I usually take home grocery store books as comfort food. Rarely have I brought home those which are thoughtful and provocative, but “Entertainment Weekly” had given this one a short cover blurb. NINETEEN MINUTES is about the relationships illuminated and changed by a high school shooting spree. In this multi-viewpoint book, two pairs of mothers and children vibrate at the core.
Peter Houghton is the shooter at the school, a lonely bullied boy who strikes back viciously. Lacy Houghton, his midwife mom, is as horrified as anyone else at the shooting. She continuously struggles to understand her son's actions and second-guesses every minute she's ever spent with him. (Wouldn't you?) Alex Cormier is the judge who'll preside over Peter's trial. Lacy delivered her daughter, Josie, with whom the icy career woman has been estranged. Now Alex struggles to comfort her wounded daughter.
Josie and Peter used to be friends, until Josie rejected the always-awkward boy to join the popular crowd. When the detective investigating the shooting finds Peter's yearbook with his victim's faces circled, Josie's is the only one circled, then crossed out, with "Let Live" next to it.
Lacy's self-lacerating thoughts are especially compelling. Did she push him too much? Compare him too much to his golden brother? Not monitor his computer use enough? Leave him too much alone? When the shooting victims are evacuated, their foreheads are numbered with a Sharpie marker to aid in identification. There's no such mark for a killer, and anyone who's ever nervously watched a moody teen, or been one, will identify with that.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
CIAO AMERICA, by Beppe Severgnini, Non- Fiction
Beppe Severgnini and his family lived in Washington, D.C. for a year in 1995, and he affectionately describes the America he found then. It seems such a long time ago in the post-9/11, post 2008 crash, world. But his observations still apply in the main, and we have a commentator here perhaps better than we even deserve.
He writes of our well-known shortcomings: we're fat, we can't spell, don't know any history, and share personal information too quickly. But he also describes the things he didn't expect. Deep, deep discounts on everything, to say nothing of outlet malls and free return policies, lure him.
We have 1-800 numbers which dispense detailed advice on repairs from computers to refrigerators, all free. In his Georgetown church, he notes the "choreography" in which each pew of worshipers goes down the center aisle to communion, and comes back up the side. They even stand politely, singing the last hymn, while the celebrant recesses. Italians apparently crowd the communion rail and bolt away.
We further delight him in the inventiveness of our language; we mash up letters and numbers for wonderful creations. I would not have thought that "K-9" for canine, and "want2CU" would have been that exciting, although a vanity plate such as L84AD8 does sound original. In a throwaway newspaper I read today, one company promised "2X UR tax return," while another said they'd keep your car Shine-N. I'm tickled to recognize how these neologisms pleased him.
In this cheerful account, Severgnini says he and his family were happy here. That's the best report card anyone could ever give.
He writes of our well-known shortcomings: we're fat, we can't spell, don't know any history, and share personal information too quickly. But he also describes the things he didn't expect. Deep, deep discounts on everything, to say nothing of outlet malls and free return policies, lure him.
We have 1-800 numbers which dispense detailed advice on repairs from computers to refrigerators, all free. In his Georgetown church, he notes the "choreography" in which each pew of worshipers goes down the center aisle to communion, and comes back up the side. They even stand politely, singing the last hymn, while the celebrant recesses. Italians apparently crowd the communion rail and bolt away.
We further delight him in the inventiveness of our language; we mash up letters and numbers for wonderful creations. I would not have thought that "K-9" for canine, and "want2CU" would have been that exciting, although a vanity plate such as L84AD8 does sound original. In a throwaway newspaper I read today, one company promised "2X UR tax return," while another said they'd keep your car Shine-N. I'm tickled to recognize how these neologisms pleased him.
In this cheerful account, Severgnini says he and his family were happy here. That's the best report card anyone could ever give.
Friday, February 19, 2010
HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION, by Thomas Cahill, Non-fiction
The author of this book is THOMAS Cahill, the scholar, not TIM Cahill, the humorous travel writer. The work would be much livelier if they had collaborated, but it's a great book anyway. Thomas Cahill postulates that Irish monks were spared the slaughter of the rest of the Roman empire because they lived in remote islands the barbarians didn't want. In these quiet and isolated locales, they continued the monastery tradition of creating wondrous illuminated manuscripts. Cahill discovered that, surprisingly, they not only copied holy works, but also pagan and secular ones. They recreated Roman and Greek writings, including plays, then spread these lost works back through medieval Europe hundreds of years later, when it was safe for Irish missionary monks to travel again. The re-emergence of these classics sparked the interests of a continent newly interested in enrichment and intellectual challenges.
Since it was St. Patrick who brought Christianity to Ireland, he's one of the heroes who kept our Western world from collapsing. Think about this on March 17 as you drink green beer and march in parades.
Since it was St. Patrick who brought Christianity to Ireland, he's one of the heroes who kept our Western world from collapsing. Think about this on March 17 as you drink green beer and march in parades.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIVING SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE, by Mil Millington
I first found Mil Millington's works through a link on cult humorist Christopher Moore's website, in which Moore lists authors to read while waiting for his next book. Mil Millington's writing has evolved from his hugely hilarious, though eventually repetitious, blog THINGS MY GIRLFRIENDS AND I HAVE ARGUED ABOUT to several novels. The first is titled after the blog, and has humorous but not very satisfying action built around blog-type arguments. In INSTRUCTIONS Millington has crafted a much richer story.
Chris is a advertising writer who's outstanding at his work, but despises it and everyone he works with. He plays pranks such as creating rude acrostics in his layouts, and giving child actors obscene foreign phrases to mouth unknowingly. He's planning to resign from his job, and gets roaringly drunk with his friends, in 1988. When he wakes up the next morning, he's in a strange bed, and it's later than he thinks. Eighteen years later. It's not a coming of age tale; it's a coming of sudden middle age tale. He's not quite sure what to do about the mystery woman living in his house, but that doesn't matter while he's got a gut to tame and a life to reclaim.
Chris is a advertising writer who's outstanding at his work, but despises it and everyone he works with. He plays pranks such as creating rude acrostics in his layouts, and giving child actors obscene foreign phrases to mouth unknowingly. He's planning to resign from his job, and gets roaringly drunk with his friends, in 1988. When he wakes up the next morning, he's in a strange bed, and it's later than he thinks. Eighteen years later. It's not a coming of age tale; it's a coming of sudden middle age tale. He's not quite sure what to do about the mystery woman living in his house, but that doesn't matter while he's got a gut to tame and a life to reclaim.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
DAMAGE CONTROL, by J.A. Jance
A critic once pooh-poohed grocery store books, saying that he didn't want to purchase his reading the same place as he bought his laundry detergent, or words to that effect. Working mothers who pulled DAMAGE CONTROL from the shelf, however, knew exactly what they were getting—another chapter in the life of working mother Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady. The Arizona sheriff wrestles with several violent deaths which occur in one storm-ravaged weekend, while juggling the needs of her infant son, teenage daughter, and her supportive but wearying at-home spouse, Butch, whose writing career needs more time. I don't know why Jance always feels compelled to make at least one of the deaths in her books excessively violent, as she does here with that of a young woman. Her writing is strong enough to hold readers without this fillip of gruesomeness.
Male critics may scoff at scenes of hostage negotiations interspersed with those of laundry, new-parent sleep deprivation,and the joys of takeout pizza, but this is exactly where Jance connects with her readers. Brady seems at her most realistic here when she soft-pedals her day to her husband, not wanting the grimness to spill into her home sphere. As someone whose work has been at times grim and demanding, I'll take Joanna Brady as a role model anytime.
Male critics may scoff at scenes of hostage negotiations interspersed with those of laundry, new-parent sleep deprivation,and the joys of takeout pizza, but this is exactly where Jance connects with her readers. Brady seems at her most realistic here when she soft-pedals her day to her husband, not wanting the grimness to spill into her home sphere. As someone whose work has been at times grim and demanding, I'll take Joanna Brady as a role model anytime.
INSIDE JOB, by Connie Willis
In the novella *Inside Job,* Connie Willis effervesces with wit and humor. The tale of a professional skeptic, Rob, his beautiful researcher, Kildy, and the medium they hope to debunk illuminates the whole credulous Hollywood landscape which surges after each new psychic offering. Willis shines a light over the addictions of those false hopes, from aura cleansing to psychic liposuction to prior-life chiropractic (the present back pains are due to trauma suffered working at the Pyramids or Stonehenge, don't you know).
Rob spends his professional life battling these swindlers, and he offers amazing insights in the history of various forms of spiritualistic fraudulence. For example, Uri Geller, the 1970's psychic who could supposedly bend spoons with his mental powers, was exposed as a fraud--by Johnny Carson, on the Tonight Show. Carson had been a stage magician in his early career, which was something Geller forgot.
Then a funny thing happens on the way to debunk the medium--and it's a wry, intelligent twist negotiated with expertise and poignancy. The writing is as clear here as a stream in a Japanese garden, with each curve and stone placed so perfectly the effort is invisible. *Inside Job* has become an instant favorite of mine.
I wish the same could be said of Willis' *D.A.*, which seems to be a short story published alone in novella form, with the same dust jacket artist as *Inside Job.* *D.A.* is a mildly amusing little work which might elicit a smile in a short story collection while you thumbed over it for something better. The illustrations, which appear to all be drawings of Willis herself, are so cutesy they gag. I'm hoping she only wanted to take a little breather from her normally thoughtful, more serious output. This is the writer, after all, who took five years writing the dark novel *Doomsday Book,* about the Black Plague. But no one who ever met Willis through *D.A* would be compelled to seek any more of her writing. Back to the grindstone for you, Connie, and please create something special again, like *Inside Job.*
Rob spends his professional life battling these swindlers, and he offers amazing insights in the history of various forms of spiritualistic fraudulence. For example, Uri Geller, the 1970's psychic who could supposedly bend spoons with his mental powers, was exposed as a fraud--by Johnny Carson, on the Tonight Show. Carson had been a stage magician in his early career, which was something Geller forgot.
Then a funny thing happens on the way to debunk the medium--and it's a wry, intelligent twist negotiated with expertise and poignancy. The writing is as clear here as a stream in a Japanese garden, with each curve and stone placed so perfectly the effort is invisible. *Inside Job* has become an instant favorite of mine.
I wish the same could be said of Willis' *D.A.*, which seems to be a short story published alone in novella form, with the same dust jacket artist as *Inside Job.* *D.A.* is a mildly amusing little work which might elicit a smile in a short story collection while you thumbed over it for something better. The illustrations, which appear to all be drawings of Willis herself, are so cutesy they gag. I'm hoping she only wanted to take a little breather from her normally thoughtful, more serious output. This is the writer, after all, who took five years writing the dark novel *Doomsday Book,* about the Black Plague. But no one who ever met Willis through *D.A* would be compelled to seek any more of her writing. Back to the grindstone for you, Connie, and please create something special again, like *Inside Job.*
Friday, February 5, 2010
A Plus
To establish my gender prefence as female, after my last post I must comment that if I'd seen a movie-sized poster of the shirtless Matthew McConaughey throwing back his head in shame and agony from the scarlet letter carved on his chest, I don't think I'd have forgotten the Reverend Mr.Dimmesdale either.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
GRENDEL, from BEOWULF
One of the greatest pleasures in reading is the Easter egg type in-joke, the subtly placed reference to another literary work. I'm always delighted by these, as I was a few days ago when re-reading GUARDS, GUARDS. A group of would-be heroes is studying the sign announcing the 50,000 dollar reward offered for the slaying of the Ankh-Morpork dragon, and bemoaning the city's cheapness. “You spend that much in nets,” when one comments on the generally poor qualities of quarries nowadays.
So quickly that I'm barely conscious of it, my mind decodes the next few lines. “And monsters is getting more uppity these days. A guy killed one and stuck its arm up over the hall.” What? Why not its head? Extremely odd. Isn't there something very faintly familiar about this?
The next speaker says: “Pour enco-ra-jay las ortas,” a horrid pidgin French. What does this mean? To encourage the other monsters to behave? As an example to them? This comment delays gratification and deepens the confusion. We're not in doubt long, however:
“And the the very next day its mum came down to the hall to complain. Its actual mum! I ask you.”
A flash picture, from a recent movie, of Angelina Jolie's back, her long braid whipping around like a tail, bangs through my brain as I catch the joke:
OHH! I know what this is! This is Grendel and Grendel's mother!
Terry Pratchett has neatly riffed on one of the literary ancients, BEOWULF, decades after the last time I'd thought of it. This almost justifies my having to study the epic poem in high school. But then, if we'd had Angelina Jolie's bare back to enco-ra-jay us, BEOWULF would never have been forgotten in the first place.
So quickly that I'm barely conscious of it, my mind decodes the next few lines. “And monsters is getting more uppity these days. A guy killed one and stuck its arm up over the hall.” What? Why not its head? Extremely odd. Isn't there something very faintly familiar about this?
The next speaker says: “Pour enco-ra-jay las ortas,” a horrid pidgin French. What does this mean? To encourage the other monsters to behave? As an example to them? This comment delays gratification and deepens the confusion. We're not in doubt long, however:
“And the the very next day its mum came down to the hall to complain. Its actual mum! I ask you.”
A flash picture, from a recent movie, of Angelina Jolie's back, her long braid whipping around like a tail, bangs through my brain as I catch the joke:
OHH! I know what this is! This is Grendel and Grendel's mother!
Terry Pratchett has neatly riffed on one of the literary ancients, BEOWULF, decades after the last time I'd thought of it. This almost justifies my having to study the epic poem in high school. But then, if we'd had Angelina Jolie's bare back to enco-ra-jay us, BEOWULF would never have been forgotten in the first place.
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