THE FIFTH HEART

Weaving genuine historical figures into your novel has to be pure artistry. Dan Simmons has done that with almost all his novels, most recently with the 2009 Drood: A Novel, the 2010 Black Hills (see my review of 12/23/2010), and the 2013 The Abominable (see my review of 1/08/2014). This novel is not dissimilar. Imagine writing a novel with the improbable merger of Sherlock Holmes and the great American author Henry James attempting to solve the murder of Clover Adams, wife of historian Henry Adams. Yes, that’s from the family that produced two American presidents. Then, sprinkle in Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Theodore Roosevelt, Rudyard Kipling, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and then mention Robert Louis Stevenson and the up and coming Junior grade Brussels police inspector Hercule Poirot. Of course President Grover Cleveland, Dr. Watson, and Arthur Conan Doyle are implicated in this mystery. However the novel opens in 1893 Paris with Sherlock Holmes and Henry James about to commit suicide by simultaneously jumping into the Seine River (being there at the same time was pure happenstance). Can you swallow this story? I did with piss and vinegar (is that an idiom?). Anyway James is depressed and Sherlock is on a three year disappearance after a feigned death in a fight with Professor Moriarty (is he in this novel?...of course) at Reichenbach Falls. Sherlock tells James after their aborted suicides fail that, “I discovered, Mr. James, that I was not a real person. I am ...how would a literary person such as yourself put it? I am, the evidence has proven to me most conclusively, a literary construct. Some ink-stained scribbler’s creation. A mere fictional character.” What??

Basically, there is no horse sense to this novel; it’s main function is to please the reader and it does...big time. We all know that Professor Moriarty was created to eventually kill off Sherlock and end the series. But does he ever do it. It seems Conan Doyle wants to but doesn’t have the guts to pull the trigger. Is there any real proof that Sherlock dies? I don’t think so. Dan Simmons writes this novel under the assumption that the great Sherlock Holmes lives and, in fact, arrives in Washington, D.C. to solve a possible murder not knowing whether he is real or a fictional character. Henry James, who seemingly follows Holmes to America without any thought pattern, has trepidations that he is a failed writer (thus his attempted suicide). But, he is easily maneuvered into making the trip back to America. Why Sherlock doubts himself as a real person is puzzling since throughout the novel he demonstrates his brilliant mind and stealth. When they arrive in America, Sherlock briefly goes into disguise as Norwegian explorer Jan Sigerson. Sherlock’s client is the brother of the supposedly murdered Clover Adams but soon finds out that his client has taken his own life. As a matter of fact, everyone in the novel also thinks that Clover committed suicide by drinking her photography chemicals (yucky!). Since Clover Adams’ husband Henry is away in Europe, Sherlock and Henry James stay at John (an American historian) and Clara Hay’s mansion. The Hays are neighbors of Henry Adams (an American statesman) and are also friends of Henry James. Got it so far? As soon as Sherlock unpacks, he heads into D.C. to buy cocaine and morphine. In the 1800s England, it seems like everyone was a drug addict (drinking laudanum, a liquid opium) or had gout or consumption. Anyway, he buys his drugs from some toughs and they make the mistake of trying to roll Sherlock. Ha, this part was funny.

On page 47 (you thought that I was giving up too much of the story, didn’t you?...there are 570 pages still to go) we find out about the Five of Hearts, a salon of five people: Henry and Clover Adams, John and Clara Hay and Clarence King (a famous geologist). Did the group’s elitism cause them to acquire enemies? Maybe. Sherlock suspects Clover’s recent friendship with Rebecca Lorne and Clifton Richards is dubious. Are they really anarchists? Is Clifton Richards a deadly assassin who almost killed Sherlock years ago? Is Rebecca really Clifton’s mother? As the plot thickens and the fog clears, it is apparent that President Grover Cleveland is to be assassinated at the 5/1/1893 opening of The World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. (Incidentally, if you are interested in that Chicago Expo, read The Devil in the White City by another favorite author, Erik Larson.) It’s amazing how Dan Simmons ties historical persona and events into all his novels. If you haven’t read a Simmons novel...shame on you. If you read my reviews, you know that I’m a big fan of the three dots (a.k.a ellipsis). Regardless, Sherlock surmises that the anarchists have a list of world presidents and royalty to assassinate. Remember that President James A. Garfield was shot by ‘wacko’ Charles J. Guiteau and subsequently died in 1881 and later in 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. The late 1800s into the early 1900s were very volatile, so Sherlock might be on to something. While I just touched on the beginning of the novel, I’ll let you plow through the last 500 gripping pages or so. It’s going to be a jaunt.

And so what do I like about Dan Simmons’s novels? Well, he kinda over informs the reader like Wikipedia. For instance ,I know that in 1893, Clara Hay was 44 years old when she died, Sherlock Holmes was 38 years old and taller than normal, Henry James was 50 years old and had gout, Clarence King was 5’ 6”, Henry James is 49 years old, Samuel Clemens is 57 years old, William Dean Howells is 56 years old, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr is 52 years old, Rudyard Kipling is 27 years old, and Teddy Roosevelt was a stocky 5’ 8”. This information gives the reader a upgraded character discernment with a hint of the milieu during the time period. Let’s face it, back in the 1800s, if you were 5’ 10” you were considered a semi-giant. I don’t think any writer has a better handle on the reality of the times of their novel than Dan Simmons. But the biggest asset Simmons has is the non-drowsy zone he creates. I have read at least ten Dan Simmons novels and never once did I nod off. This is one of America’s best novelist, and I don’t know why this Science fiction/ horror/ fantasy writer doesn’t get his just kudos. Okay, I know he won the Hugo Award in 1989, but it's 26 years later...where is the current adulation? Do I recommend this novel? Is the Pope Catholic?

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: In the above novel, Henry James, while in his room in John Hay’s mansion, reads about Sherlock’s adventures in The Strand Magazine of the United Kingdom. This is the actual magazine that Arthur Conan Doyle first published his Sherlock Holmes detective short stories in a serialization format. It seems that all writers of the mid 1800s published their stories in this form. Henry James tries to find out if Sherlock is real by asking him questions from some of the stories in the magazine. Sherlock is sharp and, in fact, corrects some of the magazine’s adventures. Are these magazine serials why Sherlock thinks he is not “a real person?” Later in the novel, Samuel Clemens wonders if maybe he is also a fictional character in Sherlock Holmes’s fictional story. He asks Henry James that maybe…” this whole assassination plot is part of some melodramatic tale?”  

Even the great Charles Dickens published his stories in magazines, then later in the form of a novel. According to Prof. Joel J. Brattin, Honorary Curator of Fellman Dickens Collection, “Every one of Charles Dickens’s novels was published serially--that is, the novels appeared not all at once, but in parts or installments, over a space of time. Publishing his novels in serial form expanded Dickens’s readership, as more people could afford to buy fiction on the installment plan; publishers, too, liked the idea, as it allowed them to increase sales and to offer advertisements in the serial parts. And Dickens enjoyed the intimacy with his audience that serialization provided.”

Sherlock Holmes:

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

The following is a guest review from my eleven year old grandson, Kai O:

 

What happens when an expedition to kill a giant narwhal is shipwrecked and then saved by the same narwhal? But what if the sea monster is actually a giant submarine? This is what happens to Professor Pierre Aronnax in Jules Verne’s amazing book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I've never read anything like this great book. But an early warning...don’t read the summary on the back of the book. It gives away too much of the story and nearly ruined it for me.

When Professor Pierre Aronnax is thrown overboard on the Abraham Lincoln, he is thrown into a undersea adventure with mystery and amazement.  The adventure starts when the professor, a whaler named Ned Land, and the professor’s assistant, Conseil, are saved by the submarine named The Nautilus commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo.  Soon after they climb inside, they find themselves in a dark room. Later, Captain Nemo comes into the room with his lieutenant and attempts to communicate unsuccessfully due to Captain Nemo speaking a wholly unknown language. After being served a meal and now sleeping in a lit room, Captain Nemo comes back now speaking the professor’s language. Captain Nemo explains that the world can not know of his existence; therefore, he can’t let them go. On the flipside, Professor Aronnax and his friends are hurled into awe inspiring adventure, including undersea forests and sea monsters.

I really liked this book...it was like nothing that I ever read before. Conversely, this book does have various chapters centered around boring topics, such as the descriptions of the fish surrounding the Nautilus and their classification. For this reason, I would only recommend this book to the most dedicated readers, but it is still a great book to read.  Finally, I would give the book four stars because of its various boring chapters.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Poster from the movie (1954), starring Kirk Douglas and James Mason:

PASSIONATE CRUSADERS

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

Heather Voight has written an eye-opening book about America’s cavalier effort regarding the attempted immigration of European Jews to America (Britain as well) during WWII. The book focuses on the apparent anti-semitism of America’s State Department and the general anti-semitic stance of the public. Did we really believe that if we brought victimized Jews from Europe to America that most would be Nazi spies? Obviously, we believed the Japanese-Americans on the west coast were spies because we took their homes and businesses away and sent them to internment camps in the midwest. I guess you had to live in 1940s America to get the full flavor of what was going through the average American citizen’s mind. Lets be real, nobody knew that we were going to win the war in Japan or Germany. My review in no way is making a judgement of any kind...like I said, you had to be there. As I read Heather Voight’s book, I kept thinking…"With hindsight, It’s easy to make the right decision.” The Japanese-Americans would have remained on the west coast and the Jews would have been welcomed with open arms in America and Britain (at least one would hope so). As I read her book, I also thought about the scuttlebutt I read in other books about Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh being Hitler sympathizers in the 1930s (both received The Commander Cross of the Order of the German Eagle by Hermann Goring in 1938 on separate dinner parties). Several weeks later the infamous Kristallnacht broke out throughout Germany. Ford and Lindbergh kept their medals.

Everything considered, Heather Voight, a successful freelance writer and history blogger, did her homework with due diligence with the known facts. This is not a novel, this really happened. Normally, pure history books put me to sleep. That’s why I’m a big fan of Erik Larson, who writes nonfiction that reads like fiction. He recently said in AARP Magazine that his way of writing nonfiction changed when he read David McCullough’s, The Johnstown Flood. He now calls his style of nonfiction...narrative nonfiction. I only mention this because Voight’s book, while not a cliffhanger nonfiction work, was not dry or tedious. Maybe because it was short and precise, I’m not sure, it worked. I know that I fell asleep many times reading William L. Shirer’s 1,280 page tome, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Regardless, I learned a lot about our belated attempt to rescue the European Jews. Again, I’m not passing judgement either way.

So how did The War Refugee Board (WRB) get started? Not easily, based on the prejudices I mention in the first (lengthy) paragraph. But the two heroes have to be, first of all, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury, friend and old neighbor of FDR. By the way he was the only Jew on FDR’s cabinet, so he was walking on eggshells. He had to convince FDR that America had to help the Jews overseas. Not easy when, “Although the British stated their position more bluntly, the Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department both saw Jews as garbage that needed to be disposed of elsewhere.” Ouch! The second hero was the head of the WRB, John Pehle. So what were some of their obstacles? Well first of all, “The failure of the Roosevelt administration to fund the WRB showed the world that the United States government was not committed to the Jewish rescue.” Secondly, by the time the WRB was established, four million Jews were already murdered. Thirdly, “Throughout the war, the British resisted Jewish immigration to Palestine and they responded similarly to the Hungarian government’s proposal (to save Jewish lives). Fourthly, “Although there is no way to know how many Jews could have escaped under the various ransom proposals or which offers would have proved successful, the reluctance of the Allies to supply the Nazis with Allied goods should have been overridden by the desire to preserve human lives.” In other words, the Nazis made many offers to exchange Jews for goods that America and England both refused.

So, how did this rescue effort end? It’s a matter of history, but the best way to find out is to buy this factual history book. I must say that I was impressed with Heather Voight’s style and prose, although there were edit problems that were not the fault of the author. Buy it and learn.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: What are the best Holocaust books written by Jews who actually experienced the nightmare? Let’s examine a few. Probably the best know book is Anne Frank’s, The Diary of a Young Girl (1947). Amazon.com states, “Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank’s remarkable diary has since become a world classic-a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit. In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, they and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annex” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and amusing, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.”

Another profound book is Elie Wiesel’s, Night (1958). Goodreads.com states, “Night is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944-1945, at the height of the Holocaust and toward the end of the Second World War. In just over 100 pages of sparse and fragmented narrative, Wiesel writes about the death of God and his own increasing disgust with humanity, reflected in the inversion of the father-child relationship as his father declines to a helpless state and Wiesel becomes his resentful teenage caregiver. Penetrating and powerful, Night awakens the shocking memory of evil at its absolute and carries with it the unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again.”

A more recent publication is Thomas Buergenthal’s, A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy (2007). Goodreads.com states, “Thomas Buergenthal, now a judge in the International Court of Justice in the Hague, tells his astonishing experience as a his memoir, A Lucky Child. He arrived at Auschwitz at age 10 after surviving two ghettos and a labor camp. Separated first from his mother and then his father, Buergenthal managed by his wits and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive on his own. Almost two years after his liberation, Buergenthal was miraculously reunited with his mother and in 1951 arrived in the U.S. to start a new life. Now dedicated to helping those subjected to tyranny throughout the world, Buergenthal writes his story with a simple clarity that highlights the stark details of unimaginable hardship.”

RIDERS of the PURPLE SAGE

Could this novel by Zane Grey be the most eminent western ever written? Could be. I haven’t read the two main challengers: Owen Wister’s The Virginian (1902) or Jack Schaefer’s Shane (1946), although I did see and love the movie. Did Cormac McCarthy learn how to limit the main characters to four or five after reading this novel? Could be. Did Zane Grey learn descriptive writing by reading the old masters like Nathaniel Hawthorne or Herman Melville? Could be. But Zane Grey’s descriptive strength is in delineating the backdrop surroundings. You want an example? How about on page 45, “All about him was ridgy roll of wind-smoothed, rain-washed rock. Not a tuft of grass or a bunch of sage colored the dull rust-yellow. He saw where, to the right, this uneven flow of stone ended in a blunt wall. Leftward, from the hollow that lay at his feet, mounted a gradual slow-swelling slope to a great height topped by leaning, cracked, and ruined crags.” Does Zane Grey love to use dashes in between words to emphatically enhance his descriptions? Could be. I have always been in awe of the old descriptive writers (it seems to be a lost art), but Zane Grey is the first author that I have read who actually details and emblazons the scenery for the enjoyment of the reader. Well done. Grey has only four main characters, three antagonist and of course hundreds of cattlemen known as Riders of the Purple Sage.
 

The story is set in 1871 Utah in a village named Cottonwoods. Jane Withersteen has inherited her father’s huge ranch. Her father was a devout Mormon who wanted Jane to marry fellow rancher and Mormon Elder, Tull. Jane, also a God-fearing Mormon, doesn’t love Tull and will not marry him. Except for Jane, the Mormons have no tolerance for Gentiles (any person who isn’t Mormon). As the novel opens, Elder Tull and his men are preparing to whip Jane’s ranch foreman, Bern Venters, because he is a gentile and Tull wants him off Jane’s ranch. Before that can happen, a rider with two black guns shows up. He turns out to be the infamous (to the Mormons) gunslinger, Lassiter. What’s he doing here? Tull and his gang are scared off. The reader finds that Venters was also a very capable gunman who fell in love with Jane and gave up his guns out of respect for her. Lassiter came to Cottonwoods to visit the grave of Milly Erne (who was a friend of Jane). How does Lassiter know Milly? He will not tell. One thing for sure is that Lassiter hates Mormon men, not the women. On page thirty he says, “Venters, take this from me, these Mormons ain’t just right in their minds. Else could a Mormon marry one woman when he already has a wife, an’ call it duty?” Jane takes Lassiter to see Milly’s grave. He still will not tell Jane how he knows Milly. Jane finds out that the rustler Oldring, along with his mysterious masked rider and his gang have rustled Jane’s red herd (2,500 steer). Venters ask Jane for his guns back with the intention of tracking the stolen herd to Oldring’s secret hideout.

Venters finds the hiding place, but he is attacked by the masked rider and another. He kills both. No, wait the masked rider is still alive. The mask comes off and it is a girl. Who is she? He can’t believe that he shot a woman. Venters finds Surprise Valley, a huge balancing rock and many caves in the cliffs. There he mends the masked girl who’s name is Bess. As she recovers, she tells Venters that she doesn’t want to go back to Oldring. He still doesn’t know who she is. As she recovers, they live in the beautiful secure valley for months. They fall in love. Meanwhile Jane, who secretly helps gentile families, brings a dying Mrs. Larkins and her daughter, Fay, to her ranch. Are the Mormons working with the rustlers to ruin Jane and force her to give up the ranch and marry Tull? Is the gunslinger Lassiter falling in love with Jane? Jane knows that “passionately devoted as she was to her religion, she had refused to marry a Mormon.” This story is ready to explode. Jane's white herd (also 2,500 steer) is also rustled. Will Lassiter give up his guns like Venters did, or will he go into town to kill Mormons? What a story.

Okay, you have met the four main characters: Jane, Lassiter, Venters and Bess. What will happen to them? You have met two of the antagonist: Tull and Oldring, but not the third. The third is Mormon Bishop Dyer. This is not a nice man. What will happen to the bad guys? Do Venters and Bess stay in Surprise Valley or make a break-out for freedom. Can Lassiter give up his gunslinger ways to satisfy Jane’s pious thoughts. What started as a simple western novel became convoluted with a cliff-hanging (I’m using Zane’s dashes) ending. Well, I suggest that you grab a copy of this 1912 western classic to find how this quintessential novel ends.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: I don’t know what took me so long to read a Zane Grey novel. In the last five years I have read many books each year by the classic authors. If you scroll through my blog from the year 2010 to the present, you will see many reviews of books written by the heavy-hitters of literature. Now, I ask myself, “when are you going to read a Louis L’Amour western?” Good question. The man wrote 100 novels, 250 short stories and sold 320 million copies. Surely I can read one.

And what about Hombre (1961) by Elmore Leonard. A classic story of a Apache leading passengers of a attacked stagecoach through a desert. And even though I saw the movie version of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove (1986 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction), shouldn’t I read the novel? The wonderful adventures of a few retired The Texas Rangers driving cattle from Texas to Montana.

And who could forget Glendon Swarthout’s The Shootist (1975). Yes, I saw the movie featuring John Wayne in his last western movie. It’s the story of a gunslinger dying of cancer trying to find a way to die with dignity. Lastly, I will end this section with a book I did read. It’s Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses (see my review of 4/2/2013). Its the story of 16 year old John Cole and his escapades in 1949 Mexico.

From the movie:

IRVING TITANS

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

I wasn’t entirely entertained by this (sort of) continuation of Peter Gent’s North Dallas Forty (1973) and parody of the The Dallas Cowboys. My main complaint is with the pragmatism of the novel. Certainly the author could have balanced realism with fiction in a more sensible way. Some of my questions are...Would any player stay with the team if bandied about in training camp by the owner, Ruben Weitzman (Jerry Jones) or head coach Marshall Jankowski (Jimmy Johnson)? Obviously the answer is no. Listen, I spent 13 weeks in Parris Island as a U.S. Marine and it wasn’t as tough as this supposed training camp. Would any player be immediately cut if they protested anything? Of course not. Would a football groupie wield the kind of power Charlene had over everybody on the team including the owner and the press? Would any player take the crap dished out by coach Swanson (even if he was 6’ 8” and 385 lbs)? I don’t think so. My guess is that the hundred or so players that the Irving team had at training camp would have left and the players union would have Weitzman and Jankowski up on some serious charges. We all like a football comedy; such as, The Longest Yard (1974), Heaven Can Wait (1978), or Semi-Tough (1977) but make it semi-real. This was a clumsy effort at a parody. I’m sure Mr. Dawson is an aspiring writer and gentleman but do it proper...write something somewhat original. I see flashes of talent throughout the novel, so like Nike says, “Just do it!”

Okay, enough lambasting already. What’s the novel about? It’s 1989 and the Irving Titans (Dallas Cowboys) have lost their luster. The owner Bum Reason (Bum Bright) has gone broke during the Savings & Loan crisis. He sells the team to Ruben Weitzman (Jerry Jones), who hires Marshall Jankowski (Jimmy Johnson) as his head coach after firing Coach Osborn (Tom Landry). A little on the hackneyed side wouldn’t you think? Anyway, the story is told by the semi washed up QB of the Titans, Jimmy Stone (I’m not sure who he is, maybe Danny White) after the Titans suffer a lackluster season in 1988. Jimmy is torn between two beautiful woman: Charlene Rivers, who makes $750,000 a year by framing almost everybody involved in the NFL, and a cocktail waitress named Nicole Anderson (does anybody care who Jimmy winds up with?). Anyway, the team is sent to a desolate and hot training camp to be terrorized by a bunch of cussing blowhard coaches. They have a new draft pick QB named Sammy Holmes (Troy Aikman?) in camp along with a new tight end named Larry Dresden (Jay Novacek?). They go 1-15 in 1989, but management is encouraged. They make a unbelievable trade before the 1990 season starts. They trade their star running back, Drew Krowsky (Herschel Walker) to the Minnesota Vikings for 13 Ist round picks. Yea, right. Do you think that trade was possible after the owner told the world that he wanted to get rid of his running back after the 1989 season ended? NOT!

The real trade was: Dallas sent Walker and four picks (between 1990-1991) to the Vikings for five players, three 1st round picks, three 2nd round picks, one third round pick and one sixth round pick (between 1990-1993). Quite a trade, but not as good as the Irving Titan’s trade. This novel is filled with nonsensical scenarios and that was the main reason that I couldn’t warm up to this novel. You will have to buy your own copy of this novel to find out what happens to the Irving Titans and all it’s characters after the big trade. Was it a bad novel? Not really, but there was little that the reader could hang his hat on. Just one harebrained chapter after another with very little comedy. I don’t want to be a wet blanket (this review is idiom heaven)... but come on. Yes, the author shows some talent, but give me something more veritable to read, not something that seemed simulated to me. I’m trying to be fair in my review of Mr. Dawson’s novel because I think he can do better. He could have written an indigenous novel, but choose to continue a old one. I have to give his work a neutral rating. 

RATING: 2 out of 5 stars

Comment: Sports books and novels have always interested me. I found a site (talkingbooks.dpi.wi.gov/tab_sports) that list Sports Illustrated's favorite sports books. Who else can be better to ask…”What sports book should I read?” Two of the novels on the list are already mentioned in my first paragraph (I'm not telling which ones, ha). Anyway here are a few of the books that are high up the list of 100: 

The Sweet Science. By A.J. Liebling (1956). Pound-for-pound the top boxing writer of all time, Liebling is at his bare-knuckled best here, bobbing and weaving between superb reporting and evocative prose. The fistic figures depicted in this timeless collection of New Yorker essays range from champs such as Rocky Marciano and Sugar Ray Robinson to endearing palookas and eccentric cornermen on the fringes of the squared circle. Liebling's writing is efficient yet stylish, acerbic yet soft and sympathetic. ("The sweet science, like an old rap or the memory of love, follows its victims everywhere.") He leavens these flourishes with an eye for detail worthy of Henry James. The one-two combination allows him to convey how boxing can at once be so repugnant and so alluring.

The Boys of Summer. By Roger Kahn (1971). A baseball book the same way Moby Dick is a fishing book, this account of the early-'50s Brooklyn Dodgers is, by turns, a novelistic tale of conflict and change, a tribute, a civic history, a piece of nostalgia and, finally, a tragedy, as the franchise's 1958 move to Los Angeles takes the soul of Brooklyn with it. Kahn writes eloquently about the memorable games and the Dodgers' penchant for choking-"Wait Till Next Year" is their motto-but the most poignant passages revisit the Boys in autumn. An auto accident has rendered catcher Roy Campanella a quadriplegic. Dignified trailblazer Jackie Robinson is mourning the death of his son. Sure-handed third baseman Billy Cox is tending bar. No book is better at showing how sports is not just games. [New York Times bestseller] 

Ball Four. By Jim Bouton (1970). Though a declining knuckleballer, Bouton threw nothing but fastballs in his diary of the 1969 season. Pulling back the curtain on the seriocomic world of the big leagues, he writes honestly and hilariously about baseball's vices and virtues. At a time when the sport was still a secular religion, it was an act of heresy to portray players "pounding the Ol' Budweiser," "chasin' skirts" or "poppin' greenies." (And that was during games.) Bouton's most egregious act of sacrilege-his biting observations about former teammate Mickey Mantle-led to his banishment from the "Yankee family." But beyond the controversy, Ball Four was, finally, a love story. Bouton writes, "You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time." [New York Times bestseller] 

Friday Night Lights . By H. G. Bissinger (1990). Schoolboy football knits together the West Texas town of Odessa in the late 1980s. But as Permian High grows into a dynasty, the locals' sense of proportion blows away like a tumbleweed. A brilliant look at how Friday-night lights can lead a town into darkness. [New York Times bestseller] 

Paper Lion . By George Plimpton (1965). No one today does what the fearless Plimpton once did with regularity. Here, in his first Walter Mitty-esque effort, the author of the equally brilliant Shadow Box and The Bogey Man infiltrates the Detroit training camp as a quarterback with no arm, no legs and no shot. [New York Times bestseller][Made into a movie] 

The Natural . By Bernard Malamud (1952). The movie was a Mawkish Rocky-in-flannels, but the novel is a darker, more subtle tale of phenom Roy Hobbs, who loses his prime years to a youthful indiscretion, then gets a second chance. TIME called the novel (which ends differently from the film) "preposterously readable."[New York Times bestseller][Made into a movie]

Readers, you can’t go wrong reading any of the above books.

EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU

The title of the book seems apropos because Celeste Ng almost put me to sleep by not telling me anything. Sometimes I was in a semi hypnotic state. I kept saying to myself, “Lets get on with the murder already.” The author seemed to want to tell me...everything I never told you, considering that on page 194, I was still waiting to see if it was murder or suicide. Ng writes that the missing daughter received less than quality service from the police because she was a interracial child. Is the author making a tacit complaint? Marilyn Lee (the white mother), James Lee (the Chinese father), and daughter Lydia ( the victim) seemed unable to acquire friends; second daughter Hannah was only comfortable when dealing with distress by hiding under a end table (or something comparable); and Harvard bound son, Nathan, seemed almost to have a semi-benign The Oedipus Complex . Where is Sigmund Freud when you need him? If you are going to write a murder/mystery novel, practice by reading Agatha Christie. I’m not saying the book was godawful. What I’m saying is that the writer spent too much time on superfluous fluff. I know that a novel needs character history to make the reader feel empathy, but too much non-action leads to sleepy-eyes. But good news! The novel finally does ‘stir the feelings’ (nearly too late) and becomes a tasty tidbit. My question to Celeste Ng is: “Why did you take so long to get me in your corner?”

The story is simple. Lydia Lee (16 years old) is missing. It’s the 1970s in Middlewood,Ohio. Lydia doesn’t come down for breakfast (do you like my short sentences?). The Lees are alarmed and after awhile...they call the police. Officer Fiske shows up and doesn’t think that it’s a big deal: “Most missing-girl cases resolve themselves within twenty-four hours. The girls come home by themselves.” When the family protests, Officer Fiske says to James Lee, “Now, your wife also went missing once, I remember the case. In sixty-six, wasn’t it?” Mr. Lee says, “That was a misunderstanding, a miscommunication between my wife and myself. A family matter.” I didn’t like this rehashing of the missing mom. Why? Because it necessitated too many flashbacks of Marilyn Lee going back to school to become a medical doctor after her mother passed away (Marilyn’s mom hated the interracial marriage). Subsequently, Marilyn is gone from her family for nine weeks until she realizes that she is pregnant (with Hannah) and reluctantly she returns to her family. Flashbacks are always annoying to me especially when they don’t seem important to the story. Maybe I’m wrong (because this is a strong story), but my gut reaction is usually correct. Anyway, Lydia is found drowned in the local lake several days later. What was she supposedly doing inside a row boat in the middle of a lake during the wee hours of the morning? She couldn’t swim. Was she murdered? Was it a suicide, or a cognitive mistake? You will have to read the novel to find out.

Lets talk about the Freudian characters. I think this is the strong part of Celeste Ng’s novel...understanding human frailties, desires and flaws. That being said, let's meet some of the players: Mr. James Lee is a college professor teaching American History (specializing in cowboys!). When people are surprised that a Chinese gentleman is teaching ‘The Wild West’, his defensive answer is, “Well, I am American.” He doesn’t know how to make friends, but he seems to have an adequate role with women. He thinks his daughter, Lydia, is special and ignores his talented son, Nathan. Marilyn Lee sees her life trite as a housewife. She wanted to become a doctor but missed her chance. Now she puts pressure on Lydia to become that person. Lydia’s success is foremost in her life. She buys medical books for Lydia and forces her to take courses in H.S. that Lydia can’t handle or pass. Nathan Lee is the eldest. He loves aeronautics and would love to be an astronaut. He wants his mother’s attention, but mom only focuses on Lydia. Even when he is accepted to Harvard, mom and dad don’t seem rejoiced. Lydia hid his acceptance letter from him. Why? When Lydia’s dead body is found, Nathan suspects their high school neighbor, Jack Wolff, as the murderer. 

Okay, I left out the numerous mental problems that Lydia, Jack and Hannah have. If I told you about them, this review would be too long and revealing. While reading this novel, I wondered if the author suffered similar problems, or was this story purely a figment of her imagination. Her psychoanalytical concepts concerning the characters are delightful. Maybe I’m delving into this too much. Maybe Ng just wrote a book. But I think this is the kind of novel that can be debated by English Literature classes, especially in high school. So what do I think? Well, it’s the kind of novel that puts you in a semi coma, then wakes you up with a vengeance. It’s hard to believe that this is the author’s first novel. You might not like the outcome, but I thought it was apropos (same word I used in opening sentence). It’s not easy being a reviewer.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Sometimes I wonder if I’m too easy on so-so novels and too tough on novels like the one I just reviewed. My answer is that I’m generally critical in my first paragraph with all my reviews. I might have a soft spot on my heart (if that’s possible) for the numerous indie writers out there, but I think authors like Ng need to hear reality before they can become great writers. I see too many one liner reviews like, “great read”, “highly recommend”, or “this book stinks.” What does that tell the prospective buyer or author? Nothing. I try to provide the future reader with a good understanding of what to expect and what the author’s book assimilates.

In the first paragraph I mentioned Agatha Christie (my favorite mystery writer). What are my favorite Agatha novels that I actually read? Well, here they are:

Murder on the Orient Express (1934), see my review of 3/12/2012. Goodreads.com says: "The glamorous Orient Express stops during the night, blocked by snowdrifts. Next morning the mysterious Mr. Ratchett is found stabbed in his compartment and untrodden snow shows that the killer is still on board. This glamorous era of train travel provides Poirot with an international cast of suspects and one of his biggest challenges. Predicated on an inspired gimmick, this is one of the great surprise endings in the genre.”

Death on the Nile (1937), see my review of 4/7/2012. Booksplease.org says: “Death on the Nile is a pre-Second World War novel, first published in 1937. It shows Agatha Christie’s interest in Egypt and archaeology and also reflects much of the flavour and social nuances of the pre-war period. In it she sets a puzzle to solve – who shot Linnet Doyle, the wealthy American heiress? Although the novel is set in Egypt, an exotic location, it is essentially a ‘locked room mystery’, as the characters are passengers on the river-steamer SS Karnak, cruising on the Nile. Amongst them is the famous Hercule Poirot, a short man dressed in a white silk suit, a panama hat and carrying a highly ornamental fly whisk with a sham amber handle – a funny little man (pages 37 –38). Linnet is the girl who has everything, good looks and wealth.”

Five Little Pigs (1942), see my review of 7/5/2012. Goodreads.com says: “Beautiful Caroline Crale was convicted of poisoning her husband, but just like the nursery rhyme, there were five other “little pigs” who could have done it: Philip Blake (the stockbroker), who went to market; Meredith Blake (the amateur herbalist), who stayed at home; Elsa Greer (the three-time divorcée), who had her roast beef; Cecilia Williams (the devoted governess), who had none; and Angela Warren (the disfigured sister), who cried all the way home.Sixteen years later, Caroline’s daughter is determined to prove her mother’s innocence, and Poirot just can’t get that nursery rhyme out of his mind.”

Actor David Suchet as Agatha’s famous Belgium sleuth, Hercule Poirot

CHASING TEXAS

The author sent me a copy of his novel for review:

It’s self-evident that Reese Newton is a big fan of Cormac McCarthy (as am I). He writes a three segment novel somewhat similar to Cormac’s, The Border Trilogy: (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain). The big difference? No darkness. There were many opportunities in this novel for Mr. Reese to get very dark, but I believe he kept the novel harmonious out of respect for McCarthy, and for that, I applaud Reese Newton. I’ve read too many novels that attempt to ape an influential author...and guess what? It doesn’t work. However I thought that Reese struggled with the direction of the novel and didn’t seem to know how to close out each segment. They just ended... like this sentence. By the way, I’m a big fan of the ellipsis (maybe you noticed). I do see potential for Reese as a budding writer, but he must inject more excitement in his novels. Inventing ‘poop’ to keep coyotes from one’s property doesn’t excite me, nor does a horse breaking his leg by stepping in a ‘dillo’s hole. I don’t want the author to emulate Cormac, but I need some of the chapters to end in ‘a white knuckle’ or ‘close shave’ ending. I know it’s easy for me to point out these problems, because I’m not writing the novel...but that’s why it’s easy to see spot flaws. This was an entertaining novel, just not a memorable one. And by the way, how many times can a young cowboy say, “Sir” before the reader gets nauseated? What’s wrong with “go f*** yourself.” Don’t get mad at the reviewer, I’m trying to give the author some positive direction.

The first slice of this novel is set in East Texas (circa 1915-1921) where we meet 18 year old Sedge Rountree (what happened to the ‘d’?). Sedge, wanting a more meaningful life other than working on his parent’s ranch, just decides to walk away one night. He encounters some moonshiners who rough him up. He later falls asleep on a woman’s property only to be woken up with a shotgun in his face. Once she finds that he is a harmless boy looking for a cowboy life, she feeds him and washes him and his clothes (this routine will be repeated ad nauseam). He hits the road again until he is almost run over by young girl driving her father’s car. After she drops him off in town, he is arrested as a possible chicken thief. Of course he gets off after the girl vouches for him. Later on his trip to West Texas, he is challenged to a shoot-off with a old woman...he loses, but once again he is fed and cleaned up. Later he gets a job on the Farley Ranch and meets a girl at the hardware store. Are you excited yet? Anyway, a ranch hand named Ray, who wants to be foreman, gets into a fight with Sedge and gets fired. Sedge decides to follow Ray to finalize the dispute. Ray beats him up, but Sedge is rescued by a Mexican couple and of course he is fed and cleaned up. Sound familiar? Later Sedge catches up to Ray and beats him up. End of part one. Reece, tell me you didn’t want to introduce some grief in this first section. It’s okay...Cormac is smiling.

Part two (1957) features Sedge’s nephew, Travis. John Rountree suddenly dies and Travis (17 years old) needs to support his mom. He goes to the Boudreaux Ranch to apply for the job his dad previously had. Surprisingly, he is hired. He does well at the ranch and meets a girl named Sherry. It’s love at first sight. Meanwhile, the ranch’s foreman, who goes by the name of Sample, gets fired for sleeping on the job. Will he come back to try to steal some cattle? Travis finds a sack of poop in the barn. It’s big cat and bear poop mixed with sawdust and glue. Travis refines it with human hair and piss. Whoa, it works. Put in milk cartons as a liquid and spread around the ranch’s perimeter, it stops uninvited creatures from attacking the cows and chickens. Mr. Boudreaux ask Travis if he will be foreman and live on the ranch. Travis agrees as long as he can still promote his ‘poop’ business. Once again the segment ends without any certitude. I think that each phase of this novel should have had a viable ending. Instead each part ended like a 1950s rock and roll song that invariably faded away into silence.

Now for the third part (2004 in West Texas). Okay, here is where I stop my synopsis of this novel. It involves Travis’s son, Ezell. Is this the part of the novel where we finally meet with some of Cormac McCarthy’s darkness? YES! Reece Newton literally saves his novel with this last segment. Finally one of the Rountree boys gets into Mexico and receives some serious harshness and evil. I have been waiting for this for 287 pages. What evil? Well, you will have to find out what happens yourself by buying a copy of this novel. I liked this story since I have an affinity for books about the wild west. I know I was critical, but how else is a writer going to improve? I thought Reece’s prose was acceptable and his local flavor of the era’s language seemed genuine (he is from Texas). Writing a novel is probably one of the hardest things to do. With that said, Mr. Newton...you did a yeoman’s job, and I give you big-time kudos for pulling the novel out of what I thought was in a death spiral.

  RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Western novels have always interested me for reasons unknown to me. I have a copy of Zane Grey’s, Riders of the Purple Sage on my desk for over a year. I will read that novel this year for sure. I have read and reviewed books about Kit Carson (Blood and Thunder ), Davy Crockett (Born on a Mountaintop), Cochise (The Wrath of Cochise), Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s classic novel, The Ox-Bow Incident, and two of the three Cormac McCarthy novels mentioned in the first paragraph of my review. 

As far as movies are concerned, I have two favorites that when they are on T.V., I’m hooked for the 9th time. But the general public seems to think the best two westerns are John Ford directed pictures starring John Wayne (how can you not like him?), Stagecoach (1939) and The Searchers (1956). I did enjoy these movies, but they are not my favorites. So what are my favorites?

Well, my number one film is High Noon (1952). Believe it or not, I saw this movie when it first came out at the Court Theater in Somerville, NJ. I was eight years old. I had to go with my mother, so we could collect two free dinner plates. Wow, that brings back memories. It starred Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly as newlyweds leaving a New Mexico town when the Marshall (Cooper) finds out that the Frank Miller gang has been released from prison and are coming to town for revenge. To the chagrin of the Marshall, his wife (Grace Kelly) wants him to leave. As a man, he can’t do that. Let the suspense begin! By the way, the movie included Somerville, NJ's own, Lee Van Cleef as a member of the Frank Miller gang.

My second favorite movie is a spaghetti western. It stars Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach in The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Actually, I liked all of Eastwood’s Italian movies. A close third is another Eastwood movie, Unforgiven (1992), which features a disfigured whore and her cohorts posting a reward for the death of her attacker.

High Noon, the movie: