Rambling Comments #3

Recently, I did a review on The Pecan Man by Cassie Dandridge Selleck, and gave the novel a neutral rating. I was surprised to hear from this very gracious and talented author. The following is our conversation, which can also be seen in the comment section of my review of her novel on Amazon:

C. Selleck says:

All valid points and I do appreciate your taking the time to write such a detailed review. I would never compare myself to Harper Lee or her writing, but readers have made frequent comparisons in reviews, which will always delight me. Little aside...my middle name is Lee, too, and many of my name choices are nods to people or places that are special to me. None of it was ever intended to inspire comparison to or borrow from Lee's famous novel. The most common critical review has been my choice to end the novel as I did, and I can't even say that I disagree. I spent a great deal of time in rewrites over a ten year period of raising children and working full-time. But every time I started to add more to the book, it felt awkward. I believed that the protagonist Ora Lee told the story she wanted to tell. She was an old woman who set out to clear a man's name. Once that was done, her story was told. Would this have been a different novel if it had been edited by professionals and published by a big name house? No doubt. But it was a first novel by a self-published writer, and I am happy that it is doing so well in sales. And I cannot help but be pleased that it inspires some emotional and spirited critiques, whether negative, positive OR neutral. Thanks again for putting thought and time into your review...and thank you for reading my "little novel" as I so often call it.

 

Rick O says:

 

Thank you for your comments. I never like to write a one, or two line "yea", or "nay" review. I am always appreciative when an author contacts me. Since you read my review, you know that I think you have a budding talent. I guess that I'm a little disappointed that you missed a opportunity to write an epic type story by cutting it so short. However, your reasons for not prolonging the story are more than valid and highly honorable. I find the southern gothic genre interesting and on the rise. Please see my review of your book on my blog: ricksreviews.blogspot.com, I talk about three of the greatest southern gothic novels ever written. I'll look forward to reviewing your future works.

C. Selleck says:

It's funny, because I had a discussion with someone who had read your review yesterday. I said, "After the initial 'ouch', I felt encouraged by much of the critique." Just so you will know...I have recently applied to a college program to work on a BFA in Creative Writing. Having been raising my daughters for 37 years (youngest now in college), it is now my turn to get the degree I always wanted. Publishing this work has shown me exactly what you said, and given me the courage to push forward in the writing career several teachers told me I would have. I do appreciate your comments. Going to go read your blog now. And, by the way, sales of The Pecan Man are going well and will actually pay for my degree, if they keep going as they are. That alone is reason to rejoice and to appreciate the opportunity to self-publish, which would not have been possible ten years ago. One last thought...I don't think the "comparison" is meant to hold my writing up to the standard and skill of the authors of TKAM and The Help, but when people ask, "What is your book about?"...the answer from myself and others is "along the lines of..." Of course, I always say it's Southern Fiction, but that doesn't really do the work. When I set out to tell this story, it was exactly that - an exercise in storytelling, both for myself and for the protagonist. And my goal was NOT to make Ora some great White Savior. I wanted her to be flawed and meddling and out of control. I wanted my characters to be real and relatable and struggling to make it in the world. The story unfolded as I wrote and much of the twists and turns I did not foresee myself, which many find hard to believe. This may actually be my downfall, but it is what it is. Hoping the work I do over the next several years hones my craft to a point where I hold my own against the greats. :-)

 

C. Selleck says:

Another aside...I read Tobacco Road about three months ago. I have always been a fan of Southern Fiction. I guess that comes under the "duh" category. :-) 

 

Rick O says:

Thanks for visiting my blog! The boy reading 'The Hobbit' is my nine year old grandson, Kai. He has already written a guest review on my blog: The Lightning Thief ' by Rick Riordan. I'm molding him into a reader and reviewer- just kidding. I am so happy that your book proceeds will pay for your degree. I did notice that your sales on Amazon were very high for a self published book ( I bought one ). Well done! By the way in my Southern Gothic comment section, I didn't even mention the great William Faulkner and his ' The Sound and the Fury.' I wish you success in your creative Writing course and in your future novels ( longer than 142 pages & with numbered pages! )
 

 

C. Selleck says:

I am in the process of having the novel paginated. That was the one thing that I just couldn't get formatted right using the tools provided by Amazon. I have finally hired a "professional" to tweak it to address this issue. BTW, this was one of the main complaints from one book club's readers. A book club in Roanoke chose to read The Pecan Man alongside To Kill a Mockingbird for their March meeting. Wish I'd been a fly on THAT wall...or maybe not. :-) Best to you and your grandson! Keep 'im reading!
 

 

Rick O says:

I honestly thought you left out the page numbers on purpose. The ergodic style of literature goes against the rules of prose. If you go to my blog and type in 'House of Leaves' in the box on the upper left corner- the review and comments will come up. It's fairly interesting. It's really surprising to me that these reviewers and book clubs have gravitated to Harper Lee's novel and yours. I think it would be great if one of these clubs published their views. It really doesn't matter what anybody thinks about your book, because all this publicity is great for your book sales. Also, I didn't mean that you write in the ergodic style, just bringing out a point to a southern gothic writer.
 

 

C. Selleck says:

Had to go look up ergodic style. I had never heard of it. So, no...it was just lack of technical aptitude, not by design. I was personally okay without pagination, but it has come up more than once. A Gainesville, FL book club invited me to sit in on their meeting featuring The Pecan Man. It was amazing to listen to a group of highly intelligent people discussing the characters and their motivations. I had to sit silently for the first hour and then answered questions afterwards. It was an amazing experience and largely positive, though some had the same issues as you pointed out in your review. When asked if I would change anything now that I have put the novel out there and had additional feedback, I still said "no". Again, maybe it would have been different if I had the benefit of an editor, agent or publisher. I might not have had much choice in the matter. I write very organically, creating characters first and paying little attention to plot. It has its drawbacks and I think they are obvious in this work. I do hope my next novel is an improvement, even though I have to stick to my guns about telling the story Ora wanted to tell. I was curious, also, how you came to purchase the book? Just in case I didn't say this before, I was encouraged by much of what you said. It took a bit to get past the parts that stung, but Nelle Harper Lee was asked once what she thought was important to know about being a novelist and she said, paraphrased, "you have to develop a thick skin." I agree. Of course I want everyone to love The Pecan Man, but that is simply unrealistic. I absolutely loathe Hemingway, and I am most likely in the minority. There is an audience for everyone and mine has been incredibly encouraging so far. I have to go check out your reference regarding ergodic. Learn something new every day.
 

 

Rick O says:

To answer your question on how I heard about your novel, I read another first time author's novel called 'The Snow Child' by Eowyn Ivey and on Amazon your book was listed under the section...Customers who bought this item also bought... And I clicked on your novel and the story sounded interesting, so I bought it. I did a review on her book on my blog- it was a good effort. As far as self publishing goes, you must know that it's been happening to new writers forever. The following best sellers had to be self published: Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn', L. Ron Hubbard's 'Dianetics', and Walt Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass', to name a few. I recently did a review on a wonderful novel called 'The Plum Tree' by Ellen Marie Wiseman, and she told me her novel was rejected 72 times. By the way, that had to be some experience sitting in on a 'book club' review. You had to be proud. I try to do reviews on all genres, but recently I've had so many authors sending me their books for a 'read and review' that I find it hard to read what I want for pleasure.
 

 

C. Selleck says:

Sitting in on the book club review was nothing less than exhilarating. And they really didn't pull any punches that I could tell. I had workshopped the novel for a year, so I had pretty much heard everything at one point or another. Being in a writers' group is helpful for accepting critique. You learn to "consider the source." If a writer you respect gives you a note, you pay attention. And you learn that you can't please everyone. You have to remain true to your characters and to your own intent. I think the first time I really believed I might have talent as a writer was when this particular writers' group had an "argument" during critique about what my character would or would not do. They simply NEVER did that. It is orderly and thoughtful and one person speaks at a time. So that was a thrill for me prior to publishing.But when this book club discussed the characters with great insight and passion, it was just a total high for me. Like I said, whether positive, negative or neutral, when your work is discussed with great animation, it is exciting. I think it is important for me to start believing that I can be a writer of significance. As you said, I need to get my act together. :-)
 

 

Rick O says:

Absolutely! You do have talent and that's what I said in my review's last paragraph. I meant it when I said you missed an opportunity to write a significant novel. These one, or two liner reviews that you are getting do nothing for you. They say "Oh, it's wonderful, then I check their past history and they did one, or two reviews. I think that's why we are having this talk, because you know that I somewhat understand literature. To have made your novel great, you would have had to write 350-500 pages. Second of all, I would have drawn out the confrontation between Marcus, Skipper, and the Pecan Man into more depth and pages. Marcus died too quickly, he should have been allowed to reach base safely. This way the situation would have been allowed to fester, and boil over to a stunning result. Do you see what I'm trying to tell you? By the way, thanks for reading my review and comments on 'House of Leaves', I try to read as many genres as possible.

 

ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE

Mais oui! Our small man with large moustaches and an egg shaped head is back. Does he live in England, speak French, and come from Belgium? Eh bien. It must be Agatha Christie’s famous flatfoot - Hercule Poirot. This is my fifth Poirot mystery, and as customary, I didn’t solve the murder. (I did solve Death on the Nile, so a twenty percent average isn't bad.) In this investigation, even the great Hercule was stumped for awhile as he thought to himself, “Is it possible that I am growing old?” But he must have been doing his job since one of the suspects, Jane Olivera, said to him, “I loathe the sight of you - you bloody little bourgeois detective!” That’s the Hercule that I know and love. Agatha wrote 37 Hercule Poirot mysteries; the final one was Curtain: Poirot's Last Case. She wrote the novel during World War II but didn’t publish it till 1975, a year before her own death. Agatha was a master at writing main plots, creating subplots, and plot twists. Her books usually had around ten suspects, yet Agatha was able to inject "reader’s sympathy" into most of the characters, so the reader was freely empowered to root for the innocence of their favorite hypothetical felon. She certainly achieved that in this novel.

So it’s time for Hercule’s six month oral checkup, and he has the same fears as you and I. The superior Hercule was not himself. On page nine, ”His morale was down to zero. He was just that ordinary, craven figure, a man afraid of the dentist’s chair.” While in the waiting room, our sleuth observes the other patients. There was a military looking man and a seemingly angry young man flipping pages of magazines. Hercule has his appointment with Doctor Henry Morley and prepares to leave after some minor filling work. Hercule learns that the Doc’s assistant, Gladys Neville, is missing, and an important banker, Alistair Blunt, is on his way for his dental appointment. On Poirot's way out, he observes a fierce looking man in the waiting room and outside, a lady leaving a taxi who has torn her buckle off her shoe as she exited. Later that day, Hercule is informed by Chief Inspector Japp (you remember him from previous novels) of Scotland Yard that Doctor Morley has shot himself. How can that be? The Doc seemed normal and trouble free. Hercule Poirot suspects murder and gathers a list of suspects.

The possible perpetrators are: Doctor Reilly, Morley’s partner; Mr. Amberiotis, the last patient; Miss Sainsbury Seale, the taxi lady; Howard Raikes, the American; Alistair Blunt, the banker; Frank Carter, the angry young man; Gladys Neville, the missing assistant; Jane Olivera, Blunt’s niece; and Alfred Biggs, the murdered Doc’s page boy. Then the unthinkable happens - Mr. Amberiotis turns up dead at his hotel from an overdose of adrenaline and novocaine. Was he poisoned by Doctor Morley before the Doc committed suicide, or was he murdered?

Hercule Poirot is stumped. Later in the novel, he is in church with Alistair Blunt, Jane Olivera, her mom, and Howard Raikes, while listening to the morning sermon, the light bulb goes off: “It was like a kaleidoscope-shoe buckles, 10-inch stockings, a damaged face, the low tastes in literature of Alfred the page boy, the activities of Mr. Amberiotis, and the part played by the late Mr. Morley, all rose up and whirled and settled themselves down into a coherent pattern.” Okay, Mr. Poirot’s noggin is working again. Now is the time that you should grab your own copy of this highly recommended mystery.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: What advice did Agatha give to writers? According to Gypsyscarlett’s Weblog: “When you begin to write, you are usually in the throes of admiration for some writer, and, whether you will or no, you cannot help copying their style. Often it is not a style that suits you, and so you write badly. But as time goes on you are less influenced by admiration. You will admire certain writers, you may even wish you could write like them, but you know quite well that you can’t. If I could write like Elizabeth Bowen, Muriel Sparks, or Grahame Greene, I should jump to high heaven with delight, but I know that I can’t, and it would never occur to me to attempt to copy them. I have learned that I am me, that I can do the things that, as one might put it, me can do, but I cannot do the things that me would like to do.”

Agatha on confidence: “You start into it, inflamed by an idea, full of hope, full indeed of confidence. If you are properly modest, you will never write at all, so there has to be one delicious moment when you have thought of something, know just how you are going to write it, rush for a pencil, and start in exercise book buoyed up with exaltation. You then get into difficulties, don’t see  your way out, and finally manage to  accomplish more or less what you first meant to accomplish, though losing confidence all the time. Having finished it, you know it is absolutely rotten. A couple of months later you wonder if it may not be all right after all.”

And finally, Agatha explains why a writer shouldn’t critique another author’s work: ”An early story of mine was shown to a well-known authoress by a kindly friend. She reported on it sadly but adversely, saying that the author would never make a writer. What she really meant, though she did not know it herself at the time because she was an author and not a critic, was that the person who was writing was still an immature and inadequate writer who could not yet produce anything worth publishing. A critic or an editor might have been more perceptive, because it is their profession to notice the germs of what may be. So I don’t like criticizing and I think it can easily do harm.”  

THE PECAN MAN

Cassie Dandridge Selleck writes a 142 page short story that some reviewers are comparing to  Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird . Are you kidding me? The only comparison that I can see is that the narrator of the novel, Ora Lee Beckworth, has Lee in her name. And okay there is a rape and the accused is black, but in this novel the victim is not white. There is no righteous white lawyer trying to right a wrong. Don’t misconstrue me, because I liked the story, but get real! Oh yea, the town in Harper lee’s book is Maycomb, and in this story it’s Mayville. So there you go with all the similarities that this reviewer found. Harper Lee’s novel has reached legend status considering her Pulitzer Prize winning novel was her only novel. Some people don’t even give her credit for that, saying In Cold Blood author Truman Capote really wrote To Kill a Mockingbird ( Harper Lee’s childhood friend ). Anyway enough of that, Selleck’s story does seem to come out of that Southern Gothic genre with the local language adding a lot of flavor to the times and location ( Florida in the 1970s ). The writer did afford the reader with enough reasons to feel empathy for the characters in such a short story. By the way, why aren’t the pages numbered? Wouldn’t that be considered ergodic?

Our narrator, eighty two year old Ora Lee Beckworth, relates a tale of bigotry and wrongful justice that happened in the past when she was fifty seven. It also tells the story of her black lifelong maid Blanche and her five children. No, the story doesn’t compare to Kathryn Stockett’s The Help ! The seven year old daughter of the maid Blanche, Gracie, apparently is raped by the white Chief of Police’s son, Skipper. Will anybody believe her? Would it be better to keep the incident under wraps, and tell the young girl that it was a bad dream? At the same time, Ora has hired a black homeless man, who lives in the woods. His name is Eldred Mims, known as the Pecan Man ( pronounced Pee’-can, according to the author ). Pecan mows lawns, works in gardens and has a mysterious background. As time goes by, Blanche’s soldier son, Marcus, comes home for Thanksgiving at a family gathering at Ora’s house. Marcus finds out what happened to his sister! He leaves in haste to find answers and runs into Pecan and later the infamous Skipper. This is where the story flares up. What follows is a tale of woe, guilt, injustice, and frustration. This type of story is a gut check for every decent human being. This is what can happen when any kind of racism occurs and is allowed to flourish.

Now, did I like the novel? Yes and no. Yes, because it exposes the ugly head of racism. No, because the story was very predictable and could have been written with a much stronger slant. I do think Cassie did a yeoman’s job and will probably be more robust and energetic in her next effort. I thought the story ended way too soon, and by doing that, Cassie lost her chance to write an significant novel. Southern Gothic Literature needs some new blood like the previously mentioned Kathryn Stockett. Come on, Cassie, lets get your act together! As far as recommending this novel, I’m going to put on my poker-face and declare neutrality.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: The Southern Gothic genre needs a comeback of sort, since the major classics were written in the 1930s, not counting the above mentioned Harper Lee 1960 classic. So what does this reviewer rate as his top three? Well, the following three novels have to be on everybody’s top ten: The number one Southern Gothic has to be Margaret Mitchell’s 1937 Pulitzer Prize winning Gone with the Wind . Like Harper Lee, this was Mitchell’s only published work. Set during the Civil War in Georgia, the novel is filled with famous lines. How about Scarlett saying:” As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.” Wow, is that strong, or what. And of course, Rhett Butler’s: “ "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

Then we have Erskine Caldwell’s 1932 novel Tobacco Road . It’s the story of poor white tenant cotton farmers during the Great Depression. The novel is mainly about the Lester family. Some great quotes? How about Jeeter Lester saying: ”Why, Ada here never...never spoke a word to me for the first ten years we was married. Heh! Them was the happiest ten years of my life.” How about Lov Bensey’s famous line: “I ain’t tradin’ turnips with nobody.” You have to love these novels that have the color of the local language. Not everybody liked this novel, Slate Magazine had this to say: “Tobacco Road, set in a fictionalized version of Caldwell’s home town, lays bare the story of the Lesters, the poorest, whitest, trashiest, horniest family in rural Georgia.”

The third book is also a Erskine Caldwell effort, it’s God's Little Acre . Published in 1933, it is also filled with a obsession for sex and greed. It features Ty Ty Walden ( no mistake- the name is right ) digging for gold on one acre of his farm. In the novel, Uncle Felix says: “Mr. Ty Ty, you oughta' be out raisin' cotton. You're a good farmer - that is, you USED to be. Why, Mr. Ty Ty, you can raise more cotton on this land in one season than you can find gold in a whole lifetime. It's a waste of everything, Mr. Ty Ty, diggin' them holes all over the place.” Bookrags says this about the plot: “There are two major story lines in God's Little Acre. One is focused on Ty Ty Walden's search for gold buried, he thinks, somewhere on his land. The other concerns his son-in-law Will Thompson's efforts to reopen the cotton mill, which has been shut down by the owners due to a workers' strike. Both men are obsessed by their goals and are willing to risk all, their families and even their lives, to achieve these ends. Ty Ty's efforts seem the most foolish. He is not a wealthy man, but he does own his own land, land which could be used for planting and growing. Instead, he has let his acreage lie untended while he and two of his sons waste their time digging huge holes in the fields, turning his farm into a place of devastation.”

THE DIGITAL SEA

The author sent me a copy of this novel to review:

The confused world of augmented reality resurfaces in this mystery/spy novel set in the year 2052 by Thomas K. Carpenter. I only say that because this theme is my least favorite when I’m reading sci-fi or fantasy novels. I’m reminded of Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End, the 2007 Hugo Award winner for best novel. I disliked that novel! Vernor spoke of a world in which “ ...the virtual and the real are a seamless continuum, layers of reality built on digital views seen by a single person or millions, depending on your choice.” Well, here we go again. The difference is that I didn’t dislike Carpenter’s novel. Don’t get me wrong, I was still perplexed, but so were some of his characters. One of the main "good" characters, Zel Aurora, thinks to herself on page 193, “Damn it. Even with you I don’t always understand what’s going on. It’s like having a play in a foreign country explained to you. I hear the explanation, but I don’t know what it means.” Amen, Zel. I had the same problem reading this avant-garde novel. That being said, I think the author is highly competent. Some of the character’s lines are clever, such as Jartelle, a reporter, reflecting on an affair he had with a girl named Anesha: ”I cannot be so blind to think it is a relationship. Still, what’s the difference, it’s only a title. Journalist. Prostitute. Some say they are no different, and the latter pays better.” There are quite a few of these kinds of snippets throughout the novel. This was a well written and thought through novel that just happened to be about a topic that I don’t like.

The story is about our world in the future where Sagan’s Law has been enacted, a world-wide one child policy. The population is still too high, and there are many devious plans to lower it further. The cost of health care is only available for the rich. Limbs can be regrown. ARNet computers (the Digital Sea) are embedded into the body in order for a person to change their outward appearance and viewed surroundings. But can you now be controlled and monitored by unknown forces? Can some people take this a step further and become invisible at times? These are some of the questions in this new complex world. Mr. Carpenter weaves a unique tale that tries to unravel this complicated and puzzling dilemma that man has enacted on himself. Well done, Mr. Carpenter, you had this reviewer guessing, chapter after chapter.  

Our heroine is Zel Aurora, a reality hacker savant, who has fashioned her own augmented reality system called the Pandora. Her child lies in bed dying from a shaking sickness. She contacts the crime lord Djed, whom she has betrayed in the past, to seek employment in exchange for enough funds to get hemangioblast therapy for her daughter, Liala. The Djed, who speaks to her as a projection, wants to find out who is trying to start a war between India and Pakistan. They are interfering with his business. She agrees to take the job but must take Djed’s Russian assassin, Sasha, with her. Meanwhile, a Japanese politician is beheaded by an invisible assassin and the seasoned reporter Jartelle suspects a bigger situation brewing and starts to follow leads (don’t worry about all the ‘ands’, I’m invoking polysyndeton syntax). Jartelle stays one step ahead of Zel and Sasha as they seek the answer to the plot against humanity, seemingly from a mysterious corporation called Ecoverse. Carpenter writes some of the chases like it’s an episode from the Keystone Cops! For example, Zel and Sasha arrive in a now dead New Orleans to see Quicksilver Spider, then to New York to see TenNinety and the Unseen gang, only to be sent to Siberia to see Fat Tennessee (and he is super fat!), and then sent to Free Africa South. And guess who was there first? Yes, Jartelle! Now the story gets exciting, and this is where I stop. Now that you have tasted a little of the plot, I suggest you grab your own copy of this China Mieville-like weird fiction novel, sans the neologisms.

One flaw I find in books of this type is that the author writes in too many sidebar characters with names. It gets too hard for the reader to remember all the character’s names, only to find out that they were menial at best. I haven’t even mentioned: Mekena Dembo ( he’s not one of the menials ), Kaydar Ayasha, Ava, the Jackal, Cutter, the twins, NURBS, or Ubiq to name a few. The reader will have a lot more empathy for characters when he can concentrate on three or four people. But, this was a enjoyable novel, even though I didn’t like the theme.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: On Mr. Carpenter’s blog, he states: “The Future Digital Life is about, among other things, augmented reality. AR is the evolution of the Internet, a visual medium of data overlain our reality, creating an enhanced living experience with new dilemmas that will require careful exploration. My interest in augmented reality spawned from a science-fiction novel project and has bloomed into this blog. While I regularly talk about AR, on occasion I delve into my experience as a writer and update with progress on the perils of publication.” That being said, I still don’t like reading books that cause me to run to Google or Wikipedia every ten minutes or so.

In 2011, Thomas K. Carpenter published Mirror Shards: Extending the Edges of Augmented Reality . The synopsis is as follows: “EXPLORE the edge of augmented reality in thirteen tales from thirteen fantastic authors. When the digital world collides with our real one, bringing all its problems and benefits, mankind will have to relearn what it means to be human. In this glimpse of possible futures, you will go on the hunt to track down a fugitive on the other side of the known Universe. Learn the price of ubiquitous knowledge, or find peace and understanding in the absence of it. Dive deep into the ocean to avert a kidnapping using only the tools at hand. Experience new realities underwritten by an alien love of entertainment. Find hidden truths contained within our smallest gestures. Hide something so valuable, it would drive a man to crime. Or find that sometimes, what it doesn't hide is what endangers us most.”

ALAS, BABYLON

What’s the last book you read that you couldn’t put down? Can’t remember? Well, I got one for you! It’s a 1959 novel that is more than just a story of the consequences and outcome of a nuclear war between America and Russia. This novel gives the reader the flavor of what America was really about in the 1950's. I remember the air-raid drills in grade school when a student was instructed to dive under their desk in the event of a atomic/nuclear strike. Like that was going to save your butt! I remember President Eisenhower saying the same thing. Here was a man who saw the destructive power of Little Boy in Hiroshima and Fat Man in Nagasaki saying that the desk would save me. Oh, well. Since this novel was published just before the civil rights movement, the ugly head of racism exists in this novel. This is not a knock on the author, Pat Frank, because he was writing in accordance with the prevailing thoughts of 1959. This novel was probably born out the U.S.A.’s fear of being attacked from space after Russia successfully launched the Sputnik satellite into space in 1957. This act most likely sparked the arms race and subsequently launched nuclear war/post-apocalyptic novels like this one into popularity during the 1950's and 1960's. However, this novel gives the reader hope that a nuclear war is survivable, unlike novels such as Nevil Shute’s On the Beach , where there is no hope for survival after World War III has polluted the atmosphere with world wide nuclear fallout. Alas, Babylon truly gives the reader a taste of that 1950’s fear and the general attitude of the citizens. Well done, Pat Frank.

The story centers around the town of Fort Repose in central Florida. Our protagonist, Randy Bragg, is contacted by his brother, Mark, a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force stationed at SAC headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. Mark tells Randy that war is imminent, and he is sending his wife, Helen, and two children to live with him in Florida. The day after Helen lands, the unthinkable happens. The U.S. and Russia exchange nuclear missiles! At first the town had electricity; then, the families witnessed a stunning explosion: “The white flashed back into a red ball in the southeast. They all knew what it was. It was Orlando, or McCoy Base, or both. It was the power supply for Timucuan County. Thus the lights went out, and in that moment civilization in Fort Repose retreated a hundred years. So ended The Day.” Several days later, the bombing stops. Randy houses most of the River Road people, including his brother’s family, Randy’s girlfriend Elizabeth and her family, and the local doctor, Dan Gunn. The Western Union lady, Florence, and the local librarian, Alice, live next door. The Preacher Henry family lives close by, as does the retired Admiral, Sam Hazzard. This constitutes the main core of characters (Those living in the vicinity of Randy’s River Road abode) in this cutting-edge story. Luckily for the town, the winds keep the fallout away from them even though Florida is listed as one of the many contaminated zones. The retired Admiral finds out via his short-wave radio that the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare is now Acting Chief Executive. Randy knew that: “...The struggle was not against a human enemy, or for victory. The struggle, for those who survived "The Day", was to survive the next.”

The ensuing chapters deal with the River Road people’s efforts to obtain food; avoid typhoid; establish law and order against the many ‘highwaymen’ attacking their town; and to establish ways and means for mankind’s survival. I thought that Pat Frank’s characterization was as good as it could be based on the many characters in the book. Near the end of the book, Lt. Colonel Paul Hart says to Randy Bragg:  “'Some of our scientists think it will take a thousand years to restore a saturated [Contaminated Zone], like Florida or New Jersey, to anything close to normal.'... and Randy turned away to face the thousand-year night.” By the way, the story does end with the reader finding out who won the war! I guess you will have to read this sci-fi classic to find out.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: During this nuclear Apocalyptic phase of writing, two novels were similarly written. The first one was Red Alert by Peter George. In 1964, it was adapted by Stanley Kubrick and released by Columbia Pictures as Dr. Strangelove . In the book, a crazed USAF General launches an attack on Russia from the SAC base in Texas. To make a long story short, the planes are finally successfully called back, except for the bomber Alabama Angel. The President convinces the Soviet Premier that it’s a mistake and offers Russia Atlantic City. Luckily, Alabama Angel fails in it’s mission, and no bombings occur. In case you forgot the book and movie: U.S. President Merkin Muffley is on the hot line to Moscow with some rather embarrassing news for the Soviet premier: “Hello, Dimitri….I’m fine….Now then, you know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb….The bomb, Dimitri. The hydrogen bomb….Well, now, what happened is that, uh, one of our base commanders…he went a little funny in the head….and he went and did a silly thing….He ordered his planes to attack your country.” Is that a riot, or what? The ironic thing about this book and the second book that I’ll talk about is that Peter George sued the authors for plagiarism, nonetheless Columbia Pictures released both movies in 1964!
                                          * SPOILER ALERT *
The second book was Fail Safe by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. In this book, SAC is alerted that a threat (unknown plane) is headed into our air space, so our bombers hustle to their fail safe positions. The threat is proved to be bogus, and the bombers are recalled. However, six Vindicator  bombers get an attack code in error and fly into Russia to their targets. One bomber gets through and destroys Moscow. To refresh your memory, the following is the conversation the U.S. President has with the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, and General Buck, who is flying a bomber over N.Y.C. ( the President’s wife is there ): U.S. Ambassador to Moscow: Mr. President! The President: Yes, Jay? U.S. Ambassador to Moscow: I can hear the sound of explosions from the northeast! The sky is very bright, all lit up (cut off by high shrill sound of the Ambassador's phone melting from the nuclear blast) The President: (on the intercom) Put me through to General Black. General Black: Yes, Mr. President? The President: Blackie...General Black: (obviously upset) Yes, Mr. President? The President: (sighing in resignation) Moscow's been destroyed. Drop your bombs according to plan. General Black: (pause) Yes, sir. Is that scary, or what? The President had to sacrifice the population of N.Y.C., and his wife! Wow! Readers, these are just a few of the exciting novels written during the 50's and 60's. Sorry I gave the ending away, but I wasn't reviewing this book.

the DISTANT HOURS

This is a guest review from my wonderful daughter-in-law, Jennifer Ohlarik:
 

Kate Morton spins a tale of gothic measure in her 2010 novel, The Distant Hours. Spinster twin sisters, Percy and Saffy Blythe, are living within the ever-dilapidating walls of their once vibrant castle. Since the hauntingly gruesome death of their mother and their father’s ultimate mental and physical demise, the elderly sisters are charged with the care of their intrinsically beautiful, yet wild younger sister, Juniper, who possesses the same ethereal and charming characteristics as Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’. It is set in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s in England during a time of bombings, evacuees, gas masks, and blackouts. At the heart of the story is Raymond Blythe’s published work entitled “The True History of the Mud Man”. Raymond was the trio’s father. The tale unravels a world of mystery, secrets, and sins committed within the stone and mortar walls of Milderhurst Castle.

Edie, a young publisher from London is enraptured by “The True History of the Mud Man” only later to find out that her mother, Meredith, shares a secret connection to this English Castle and it’s inhabitants. As a young girl, Meredith was sequestered to Milderhurst Castle as an evacuee. She grew close to Juniper and learned to write at the hand of Raymond Blythe. The tie between the two elderly sisters; the dominance and submissive parts played by each respective twin, woven and connected to the younger carefree spirit of the wild Juniper is intensely fascinating, as is the strong possessiveness and oppressiveness of the castle walls. Morton tells a story of forbidden love, family loyalty, family ties – or rather chains, which ultimately revolves around this mysterious monster that arises from the mud.  

This book contains wonderful surprises and revelations that are delivered with gentleness and ease. The plot is multi-layered with a strong foundation.  Page after page, Morton carefully paints a picturesque English countryside and develops characters that are real, with whom we can come to know, understand, and ultimately empathize. It’s a story of past and present, with subtle glimmers of hopeful futures. It’s nostalgically rich in it’s gothic feeling lending the reader’s mind to reminisce the Bronte sisters’ works. The novel has many references to the great writers and poets. Emerson and Poe are two of the family dogs. It’s a warm friend for any reader with strong inclinations towards the world of British classics. Intertwined with mentions of the great writers, Morton also creates humorous charm with her allusions to Alice in Wonderland.

The Distant Hours is a meticulously crafted story that that entrances the reader until the last page.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

the SNOW CHILD

Eowyn Ivey writes an intriguing novel full of symbolism born out of a old Russian fairy tale. Even Eowyn Ivey's first name (pronounced: A-o-win) conjures up a sort of mysterious glow on her somewhat mystic first novel. Actually, her first name is based on a character from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I found this novel haunting and thought-provoking, especially after I finished the novel. I asked myself: Who was the snow child? Was she real? Does she symbolize the Alaskan wilderness or the struggle between life and death? This is the kind of symbolism that classrooms could analyze and debate forever. Dan Brown’s fictional character Robert Langdon would have quite a task explaining the hidden meanings of this novel to this reviewer. Wait a minute, maybe Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot can figure out this befuddling conclusion for me. Whatever, this novel is quite a trip!

The book’s setting is Alaska. The year is 1929. Jack and Mabel have moved to Alaska to start a new life after Mabel delivered a stillborn child. They are struggling to make a go of farming in the wilderness of Alaska. Mabel is depressed and even contemplates suicide. Then, they experience their first Alaskan snowfall and joyfully build a snow child that they dress in a blue coat, mittens, yellow grass hair, and a scarf. The next day, they discover the snow child knocked down with tracks leading to the woods, but no tracks from the woods to the destroyed snow child. Jack sees a girl wearing the snow child's attire peeking at him behind the trees in the forest. She has a red fox with her. What is going on? The neighbors, George and Esther, tell them there are no young blond girls in the valley. Esther tells Mabel “...The winters are long, and sometimes it starts to get to you. Around here, they call it cabin fever. You get down in the dumps, everything’s off kilter and sometimes your mind starts playing tricks on you.” But, Jack and Mabel know what they saw. After a period of time the girl cautiously comes to the cabin to visit them. The snow child says her name is Faina. Faina never sleeps over and always leaves for the forest after her visit, no matter how bad or cold the weather is outside. Where does she go, and how come no one else sees the girl? One day Jack tracks the girl and finds her in the mountains by a hidden abode. Apparently her father died of alcohol abuse, and Jack buries the man. Mystery solved? Not really. Why does the girl prefer to live alone in the wilderness? How come she disappears in the spring and summer and comes back in the winter?

Now that the author has wet your whistle, the book takes some unforeseen twists. The neighbor’s son, Garrett, sees the girl! He witnesses Faina killing a snared swan. Garrett is smitten and confused. That Christmas the neighbors surprise Jack and Mabel at their cabin, and finally see the snow child. What happens next? Well, you will find out after reading part two and three of this avant-garde first time novel by Eowyn Ivey. I thought Ivey’s characterization was well done, and her description of Alaskan scenery and wildlife was outstanding. Since Ivey lives in Alaska and works as a bookseller at an independent bookstore, her descriptive credentials of Alaska are a given. She states that she was almost finished with her first novel when she got the idea for this story. This leads me to believe that we will see more of her work soon. What happened to that other book? This was a enjoyable read.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I wonder if Eowyn Ivey is part of a new genre of novels. dogeardiscs.wordpress.com says: “There’s a wonderful ongoing trend among adult novels and that is to evoke childhood and imagination by creating stories that recreate the sense of a fairytale. The Night Circus achieved this last year by creating a hypnotic and dreamlike world for readers to explore and live within. We aren’t even a week into 2012 and I have been utterly gobsmacked by what I can only call an adult fairytale of longing and love.” It’s hard to say where this trend is going, but lately I find myself reading books of unknown genres.

What does Eowyn Ivey think about this folktale genre? Well, in an interview with booksellernz, Eowyn says, ”I think subconsciously I had always been looking for a way to tell a magical story set in Alaska. This place is my inspiration as a writer, and as a reader my entire life I rarely came across books that took place in a northern landscape. The Snegurochka fairy tale was a kind of lightning bolt for me – suddenly I could see the path into the story I wanted to tell.” And, they asked Eowyn about some of the missing quotation marks, and she said...” Thank you — I’m so glad you noticed the quote marks. Some readers have wondered if they are the result of typographical errors, but it was intentional. When I first began writing Faina’s dialogue, it felt as if I had somehow dragged her to the ground and stripped away some of her magic. I am a fan of Cormac McCarthy, and I tried removing all the quote marks throughout the manuscript. But that didn’t feel right either. So as an experiment I decided to not use quote marks any time Faina is part of a conversation – I hoped it would allow her to remain slightly otherworldly, slightly removed from the everyday.” Once again Cormac’s "no rules" prose comes into play.

Finally, what is it like for real-life Alaskan settlers? “Because of its extremes Alaska is a challenging place to live, but it seems to take hold of some people. Jack London is a wonderful example – he was beaten down by his travels to the Klondike during the Gold Rush, and yet he spent the rest of his life writing about the north and its hardships. Throughout Alaska’s history, some people who have moved here can’t wait to flee. But for some, it is like Esther says to Mabel: 'I don’t know if you ever get used to it really. It just gets in your blood so that you can’t stand to be anywhere else.'”

ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

This is another classic from the gloom and doom meister, Cormac McCarthy. Although, there is not as much doom as normal since this novel is more of a study of evil. Published in 1992, it's the first volume of his famous The Border Trilogy. This was an incredible story and exciting and hard to figure out the ending and finally well written. I didn’t make a mistake with the previous sentence, it’s Polysyndeton syntax at work. Originally created by the great Ernest Hemingway, it elongates the sentence using several conjunctions in close succession without a break, thus creating a kind of urgency to continue without the reader having a chance to catch their breath and/or analyze what was just said. Not that there is going to be any quotation marks, commas, or apostrophes to help you make sense of it, somehow Cormac induces, or seduces, the reader into totally understanding what is being said, and who said it! This man can write beautiful prose, and his descriptive writing is right up there with an author, such as, Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote The Scarlet Letter , and The House of Seven Gables. How is this for an example of Cormac’s descriptive writing: “She looked up at him and her face was pale and austere in the uplight and her eyes lost in their darkly shadowed hollows save only for the glint of them and he could see her throat move in the light and he saw in her face and in her figure something he'd not seen before and the name of that thing was sorrow.” As I always say (at least since I’ve come to understood him) - This man can write!
 

It’s a love story of sorts. What, from Cormac? Well, I said sort of...with some violent twists. The year is 1949, and the place is San Angelo, Texas. The story begins with our hero, John Grady Cole, leaving his deceased grandfather’s ranch for Mexico. On the way, he picks up his buddy, Lacey Rawlins, and together they head south on horseback. Once in Mexico, they believe they are being followed. They semi-ambush a young man that appears to be about thirteen years old riding a beautiful bay horse. When Grady and Rawlins ask him why he is following them, he says, “I aint done nothin.” “What’s your name?”, said John Grady. “Jimmy Blevins.” “Bullshit”, said Rawlins.”Jimmy Blevins is on the radio.”That’s another Jimmy Blevins.” “Who’s followin you?” “Nobody.” How do you know?” “Cause there aint.” Reluctantly, they let the strange young man travel with them. Instinctively, Rawlins knows this kid is trouble. And is he ever right! Later in their travels, Blevins loses his horse and Colt pistol while hiding from a thunderstorm. He persuades Grady and Rawlins to help him find his bay horse and pistol. They find and “steal’ back Blevins horse from a Mexican stable. They are pursued by the town but get away after they split up. Blevins goes one way, and Grady and Rawlins another where they wind up working as vaqueros on a 11,000 hectares ranch owned by Don Hector Rocha y Villareal. He has a beautiful daughter named Alejandra. Grady falls in love. Can you sense a problem coming into play? Oh, yeah! Because of Grady’s horse breaking abilities, the father promotes him and then Grady has a secret affair with his beautiful seventeen year old daughter, Alejandra. Now the story turns dark! Knowing Cormac McCarthy, I’ve been waiting for this. You, the reader, have hundreds of exciting and twisting pages ahead of you. I have only given you a taste of what’s ahead. I highly recommend this classic western.

Not only did I enjoy this novel, but I learned a lot of Spanish. Cormac had the ability to tell the story with lots of Spanish conversations, and you, as the reader, somehow understand. How did he do that? I now know what a cuchillero, papazote, hacendado, caballero, and a gerente are. I like to look for symbolism in Cormac’s novels. I know who represented evil, guilt and remorse, but who were the three men that showed up on page 281 and confronted Grady with "Cuales de los caballos son suyos? (Which of the horses are yours?) Todo son mios. (All are mine.) Donde esta su serape?(Where is your blanket?) No tengo (I do not have one.) Quienes son ustedes? (Who are you?) Hombres del pais. (Men of the country.)" Men of country? What does that mean? I know that John Grady Cole shows up again in the third book of this series, Cities of the Plain , and then maybe I will get my answer.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Are you surprised that Cormac can write about romance? I was. Read this excerpt involving Grady and Alejandra: “The following night she came to his bed and she came every night for nine nights running, pushing the door shut and latching it and turning in the slatted light at God knew what hour and stepping out of her clothes and sliding cool and naked against him in the narrow bunk all softness and perfume and the lushness of her black hair falling over him and no caution to her at all. Saying I dont care I dont care. Drawing blood with her teeth where he held the heel of his hand against her mouth that she not cry out.” I’m convinced, but did you see all the ‘ands’ in the paragraph? Did you see any apostrophes? Of course not.

And lastly, Cormac proves that his characters possess feelings, when Grady is at a gravesite, Cormac writes: “He stood hat in hand over the unmarked earth. This woman who had worked for his family fifty years. She had cared for his mother as a baby and she had worked for his family long before his mother was born and she had known and cared for the wild Grady boys who were his mother's uncles and who had all died so long ago and he stood holding his hat and he called her his abuela and he said goodbye to her in Spanish and then turned and put on his hat and turned his wet face to the wind and for a moment he held out his hands as if to steady himself or as if to bless the ground there or perhaps as if to slow the world that was rushing away and seemed to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor or dark or pale or he or she. Nothing for their struggles, nothing for their names. Nothing for the living or the dead.” Not for nothing, Cormac McCarthy has proved to this reviewer that he can write a book of a different color.