the WOMEN in the CASTLE

Jessica Shattuck writes historical fiction that features plenty of bravery along with lots of regret  for most of the main characters in her novel. To paraphrase one of the women in the castle (Ania), “At the end of your life you have done what you have done. There is nothing you can change now. No talk in the world can change the past. It is what it is.” She was remembering her participation in the early Nazi movement with the Hitler youth camps and her convenient blindness to what was really happening in Hitler’s Germany. In the novel’s prologue, the story centers around the Burg (castle) Lingenfels beginning with a 1938 harvest party hosted by Marianne Von Lingenfels, niece-in-law of the castle’s countess. The castle is of her husband Albrecht’s ancestors. They have three children, Fritz, Elisabeth and Katarina, who will be in the story in somewhat minor rolls through the novel’s end.

The castle has fallen into a slightly ruined state by the time the drums of WWII are being heard. While the party is going on, Marianne notices that her husband, Albrecht, her dear childhood friend, Constantine (Connie) Fledermann, and other leading citizens are not partying. She finds the men in Albrecht’s study. Marianne wants to know what’s going on. Albrecht says, “It seems Goebbels has given orders for the SA to incite rioting, destruction of Jewish property. They’re throwing stones through shop windows and looting, making a sport…” Marianne says, “How terrible!” Albrecht says, “It’s descent into madness - Hitler is exactly the maniac we’ve suspected!” It appears that the men are plotting to assassinate Hitler. What will happen to the wives and children of the plotters if they fail to kill Hitler? Her friend, Connie, knows that he and his co-conspirators will be hanged if they botch the assassination attempt. If that happens, Connie says to Marianne, “Then you will see to it that they (the plotter's women and children) are all right. You are appointed the commander of the wives and children.” This prologue is the presupposition of the story.

History tells us that the attempt to assassinate Hitler failed in 1944. All the conspirators were executed. That left the job of finding the scattered wives and children up to Marianne Von Lingenfels. Each of the recovered women seemed brave (and they were) on the surface but they also had hidden flaws that emerged later on in the novel. Connie Fledermann’s young wife, Benita, and her son, Martin, were found wandering around the Russian section of Berlin in 1945. “In Berlin, sleep had been rare. If it wasn’t the Russian captain barging into what what was left of Benita’s bombed-out flat, it was some other bastard who didn’t yet understand that she belonged to the captain.” By the perseverance and bravery of Marianne, Benita is rescued from the Russians and Benita’s son, Martin, is found in a Children’s Home under the name of Martin Schmidt. They are carted back to the castle, which will eventually become part of the American zone.

At this point, the author starts flip-flopping between years 1938,1945,1944 and 1950 to give the reader a better insight to all the women. Next to be found and brought back to the castle is Ania Grabarek. Her husband was the Polish diplomat who brought the word of Kristallnacht to the 1938 harvest party secret meeting at the castle. She was found at the Tollingen Displaced Persons Camp. Marianne tells Ania’s boys, Anselm and Wolfgang, “Your father was a brave man...it’s my honor to host his family.” Once the families are settled in Burg Lingenfels, the story gets engrossing as we find out (remember we are flip-flopping years) what happened between the years 1938 through 1950 amongst these three women and their children individually. This is the juicy part that I’m not going to divulge. I thought that the author, Jessica Shattuck, had excellent command of her prose and put down her words in a stark realistic way. Her style made the novel seem sad and dreary, which I’m sure is the mood she wanted to effectuate.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Goodreads.com says that the best Nazi novel written is by Hugo Award winning author, Philip K. Dick. His classic The Man in the High Castle was published in 1962. “It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the yellow pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war - and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.”

I have two favorites that I have read and reviewed. The first one is Anthony Doerr’s 2014 bestseller, All the Light We Cannot See (see my review of 12/30/2014). It’s the story of a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths cross in occupied France.

The second novel is Kristin Hannah’s 2015 bestseller, The Nightingale (see my review of 10/9/2015). It’s the story of Vianne Mauriac who is forced to take an enemy into her French home, while her husband fights on the front.

I know...I know, I’ll get to Markus Zusak’s, The Book Thief.

DEATH of a Movie Star

The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:

Although I thought the TV show (the venue of the novel) televised from Ventura, Ca was preposterous and the novel’s ending filled with soppy cornball fluff, I kinda liked the story. Go figure. At times the writing almost seemed childlike. Other times it felt macabre. But at no times did I feel like laughing, even though the novel’s back cover states...Get ready to laugh your head off. So I’m a little muddled over whether I liked the novel or not. I think (that) I’ll settle on...I liked it (sort of). I say sort of because I’m not sure the author, Timothy Patrick, even knows what genre his book belongs in. It’s rather freakish. So let me tell you a little bit about the story.

Lenora Danmore has a reality TV show, StarBash, which is aired on the site of her Ventura, Ca ranch for seventeen weeks per season (this is year four of the show). The show is a monster hit and is watched by 50 million people each week. Lenora is 87 years old and is building a movie museum on her property, mainly to highlight her egotistical career. The museum is very hi-tech with many androids (it’s the year 2020) taking parts in the scenes depicting her films. Her producer and TV host is Micah Bailey, who lives on Lenora’s estate. The show highlights 15 washed-up actors, who will be disparaged and shamed for seventeen weeks until one of them gets a second chance in Hollywood by winning the Greasy Dishrag (the show’s trophy) and a ten million dollar movie contract. For that contract, the contestants will absorb the show’s degradations with sad smiles on their faces.

So the world wants to know why Cassandra Moreaux, a respected Hollywood A-lister, would join the show as a contestant. Why would she be willing to take 17 weeks of insults (if she survives the full season without being fired)? Does she have evidence of Lenora helping blacklist her mom, Wendy Rainy, during the Joe McCarthy Red Scare era, thus ruining her mom’s career? And did the show purposely hire one time popular actress Brandi Bonacore, now a waitress, to be a contestant on the show because of her feud with Cassandra? And what is Lenora scheming in order to launch her self-centered museum? What type of revenge is Cassandra cooking up against Lenora. What’s Brandi’s reprisal against Cassandra going to be? And what’s on the agenda of StarBash’s host, Micah Bailey, who also owns the rights to the show? Wow, it seems like a lot of questions need to be answered (haha). Hey, I'm finally laughing!

Brandi knew, “The screwy thing was that because of the show’s popularity, if a down-and-out actor dared cross the line and did well on the show, then that suddenly popular rogue actor zoomed straight to the top, and the jobs came flooding in.” And Cassandra complained to Micah Bailey, “Every week you tell 50 million people that actors are less than human and deserve to be treated like shit.” Who is right? Are they both right? One thing for sure is that Lenora Danmore holds the Joker card. Now that you have a taste of this novel, you will have to buy your own copy to find out who wins the 10 million dollar movie contract. Is it Cassandra? Is it Brandi? Or is it one of the thirteen other contestants that I didn’t even mention?

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I understand that Timothy Patrick’s novel is a satire on Tinseltown, but is Hollywood that shallow? Are their egos that large? Probably. I do remember reading that Sylvester Stallone orders his servants not look at him while they are in the same room with him and when they leave the room, their eyes must be looking down on the floor as they back out of the room. I’ve never watched another of his movies (and I don’t even know if it’s true or not).

If you read Christina Crawford’s 1978 book, Mommie Dearest, you know how cruel actress Joan Crawford was to her daughter. It’s been said that Quentin Tarantino is well beyond self-assured. It’s been reported that Will Smith thinks that he is the biggest star in the world. Gwyneth Paltrow thinks she is so big that she doesn’t need to learn the plot of the movie she is in (I still like her). Alec Baldwin has been called “a complete ass.” Charlie Sheen has been called rich, arrogant and perverted.

And what can you say about Donald Trump? I rest my case.

DEATH ON LAKE MICHIGAN

The author sent his novel to me to read and review:

Can an assistant editor of a small town newspaper single handedly solve a murder mystery? Yes he can if he is Mike O’Brien, the Stroh drinking newsman from Gull Haven, Michigan and a cast of one hundred...at least it seemed like that. I’m a believer that up to five main characters per novel makes for a more enjoyable story. When I can remember all the character’s without writing their names down, I’m a happy camper. Steven Arnett, you are a good storyteller but please talk to Cormac McCarthy as soon as you can. And listen, Mike O’Brien doesn’t have to be somewhat infatuated by every woman he meets...does he? The story and plot were good. And while the author’s prose needs to get stronger and more descriptive...it didn’t disrupt the story. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised how effortlessly the story read. Would I have liked some cliffhanger chapter endings? Yes indeedy, but there were none. There was also a general lack of tension and empathy in this novel (that has to change). Okay, enough of my pickiness already...what’s the story about?

 A male body washes up on Ashley Beach. Apparently, someone bashed the man on the back of his head with a blunt object before he was thrown overboard and drowned (according to the ensuing autopsy). The victim is Rich Mallon, partygoer and drug dealer, who is sporadically a friend, and sometimes a enemy of Grant Fields, the local drug boss. They were seen arguing on Grant’s sixty foot foot boat the night before. Did Grant have him killed? Newsman Mike O’Brien gets right on the story...“Rich Mallon Found Dead (reads the headline)…Apparently murdered, Wednesday when his body washed up on Ashley Beach. Police and the Lake County Rescue Squad raced to Ashley Beach when a call came in that the body had been spotted, but there was no chance to save Mallon...the exact cause and time of death won’t be known until an autopsy is performed…” Who killed him? As the story continues, the author comes up with quite a few candidates who had good reason to kill Mallon. Part of the fun reading this novel was trying to figure out whodunit. And believe me, the author gives the reader many choices to ponder.

While this was a likable story, it wasn’t as suspenseful as it could have been. I think (that) the author can use this story as a literary introduction for the protagonist of a new series: Mike O’Brien, crusading editor of his own newspaper. Mike O’Brien’s special talent can be in solving mysteries. Clive Cussler has done this very successfully with many different characters, such as Dirk Pitt, Isaac Bell and Juan Cabrillo. But I would suggest to Mr. Arnett that he should read some of Clive Cussler’s works to see how he weaves excitement into his pages. I know that I’ve been highly critical, but it’s for a good reason. The reason is that I think Steven Arnett is capable of doing much better. He knows the storytelling part, just do it with some panache.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: The advice I gave Mr. Arnett is easier said than done. How many Clive Cussler-like authors are really out there? A lot more than you would think. Various famous authors have had long runs with the same protagonist. Ian Fleming wrote twelve James Bond novels (since his death, other writers are continuing the Bond stories). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote nine Sherlock Holmes novels. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote twenty four Tarzan novels. Stephen King has written eight The Dark Tower novels, featuring his gunslinger.

Now, how about these granddaddies: Edward Stratemeyer’s The Hardy Boys series ran from 1927 to 2005 and produced 190 volumes! Agatha Christie wrote 40 mysteries featuring the famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot (my personal favorite). And finally, Carolyn Keene wrote 56 Nancy Drew mysteries. I think I proved my point...it can be done.  

THE AFTERLIFE REVOLUTION

The author sent me an autographed copy of his book to read and review:

Not for nothing, Whitley Strieber has lived a remarkable life. Not only is he a best selling writer (many of his books have also been adapted into movies), but he also has experienced an alleged alien encounter in his upstate NY cabin. That Incident can be found in Whitley’s 1987 best selling book, Communion: A true story, which later was adapted into a movie starring Christopher Walken as Whitley Strieber. And lately Whitley is in perpetual touch with his recently deceased (love of his life) wife, Anne Strieber, who basically is teaching him the ins and outs of the spiritual world, thus the title of this book. The conversations between Whitley and Anne occur in his mind, but are augmented by Anne contacting friends (after her death), who in turn, let Whitley know that they have heard from her in order to prove to Whitley that what he hears from her is real. Do I believe what Whitley and Anne (the co-writer) are saying about the afterlife? What do I gain by disbelieving? I and millions of others want it to be true. Is it possible that Whitley hears what he wants to hear while he is lamenting the loss of his partner? Absolutely, but I want to believe him. In my review, we will touch on some of the highlights of the book. But in order to get a true understanding of their revolution, the reader must read the full 277 pages like a fine wine. Savor it very slowly. You want it to be true...if not, death is the end...total blackness. If so, I coulda robbed a bank! I coulda been a crook! I coulda been a contender! (Marlon Brando in the 1954 movie, On the Waterfront) Haha, just kidding.

“In August of 2015, at the age of 69 and after 45 years of marriage, my wife Anne died. For two years, she had been struggling with a catastrophic brain tumor and I had been trying with increasing desperation to save her. The dark pit of grief I fell into when I looked upon her still form was the greatest pain I had ever known.” You see, since they were so close, it’s possible that Whitley is imagining talking to his wife. But you will learn that other people have also heard from her. And the author understands that some readers will have doubt, “While I don’t expect our story to be accepted uncritically, I do want you to know that I feel sure that our book is being written by two people, one physical and one nonphysical. I am not talking to my imagination. My wife set out to do this and she has accomplished steady, reliable communication between us, and as I think will become clear, many of the new ideas that are discussed between us in these pages emerge out of a very different perspective than we are used to in physical life.” Whitley and Anne believed that, “nonphysical humanity very much wants contact with physical humanity.” But, they had to prove their theory. All the amazing things that happened to them during the 1990s caused them to focus on the question of afterlife. Can they accomplish something that even the great Harry Houdini couldn’t? If one of them died...could the nonphysical contact the physical?

On page 28, Whitley writes, “We began to think that communication must be possible, and so started discussing what might happen when one of us died. We decided that whichever one of us moved on first we attempt contact, but not directly. We were both skeptical to accept something like that uncritically. So we decided that initial contacts had to be with other people who had no idea of our plan, which we never discussed with anybody.” Then Anne died. “After she died, I lay beside her with my hand still on her chest. I was unable to move. I fought for breath. Then I heard her say...Get up, go on.” The next day, Whitley received a email from friends in Florida. They said that there was a brilliant flash in their home when they emailed back to Whitley, thanking him for letting them know that Anne passed away peacefully. They said, “We think it was Anne making her presence known.” Whitley thought, “It was about that time that I remembered our plan from so many years ago. The one to die first would initiate communication through friends, not directly.” I think Whitley was being totally honest with the public when he said, “One of the hardest things about being in contact with the dead is believing that it is real. This is because we determine reality based on physical cues, and they are totally absent in this type of communication. So we want signs, sign after sign.” One has to wonder if the closeness of the couple brought on things he wanted to hear. I don’t know, I tend to believe the man. Before I end my review, I want you to read what Whitley said on page 66, “I would say that my relationship with Anne is deeper now than it was when we were both in the physical. I was her companion in life. Now I am in communion with her.” Was this book a tad eerie? Yes, but also very thought-provoking.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: As you get older you start to think about death...Is it final, or is there something else? During the talks that Whitley had with Anne after her death, heaven and hell were not discussed. She also didn’t use the word reincarnation. Instead she says, “some ascend as she has, others enter the light, others linger nearby and get reborn. Maybe some even go to physical realities or other worlds and species entirely. Some also seem to descend into densities greater than this one.” It’s a lot to chew on.

On page 35, Whitley writes,”The great human question is ‘will I live after death?’ It is simple, universal and haunts us all, everyone, all the time. Science, by insisting with such compelling authority that we are mortal flesh and no more, reinforces our fear of annihilation. At the same time, the increasingly complex and vivid material world makes it harder and harder for us to hear the soul’s subtle inner voice.”

As you get older, I think you also get wishy washy. What I mean by that is your attitude changes. For instance, when I was younger, I was aggressive and a Republican. The hell with those freeloaders! This is a laissez-faire capitalistic country and that’s that. Now that I’m older, I vote Democratic because I want all the freebies that I’m entitled to. So if you don’t believe in the afterlife when you are young...you might now.

BLOOD BROTHERS

Deanne Stillman’s book was more than the story of the friendship between Buffalo Bill Cody and the Lakota Chief, Sitting Bull. It was the history of both men after the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn (a.k.a. Custer’s Last Stand) until their deaths in 1890 (Sitting Bull) and 1917 (Buffalo Bill). This was well written and by far the most informative book about these two superstars (three, if you include Annie Oakley) of the late 1800s. Deanne put in a lot of information that I already knew, but it was necessary in order to tell the whole story. After the slaughter at Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull became Public Enemy No.1, even though he didn’t kill Lt. Col. Custer or lead the attack against the blue coats. His second in command, Crazy Horse, lead the attack. One must remember that the army attacked the Indian village first, thus precipitating a revenge attack by a combination of various tribes. I’ve often thought that the many different names of Indian tribes were just as confusing as the multiple names one Russian character holds in a classic Russian novel, such as Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The Sioux are three tribes: the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota (all speaking different languages). Each tribe has many sub divisions, Sitting Bull is a Hunkpapa, which is a division of the Lakota, which in turn is part of the Sioux nation. Got It? Anyway, let’s review some of the main parts of this informative and compelling non fiction book. The first part involves Sitting Bull’s exit out of the USA into Canada.

“After the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, Sitting Bull and his people were hounded and hunted for years. They found refuge in Canada, finally returning to the Great Plains five years later when the buffalo began to vanish in Canada as they already had in the United States. There was also another problem: Sitting Bull’s renegade Hunkpapa band of Lakota Sioux had lost the protection of the Canadian government, which had succumbed to pressure from American officials, sending the Indians south, across what Indians called the Medicine Line, into their homeland, where they became prisoners of war.” Sitting Bull called the head of government in Canada, the Grandmother (I’m assuming he was referring to Queen Victoria) and he called the President of the USA, the Grandfather. The newspapers across the nation stated, Sitting Bull Surrenders! “Public Enemy Number One had been captured and America should no longer fear the man who single-handedly killed Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer on the Little Bighorn battlefield. It was of no consequence that Sitting Bull did not participate in the final siege; Crazy Horse, the other leader of the assault on the Seventh Cavalry, had already been killed, and it mattered only that Sitting Bull, the remaining figurehead, had been rendered powerless.” Sitting Bull and his people surrendered at Fort Buford, North Dakota on 7/19/1881. “All together, there were 188 Lakota men, women, and children coming in that day. Their clothing was rotten and falling apart, and some were covered only in dirty blankets.” Sitting Bull was dressed as a ragamuffin. “But they did not know that for Sitting Bull, his dress that day was something of a choice; it would not have befitted a Lakota leader to look better than his people...his appearance was misunderstood by his captors (for the umpteenth time).” The Wasichu (whiteman) just didn’t understand the Indians. All this happened in the first nine pages.

Let’s meet Buffalo Bill Cody. “In Europe, he was known as “Nature’s Nobleman,” a frontier self-sufficient with the sophistication of Western civilization; in America, he was “King of the Old West”- a title he deserved. He was a hunter, scout, shooter, rider, warrior, teller of tall tales, and a man of adventure par excellence. His experience in city and plain rendered him a kind of wise man, and presidents and generals sought his advice. His friends included Frederic Remington and Mark Twain and Pawnee chiefs; broncbusters who could drink him under the table and might have even been better riders; archdukes from foreign lands and ranch cooks who needed a job. He was open to all, he had no airs. What you saw was what you got, even if what you saw was sometimes a mirage. “He was the simplest of men,” as Annie Oakley would say at the end of his life, “as comfortable with cowboys as with kings.” “On May 19, 1883, Buffalo Bill launched his equine extravaganza in Omaha, Nebraska. The progenitor of the spectacle that Cody would take into history, it was called The Wild West, WF Cody and WF Carver’s Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exhibition. Interestingly, the title of the Wild West did not include the word show - it was not presented as something removed from the frontier, but rather as the Wild West itself.” Later in the year Cody’s steamer carrying his show collided with another steamer and sunk. The Wild West lost $60,000 that year (no small sum at the time). Then Cody met Annie Oakley. “After she demonstrated her skills, Cody hired her immediately. Together, she and Buffalo Bill would take the frontier spectacle to new heights of glamour and excitement.” The final piece of the show was the hiring of Sitting Bull. Cody had tried to hire the chief for two years to no avail. When Sitting Bull found out that Annie Oakley joined the show (he met her in St. Paul), “...he was ready to entertain an offer from the wasichu who was also named for the buffalo."

So you got a 56 page taste of this non fiction book. What happens after Sitting Bull joins the Wild West Show and his subsequent assassination by the Indian police on his Standing Rock Indian Reservation is a matter of history. Isn’t it peculiar that this story starts with Sitting Bull’s 1876 participation in Little Bighorn and ends with the tragedy of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota. Yet he was a peaceful man...he just wanted his people to be left alone. He so wanted to make peace with Grandfather. So sad.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: The writer’s prose was terrific. I’ll close out my review with her beautiful paragraph that I call Imagine:

“Imagine being born into a world where your tribe was the most powerful in all the land and within that being born at the climax of its power. Imagine that in your lifetime, you witnessed a thing that consumed nearly everything you loved and were nourished by and that nearly everyone you cherished or parlayed with was destroyed, altered, killed, or locked up. Imagine being a person who lived through such a thing, sought to head it off directly and softly, was both celebrated and hated for doing so, and yet, because of an alliance with the natural world and it with you, saw the whole thing coming - even your own end. And then, finally, imagine embracing life with all of your might and force, your generosity and joy, trying to contain the wellspring of sorrow and blood that was flooding your world and drowning it, knowing that a river cannot be stopped but that there are many different ways to ride it. This was Sitting Bull’s fate and condition, and this is how it unfolded.”

Imagine.

MINETTA LANE

The Author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:

After reviewing A. Robert Allen’s first two novels in his Slavery and Beyond series, Failed Moments (see my review of 7/3/2015) and A Wave from Mama (see my review of 8/16/2016), I knew two things: The new story would bring us to the early 1900s and would be totally different from the first two novels. Well, guess what? I was right on the money. His storytelling is still good, but once again I think (that) the prose is a little weak and lacks a certain flamboyance. I know the author is trying to tell the story of the Black Peoples' struggle through the years (in this case, about 40 years after The Civil War), but I’m not completely feeling the empathy thing. Yes, he has me cheering on the sidelines for the downtrodden, but I don’t feel the kind of sadness I felt for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s lovable and long suffering Uncle Tom (that may be a unfair comparison). It’s not there, maybe it’s not supposed to be there. Was it a good story? Yes, but not a memorable one. I think that with his third novel of the series behind him, he has gotten closer to the traits I’m looking for...closer, but still no cigar. Is A. Robert Allen capable of getting to where I think he should be in his next novel? I say he is skilled enough in his storytelling but needs to become a better wordsmith.

The story centers around a tough neighborhood known as The Bend and particularly on Minetta Lane (the most dangerous block in the city) in 1904 NYC. Twenty year old Bodee Rivers arrives at his grandma’s house after the recent passing of his mom. Bodee is a tall and thin shy black man that previously tried out for a Brooklyn Negro League baseball team (he could run like the wind, but couldn’t hit). He hasn’t seen his grandma most of his life, because grandma Juba, and her daughter, Akua (Bodee’s mom), were in a life long conflict (reasons unknown to Bodee). The Neighborhood is a mixture of blacks, bars, whorehouses and a Irish mafia type gang similar to the gang in the 2002 movie, Gangs of New York. The Blacks and the Irish are respectful to Juba, because they believe her to be a female voodoo priest. Juba’s friend in the streets is Blood, who provides the brawn in The Bend. But the Irish gang, The Whyos, have a new recruit by the name of Arlin McFarland from Chicago, who seems to want to make a name for himself. Is he going to cause trouble in The Bend? On page thirteen, grandma Juba takes the newly arrived Bodee on a walking tour of the neighborhood, “Bodee, these houses along here are all whorehouses. Some are connected to the bars, like the one across the street-a place called Tigress. No sign out front, but that the name, trust me. Next door is a mixed bar called Snake Eyes where our local Black folk drink with the Irish gangsters, and the whores from Tigress work the club for customers. Nothing for a twenty-year-old boy. Understand?”

As Bodee looks for a job (on page fifteen), he is met with bigotry as he applies for a lifeguard job on pier six, “I want to apply for the lifeguard job because I swim real well. They say I’m a natural.” The man (white) laughed under his breath. “Hold your thought and wait right here, I’ll be right back.” The man brings two other white men back with him and have a lot of laughs considering Bodee for the job. “After two more minutes of finger-pointing, back-slapping, and general hysteria, one of the men put his hand up and the other two quieted down.” “Thanks for the laugh, you stupid Darkey. Do you think anyone wants your Black ass in this pool? We’d need to drain it after each time you went in-the fancy word is called contamination. That’s what you are, boy, pure and simple. No decent White folk gonna want to go into any water you touched.” The thing is that that kinda thinking went on for a long time, even when I was a boy in the 1950s (I love using that that). So unfair! What were the Whites thinking? Anyway, Bodee just happened to see that job available on a flyer laying in the street. He really wanted a full-time clerk’s job in a office. The streetwise Blood tells Bodee that Snake Eyes (the bar Juba warned him about) needs to hire a numbers man. He says, “They want to hire some kind of clerk. Opens around noon. Ask for Silvy. Tell him I sent you.” Silvy tests Bodee on figures and percentages, which Bodee passes with flying colors. Then he finds out that Silvy also wants him to read him the newspaper (Bodee thinks that Silvy thinks he can’t read). Silvy says, “No boy, I’m the one who don’t read so fast! Takes me all day to read the front page, so this will be our deal-you come in here every day around this time. Take care of the bills and explain the stories to me and I’ll give you a few dollars. Don’t want you in here after four - things change later in the day. Not the kind of place where you want to be. Deal?” “Works for me," said Bodee.

On page 32 (the last page of my review), a very unfortunate incident happened to Bodee: Finished for the day, Bodee rushed out the door, stepping backward as he joked, “Need to go to the Sun to complain about the St. Louis World’s Fair-like everyone else! Bodee backpedaled through the front door, and when he attempted to turn around, he bumped into Arlin McFarland - a new member of the Whyos gang. Bodee’s momentum propelled the Irishman into a lamppost, which struck his back with force.” Readers, I will stop here, because the poop is going to hit the fan. This is where the author’s story ignites. What will happen? You will have to buy your own copy to find out. Did I make this story rousing or what?

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: This should be my last review for this author, because it’s the third review for him. I get so many request from authors all over the world to read and review their books that three reviews for any author is already too much. I have to move on and read other writers, nascent and classic authors alike. Mr. A. Robert Allen, I enjoyed reading your novels...good luck in the future.

GOD'S LITTLE ACRE

Erskine Caldwell’s 1933 novel God’s Little Acre is Southern Gothic at its best. Is it better than his 1932 novel Tobacco Road? The jury is still out on that verdict, but I thoroughly enjoyed the 1933 novel. The vernacular language of the 1930’s Georgia/Carolina (the full name of South Carolina was never mentioned) was highly readable, while retaining the slang of the times. An example of that is when the patriarch of the 45 acre farm, Ty Ty Walden, bemoaned the fact that one of his sons, Shaw, dropped his shovel and wanted to go to town, “Why in the pluperfect hell can’t he let the women alone? There ain’t no sense in a man going rutting every day in the whole year. The women will wear Shaw to a frazzle...he ought to be satisfied just to sit at home and look at the girls in the house.” Ty Ty uses the word pluperfect throughout the novel as well as the terms: as sure as God makes little green apples...and that’s a fact. This novel was banned for a long time in many states because it was considered pornographic. While there are a lot of promiscuous sexual happenings amongst the Walden family, they would hardly be considered pornographic in today’s standards...maybe it would have a “R” rating at best. Even with all those restrictions, the novel still sold 10 million copies.

So Ty Ty Walden has been digging up his farm looking for gold for fifteen years with the help of his boys Buck and Shaw. His other son, Jim Leslie (a cotton broker) left a long time ago to marry a rich girl and live in a big white house on a hill in the city. Ty Ty has two darkies (the author’s words, not mine), Black Sam and Uncle Felix, planting cotton on a small parcel of the land (they also dig when not plowing). On page thirteen, Ty Ty tells Pluto Swint, who is running for sheriff, about the one acre he has set aside, “You see that piece of ground over yonder, Pluto? Well, that’s God’s little acre. I set aside an acre of this place, and every year I give the church all that comes off that acre of ground. If it’s cotton, I give the church all the money the cotton brings at market. The same with hogs, when I raised them, and about corn, too, when I plant it. That’s God’s little acre, Pluto. I’m proud to divide what little I have with God.” Unfortunately, Ty Ty hasn’t planted or raised anything on that acre for many years. And he keeps moving the acre around when he decides to dig there. Most of his farm is pock marked with giant holes and high piles of dirt and clay.`Ty Ty’s daughter, Darling Jill is a real looker, while Buck’s Wife, Griselda, is considered the prettiest girl in the county. A third daughter, Rosamond, lives in Carolina with her husband, Will, in a cotton mill town. Buck hates Will and calls him a lint-head, because cotton mill workers always have residue cotton fibers in their hair. Will and his co-workers have been on strike against the mill for eighteen months. The entire Walden family (except Jim Leslie) are dirt poor.

Pluto, who loves Darling Jill, tells Ty Ty that a albino man has been spotted near the swamp. The darkies say that an all-white man can divine (locate) a lode. They believe in the power of conjuring. Ty Ty and his boys drive to the swamp in hopes of capturing the all-white man. They capture the albino in his house by the swamp and bring him back to the farm. Sometimes this novel makes me laugh (it’s not supposed to). Uncle Felix keeps guard on Dave, the albino, but he really doesn’t have to since Dave has eyes for Darling Jill. So funny (this novel isn’t a comedy, but sometimes it seemed like one). The next day, Pluto ask Ty Ty, “Did he divine for you, Ty Ty?” “Just like four and four makes eight,” Ty Ty said. “When we got him here and told him what he was to do, why the first thing he did was to point out that spot where the new hole is now. He said that was the place to dig for the lode. And that’s where it is.” There is a lot of excitement in the ensuing pages. Who has sex with who? Who or how many in the family will die or be murdered? How about the cotton mill strike? Does Ty Ty find his gold? This was a great story of the final decline of a poor white family in rural Georgia that had me hooked from page one to the last few pages, which were fateful or fatal...depending on who the character was.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: The novel was turned into a major motion picture in 1958. The cast included: Robert Ryan as Ty Ty, Tina Louise as Griselda, Aldo Ray as Will, Buddy Hackett as Pluto Swint, Jack Lord as Buck, Michael Landing as Dave (the albino), Fay Spain as Darlin’ Jill, Vic Morrow as Shaw, Helen Westcott as Rosamond, Rex Ingram as Uncle Felix and Lance Fuller as Jim Leslie. Wow, what a cast! How much would it cost in today’s money to have all those stars in the same movie?

GABLES COURT

The author sent me an autographed copy of his novel to read and review:

Alan S. Kessler writes another novel displaying his storytelling abilities. However, like Clarence Olgibee (see my review of 5/20/2016), there isn’t anything memorable about the story. In my review of Clarence Olgibee, I said, “What is this novel about? What is the point of this story?” Well, ditto on his latest novel. This man can write, but he hasn’t come up with a story that he can run to the bank with yet. There are edit errors in the novel that should have been corrected before publication. And is our hero’s name Samuel Baas, or Samuel Bass? That’s the $64,000 question. The writing style is good, the prose is good, but the story is just a story. Mr. Kessler, put your thinking cap on and impress me with a haunting tale that I will not forget. It doesn’t have to be the Great American Novel, like Uncle Tom’s Cabin (see my review of 12/9/2012), just something poignant. Anyway, I don’t want the readers think that I don’t like Kessler’s work, his knack for using complex and flawed characters is surprisingly good, but his stories seem to lack direction. Alright, let’s talk about this novel.

The main activities are in a apartment complex called Gables Court in Coral Gables, Florida and in a local Law office. Samuel Baas has just arrived after graduating from law school. His father (a mobster) has paid for a apartment in Gables Court and secured a job for him at RHB Enterprises as a lawyer. Once he arrives, he thinks to himself, “Father wanted me to be a lawyer. He kept me out of Vietnam and got me into law school. Now I have a job because he made a phone call.” Samuel meets three high schoolers (Gary, Benny and Wolfman) by the pool and becomes friends with Gary. Samuel inspects his room and finds out that the a/c doesn’t work and there are big roaches (palmetto bugs) that stink running around. He complains to the useless manager, Mr. Harry Lipman, to no avail. Mr. Lipman is too busy running favors for his fat wife, Rosalyn, who constantly buzzes him with her hand beeper.

He also meets a college student, Kate, who also lives there and is going to a local college. Samuel falls in love with her. The next day Samuel walks to the RHB office for his first day of work, where he meets the chain smoking secretary, Vera, and his new boss, Mr. Eldridge (a lawyer who has never been to court). Samuel is sweating from the walk, because his Ford Pinto hasn’t arrived from Massachusetts yet. Mr. Eldridge tells Samuel that they represent a important developer, Mr. Baxter (a slumlord), and he wants Samuel to sign eviction notices for Baxter. Vera dropped a load of files on the table. “These are the evictions. Just don’t sit there, open one up...you’re looking at the complaint. Name of plaintiff, defendant, rent due, copy of the lease. You sign, we file, and the sheriff serves it.” Later, a beautiful girl (they are all beautiful in this novel, except Vera) named Susan comes in and tells Samuel, “I’m taking orders for lunch. What can I get you?” She works down the hall at the travel agency and takes lunch orders at 11:00 everyday. Don't worry, there are some exciting parts later.

The above review of the first 28 pages is typical of what happens throughout the story. It’s a okay story, but about what? Okay, his young friend Gary thinks he will become a millionaire by selling a gas additive that will give the consumer 50% more mileage per tank full. Nobody buys it. Samuel bails him out by telling him (that) his father will buy his supply ($3,000), but secretly, Samuel buys it with his own money. Samuel doesn’t want sex until he is married but is lured by Kate anyway. And when he proposes to her on one knee, she says, “Never kneel to anyone. I’m very disappointed in you. I told you what’s important to me and you forgot. Stop. Don’t interrupt. Just listen. I’m going to medical school. I don’t intend to be anyone’s little wife.” Then she invites him to a spaghetti and meatball dinner after she chews him out. Haha. I said in the first paragraph that Kessler only uses flawed characters and there are plenty in this novel.There were a lot of funny parts in this story, but I’m not sure it was meant to be a comedy. There are more bits and pieces and unique situations that come up in this story (especially when the mob takes over), but overall it was similar to the Seinfeld show...a book about nothing (but Seinfeld made a fortune doing nothing). I have to give this novel a better rating than I gave his previously reviewed work because the author made me chuckle frequently.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I mentioned one of the Great American Novels in the first paragraph. What are some of the other nominees? I’ve done reviews on many other candidates, but I especially liked: Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel, Catch-22 (see my review of 2/17/2013) and Mark Twain’s 1884 novel, Huckleberry Finn (see my review of 12/17/2012).  

Some of the other novels that I haven’t reviewed, but read are: James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans; Harper Lee’s 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby and John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath.