ADDRESS UNKNOWN

 

In 1938 Kathrine Kressmann Taylor wrote a classic novel (really a 79-page short story), Address Unknown, that unfortunately still resonates in today's world. It’s an epistolary book built around the letters betwixt the years 1932 and 1934 between the partners of Schulse-Eisenstein Galleries of San Francisco, Martin Schulse (a non-Jew) and Max Eisenstein. They run a successful art gallery business. Apparently, they both originally lived in Germany. Martin Schulse has decided to move back to Germany and expand their art business in Europe. As you read this story the contents of the letters get scarier and scarier as Adolph Hitler rises in power. The author wrote the story to alert the non-believing American people at the time:

“I wanted to write about what the Nazis were doing and show the American public what happened to real, living people swept up in a warped ideology.”

Max’s first letter to Martin in Germany is filled with jealousy:

My Dear Martin, Back in Germany! How I envy you! Although I have not seen it since my school days, the spell of Unter den Linden is still strong upon me-the breadth of intellectual freedom, the discussions, the music, the light-hearted comradeship. And now the old junker spirit, the Prussian arrogance and militarism are gone.” Ahaha, wait, the good old days of German arrogance are right around the corner. Max is living the life of luxury in Germany. He bought a thirty-room bargain in ten acres of park and he now employs ten servants for the same wages as the two he had in his San Francisco home. His boys have three ponies and a tutor. Life is good. 

As the letters progress, Martin writes to Max:

“You have heard of course of the new events in Germany, and you will want to know how it appears to us here on the inside. I tell you truly, Max, I think Hitler is good for Germany, but I am not sure...The man is like an electric shock, strong as only a great orator and a zealot can be, but  I ask myself, is he quite sane?”

Now that you know what this treasure of a novel is about, grab your own copy to see what happens. You can read the entire book sitting in your easy chair in a few hours!

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: I know it was a short review but if I went any further you wouldn’t have to read it. Haha. To my remembrance, I have only read three other epistolary novels, two I’ve reviewed, one I read before I started reviewing books:

World War Z by Max Brooks (see my review of 2/18/2011) is a novel full of interviews with the survivors of the zombie war. Clever idea, but I liked the movie better.

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski (see my review of 2/1/2013). A novel that goes one step further and gets into different ergodic levels. Very, Very strange novel, it tests your compos mentis.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. The story of a woman learning that her family’s past is connected to an inconceivable evil. The scariest book I’ve ever read... bar none.

the LINCOLN HIGHWAY

 

There are storytellers and tale-tellers and then there is Amor Towles, a Cormac McCarthy disciple if ever I saw one. Having read his A Gentleman in Moscow (see my review of 12/31/17) I knew what to expect...superb prose and a captivating story. The amount of main characters is a readable five with two sidebar characters. It doesn’t get any better than that. No need to note the innumerable and exotic names cataloged in most novels, because this novel only has a total of seven. How about Emmett, Billy, Woolly, Duchess, and Sally as your main characters? And Ulysses and Pastor John as your side characters? Do you think you can remember them? You bet your sweet bippy you can! That’s what I’m talking about. And in this novel (ala Cormac McCarthy) he sheds the quotation marks. He uses dashes in lieu of. Here’s a typical example: 

  - How long has this highway been around? asked Duchess.  

  - It was invented by Mr. Carl G. Fisher in 1912.

  - Invented?

  - Yes, said Billy. Invented. 

It’s surprisingly easy to follow and for some reason seems to flow better...more natural. Amor’s previous two novels have sold over four million copies and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Have I found my new best writer? You can bet your sweet patootie! HaHa. No, I’m not disparaging my two all-time favorites...Mark Twain (see my review of Tom Sawyer on 11/7/2017 and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court on 11/8/2012) and Charles Dickens, but they’ve passed on. I'm talking about today's authors. And don’t call me a misogynist because I also love Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot mysteries ( see my review of Dumb Witness on 4/28/17 and One, Two, Buckle My Shoe on 5/16/2013). So what's Amor's story about? Well, once upon a time…Haha.

The Warden from The Salina Kansas Juvenile Work Farm was driving Emmett Watson (18) home to Morgen, Nebraska after Emmett’s term was cut short because of his father’s death. His brother Billy (8) was waiting for him at the family farm along with Mr. Ranson, a neighbor, and a banker waiting to serve notice of non-payment of the mortgage. Emmett and Billy were given two weeks to clear out. After the banker left, the boys found Emmett’s 1948 Studebaker in the barn with $3000 in the trunk. This was all their father had left in the world. The boys decided that they would head to California to find their mother, who walked out on the family eight years ago. Billy had found a metal box with nine postcards addressed to the boys from their mother traveling down the Lincoln Highway. The last card showed a large, classical building rising above a fountain in a park in San Francisco. The boys were disturbed that their father never showed them the postcards that were addressed to them. So, it was Horace Greeley’s “Go west young man” for Emmett and Billy. 

The boy's California plan hit a snag when who walked in the barn to surprise them? None other than Duchess and Woolly, two escapees from the juvenile farm Emmitt just left!  Emmett was dumbfounded:

 - But How…?

 - We hitched a ride with the warden. While he was signing you out, we slipped into the trunk of his car.

It seems that Woolly’s grandfather died and left him a trust fund of $150,000 in the Adirondacks. They want Emmett to take them to New York and they will split the money three ways. This is the point where this story peels off like a dragster, but your taste of the first 41 pages of a 576-page blockbuster has ended. I will not divulge anymore, grab a copy and enjoy. BTW, I loved the way Amor put his novel together. Each chapter was narrated by a different character. That gave each person (even the minor ones) an opportunity to state his/her view as the story unraveled. Well done, Amor, and kudos to you for your wonderful sidebar stories throughout the novel. Wow, a rare review where I didn't criticize the author….oh well.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: This has nothing to do with the above novel, but has anybody noticed a large amount of useless or neophyte (in some cases) amount of Memoirs written this year? I'm Somewhat allergic to them ever since I almost blew my brains out reading Henry Kissinger’s Years of Upheaval and The Memoirs of Richard Nixon in the same year! Yikes!  

Do we need the life story of Dorina Medley? Haven’t we had our fill of Real Housewives …?

How about a memoir of a biographer? Eric Metaxas’s Fish out of Water will surely get you counting sheep.

How about Hunter Biden’s Beautiful Things? What’s beautiful about his cocaine habit or his Ukrainian corruption? 

Now I’m sure Will Smith is a fine gentleman, but shouldn’t he age a bit more before writing his memoir, Will? Wouldn’t you rather read the memoirs of Morgan Freeman? If you do...good news. Kathleen Tracey wrote a biography in 2006 about Freeman, but no memoir.

And lastly...the ultimate sleeping pill, the memoirs of Indian actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Unfinished! Well, I’m finished.  

Rambling Comments #7: Hoopla And Libby, Your Public Library Online

This is a guest post by Deron O:

Imagine looking at your bookshelves and suddenly seeing them burst through the walls and stretch off into infinity. That’s Hoopla and Libby. They’re invaluable extensions of your local public library, allowing you to access e-books, audio books, music, tv shows and movies online for free through their apps and websites. I typically use them on my iPad. They are an endless treasure trove.

A few months ago, I had just finished reading my old paperback of Frank Herbert’s The Children of Dune and thought I’d rewatch its SyFy adaptation. The only place I could find it for streaming was on Hoopla. Hoopla? I had never heard of it before. After doing a bit of reading, I learned that Hoopla is a service linked to public libraries that allows one to download what you’d normally find at a library. To sign up, you just need a library card. I visited my library’s website and obtained a temporary card online. Within half an hour, I was watching Children of Dune on my iPad.

I then started poking around Hoopla. To my surprise, they have an extensive collection of comics and graphic novels. I love comics but hadn’t read much over the past twenty years given their cost and space they take up. Many are available on Hoopla as compilations, but there are current single issues too. I’ve burned through a lot of the classics: Infinity Gauntlet, Batman: Hush, Eternals, The Incal, X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga and others. I’ve read thousands of pages of comics in the past few months.

While on my library’s website, I noticed Libby. Just like Hoopla, you sign up with your library card. Through Libby, I read my first e-book: Enola Holmes: The Case of the Left-Handed Lady. I wasn’t sure how I would like reading a book on an iPad, so I picked this book mainly because of its novella length and easy reading. It was a success. I’ve since read another e-book and have a Stephen King book on hold.

On Hoopla, e-books and audio books can be checked out for 21 days, music for seven days and movies and tv shows for three days. E-books and audio books can be checked out for 21 days on Libby.

There’s a limit to the number of items you can check out from these services. I am restricted to nineteen items per month on Hoopla, which has been more than enough. Libby has a different method where I can have up to ten items checked out at any one time. Those numbers are set by your library, so yours may be different. Also, at least for Hoopla, there is a limit to the total number of items that can be checked out in any one day by all subscribers connected to your library. Many times I’ve tried to check out a comic late in the day only to be denied because the daily limit had been reached. It resets at midnight.

On Libby, only a certain number of copies exist for borrowing that is set by your library. For example, the Enola Holmes book I chose was the second of the series because the first one’s only copy had already been checked out. You can put a book on hold, and when it is available, you’ll receive an alert explaining that you have a limited time during which you can now borrow it. I put the first book on hold and was alerted of its availability a few days later. Hoopla has no limitations.

Not every author or all the works of any one author are available. However, the content is vast enough that you could easily find something to read. I did see that two books reviewed recently on this site, The Hour of the Witch and The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, are available on Libby.

These services have broadened my selection and taste in books, choosing ones I would not ordinarily have. I am currently enjoying Star Wars, Ms. Marvel, and Sweet Tooth from which the acclaimed Netflix series was adapted; none of which I would have read had I not found them on Hoopla. E-books were never an option for me, preferring only physical books, but not anymore.

Check out Hoopla and Libby. They are the best thing I’ve found on the internet in years. Hopefully, you’ll have as good an experience as I did and become more appreciative of your local public library.