozed out of existence, and do not all endure it peacefully. Eliza’s experience is rich with peril, and we want her to find a way to survive. Bottom line is that Call Upon the Water is a fascinating look at several places at a time in history most of us do not think about or see much in our diverse readings and entertainments. It is a worthwhile read for that alone. It offers a thoughtful look at the appeal of both nature untrammeled and the satisfying power of taming landscape, counterflows within individuals, as well as in the larger context. The love story is wonderful, for a time. But Jan seemed, despite his lyrical feelings for nature, just too withheld. You can rub two sticks together, but there will not always be a spark. There was one here, for a while, but after the initial heat, the ember never graduated to flame. That said, there is much to like here. And it probably won’t drain all your resources to check it out. In the summer I may paddle on for days. I catch fish and travel as the wildmen do until I reach the far end of the island where it breaks into numerous inlets and beaches. Then I walk down to the open ocean and feel myself to be not a man but a part of nature, as is a star, or a dolphin that leaps for joy out in the bay. Far away round our earth lies the old world, while here I stand on the new. Waves rush up to my feet and then pull back, marbled with sand and foam. Review first posted – October 11, 2019 Publication dates -----UK – July 5, 2018 – as The Great Level - by Chato Windus -----USA – September 17, 2019 – by Atria Books =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and GR pages Her personal site is not particularly current. Tillyard is a historian, best known for her bio of the Lennox Sisters, The Aristocrats, which was made into a very successful mini-series in 1999. In addition to her historical works, Tillyard published her first novel, Tides of War, in 2011. Items of Interest ----- STREET PLAN OF NEW AMSTERDAM AND COLONIAL NEW YORK. - from the NYC Landmarks Preservation commission -----The Guardian - ‘Weirder than any other landscape’: a wild walk in the Fens - by Patrick Barkham -----Evening News - Norwich raised historian to release new book - by Rosanna Elliott The author said: “Growing up in Norwich I was certainly aware of the fens, and I remember passing Ely often on the way to visit my grandparents in Cambridge. The great skies of East Anglia have always been inside me, and I still love flat landscapes and marshes....more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 18, 2019
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Sep 30, 2019
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Sep 28, 2019
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Hardcover
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0062854038
| 9780062854032
| 3.30
| 1,886
| May 07, 2019
| May 07, 2019
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really liked it
| Only in the Westside could a woman with blood in her hair stroll down the sidewalk on a weekday afternoon, wearing nothing but a slip and hearing o Only in the Westside could a woman with blood in her hair stroll down the sidewalk on a weekday afternoon, wearing nothing but a slip and hearing only the chattering of a few far-off birds.Gilda Carr is a young woman who looks into what she calls “tiny mysteries.” Leave those murders for someone else. Big mysteries mean big problems and Gilda has had enough of those. Her mom died when she was a kid, and her father, one Virgil Carr, aka “Clubber” was not only the founder of a notorious Westside gang, he later became a notorious cop, vanishing in a notorious disappearance some years back. [image] W.M. Akers - image from SqueakyBicycleProductions Speaking of vanishing, in this magical reimagining of the Manhattan of 1921, considerable bits of the island have been doing just that. Odd objects, coffee pots, stairway railings, entire buildings are being swallowed up by something. This is not totally new. Akers notes an apocryphal 1628 letter from early arrival Peter Minuit about the oddity of the west side of this newly colonized island. (Our homes shift on their foundations…Our wood comes loose from its joints, and my dreams are plagued by visions of pestilence, stigmata, and the armies of hell.) Things tend to degrade faster, rust races instead of creeps. Machines cease working. Guns fail, automobiles sputter. The trees do pretty well, though, growing tall and fast. Streets become streams instead of the other way around. Occasional waterfalls form and descend from rooftops. It is where Gilda lives. In a brownstone facing Washington Square Park (mom came from money). [image] The American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailors’ Home and Institute - image from Corbin Plays And then there is the increasing vanishing of humanity. Enough so that when over three thousand people went pffft! on the Westside in 1914, thirteen miles of fence was erected down Broadway to separate the Westside from the rest of Manhattan. Not her problem. She can get back and forth through the security gates readily enough. Gilda is engaged by one Edith Copeland. It seems Mrs Copeland had mislaid a glove, one of a pair her oft-absent husband had given her as a gift. She would like the glove found and returned, as she does not want to face awkward questions about its absence. But in this version of New York, tiny mysteries have a way of leading to very large questions, and Gilda’s gumshoeing leads her to a very, very dark side of the city. [image] Fourth Precinct Police Station - Image from Patch.com The action is non-stop, rising to breathless as we near the end. Sleep is in short supply for Gilda, in inverse proportion to exhaustion and perpetual movement. There is a pretty neat explanation for it all, but don’t think about it too hard. Just roll with it. Gilda is a particularly appealing hero. Not just for the expected intelligence, wit, and derring do, (a hair gel for heroes?) but for being a fan of the New York Giants baseball team. I imagine Akers’ work in creating a game, Deadball – Baseball with Dice, might have been mined for this part of Gilda’s profile. Greasing the wheels of forward plot movement, Gilda picks up a few more tiny mysteries to solve, which lead to other leads. Delightful, this element. [image] This stop is on your route – image from NY Subway Mosaics Damon Runyon and Gangs of New York kept running through my head as Akers introduces colorful character after colorful character. Underworld sorts, of both the thuggish and white shoe varieties, loom large in this landscape. And the baddies balance out very nicely between hims and hers, leadership and field force. There is bootlegging, gun-running, (sins of the fleshier sort are kept on the down-low here), arson, assault, kidnapping, police corruption, and the odd murder. Plenty of dark deeds to keep the juices flowing. [image] Bex Red’s house – 75 ½ Bedford Street is 9.5 feet wide - image from The Daily Mail Akers offers a wonderful portrait of what Manhattan might look like if part of it was stuck in some version of the Victorian age, while the other part had moved on to the next century, and if raging against the dying of the light were made into a nice business opportunity. He makes fun use of a variety of Manhattan landmarks, and notes others in passing, in case anyone wanted to structure a walking tour. Bex Red, an artist, lives in a singularly narrow building. A train station and its associated tunnels has been put to alternate use, as has one of the city’s most famous theaters. Penn Station is not what it was. (It still isn’t) A seaman’s hotel, notable for being a place where some of the survivors of the Titanic were put up, remains a going concern. A police precinct noted here is still in operation. A socially conscious village church is given a trot or two across the stage. Such things may be fun for non-Noo Yawkahs, but are an absolute delight for us natives. [image] The Longacre Theater- image from The Shubert Organization Gripes - It seemed that there were occasional bits that did not compute. For example, the next day after a particularly large vanishing, Gilda heads to Ebbett’s Field in Brooklyn for reasons that were inexplicable, to me, anyway. Did I miss something here? I found Akers’ explanation for the underlying goings-on less than entirely persuasive. And I thought Gilda’s solution to a particularly dark situation required a rather large leap of faith. [image] Judson Memorial Church But I would not worry too much about all that. Fact is, this was a wonderful read. Fast-paced, engaging, with an appealing lead, a creative take on a fantastical alternate Manhattan, a very colorful supporting cast, and plenty of twists and turns. You might need to catch your breath a bit after you put this one down. Gilda Carr may be in the business of solving tiny mysteries, but reading Westside is nothing less than HUGE fun. [image] Penn Station - image from NY.Curbed.com Review first posted – May 10, 2019 Publication date – May 7, 2019 November 28, 2019 - Westside is named to the NY Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2019 [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal and Twitter pages Items of Interest -----Interview - NPR - Steeped In Fantasy, 'Westside' Novel Follows A Young Detective's Quest For Clues by Scott Simon -----Music - East Side West Side - Yes, I know the actual title is Sidewalks of New York, but the stretch seemed worth it. I seem to have come across (and reviewed) a fair number of novels in the last few years in which a Fantastical New York offers a setting, and I am aware of at least two more in my personal pipeline coming up. Here are the ones I could think of -----Zone One -----The Golem and the Jinni -----Ahab’s Return -----Winter’s Tale ...more |
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Apr 28, 2019
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May 07, 2019
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May 07, 2019
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ebook
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1476716730
| 9781476716732
| 1476716730
| 3.62
| 87,905
| Oct 03, 2017
| Oct 03, 2017
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really liked it
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Not planning a review
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Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 23, 2018
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Dec 03, 2018
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Nov 27, 2018
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Hardcover
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0062699768
| 9780062699763
| 0062699768
| 4.26
| 154,960
| Mar 05, 2019
| Mar 05, 2019
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it was amazing
| I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, New York. No one ever spoke of my condition. I did not know I was mute until years I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, New York. No one ever spoke of my condition. I did not know I was mute until years later, when I’d opened my mouth to ask for what I wanted and realized no one could hear me.Deya Ra’Ad, a Brooklyn teenager, had been raised by people who guarded old-world beliefs and customs. It was expected of her that she would agree to marry one of the Muslim suitors who passed her family’s muster, and begin producing babies as soon as possible, and as for having a separate career, a separate identity, well, not so much. It could have been worse. She could have had her mother’s life. This is a tale of three generations of women told primarily in two time periods. Isra Hadid, was born and raised in Palestine. We follow her story from 1990 when she was 17. She dreamed of finding someone to share her life with, someone to love. Isra cleared her throat. “But Mama, what about love?”Isra looooooved reading A Thousand and One Nights, a book that holds special meaning for her. The book would come to her aid in years to come. Isra was married off as a teen and moved with her new husband, Adam, from her home in Palestine to Brooklyn. No land of milk and honey for her. She was barely allowed out of the family’s house. Had no friends. Did not speak the language. Husband worked mad hours for his father. Mother-in-law was more of a prison warden than a support. Isra was expected to produce babies, preferably boys. And pregnancy happened, soon, and frequently. But sorry, girls only, which was considered a source of shame. So was allowing her face to be seen by anyone after her disappointed, worked-nearly-to-death, increasingly alcoholic husband beat the crap out of her for no good reason. The shame was on her, for she must have done something to have earned the assault, the shame of a culture in which dirty laundry was washed clean of indicating marks, and only the victim was hung out to dry. Keeping up with the Khans was of paramount importance, in reputation, if not necessarily in material wealth, in perceived propriety, and, of course, in the production of male heirs. Isra struggles with feeling affection for her daughters as each new daughter becomes a reason for her husband to hate her even more. As if post-partum depression were not enough of a challenge to cope with, post-partum shaming and assault is added to the mix. Already a quiet young woman, Isra becomes even more withdrawn as she is subjected to relentless criticism, denigration, soul-crushing loneliness, and even physical abuse. She is largely left to her own devices, is hampered even by a hostile mother-in-law, and finds no support system in other Islamic women in Brooklyn. Of course, being kept on a cultural-religious leash which was basically strapped to the household kitchen and nursery made it all but impossible for her to even have a chance to make social connections. Have a nice day. [image] Etaf Rum - from her site We follow Deya Ra’Ad from 2008 when she is eighteen, and under pressure from her grandparents to choose a husband. Her journey is two-pronged. We accompany her as she does battle with her family, wanting to have her own choices. They may come from a Palestinian background, but Deya was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, USA, New World, and is not ok with feeling forced into a set of rules that not only is alien to this place, but which she finds personally indefensible. We also tag along as she tries to peel back carefully guarded family secrets. She and her siblings have been raised by her father’s parents since she was eight, her parents having been killed in an auto accident, an event that has always been clouded in mystery. She does not remember any warmth between her parents, even remembers some of the abuse her mother had endured. We want to learn more about the circumstances of Isra and Adam’s passing, and so does Deya. Finally, Fareeda Ra’Ad, Adam’s mother, Isra’s mother-in-law, Deya’s grandmother, comes in for a look. Not nearly so much as Deya and Isra, but enough to get a sense of what her life was like, and how her experiences helped shape the person she became. She is pretty much a gorgon to Isra, but we get to see a bit of how she became so awful, getting some sense of why she clings so doggedly to beliefs and customs that are hardly in her own interest. One day a mysterious woman leaves a message for Deya on the steps of her grandparents’ house, which raises even more questions. Might her mother still be alive? Pursuing this lead, she begins to get answers to many of her questions. But even with new knowledge, Deya is still faced with difficult choices, and still has to cope with some difficult people. The stories of Deya and Isra in particular are compelling. We can probably relate more to Deya who is straddling two worlds with a firmer foot in the new than her mother ever had, being able to act on the questions and concerns she shared with her mother. But Isra’s story is gripping as well. We keep hoping for her to find a way to make things better, boost our hopes for her when chance opportunities present for her to alleviate her suffering, her isolation. One element that permeates the novel is the notion of reading, or books, as sources not only of learning but of comfort, company, hopefulness, and inspiration. Isra’s love for Arabian Nights is palpable, and an affection she passed on to her daughter. It is an interest that is revived in Brooklyn when a relation notices Isra’s affection for reading and begins providing her with books. Isra carves out precious personal time in which to read, a necessary salve in a wounded life. “A Thousand and One Nights?” Sarah paused to think. “Isn’t that the story of a king who vows to marry and kill a different woman every night because his wife cheats on him.”Isra, Daya, and Fareeda’s stories are the means by which Etaf Rum fills us in on a largely overlooked aspect of contemporary life. There are Palestinian, immigrant and American-born, women who have been and who continue to be subjected to outrageous treatment by their communities, by their families, by their spouses, solely because of their gender. She points out the culture of self-blaming and social shaming that aids and abets the brutalization, and virtual enslavement of many such women. I do not know if Rum intended her book to reflect on the wider Arabic culture, or on practices in Islamic cultures in diverse nations, so will presume, for the moment, that her focus is intended specifically for Palestinian women. A Woman is Not a Man is not just a riveting story of the trials of immigration, but a powerful look at the continuation of a culture of socio-economic sexual dimorphism that treats males as rightful beings and females as second-class citizens at best, breeding-stock or slaves at worst. The book put me in mind of several other notable works. Exit West is another recent novel that looks at the stark differences in Middle Eastern versus Western cultures through the experiences of an immigrant couple. A Thousand Splendid Suns shows the oppression of women in Afghanistan under an extremist religious regime. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows considers East-West strains in a London Punjabi community. 2018’s Educated shows a more domestic form of oppression of women, foisted by an extreme form of Mormonism. What Rum has provided with A Woman is No Man is a look at a particular set of women who have been suffering for centuries without the benefit of much public awareness. “Silence is the only option for Palestinian women suffering domestic violence, even here in America, and I hope to give voice to these women in my…novel.” - Etaf RumOne thing that I particularly appreciated was that Rum put the men’s brutality into some context, not treating it as some immutable male characteristic, or excusing it, but pointing out that it had an origin in the wider world, and showing how women could come to accept the unacceptable. The wounds of her childhood—poverty, hunger, abuse—had taught her. That the traumas of the world were inseparably connected. She was not surprised when her father came home and beat them mercilessly, the tragedy of the Nakba [The 1948 Palestinian diaspora] bulging in his veins... She knew that the suffering of women started in the suffering of men, that the bondages of one became the bondages of the other. Would the men in her life have battered her had they not been battered themselves?Still, might have been a decent thing for them to have exercised a bit of self-control, maybe take their rage out by shooting at bottles or something. It did her no good for Isra to leave Palestine only to be caged up in Bay Ridge. With our national proclamation of secular authority and religious tolerance, and even with the anti-Islamic sentiment that set in after 9/11, the USA should still be an excellent place for Islamic people to be able to practice their faith, free of the oppression that afflicts so many Eastern nations, in which one branch of Islam outlaws the practices of other sorts. But if Islamic people who come to or are born in the USA are not allowed to participate as Americans, but only as foreigners living on American soil, where is the gain, for them or the nation? There may not be a thousand and one tales in Etaf Rum’s impressive novel, which should be an early candidate for sundry national awards recognition, and will certainly be one of the best books of 2019, and we can expect that there will be more unfortunate women who will suffer miserably unfair lives that no Sheherezade can spare them, but one can still hope that the tales told by Etaf Rum may open at least a few eyes, touch at least a few hearts, offer some a feeling of community, or at least a sense of not being totally alone, spare at least some the dark fates depicted here, and hopefully inspire others to action. Patience can be a virtue, but in excess it can function as a powerful link in a chain keeping the present far too attached to an unacceptable past. Rum’s book is a powerful story, one that impatiently calls the world’s attention to the plight of Palestinian women, an oppressed minority within an oppressed minority, and proclaims rather than asks, “Can you hear me now?” Review first posted – December 14, 2018 Publication -----March 5, 2019 (USA) hardcover -----February 4, 2020 Trade paperback [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] ==========In the summer of 2019 GR reduced the allowable review size by 25%, from 20,000 to 15,000 characters. In order to accommodate the text beyond that I have moved it to the comments section directly below, in comment #3 [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 06, 2018
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Dec 02, 2018
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Nov 27, 2018
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Hardcover
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0062679074
| 9780062679079
| 0062679074
| 3.46
| 400
| Oct 18, 2016
| Feb 13, 2018
|
it was amazing
| I couldn’t help noticing that although I’d probably never had more time to myself, it was like time was shrinking around me. More and more often I I couldn’t help noticing that although I’d probably never had more time to myself, it was like time was shrinking around me. More and more often I glanced up from the computer and realized it was already eight or nine, and a few evenings after Ana told me her story, I went down to the pier to watch the sunset, only to discover that the streets were already dark.Time is a strange thing. We think of it as linear, this happened, then that, and after that something else. We measure it with instruments large and small, slice and dice it up into pieces from eons to ages, millennia to centuries, decades, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, milliseconds, nanoseconds and god knows what else, and order our lives around it more often than not. But sometimes the personal experience of time, particularly where it intersects with memory, can soften the hard lines that separate this time from that. [image] The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali – from the Museum of Modern Art Ana Ivan, a mathematician and an artist, was raised in Ceausescu’s Romania, has lived in places as diverse as Morocco and Norway, and when we meet her, she is in her late twenties, planning an art exhibit in New York City. She believes she is cursed, convinced that anyone she loves is doomed. She thinks about time a lot. Her performance art installation attempts to address issues horological, even time travel. It entails living in total darkness for thirty days. She has many stories to tell, of her own life and of the lives of her parents. Our window into Ana’s world is a nameless narrator, a young man from Denmark, working in Brooklyn as an intern at an art festival. He is drawn in by Ana’s stories, to the point of obsession. I was reminded of another young narrator, drawn to a damaged Eastern European, Stingo, the young writer in Sophie’s Choice. I have a powerful olfactory memory of the day my youngest was born, the ammonia-cum-hormone smell of broken water piercing my usually insensitive nostrils, a puddle in the second-floor middle room of the house where we lived at the time. Recalling the smell brings the room back to me, vividly. Only problem is that we did not move into that house until 1996, and my daughter was born in 1993. I have no idea why my admittedly dodgy memory cells have built up this decidedly inaccurate structure, but they have, and its walls are solid. - WB [image] Mikkel Rosengaard - image from forfatterweb.dk There are several elements to Ana’s tales. One is her personal history, experiences at school, skills, weaknesses, fears, desires, loves, what one might expect. Another is her parents’ history. She undertakes an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of her mathematician father. We learn of her parents’ past, from young adulthood to the now of the story. One cannot tell a family tale of growing up Romanian without also describing what life was like under the brutal Ceausescu regime. There are plenty of examples of how struggling to have a life in that world was a Kafka-esque trial, even without other dramatic events interceding. A third is time. It is a consideration throughout the book, how time slips, rearranges, redefines, softens, and can reform in a hardened, if not necessarily accurate form. How malleable is time? And can one slip past its lines to jump from then to now without experiencing the intervening seconds, minutes, hours and days? Finally, there is the notion of stories as a powerful element in our consciousness. The narrator is so drawn in by Ana’s tales, so obsessed, that it seriously impacts his life. There are tragedies aplenty in this novel, one in particular that will both stun and sadden you. Ana’s stories serve to peel back the layers of her life. As when one rubs off the crunchy tunic and fine skin from an onion and has at the nested scales below, Ana’s revelations may affect your eyes. People cope with the challenges life presents, or fail to cope, in diverse ways. Maybe taking an expansive view of time is one solution, whether or not there is a mathematical basis for that perspective. Rosengaard has had a chance to write about temporal notions before. In an interview with Christopher Knowles and Robert Wilson that he did for Office Magazine, he looked at, among other things, the theatrical collaborators’ use of and conception of time. For some physicists, however, time is not a flow but a dimension much like a landscape. Just like Manhattan still exists while you and your consciousness are in Brooklyn, October 1976 still exists while your consciousness is in January 2017. According to this idea of the block universe, all moments exist simultaneously on the plane of time: your birth, your first kiss, last Saturday’s party and Sunday’s hangover too. All of it exists at once, and the sense that the present is somehow more real and alive than the past is just a trick of the consciousness, our limited minds trying to make sense of it all.Do not get the notion that this is a sci-fi novel. It is not. It is more the sort of consideration of universal issues one might see from sage international authors like Milan Kundera or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. On the downside, the notion of stories being a tool of change is taken a bit too far a time or two. Actual people do not talk the way that some characters (not Ana) do. Thirty-year-old Mikkel Rosengaard is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. Like his narrator, he was born and raised in Denmark. He worked at The Ivan Gallery, in Bucharest. Makes one wonder what the impact was of his time there, and if this was the source for Ana’s family name. This is his first novel, and if this is what his rookie work looks like, I can’t wait to see what he will write as a veteran. Ana Ivan is enigmatic and vulnerable, magical and damaged, fascinating, yet sad. You will think about Ana long after you finish reading this novel. The Invention of Ana is not a long book, under three hundred pages in my ARE. It will not take so many hours to read that it will distort your sense of where or when you are. But, it is a fascinating, stimulating, entertaining read that will definitely be worth your time. Review first posted – January 5,2018 Publication dates ----------February 13, 2018 - hardcover ----------November 13, 2018 - trade paperback [image] [image] [image] [image] It was first published, in Danish, on January 16, 2016. The English language version was translated by Caroline Wright =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages Other writing by the author ---- A couple of articles for the newsletter Hyperallergic -----Office Magazine - Christopher Knowles In case you have not seen it, or, I imagine for most, even heard of it, there is a remarkable recent (2017) film that looks at one's memories as definers of self, Marjorie Prime. The star, Lois Smith, had an outside shot as an oscar nomination. Didn't happen. It is thoughtful, fascinating, and moving. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 15, 2017
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Dec 30, 2017
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Dec 30, 2017
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Hardcover
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0812988906
| 9780812988901
| 0812988906
| 4.15
| 41,059
| Aug 16, 2016
| Aug 16, 2016
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really liked it
| All stories are love stories. Paul remembered someone famous saying that. Thomas Edison’s would be no exception. All men get the things they love. All stories are love stories. Paul remembered someone famous saying that. Thomas Edison’s would be no exception. All men get the things they love. The tragedy of some men is not that they are denied, but that they wish they’d loved something else.Paul Cravath, a young attorney in late 19h Century New York City, is drawn into a battle of the titans, as George Westinghouse engages him to defend his company against a lawsuit filed by his nemesis. The amount demanded is staggering, one billion dollars. The opponent is one Thomas Alva Edison. Not only is he suing Westinghouse over the light bulb GW had developed, but he has launched 312 suits against GW. Good luck, kid. [image] Graham Moore - from moviehole.com What is a historical novel supposed to do? It should explain to the contemporary reader how this or that historical event occurred. What happened? What were the driving forces behind making it happen? Who were the people involved? What were their motivations? It should also offer the reader a touch and feel for the place and time. What was life like then? What was different? What was the same? If we wanted a straight up history we would pick up a history book. Historical fiction is the spoonful of sugar that makes learning history go down easier. It helps if the era is significant. One could write about the drudgery of a serf’s life in the Middle Ages, but unless the serf were in some way involved with changing that world, it would be unlikely to be very interesting. It also helps if the characters the author creates, or, if presenting actual people from history, interprets, engage our interest. That interest can be positive or negative, but interest must be generated. Also, there is the problem of us as readers knowing how things turn out. It removes an element of mystery. So how does all this flesh out in TLDON? The history is of a significant time in American, actually world history, the electrification of modern life. Gas lamps had been doing the job of illumination for a long time, but the fire hazard they presented was significant. Providing an electric alternative had been a goal for a long time, but it was only then, in the late 19th century, that making the switch became technologically possible, with the development of an efficient light bulb. The battle on which the novel focuses is the legal contest between Edison and Westinghouse over who will secure the very lucrative right to light up the world. Edison had based his bulb on work done previously, his genius being the application of an industrial mindset to the development of new technology. He employed large numbers of lab workers and tried out thousands of different materials, searching for a workable filament. Of course this did not stop him from filing his patent before that final piece was in place. But when Westinghouse, also aware of and building on lighting tech that predated Edison, had come up with a better light bulb, Edison sued. This is the central legal battle going on here. [image] Edison- from The Atlantic There is a second, very much related, bit of technology that is illuminated. Edison’s lightbulbs, and sundry devices, were all built to use direct current. Think your flashlight. But that tech came with significant limitations. Because, with direct current, DC, a way had yet to be found to sustain a power level beyond a minimal distance, the source would always have to be near the destination. What that would require, infrastructure-wise, was the installation of small power plants everywhere. Not a big deal if one were powering, say, lighting in a mansion, but quite another if one aspired to lighting a city. Thankfully, there was another way. Alternating Current, or AC, was a technology that had been thought to be unusable for large scale power, but a way was found, by one of the great inventive geniuses of all time, a Serbian émigré named Nikola Tesla. Tesla had worked for Edison, but had issues with the boss. When he left, GW snapped him up. Of course, Tesla would fit very nicely into at least one of our notions of a mad scientist. Not that he had evil designs on anyone, or imagined ruling the world. It was more along the lines of him being actually barking. I have not read a biography of Tesla, so have no basis for comparison, but I thought the gibbering Tesla depicted here might be a bit over the line. Of course maybe he was really that strange. In any case, Tesla as depicted is a pretty over-the-top (Sasha Baron Cohen pops to mind) character. The book has the feel of a screenplay, where most of the storytelling is external. There are some internal looks, but it is clear that the author’s talent lies in the visible. I had the feeling that this book was intended to be a film, and was not at all surprised to see, not only that it had already been optioned for film, but that the lead had already been cast. I wondered if the author, the academy-award-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game, actually began with a screenplay, then expanded it into a book, as opposed to the usual sequence. Turns out not so much. According to Moore, it was intended to be a novel all the while. He was writing it while filling down time on the set of The Imitation Game, and only after it was more or less finished (on final edits) did some folks close to him (and given his primary line of work we presume them to be cinema sorts) suggest that it would make a wonderful film. I am not sure I actually believe this, but you can read the tale in his blog. Young Paul Cravath, of the Tennessee Cravaths, and late of law school, is the link that binds all the parts together, Edison’s bullying, Westinghouse’s manipulations, and Tesla’s genius. In addition to the marquis names, Paul Cravath was a real person, and the telling of this tale reflects broad truth about the events that transpired. Cravath was extremely young to have been put in charge of such a monumental challenge. He is portrayed as a charming young man, with an interesting family history (Dad having been instrumental in setting up Fisk University, a school for Negroes) and a short fuse when the venal rich proclaim their bigotry in his company. It is his spirit that presumably appeals to GW. He is clever and decent, and you can go right ahead and imagine Paul with the face of Eddie Redmayne, as the Academy Award winning actor has already been signed to play the role. [image] Cravath (well after the events depicted in this book) and Redmayne Ya can’t have a modern American novel without some sort of love interest, and Moore checks that box, in the form of toast-of-the-town opera singer, Agnes Huntington, another person pulled from the pages of history. So we have a Goliath vs Goliath battle going on, mostly (although not entirely) being waged in courtrooms and in the arena of public opinion. I suppose one could see Paul as a David, but he had resources behind him that would fill quite a few slings. Neither of the primary combatants comes off too well. There is a bit of mortal peril to spice up the moral equivalent. [image] George Westinghouse - from the Old Post-Gazette One of the spiffy things about the novel is that Moore looks at the sausage making of how public opinion was manipulated. Given how the media covers elections, I would guess that not much has changed. And he looks at how power was held and connections were made. This definitely enriches the read. His portrayal of the social scene in NYC is fun. Calling in large personalities like Stamford White and Alexander Graham Bell for a bit of sideshow work adds spark as well. And JP Morgan plays a crucial role in the final chapters. Details of the era inform the sometimes carnival-like atmosphere. For instance, that there was no bar-exam requirement for practitioners of the law. The demonstrations by Edison’s people trying to show the dangers of A/C are chilling, and very much reality based. Moore also notes events and changes that were afoot, if not yet realized. Bell, for example, mentions in passing some guys in Ohio who are working on a flying machine. Last Days of Night tells a story of a time, the people who were involved, the challenges they faced, and the events that took place. It does it quite well. Using Cravath as the link to all was an excellent, workable approach. Events take place that you can see and hear. Which is what one would expect from a writer who makes his living writing screenplays. Nothing wrong with that. But while the fast-moving battles and intrigues keep the current flowing, there is another element to the book. Moore looks not only at what his characters do (what the historical characters did) but at what motivates them. While it may be that one’s driving forces cannot always be reduced to a phrase, Moore gives it a go. I have no idea if his analysis of the actors is accurate, but it is certainly interesting, and prompts one to consider what motivates contemporary figures in the public eye. It is this as much as anything that raises the book a notch. He uses quotes from contemporary tech all-stars, which highlights the permanence of some of these concerns. [image] Nikola Tesla I have a few gripes about the book, of course. Whenever Moore wanted to introduce some historical exposition, he uses the “Paul was thinking…” or “Paul was remembering…” mechanism too often, which seemed a bit heavy-handed. Definitely takes one out of the story. Characters appear to travel considerable distances with relentless ease. Scene One here, fade to black, Scene two there. One might be forgiven for wondering if they were flying before the Wright Brothers had had their way with Kitty Hawk, or maybe they had a spare TARDIS on hand. God knows, Tesla could probably have invented one. Also, I was a bit tepid about Paul. He was appealing, but maybe not appealing enough. Casting Redmayne should take care of that nicely for the film version. Dates have been changed to streamline story-telling, but the gist appears to be generally true. Moore included in his site a wonderful side-by-side look at where his time sequence diverges from the historical timeline. But aside from that, Moore delivers. This is a fun, inventive read, one that casts considerable light on a process that was a lot more complicated than connect plug A to socket B, one that is little known to modern readers. You are likely to get a charge out of this one, whether you read it using the direct current of an electronic device, or the lumens cast by A/C–powered light bulbs. The Last Days of Night shines brightly indeed. Publication Date – August 16, 2016 Review posted – September 16, 2016 The publisher was kind enough to send along a copy for review consideration. =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter, and FB pages Some facts about Edison Wiki on George Westinghouse Wiki for Paul Cravath Songs -----You Light up My Life - Debby Boone ----- The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades - Timbuk 3 ----- Light Up The World - Glee ...more |
Notes are private!
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Sep 05, 2016
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Sep 11, 2016
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Sep 05, 2016
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Hardcover
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0062359983
| 9780062359988
| 0062359983
| 3.87
| 39,913
| Aug 09, 2016
| Aug 09, 2016
|
it was amazing
| Each week, sister Sonja said, Start at the beginning, her dark fingers bending around a small black notebook, pen poised. Many moments passed befor Each week, sister Sonja said, Start at the beginning, her dark fingers bending around a small black notebook, pen poised. Many moments passed before I opened my mouth to speak. Each week, I began with the words I was waiting for my mother…A forest grows in Bushwick. At 35, August, a worldly anthropologist, back in New York City to bury her father, recalls her growing up years. In Tennessee, when she was eight, her mother was unable to cope with news of her brother’s death in Viet Nam. She persisted in talking to her lost, beloved sibling as if he were still present. When dad finally replants August and her little brother in the county of Kings, his home town, a new life sprouts for them. We see through August’s eyes what life was like for a young black girl in 1970s Brooklyn. From white flight to the drug epidemic, from DJ parties in the park to dangerous sorts, interested in drugs and young girls, from blackouts and looting to the influence of the Nation of Islam, from innocence to awakening sexuality, from finding friends to seeing the world slowly opening to reveal diverse paths, many dangers, and some ways through. A core element of the story is August coming to grips with her absent, Godot-like mother. The bulk of her story, as it might for most of us, centers on her friends. My brother had the faith my father brought him to, and for a long time, I had Sylvia, Angela, and Gigi, the four of us sharing the weight of growing up Girl in Brooklyn, as though it was a bag of stones we passed among ourselves saying, Here. Help me carry this.Time shifts back and forth. August is 8, then 15 then 11. Woodson uses front page touchstones to place us, and August, in time. Son of Sam, the blackout of 1977, Biafran starvelings, and popular entertainment. On a different planet, we could have been Lois Lane or Jane or Mary Tyler Moore or Marlo Thomas. We could have thrown our hats up, twirled and smiled. We could have made it after all. We watched the shows. We knew the songs. We sang along when Mary was big-eyed and awed by Minneapolis. We dreamed with Marlo of someday hitting the big time. We took off with the Flying Nun.The dreams the girls nurture come face to face with the roots from which they grow. Possibilities appear. And impediments. Can their friendship survive the winds that push and pull them in diverse directions as they branch out? Maybe this is how it happened for everyone—adults promising us their own failed futures, I was bright enough to teach, my father said, even as my dream of stepping into Sylvia’s skin included one day being a lawyer. Angela’s mom had draped the dream of dancing over her. And Gigi, able to imitate every one of us, could step inside anyone she wanted to be, close her eyes, and be gone. Close her eyes and be anywhere.Memory is a refrain here, a blues chorus. Not sure I agree with Woodson’s take, or is it August‘s take on where tragedy lies, (I know now that what is tragic isn’t the moment. It’s the memory.) but it is an interesting take nonetheless. Asked how she came up with her characters, Woodson told the GR interviewer: Bushwick was the character I knew the best. And then I wanted to create a narrative around it, so I invented these four girls and their stories. I also wanted to talk about girlhood, what it means to grow up a girl of color, and what it means to grow up inside the backstories and dreams of your parents, who have their own ideas of where you should go while you're trying to make your own space in the world. [image] Jacqueline Woodson - from NPR References to how other cultures deal with death pepper the narrative, a way of illuminating how August, her family and friends cope with loss. It is moving and effective. There is a lyricism, a musicality to Woodson’s writing, her language flowing and floating, rhythmic, poetic, reading like it was meant to be read aloud. Stunning lines wait around every bend, insightful, beautiful, polished to a fine gleam. Her books for young audiences have gained her considerable acclaim. Brown Girl Dreaming won Woodson a 2014 National Book Award. She has received a lifetime achievement award for her YA writing. She won a Coretta Scott King award in 2001 for Miracle’s Boys, and several Newbery awards. I would not be at all surprised to see this book as well up for a slew of awards. While Another Brooklyn is definitely intended for adult readers, her YA writing DNA manifests in the physical structure, the short sentences, with big space between them. And the size. Another Brooklyn is not a long book. On the one hand, you will rip through it in no time, the first time, a drive through. You may take a bit longer the second time, recognizing that this is a treat to be savored, and linger a while, maybe wander through on a bike. It will turn out the same, but you may notice more store windows as you pedal down these streets, or living things, a beech here, a maple there. City-like, there is a lot compressed into a small space. You might even stroll through for a third look-see, picking up some bits and pieces unseen on previous readings. Not sayin’ ya have to, but if you get the urge I would go with it. We pretended to believe we could unlock arms and walk the streets alone. But we knew we were lying. There were men inside darkened hallways, around street corners, behind draped windows, waiting to grab us, feel us, unzip their pants to offer us a glimpse.There are some tough life experiences on display here, but we know that August makes it through. An important element of the story is hope. Talent may not always shine a light to a better future but sometimes it can. Intelligence may not always be seen, appreciated or nurtured. But sometimes it is. Hard times and personal loss are definitely painful, but maybe they are part of the compost of our lives. While the streets of her world may have been named for trees of a long gone sylvan past, Linden, Palmetto, Evergreen…Woodbine, (the name Bushwick, by the way, comes from Boswijck, which means “little town in the woods”), lives still grow there, tall and strong. August is a mighty oak. Her story of growing is lyrical, poetic, and moving. Another Brooklyn may not take much time to read, once, twice, or even more times. But as little time as it will take you to let this one in, it will plant a seed in your memory, another in your heart and grow there for a very long time. We lived inside out backstories. The memory of a nightmare stitched down my brother’s arm. My mother with a knife beneath her pillow. A white devil we could not see, already inside our bodies, slowly being digested. And finally, Sister Loretta, dressed like a wingless Flying Nun, swooping down to save us. Publication date – 8/9/2016 Review first posted – 6/17/2016 [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter, FB, and Tumblr pages August 21, 2016 - GR interview with Woodson September 15, 2016 - Another Brooklyn is named to the long list for the National Book Award. Congratulations! October 6, 2016 - Another Brooklyn is named to the short list for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction - Brava! November 23, 2016 - Another Brooklyn is named to the NY Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2016 November 25, 2017 - NY Times - Love to Love You, Baby - Woodson article remembering being fifteen and discovering the excitement of Manhattan. This review has also been posted at Cootsreviews.com and Fantasy Book Critic ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jun 05, 2016
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Jun 07, 2016
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Jun 05, 2016
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Hardcover
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0062404954
| 9780062404954
| 0062404954
| 3.65
| 11,520
| Jun 28, 2016
| Jun 28, 2016
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really liked it
| When the girls admire him a young man takes it as a matter of course; but when a widow selects him for her attention he thrills with the knowledge th When the girls admire him a young man takes it as a matter of course; but when a widow selects him for her attention he thrills with the knowledge that he is being stamped with the approval of a connoisseur. - Helen RowlandWell, Mrs Theresa Marshal, 44, is no widow. She shares a 5th Avenue residence and a lovely place in Southampton with her very-much-alive husband, Sylvester. Octavian Rofrano, the 22-year-old she often refers to as Boyo, manages to prove, with some frequency and energy, that he is even more alive than the senior man in Theresa’s life. Marshall is goofy for her flyboy, Rofrano being late of World War I, although a lot less late than most of his fellow pilots. She is stuck on him enough to have begun having notions of them taking it on the lam together. If only life were so simple. [image] Beatriz Williams - from her FB pages There is the problem of Sophie Fortescue, 19, an heiress to a successful, if somewhat reclusive inventor father, mom having reached a bad end many years back. She is a mechanically inclined chip off the old engine block, and an object of extreme affection for Theresa’s brother. Jay is not as far along in years as his sister, but is past his first bloom. An erstwhile man about town, he is eager to marry young Sophie, and secure not only the companionship of a beautiful and vivacious partner, but the not insignificant advantage of her considerable inheritance. Theresa engages young Rofrano for him, to act the cavalier and present young Sophie with Jay’s formal request for her hand, and presumably the rest of her, in marriage. But seeing Sophie sparks something in young Rofrano. Complications ensue. We are introduced to the goings on by a gossip columnist for the New York Herald-Times. It is May 1922 and nom-de-plume Patty Cake fills us in on what looks like the crime of the century in Greewich, CT, a juicy case in which The Patent King is on trial for his life, his daughters, The Patent Princesses, in attendance. Ms Cake pops in from time to time to update us on the progress of the trial, and to add a third voice, enough to help plait the Theresa and Sophie threads into a lovely braid. LOVE, the quest; marriage, the conquest; divorce, the inquest. - Helen RowlandPatty is a fun element, but the star of this show is Theresa Marshall. I kept hearing the voice of Lady Mary from Downton Abbey, albeit it with an American accent. Lest one think of her as maybe too modern a woman, it should be borne in mind that the 20s was not called Roaring for nothing. It was a time of change. Boundaries were being pushed. Sophie is considered daring because she wants to work for her living instead of being a prize awarded to the highest bidder. Theresa takes advantage of the more daring culture of the day to match her philandering mate, for a change, in partaking of the world. Octavian confronts considerable survivor guilt, having made it through the vagaries of The Great War, while having lost so many of his fellow flyers. Everybody seems to be going through life at automobile speed nowadays; but alas, there are no sentimental garages by Life's wayside at which we may obtain a fresh supply of emotions, purchase a new thrill or patch up an exploded ideal. - Helen RowlandThe title refers not only to the chronological status of Theresa Marshall, (and the May/December couplings of Jay with Sophie, and Theresa’s hubby with his latest young thing) but the times themselves. Williams offers a nifty look at the 1920s, peppering her novel with elements of the dynamic culture and the odd sign-post. Ty Cobb and his infamous demeanor are tossed across the stage early on. Man O’War thunders past in a back-story role, bringing Octavian and Theresa together. That relatively new-fangled automotive device comes in for some use as well. Here is a nice passage that gives a sense of much of this era-capturing The bartender. The bar. So forbidden and masculine, an unimaginable place for a girl to find herself—alone!—until now. Until suddenly boys and girls are going to saloons together, and they aren’t called saloons any more. A whole new vocabulary is springing up overnight, it seems, like mushrooms or crocuses, all clustered around the underground slaking of illegal thirst, and it seems the more illegal the thirst is, the more ordinary and acceptable it’s become to slake it in mixed company, among strangers. And the vocabulary has something to do with that, doesn’t it? Hooch, speakeasy, blotto. Silly words, trivializing the laws they’re breaking. Trivializing everything in the world.I love how Williams posilutely picks up the sudden societal unsteadiness that followed the horror of war, as the world tried, once more, to regain its balance. It is putting her story in the context of a time of great upheaval, made manifest in her characters, that raises it from a pretty good novel, with a sparkling character in Theresa, to something higher. Love is like appendicitis; you never know when nor how it is going to strike you—the only difference being that, after one attack of appendicitis, your curiosity is perfectly satisfied - Helen RowlandAnd if that’s not enough you might think it’s the bees knees that the story is based on the German opera, Der Rosenkavalier. The name Octavian Rofrano is lifted whole from that. The Marshcallin, Princess Marie Therese von Werdenberg becomes Theresa Marshall. Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau has become Theresa’s brother, usually called Ox. Sophie remains Sophie. Williams added the murder mystery element to move things along, as the plot of her source material was a bit thin. It is no surprise that she finds inspiration in the classics. Williams was raised in Ashland, Oregon, and was exposed early on to a regular diet of Shakespeare and some of the more refined forms of public entertainment offered in that notable college town. After marriage, a woman's sight becomes so keen that she can see right through her husband without looking at him, and a man's so dull that he can look right through his wife without seeing her. - Helen RowlandOne of the truly delightful elements of this novel is that every one of the 27 chapters is introduced by a deliciously cynical (well, most are, anyway) quote from Helen Rowland. And if the name is unfamiliar, you are in good company. Rowland wrote a column called Reflections of a Bachelor Girl for The New York World in the early part of the 20th century. I have included in EXTRA STUFF a link to the Gutenberg edition(s) of one of her books of collected wit and wisdom, A Guide to Men, and sprinkled into this review some Rowland quotes taken, not from the book under review, but from Rowland’s opus, to give you a taste. A Certain Age is a fun read. It points out some of the gender issues coming to the fore at the time. It notes how possibilities for women, in both work and love were constraining and loosening. But that is understructure. The characters are fun to follow, with Theresa standing above the rest, and Patty Cake offering some extra spice. You may be reminded of A Little Night Music, although with fewer jokes. The mystery element keeps the story moving along quite nicely. I would be shocked if this is not one of the major summer reads of 2016. A Certain Age is an ageless read and a certain joy. Review first posted – March 5, 2016 Publication – June 28, 2016 =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages This is Williams’ seventh novel. Her books tend toward the historical and the romantic. Usually I gag at such things, but I was able to manage this one quite nicely. My review of Williams’ 2017 release, Cocoa Beach November 14, 2016 - A Certain Age is named to Kirkus's list of the best popular fiction of 2016 The internet Guide to Jazz Age Slang came in handy Project Gutenberg Edition(s) of Helen Rowland’s A Guide to Men ...more |
Notes are private!
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not set
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Feb 15, 2016
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Feb 15, 2016
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Hardcover
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0062394568
| 9780062394569
| 0062394568
| 3.77
| 381
| Feb 02, 2016
| Jan 19, 2016
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it was amazing
| Dear Murph, Dear Murph,In the beginning was the word. If so, what signals the end? Is the end silence? Another, different word? A not word? And once you go, wordy or silent, what remains? Have I told you about this? A life examined, a life remembered, a life imagined, a life still lived, a rich life, a passionate life, a life experienced to the fullest, with all the joys and miseries, gains and losses that entails, a good life, a long life, a life filled with poetry, a life of the mind and the body, an interesting life, a life story that is heading into the final chapters, a life shared with others, a life you will want to share. A writer and a mystery man walk into a bar. The man, Jack, tells the writer he is dying, but cannot bear to tell his wife, says he does not know how, figures that if anyone could do it, it would be a famous poet. After putting him off, Thomas, a writer of some renown, agrees to do the deed, agrees to meet the wife, thus opening another chapter in his life. While that will indeed be another chapter in a life, there are no chapters in this book. Thomas Murphy is made up of many small currents in a stream of consciousness. Recollections, observations, musings, inventions, tall tales, short tales, dreams, things that are and things that are not. (I counted 134, but I could be off by a few) We are regaled by the Thomas Murphy of the title, Murph, to most, who began on the Aran Island of Inishmaan, a bustling metropolis of about 160 souls, not counting livestock, imaginary beings, or dead ancestors, a place he visits in both his memory and imagination. As did many of his heritage, Murph emigrated to New York City, where he plied his trade as a writer for nearly half a century. He is a charming sort, someone who might have his own personal chip of Blarney Stone available for regular smooching. But his charm is nothing to his neurologist. [image] Roger Rosenblatt - from the Easthampton Star Rosenblatt knows a bit about the Auld Sod I know I don’t look it, but I’m Irish. I lived in Ireland for a while, my first child was conceived in Ireland, I speak a little Irish, I went back last year, I’ve been back a few times, there’s something in me — I don’t know, maybe the milkman was Irish — that grabs and embraces that country. Add that to the fact that my great, dear friend McCourt, he was a great guy. And he and I talked together in the department where I teach now, and we drank together and sang together — if you think I’m good, and boy am I good, you should’ve heard McCourt — we used to sing all night. I don’t know why this stirred in me before, but I wanted to write a satirical model, and I tried twice. And I started channeling McCourt. I could hear his voice in the dialogue. - from the Chautauquan interviewMurph has been losing his grip a bit of late. Leaving the eggs boiling long enough to start a fire in his kitchen; trying to open the wrong doors in his Upper West Side apartment building; walking into a friend’s pool, while fully clothed, having the odd hallucination. He keeps putting off return visits, fearful he will be declared mortal, and flawed, with the corresponding threats to his freedom that such a judgment entails. And that freedom means a lot to him. It means time with his four-year-old grandson William, time with the friends who remain, time to teach a class on poetry to the homeless, time to hoist a pint at a local watering hole, time to talk to each of the objects in his apartment, as a way of connecting, or maybe saying goodbye, to the love of his life, his late wife, Oona, gone a year. He grieves as well for the death of his closest pal, Greenberg. Thomas Murphy is a meandering tale, a collection of observations, recollections, musings. If you could capture the image of an entire life in a mirror, then accidentally (on purpose) drop the thing on the floor (of a favorite watering hole, perhaps) the life would still be there, but in diverse bits. That’s Thomas Murphy. Look at this bit, then that. It is not totally random of course. The chronological threads are Murph being informed that he is facing some meaningful personal brain drain and coping with that, or not, and also his relationship with a much younger woman. What is death? If your mind goes, do you leave along with it? What is life? Is a life disconnected from one’s mind a life at all? What is a poet who has no words? There is so much here on connection to people, history, to memory, and to the beauty that surrounds us, sometimes in surprising places. You will laugh out loud, and may wet a tissue or two. But you will not be unmoved. I was particularly touched by the scenes of Murph with his grandson William. They are fueled, no doubt, by Rosenblatt’s real-life experiences, as detailed in his memoir, Making Toast. In that book, he writes of having lost his 30-something daughter to a heart condition and moving in with his son-in-law and grandchildren in order to help out. The man knows a thing or two about being a grandfather and it permeates this book. It is the wit and intelligence of Murph’s thought process and the deep feeling that travels alongside that make this a work of grandeur, a thing of beauty. Not only facing one’s inevitable demise, but offering ongoing thought and a poet’s view on the human condition, Thomas Murphy is a book of immense power, emotion, humanity, and transcendent joy. Don’t walk, don’t even run to your nearest bookstore (well, those of you who, like me, remain minimally afflicted by e-books). Call a cab. Steal a car. Go! Now! (well, you might wait until the 19th, if you are reading this before then) There is no doubt about it. Thomas Murphy is a masterpiece, and should not be missed. Review posted – 1/15/16 Publication date - 1/19/2016 [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] =============================EXTRA STUFF A wiki on the author An interview with Rosenblatt from The Chautauquan Daily Those not of the place are likeliest to have heard of the Aran Islands from the 1934 ethnofictional documentary, Man of Aran September 2018 - NY Times - Andrew McCarthy on a recent visit to the land of Synge - Ireland’s Aran Islands, Hiding in Plain Sight - on the islands as a place lost in time [image] On the road to Synge’s Chair, on Inishmaan, one of Ireland’s Aran Islands, which, as they did when the playwright J.M. Synge, can seem like places frozen in time. - Credit - Andy Haslam for The New York Times - from above article Yes, the Upper West Side building where Murph resides, The Belnord, is indeed a real place. Wiki on John Millington Synge an Irish writer of some note that Murph references from time to time ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 16, 2015
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Dec 22, 2015
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Dec 18, 2015
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Hardcover
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1625579217
| 9781625579218
| 1625579217
| 4.05
| 78
| Sep 13, 2014
| Sep 13, 2014
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really liked it
| People believe anything that’s in writingA word to the wise to scoundrels everywhere. And there are plenty on display in Betsy Robinson’s satiric People believe anything that’s in writingA word to the wise to scoundrels everywhere. And there are plenty on display in Betsy Robinson’s satiric whirlwind. So you think you’ve got it bad? You might consider the case of one Zelda McFigg. She had a pretty tough go of it at school. The hand she was dealt must have been delivered from the bottom of the deck by a particularly hostile card sharp. Despite having a pretty decent brain, Zelda got stuck with short, fat, and malodorous when stressed. She is also given to bouts of dramatic blushing. Her classmates made matters worse by labeling her Stinky Pinky. Doesn't make for an educational venue conducive to learning, or anything for that matter except exceeding anyone's RDA for misery. Not that home was any great shakes either. Mom was an alcoholic, as likely to drown in her own vomit as she was to burn down their abode with a feckless cohabitation of Marlboros and painting materials. Dad was pretty much out of the scene anyway. Needing to make at least some use of her hooky day, fourteen-year-old Zelda decides to take a chance and goes to Manhattan to visit a beat poet-musician (Mike the poet) whose work she admires. Turns out he could use some help. Turns out she is just the girl for the job. Turns out, when she never quite makes it home, that this is the beginning of a thirty-five year odyssey for Zelda. [image] Betsy Robinson - from her Twitter page It is not a particularly easy road she travels. There are hazards aplenty and it seems that she has provided more than her share of them. She carries with her the twin DNA of schlemiel and schlemazel. Oy! Her journey takes to her such exotic experiences as a free-the-test-animals raid on a hospital lab, a less than stellar audition for Annie, working props in a New England summer theater, and burning down her landlady’s house in an ill-fated attempt to rescue her pet. She does settle down after her initial wanderings, in the lovely tundra of Vermont, having left a trail of carnage in her wake. Part-time hall monitor at the Moose Country Middle School, she is pulled into action when a ninety-year-old English teacher catches a bad case of dead and an immediate fill-in is needed. It looks like she has gotten off the road this time. She continues with teaching The Call of the Wild, and picks a pet, the overweight, smelly, and socially tormented Donny Sherman, a local Native American kid. It looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship There are some uncomfortable elements here and some wonderful ones. The apparent fondness of New England teachers for their under-age students is hardly unique, but feels dodgy nonetheless. Zelda’s regard for the law is like that of a passenger on a bus noting a billboard. It might be worth some consideration, but not for too long. On the other hand, there are some seriously LOL nuggets in Zelda’s path I soon found myself doing props for a small summer theatre in New England run by a man who, had he not been a Jewish homosexual hippie named Rainbow, I might have mistaken for Adolph Hitler.She also comes across a pet parrot that speaks in the voice of its owner’s late husband, to raucous effect. Satirical objects whiz past with satisfying frequency, as Robinson goes not only for some low-hanging fruit like shamanism, Tony Robbins, Hollywood faddism and Oprah, but also directs some attention to the darker elements of life, things like police overreaction to a school hostage situation that isn’t, being back-stabbed by those you thought were close to you, being kicked out of your home by the rich and feckless, and the scandal ridden hell that is small town life in Vermont. I did cackle out loud from time to time while reading this on the subway, causing some fellow riders to glance furtively, wondering whether I was receiving instructions from the dog god in my head, as they tried to shift their bodies and belongings out of potential harm’s way. The writing life comes under scrutiny, and it is not a pretty image, heavily laden as it is with ghosts, plagiarists, thieves, absurd expectations, lifetimes of labor for non-existent rewards, familiar features for most who put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboards. Teaching life is also a subject clearly close to Ms Robinson’s heart. The details of the school experience she skewers will seem familiar to most, and are, at times, darkly hilarious. The peripatetic Ms McFigg seems reasonably pure of heart, a road worrier more than a road warrior, although she does engage in righteous battle from time to time, and is easy to root for as she stumbles through her trials. There is plenty of emotion in this life, both joy at this or that success, and sadness at this or that betrayal. We can certainly all relate when Zelda goes looking for help in getting from point A to point B, and finds the proffered assistance less than helpful. Most of us can probably relate to her inability to lose weight, but can admire her insistence on carrying on as best she can. I was most reminded of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, another saga of a square peg in a round world. Betsy Robinson has had an interesting career sojourn herself. In her site, she notes that she was raised an atheist and went on to make her living as a writer and editor of spiritual subject matter: as managing editor of Spirituality & Health magazine for six and a half years and as an editor of spiritual psychology and books about shamans and traditional healersso she certainly brings an appreciation of irony to her writing. She has worked as an actress in nearly-on-Broadway, somewhat-close-to-Broadway and just-down-the-block-from Broadway, had scripts produced in Iowa, Amherst, LA, and darkest cable TV, and has authored many article and several books, so brings that experience to bear when writing of the publishing and theater worlds through which Zelda stumbles. Betsy Robinson has written an entertaining romp, both raucous and endearing, rich with wit and observation. It is funny and foul, dark, but lightly, a bit disturbing, but only slightly. There’s much to enjoy in this book (it’s not big), The Last Will and Testament of Zelda McFigg. It’s all written down. You can believe it. Review first posted – 9/25/15 Publication date – 9/13/14 P.S. - The book was provided by the author in return for an honest review. And I plan to return it real soon. It is impressive how good I have become at removing cat vomit from paper, (soooo much experience) and the singe marks, well, they’re not all that obvious, the downside of reading while standing and preparing supper, then putting the book the tiniest bit too close to the burner. The watermarks may be a bit dodgier. We do enjoy reading while on the throne and parking the book du jour on the sink edge while getting up. Problem is that our large tabby, Scout, is the founding, and so far as we can tell, only member of the Occupy Sink movement, and has been known, on rare occasions, to lay claim to her territory by Divine Right, by removing from said territory any invading objects. Thankfully the volume was spared a watery grave in the nick of time, but not before taking on just a few wee drops. I am sure there are useful instructions on the internet that will allow me to remove the offending stain and…um…fragrance. But don’t worry. I guarantee I will be getting that volume back to the author any day now. =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages April 27, 2020 - Betsy posted a vid with some background to her writing - The Last Will & Testament of Zelda McFigg book video ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Aug 19, 2015
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Aug 11, 2015
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Paperback
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0062414216
| 9780062414212
| 0062414216
| 3.41
| 177,416
| Mar 22, 2016
| Mar 22, 2016
|
it was amazing
| He hesitated. Above him, an ear-splitting screech. He looked up to see three enormous crows, perched on the bare branches of one of the few trees He hesitated. Above him, an ear-splitting screech. He looked up to see three enormous crows, perched on the bare branches of one of the few trees that had already dropped its leaves. They were all squawking at once, as if they were arguing about his next move. Directly beneath, in the midst of the stark and barren branches and at the base of a forked limb, a mud-brown leafy mass. A nest. Jesus.When Leo Plumb, 46, and very unhappily married, enjoying the benefits of booze, cocaine, and Welbutrin, picks up 19-year-old waitress, Matilda Rodriguez, at a wedding, it’s business as usual. But the joys of the moment come to a crashing halt when the Porsche in which Leo is spiriting her away, the car in which she is putting her hand to good use, is T-boned by an SUV, and Matilda is seriously injured. It’s gonna take mucho dinero to put the lid on this one. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first? Good news? OK. The good news, for Leo anyway, is that there is a considerable family inheritance left by his late father, which can be raided for emergencies. Staying out of jail counts, so how much should we make this check out for? The bad news is that the inheritance was intended for four siblings and Leo’s indiscretion has slashed the total considerably. They are very interested in knowing when Leo is going to re-feather the nest he had just raided like a raccoon in the night. [image] Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney - From her Twitter pages Leo Tolstoy famously said All happy families resemble each other, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The Plumb family is unhappy in diverse ways. Sweeney measures their depths. The family refers to their inheritance as The Nest, and their relationship to it, with Leo’s raiding of it, constitutes the core around which this family tale is woven. His charm and skill at manipulation will not be enough to get Leo out of this mess. He may have bought his way out of a jail sentence, but he still needs to come up with some serious cash to make The Nest whole again. He hasn’t exactly been working in the many years since he sold his on-line media business. And there is his bitch of a trophy wife to keep up. She is very fond of spending. The Plumbs, despite their father’s financial success, are not wildly wealthy. Melody, nearing 40, is a suburban housewife, struggling to make ends meet in a place where she is very much on the lower economic rungs. She has twin daughters on the verge of college and could really use the money she has been expecting. Beatrice had some success as a writer years ago, but it has been a long time since she produced any writing of quality. She lives in an Upper West Side apartment, a love nest given to her by a late lover, which ain’t nuthin’, especially in NYC, but it’s not like she can sit home and clip coupons either. She has remained in a low-end job long after she should have grown to something more. Finally, Jack has been in a couple with Walker for many years. He runs an antiques shop that specializes in losing money. Walker is the breadwinner of the pair, but Jack would like to be depositing instead of constantly withdrawing. He is in debt up to his eyeballs. The potential absence of his bailout money from The Nest is a blow, so when a shady opportunity presents itself, he has to decide where he is willing to draw the line. In this ensemble cast, we follow the siblings, along with a smattering of others, through their travails, and see them come to grips, or not, with the possible loss of a nest egg they had all been counting on for a long time. The issues they face are not merely how to cope with a cash flow shortfall. Sweeney has larger targets in her sights. The characters here are faced with moral choices. How would you have managed, given the situation? How would any of us? It is certainly the case, for all but the most blessed (and we hate them) that our hopes and dreams for this or that, whether a relationship, a career direction, parenthood, something, go all to hell. Sometimes, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Which is nice if you are fond of aphorisms. Sometimes, what doesn’t kill us leaves us frightened, damaged, and scarred. (I mean, they don't call it Post Traumatic Stress Improvement, do they?) Sometimes it can open a door to a new appreciation, offer a new path, uncover an unseen possibility. Or it closes all available doors, locks the windows and drops a match on a kerosene covered floor. I’m just sayin’. Two paths, at least for each of the sibs. Which will they take? What sorts of people do they want to be? And how will they emerge, battered or better? In addition to the choices having to do with facing up to identity crises, and coping with losses real or theoretical, there are some other items here that are very well handled. Sweeney has painted a portrait of some elements of NYC at a particular place and time. These include a bit of a look at the local literary scene, whether one is doing well or struggling, in on the dot.com or killed by it, mean Glitterary Girl or faded sparkle. Authors, wannabes, publishers of paper and on-line magazines, trip through the pages. Some are more about appearance than substance. She’d been hiding in a corner of Celia’s enormous living room, pretending to examine the bookshelves, which were full of what she thought of as “fake” books—the books were real enough but if Celia Baxter had read Thomas Pynchon or Samuel Beckett or even all—any!—of the Philip Roths and Saul Bellows lined in a row, she’d eat her mittens. In a far upper corner of the bookcase, she noticed a lurid purple book spine, a celebrity weight-loss book. Ha. That was more like it. She stood on tiptoe, slid the book out, and examined the well-thumbed, stained pages. She returned it to shelf front and center, between Mythologies and Cloud Atlas.There is a walk through several places in the city, each offering a taste. The Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station, a brownstone in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, a bit of Central Park, a Westchester suburb. 9/11 is a part of the story as well, as is, although to a lesser degree, the insanity that is the NY real estate market. The Nest is, ultimately, about stepping off the edge of safety into the air, and either finding out you can fly or flapping uselessly to a sudden end. And, of course, considering whether or not to simply hitch a ride on a passing pigeon. None of it would mean a lick if the characters were merely raucous chicks, lobbying for the next worm. Sweeney has put together more of an aviary, with each main member of her ensemble fully feathered and flight-worthy. Even a teen-age twin must consider separating from the intense co-nesting of sisterhood, and finding her own flight path. While not all the main characters are people you would care to know, they are all fully realized. Hell, even some of the secondary characters are presented in 3D. Their motivations and actions make sense, whether you agree or not with their decisions. There is nuance and depth even to the more morally challenged. I expect that you will find situations and/or conditions in here that resonate with challenges and decisions you have faced in your own life. The economic downturn has hit many of us, even if we need not look to our own reckless personal behavior as a cause. No need to wonder how most of us will behave when faced with some of the problems raised here. We have already adjusted our expectations. But there is value in seeing how others react. Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s last book was slightly different from this one, Country Living Easy Transformations: Kitchen With this book. Sweeney takes a step into the open air of literary accomplishment. She has spread her wings and caught a rising thermal. The Nest has not only succeeded in feathering Sweeney’s nest quite nicely, it offers a smart, funny, engaging, and insightful read that will accommodate your peepers quite nicely, and is sure to settle comfortably in many top ten Review first posted – 11/27/15 Publication date – 3/22/16 =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s Twitter and FB pages Please do check out Ron Charles's review in the Washington Post Thanks to GR friend Christine who, in comment #24, let us know that Sweeney did an interview with Seth Meyers. I am not sure how long it will be available, but you can find it here, for now. - As of November 2019, that one seems to have vanished, but you might want to check out this video from The Center for Fiction- Family Frictions: Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney and Jami Attenberg ...more |
Notes are private!
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Nov 08, 2015
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Nov 11, 2015
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Aug 11, 2015
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Hardcover
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0062355880
| 9780062355881
| 0062355880
| 3.43
| 3,800
| Mar 01, 2015
| Mar 24, 2015
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it was amazing
| The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the 3rd and 4th generationsThree sisters plan to see out the millennium together, really The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the 3rd and 4th generationsThree sisters plan to see out the millennium together, really see it out. The agree to a mutual suicide pact (life has not been particularly kind), to be carried out as midnight approaches on December 31, 1999. (We doan need no steenking millennium). As a part of this deal they agree to write a family history in which the end is really...you know...the end. A Reunion of Ghosts is that, rather lengthy, suicide note. Sounds cheery, no? One might suspect that some families might carry forward propensities, whether by DNA, the class-based transmission of means and opportunities, or, maybe something even darker. So much nicer for folks to have a familial propensity for, say red hair, or artistic achievement, like the Wyeths, or Brontes, or Marsalises, maybe an athletic endowment. The Alou boys pop to mind. Sometimes, however, what is passed down is less rewarding. If there are detectable genetic markers for suicide, these folks would probably light up the test like a Christmas tree, although, of course, being Jewish, it might be a Channukah bush instead. There is even a chart on page 8 of my ARE listing members of the family with when, where and how they pruned themselves. It could make for the beginning of a darker version of Suicide Clue. Is it Great Grandfather Lenz in a hotel with morphine, maybe Great Grandmother Iris in the garden with a gun, or Grandfather Richard in the bedroom with an open window, maybe Mother in the Hudson with a Bridge? It goes on. I do not want to give the impression that the only way out is DIY. For good measure there are plenty of non-suicide deaths as well. But the question is raised, can the crimes of our forbears curse future generations? Are we to be held accountable for the dark doings of our parents, grand-parents, great-grand-parents? What if we are not, but think that we may be? Is history destiny? [image]There is certainly considerable family history here, however much individual tales might have been truncated. The story flips back and forth between the lives of the sisters (and within sundry periods of their lives) and the lives of their ancestors in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The oldest sister is Lady, approaching fifty. She wears nothing but black; Delph is the youngest, at 42. It is on her calf that the introductory quote is inked, a bible item uttered by their mother when JFK was shot. She is cursed with seeing peoples thoughts in bubbles as they pass. (Then never—not ever—have anything nice to say about anyone.); Vee is in the middle, and losing her latest battle with cancer. The three contend with scarring of one sort or another.They live on Riverside Drive in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, in an apartment their family has inhabited for ages. The three let us in on pieces of their lives, loves sought, found and lost, sometimes tossed. Hearts are broken. They are very engaging, relatable and often very funny. Their conversations sometimes effervesce. There are wits aplenty to go around and we are witness to the banter. Whereas the sisters’ dramas tend to the personal, however difficult, awful mates, lousy luck, the issues of their ancestors are painted on a more colorful European palette. They endure personal travails, for sure, but the issues are a touch larger. The Alter family originated in what is now Germany. Members of the clan were involved in various enterprises and professions. One owned a dye factory, another was responsible for technology that increased agricultural yields dramatically. One was a brilliant, educated woman struggling to find a place in an exclusively male world. There are plenty of colorful sorts in the family history, including a homosexual, malarial dwarf, who was also Germany’s trade ambassador to Japan. Wedded bliss was hardly the norm, and there are sundry carryings-on. One family shares space with Albert Einstein and his relatively miserable marriage. One bright light concocts and supervises the implementation of some very, very dark science. And of course, there is that familiar issue of Jewishness in Germany. While the sisters’ contemporary tales are relatable and moving, I found the historical segments much more interesting and fun, however distressing the content. Aside from destiny, there are concrete ways in which the travails of one generation are visited on the next. “All I said to her was the truth. It’s the same thing I said after the other two were born. The lesson from the camp. I tell it to Lady and Vee, too. When they’re asleep. ‘Never love anyone too much. You never know when they might be taken away.’ I whisper it in their ears. Every night, I whisper it.”There are plenty of literary bits in here, but Mitchell keeps them at a reasonable level. The females in the family are all named for flowers. Color is a presence across generations. There is a wonderful piece on horizontal light, another on acausal time. But it is not the flourishes that carry the day, it is the characters and their tales, very well told. Not really a spoiler. A bit of a rant here, which should not take up actual review space, but which requires an outlet, so, a su-aside (view spoiler)[ Really, fate, schmate. We are all given a hand. It may suck, or it may be a flush. Point is that it is up to us what to do with the hands we are dealt. It is definitely true that there are real-world limitations, whether because of how society or one’s DNA is organized. Maybe the damage we have suffered has become too much, or our resources for keeping on have become too depleted. Tossing away one’s life can be understandable when one is faced with having to endure extreme pain or loss of self en route to the end of the line with a terminal illness. Depression factors large in the world today, and, untreated, steals one’s resolve to carry on. And I am sure there are probably other understandable reasons to go all Kevorkian. But to give up in the absence of such extremes, the case for some of the characters here, seems an abdication of responsibility. For most of us there are at least some human connections that will be affected, so this usually solo act sends tendrils out to grip others. One’s sense of hope may have been plucked clean, but some feathers can grow back. There is a time to die for all of us, sooner, later, whenever. We take umbrage at the making of a pact by three, admittedly fictional, people to mutually cease to exist in the absence of a terminal condition times three. Maybe it is my former-Catholic DNA popping up and saying that suicide is a sin. I wouldn’t say that, but I would say that it is a waste. Society does a pretty good job of throwing people away. We do not really have to give it any extra help. Ok, rant over. (hide spoiler)] The worst thing, of course, the ultimate crime, is to even consider giving up a rent-controlled apartment on Riverside Drive. I mean, if the rent ain’t too damn high , you can walk to Zabar’s, see the Hudson, hang out in Riverside Park and discretely shoot spitballs at the joggers who trot by in thousand dollar sweats or bikers speeding by on their five-K rides, or stand around and watch the filming of one of the three thousand cop shows that use NYC for a set, exchange snide remarks about the blight of unsightly construction on the other side of the river, get in on some excellent sunsets, have reserved seating for fireworks, and not have to give up eating and replacing your threadbare threads just to manage the monthly. If that does not make life worth living I don’t know what might. Of course now I must fear that if I write a crap review my great-grandchildren will suffer because of it. And which of my bloody ancestors, I would like to know, is responsible for the state of my bank account? Talk about being cursed. This is a remarkable novel, able to take on very serious subject matter and maintain a very smart sense of humor at the same time. A Reunion of Ghosts is definitely well worth checking out. Review first posted – 3/13/15 Publication date – 3/24/15 [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] =============================EXTRA STUFF This is Mitchell’s second novel. She teaches fiction writing to grads and undergrads at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. A theme song for Reunion - oh yes, I did Links to the author’s personal and FB pages BUZZ On January 8, Buzzfeed listed Reunion among 27 Of The Most Exciting New Books Of 2015 Barnes and Noble listed Reunion as one of its top picks for March 2015 The American Booksellers Association listed Reunion as one of its Indie Next Great Reads for April 2015 ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Jan 28, 2015
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Jan 28, 2015
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Hardcover
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0062367579
| 9780062367570
| 0062367579
| 3.78
| 10,246
| May 05, 2015
| May 05, 2015
|
really liked it
| All great shows, she told me when I was little (and still learning to flex the tiny muscles in my esophagus), depend on the most ordinary objects. We All great shows, she told me when I was little (and still learning to flex the tiny muscles in my esophagus), depend on the most ordinary objects. We can be a weary, cynical lot—we grow old and see only what suits us, and what is marvelous can often pass us by. A kitchen knife. A bulb of glass. A human body. That something so common should be so surprising—why, we forget it. We take it for granted. We assume that our sight is reliable, that our deeds are straightforward, that our words have one meaning. But life is uncommon and strange; it is full of intricacies and odd, confounding turns. So onstage we remind them just how extraordinary the ordinary can be. This, she said is the tiger in the grass. It’s the wonder that hides in plain sight, the secret life that flourishes just beyond the screen. For you are not showing them a hoax or trick, just a new way of seeing what’s already in front of them.Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up. The show is about to begin. See the four-legged dancer, the half-man-half-woman. See the wheel of death, where knives fly toward a spinning lass. See the sword swallower (no, not that sort, puh-leez) and watch as one of our performers eats actual glass. But you had better be quick. This Coney Island sideshow, the Church of Marvels is about to burn to the ground. [image] "1996.164.5-10 bw SL1" by H.S. Lewis - Brooklyn Museum. Via Wikimedia Commons - Remnants of a 1903 fire at Coney Island. Sylvan Threadgill is 19 years old and living on his own in the bowels of end-of-the-19th century New York City. He earns a meager living as a night-soiler, cleaning up the remains of the day, and picks up some extra cash as a boxer. It is while at the former job that he comes across an unusual discard. Sylvan is a (mostly) good-hearted sort, and he takes the baby in, intending to find it's mother. Odile Church, the spinning girl on the Wheel of Death, having lost so much, including her mother, worries about what became of her twin, Isabelle, the star of the Church of Marvels. Belle had vanished before the fire. Odile sets off to the never-seen far away land of Manhattan on a quest to find Belle, following a single clue. Alphie, a “penny Rembrandt,” and sometime sex-worker, is in love, having been swept off her feet by an undertaker. His old-world Italian mother does not approve, but he marries Alphie anyway, making for a very tense household. Alphie suddenly finds herself a virtual prisoner in Blackwell’s asylum on what is now Roosevelt Island. It is a lovely place, specializing in order over humanity, with generous doses of cruelty tossed in. Charles Dickens actually visited the real Blackwell’s in the 1840s and did not have anything good to say about it. Alphie encounters another prisoner (who never speaks) with unique skills and they plot their escape. Sylvan pursues the truth about the found infant, as Odile tries her best to track down her sister. Truths are discovered, both wonderful and horrifying and all converge to a thrilling climax. [image] Leslie Parry - from Missouri Review Leslie Parry has written some wonderful characters, people you will most definitely care about, and she has placed them in a marvelous setting. The New York City of 1899 must have been a particularly bleak place for those at the lower end of things. But it is a marvelous place to read about. Parry has painted a colorful portrait of the time, offering chilling images of the era. She has a Dickensian penchant for naming her characters. A noseless street urchin is Sniff. A servant girl is Mouse. A nightsoil foreman is Mr. Everjohn. Another night-soiler is No Bones. A "widow" working in a bordello is Pigeon. There is much here about seeing what is in plain sight, but it is also clear that the author has done considerable digging to bring to light things that were hidden, or at least only slightly known. Opium dens among other things. The treatment of asylum inmates is as appalling as one might expect. The profession of night-soiler was news to me, as was the presence of a civil-war era floating ship hospital. You will enjoy learning of the professions of penny Rembrandt and JennySweeter, and of the significance of a north star symbol on the facades of local businesses. There are sundry images that permeate the story. Tigers figure large for the girls, from the quilt their mother made for them as kids, to carnival tigers grooming Odile, to a literal take on Blake, to a notion of the secret in plain sight being a "tiger in the grass." Church references extend beyond the family and family business name. A floating "church" serves as a venue for boxing matches, complete with a preacher and prayer cards. A sense of divinity is summoned on occasion as well. You might keep an eye out for crescents. Parry offers some passages on passages that certainly remind one of birthing and a sort of Campbellian descent. …for a moment Sylvan had the dreamy sensation that he was swimming through the vein of a body, toward a lush, warming heart. Ahead of him the man was lumbering and stout, so large he had to duck beneath the doorframes, but he moved quickly, almost gracefully. The passage seemed to turn and fold back on itself, and then it came to an end. The man pulled aside a blue curtain and beckoned Sylvan inside.One consistent concern is being seen for who one is, being appreciated, or at least, being accepted. To be seen but not known was perhaps the loneliest feeling of all.While I adore this book, I do have some gripes. There are enough orphans here to cast a production of The Pirates of Penzance. While lost or missing parents may have been a much more common thing in 1899 than it is today, it seemed to me that the rope being used to lower the bucket to this well was getting a bit frayed. Mickey Finn is put to considerable use as well. There are two concerns that are heavily spoilerish, so I urge you to pass these by if you have not already read the book. Ok, you have been issued fair warning. (view spoiler)[We are to believe that Isabelle was de-tongued by one person. But how might that have been possible? Did Belle's assailant grow extra arms? One set for holding Belle down, another for wielding both tongs and knife, and a third set for holding Belle's mouth open? Nope. Did not buy that one. Also, we are to believe that Siamese twins, joined at the head, were successfully separated by a non-doctor in the 19th century? I doan theen so. (hide spoiler)] Church of Marvels offers a richly colorful landscape, although the hues tend to the dark end of the spectrum. The story is riveting and moving. The main characters are very interesting and mostly sympathetic. And there are enough twists to keep a contortionist bent out of shape. The image that Parry conjures of the time is richly detailed enough without being overwhelming, and the whole is presented with a warmth and charm that reminded me of The Golem and the Jinni. No, there is not here the literal magical element of that other book, but both look at a historical New York and their characters with warmth and charm. In this case, presenting early New York as a kind of sideshow in and of itself. I am not a regular attendee at any church, but I can heartily recommend Leslie Parry’s debut novel. This church is both unforgettable and marvelous. Can I get an "Amen?" Publication date – 5/5/15 Review first posted – 1/30/15 =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Facebook and Twitter pages A 5 minute sample of the audio version, read by Denice Stradling Flashback: When Roosevelt Island Was Blackwell's Island Ten Days in a Madhouse, by Bill De Main – about Nellie Bly’s 1887 undercover commitment to Blackwell’s Some of Bly’s report is available here Some of Bly’s report is available here An intro to Nelly Bly on PBS ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jan 09, 2015
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Jan 14, 2015
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Jan 09, 2015
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Kindle Edition
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my rating |
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3.98
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really liked it
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Apr 28, 2022
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May 04, 2022
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3.62
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it was amazing
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Mar 03, 2022
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Mar 09, 2022
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3.82
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it was amazing
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Sep 05, 2020
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Sep 05, 2020
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3.97
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it was amazing
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Aug 11, 2020
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Aug 10, 2020
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4.04
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it was amazing
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May 24, 2020
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May 10, 2020
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3.78
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really liked it
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Apr 15, 2020
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Apr 29, 2020
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3.97
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it was amazing
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Dec 16, 2019
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Dec 09, 2019
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3.62
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really liked it
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Sep 30, 2019
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Sep 28, 2019
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3.30
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really liked it
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May 07, 2019
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May 07, 2019
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3.62
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really liked it
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Dec 03, 2018
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Nov 27, 2018
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4.26
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it was amazing
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Dec 02, 2018
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Nov 27, 2018
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3.46
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it was amazing
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Dec 30, 2017
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Dec 30, 2017
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4.15
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really liked it
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Sep 11, 2016
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Sep 05, 2016
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3.87
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it was amazing
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Jun 07, 2016
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Jun 05, 2016
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3.65
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really liked it
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Feb 15, 2016
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Feb 15, 2016
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3.77
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it was amazing
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Dec 22, 2015
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Dec 18, 2015
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4.05
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really liked it
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Aug 19, 2015
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Aug 11, 2015
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3.41
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it was amazing
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Nov 11, 2015
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Aug 11, 2015
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3.43
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it was amazing
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Jan 28, 2015
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Jan 28, 2015
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3.78
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really liked it
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Jan 14, 2015
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Jan 09, 2015
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