Category: Fiction

The Four-Story Mistake

gr4c5Leave a comment

Enright, Elizabeth. The Four-Story Mistake. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1942.

Reason read: Elizabeth Enright was born in September.

The Melendy family has moved to the country. In the previous story, The Saturdays, their brownstone in New York was damaged by fire. Now Father Melendy has moved his four kids (Rush, Miranda, Oliver and Mona), dog (Isaac), handyman (Willy), and housekeeper (Cuffy) to “the Four-Story mistake”, a house that when originally designed was supposed to have four stories but the fourth story was somehow left off during construction. It’s an odd looking house since the fourth story was added after the roof was finished. Father is often away (hence the live-in housekeeper) so the four children are left to explore their new surroundings, the countryside and the house.

Book trivia: the is Book Two of the Melendy Quartet. Yes, I read two of them them out of order. It is important to read them in order because I didn’t know what happened to mom, I wasn’t sure what year we were in, and I could guess as to how Cuffy and Willy fit into the story, but I wanted more information.

Author fact: Enright also wrote The Saturdays, Then There Were Five, and Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze. All of these titles are on my list.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Boys and Girls” (p 21).

Tear of Autumn

gr4c5Leave a comment

McCarry, Charles. The Tears of Autumn. Read by Stefan Rudnicki. Oregon: Blackstone Audio, 2005.

Reason read: Cold War ended in September.

Paul Christopher is back; Christopher, the the cool-as-a-cucumber, jet-setting, incorruptible CIA secret agent. This time he is trying to convince his superiors he knows who killed John F. Kennedy and why. But, is this a story of revenge or not? When Vietnam’s president, Ngo Dinh Diem, is assassinated Christopher can’t help but think there is a connection when JFK is murdered just three weeks later in Texas. Was Oswald just a switch someone far-reaching flicked on? Christopher seeks the truth and along the way puts the people he cares about in danger (especially a love interest, of course). While the plot is predictable and the characters, typecast, I enjoyed Christopher’s next adventure.

Author fact: McCarry also wrote The Last Supper and Shelley’s Heart both of which are on my list.

Book trivia: this is part of a seven-book series but I don’t think you would be missing anything if you didn’t read them one right after the other or out of order.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Cold War Spy Fiction” (p 61).

The Trial

gr4c51 Comment

Kafka, Franz. The Trial. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.

Reason read: Czech Republic is lovely in September. Some say that is the best time to visit.

Where does Franz Kafka get his ideas? Everyone knows Metamorphosis and The Trial is no different. It has been made into theater productions, television shows and movies. Everything Kafka has ever written has been analyzed within an inch of its life so I will not be able to add anything new with my review of The Trial. In one sentence, The Trial is about a man on trial for an unknown crime. The end. Why Josef K was indicted is a mystery; why he was convicted is even more so. What is so haunting about The Trial is the tone of voice. The frightening subject matter is told in such a robotic, matter of fact manner. The outrage just isn’t there.

As an aside, I can remember reading this in World Lit class in college.

Author fact: Kafka studied law and received a degree in 1906.

Book trivia: The Trial was published posthumously.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Czech It Out” (p 70).

Consul’s Wife

gr4c5Leave a comment

Tyler, W.T. The Consul’s Wife. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1998.

Reason read: at the time I chose this book I was reading it in honor of Odette Krempin being an honorary consul of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but now I’m hearing she supposedly died (or is hiding to avoid corruption charges in Belgium). The plot thickens!

This is a love story. Hugh Mathews, a foreign service officer stationed in the Congo, juggles his embassy’s embarrassing ineptitude concerning tribal relations while slowly falling in love with the consul’s wife. Hugh and Margaret (Blakey to her friends) share a deep appreciation for authentic African art, the older and the uglier, the better.
Hugh is a complicated man of few words. As the African landscape grows more violent he questions the world around him. That inquiry leads to deeper self reflection and soon he questions his own being and motives.

Quotes to quote (and there were a lot of them). I lost my notes, so here is the one I remember: “All I knew was that there was far more to my life that I understood or could reveal to others” (p 50), “The little truths that shrivel the soul are always uglier than the ones you brought back” (p 133), and “Terribly rich in memory. he was terribly poor in practical things” (p 170).

Book trivia: The Consul’s Wife is short, barely 200 pages long.

Author fact: Tyler is a former diplomat.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Congo: From Colonialism to Catastrophe” (p 69).

Curse of the Pogo Stick

gr4c5Leave a comment

Cotterill, Colin. Curse of the Pogo Stick. New York: Soho, 2008.

Reason read: to continue the series started in May in honor of Laos Rocket Day.

Here’s what we know about Dr. Siri Paiboun. He is a 73 year old coroner in the village of Vientiane, Laos. He has two loyal sidekicks, Nurse Dtui (now three months pregnant) and helper Mr. Geung. When we last left Dr. Siri he had proposed to Madame Daeng and she accepted so now he has a girlfriend to add to the mix. He is still plagued by the spirit of a thousand-year-old shaman, Yeh Ming and it’s this spirit that gets Siri into his trouble this time. He is kidnapped by a group of women Hmong villagers thinking Yeh Ming can exorcise the head tribesman’s daughter. She appears to be pregnant with twins by a demon. The title of the book comes from the Hmong belief that a pogo stick, sent in a relief package, was the root of evil.
Meanwhile Nurse Dtui and Phosy search for the Lizard, a woman hellbent on killing Dr. Siri.
One of the best things about Cotterill’s writing (besides the humor) is that way he subtly reminds the readers where they are at in the saga. Like a television series voice over recap “previously on Badge of Justice…” before the new episode. In this case, Siri’s best friend was found to be a traitor in the last installment. When Madame Daeng & Nurse Dtui pay him a visit in Curse his new role in the story makes sense.

Line I liked, “It was rather sad that his last memory on earth might have been how to encourage bulls to increase their semen count” (p 37).

Book trivia: This is another  really short book. Expect to finish it in a weekend.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Laos” (p 128).

Absalom, Absalom!

gr4c5Leave a comment

Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! New York: Library of America, 1984.

Reason read: September is Southern Gospel Month. You can’t get much more southern than Faulkner!
To be honest, there was some confusion as to when I really read this book. On LibraryThing I had marked it “accomplished” and the detail of tags indicated I had read it at some time…but I couldn’t find a review. Not here, nor on LibraryThing. Plus, it was still on my challenge list. Weird.

Every town has their legends; the stories passed down from generation to generation. The Mississippi town of Jefferson has the story of Thomas Sutpen and his “Sutpen One Hundred.” All told, Thomas Sutpen was seen as a strange, mysterious and even evil man. When he first arrived in Jefferson no one knew his story. He bought one hundred acres of land and then disappeared, leaving the townspeople to talk, talk, talk. When he returned again he had a crew of slaves, materials, and a plan to build a mansion, a legacy. All the while he continues to be secretive and uncommunicative causing the townspeople speculate as to what he’s really up to (as people are bound to do when left to their own devices). The gossip subsides only a little when Sutpen finishes his beautiful home and marries a respectable woman. Quietly he starts a family when his wife gives birth to a son and a daughter. But the chatter can’t escape him. New rumors crop up when word gets around of Sutpen encouraging savage fights between his slaves. There’s talk he even joins in for sport. And that’s just the beginning.
Ultimately, Absalom, Absalom! is a story of tragedy after tragedy. Faulkner described it as a story about a man who wanted a son, had too many of them & they ended up destroying him.

Author fact: Faulkner realized his hometown had a wealth of stories to tell.

Book trivia: in my opinion, this was the most complicated of Faulkner’s books if only because the plot was so involved.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Southern Fried Fiction” (p 206).

Septembering

gr4c5Leave a comment

I’m not exactly sure what September will bring. The renovations for the library are finally finished (with a crazy punch list, I might add). The backyard is complete minus the hot tub, fire pit and patio furniture (that’s stage II). I have a half mara in ten days so I’m anticipating a good run month. Here are the planned books:

  • Curse of the Pogo Stick by Colin Cotterill – to continue the series started in May in honor of Laos Rocket Day
  • Edwin Mullhouse: the life and death of an American Writer – to honor kids in September
  • Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng – Mao died of cancer in September.
  • Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry – Cold War ended in September
  • The Trial by Franz Kafka – September is the best month to visit the Czech Republic.
  • Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner – September is Southern Gospel month
  • Which Side are You On? by Elaine Harger – an Early Review from LibraryThing.

August Behind Me

gr4c5Leave a comment

August was…the final push to move back into the new library space. People who used to work there won’t recognize it. August was also the finishing of the deck and patio. It looks awesome. Sidelined by injury I only ran 60.86 miles this month. But. But! But, here are the books:

  • Anarchy and Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill
  • Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell (AB)
  • Lost City of Z by David Grann
  • The High and the Mighty by Ernest Gann
  • If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
  • Children in the Woods by Frederick Busch
  • Flora’s Suitcase by Dalia Rabinovich
  • ADDED: Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
  • ADDED: Dorothy Gutzeit: Be True and Serve by Dorothy Gutzeit (ER)

My favorite was Dogs of Riga followed by Anarchy and Old Dogs.

Murder of Roger Ackroyd

gr4c5Leave a comment

Christie, Agatha. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Read by Robin Bailey. Kingston, RI: BBC Audiobook America, 1987.

Reason read: Christie’s birth month and I had just finished a book following Christies’s footsteps, 8:55 to Baghdad by Andrew Eames.

Who has never heard of Hercule Poirot? He’s almost as popular as Sherlock Holmes. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Poirot emerges from retirement to uncover the killer of Roger Ackroyd, found with a knife in his neck. But, that is not the first death in the story. Mrs. Ferrars commits suicide after admitting she poisoned her husband.
It is easy to see why this story is such a classic. It has it all: secrets, romance, murder, suicide, blackmail, and a bevy of suspects (including a butler). The story is told from the perspective of Dr. James Settles, the doctor who was on hand to examine Roger Ackroyd’s body after the murder. He is the perfect narrator as he becomes Poirot’s right hand man and seems to be involved…in everything.

Author fact: Christie was also an avid archaeologist.

Book (audio) trivia: Robin Bailey does a great job with all the different voices.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Tricky, Tricky” (p 222).

Children in the Woods

gr4c5Leave a comment

Busch, Frederick. Children in the Woods. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1994.

Reason read: Busch’s birth month is in August.

Children in the Woods is made up of 23 short stories. Most of the stories are really bleak. It is advisable to parse them out over time. I read one a day and even that was a little much.

  • “Bread” – a young man and his sister have the difficult task of cleaning out their parents’s house after they are killed in a plane crash. As an aside, this was the first time I’d ever heard someone other than Phish reference cluster flies. Quote I liked, “I named the chicken Bunny because I’d never been permitted to own the rabbit my mother had promised me as consolation after she’d shattered my sixth year of life by disclosing that the Easter Bunny did not in fact bring jelly beans and marshmallow chicks the color of radioactive rocks” (p 4).
  • “Bring Your Friends to the Zoo” – an adulterous couple meets at the zoo so that one of them can end it. No lines to quote but there was the sardonic phrase, “We want it to be a happy day for you and all the animals” stated over and over.
  • “Is Anyone Left This Time of Year?” – a man comes to visit Ireland in November. Since it’s post-seasonal no one is around, literally and emotionally. Quote
  • “A three-Legged Race” – a mother tries to give her 12 year old son a birthday party. Line worth mentioning, “I married Mac because he was more of a virgin that I was” (p 41).
  • “The Trouble With Being Food” – an overweight man confronts his girlfriend’s ex-husband. Much like a repeating line in “Bring Your Friends to the Zoo” there was a repeating line in “Trouble.”
  • “How the Indians Came Home” – a woman’s troubled marriage is revealed. Line I liked a lot, “But you can’t have what you want, and sometimes you live with wrong mornings” (p 72).
  • “Widow Water” – plumber “saves” people.
  • “The Lesson of the Hotel Lotti” – a daughter struggles to understand her mother’s affair with a married man.
  • “My Father, Cont.” -a child is paranoid his father is planning to abandon him in the woods ala Hansel and Gretel.
  • “What You Might as Well Call Love” – Ben and Marge tackle a sump pump and their marriage.
  • “The Settlement on Mars” – Parents take separate vacations.
  • “Critics” – parents struggle with who wears the pants in the family.
  • “Stand, and Be Recognized” – a draft dodger visits an old friend. Line I liked, “Though certainly I knew as I went what I’d learned in coming home, that you cannot be haunted by ghosts of your choosing” (p 186).
  • “Ralph the Duck” – a security officer taking college classes rescues a co-ed from an attempted suicide.
  • “Dog Song” – a judge lies in a hospital room trying to remember the accident that put him there.
  • “One More Wave of Fear” – a family is plagued by squirrels in the attic.
  • “The World Began with Charlie Chan” – a late night talk radio host bullies people until a blast from his past rattles his chain.
  • “Extra Extra Large” – Brothers try to grow up. “We sat, not eating, to watch our father try to chew what amounted to everything we could offer him” (p 244).
  • “The Wicked Stepmother” – a librarian writes to her brother about their father’s new wife.
  • “Folk Tales” – A man remembers a brief correspondence he had a child with Albert Einstein.
  • “Dream Abuse” – a man’s nightmares haunt his wife.
  • “The Page” – a tale so sad I can’t even write about it.
  • “Berceuse” – Does a woman regret not having kids after meeting her ex-husband’s son?

Author fact: Busch won the 1991 PEN/Malamud award for distinguished short fiction.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Frederick Busch: Too Good To Miss” (p 48).

Flora’s Suitcase

gr4c5Leave a comment

Rabinovich, Dalia. Flora’s Suitcase. New York: HarperFlamingo, 1998.

Reason read: Columbia gained its independence in August.

Confessional: this is one of the few times I actually like magical realism. It works for Flora’s Suitcase. Flora is a woman trying to make a new life for herself and her family in Columbia. Originally from Cincinnati, Flora, her husband, David and newborn son, Sol emigrate to David’s homeland. Flora is caught between the traditions of her Jewish American upbringing and the spicy, colorful ones of her new family – David’s three all-knowing, overbearing sisters and their families. Add the escalating attentions of the male members of the family, an ever-growing brood of her own, and a bevy of inept maids and Flora’s life is pure chaos. She keeps a suitcase packed, ready to escape back to Cincinnati but somehow never seems to make it out the door.

Quotes that made me think. “Had Flora known that a mango sealed her fate, she would have lunged toward her husband and pushed him overboard” (p 4).

Author fact: Rabinovich was born in Columbia but lives in New York.

Book trivia: the cover for Flora’s Suitcase is at once arresting and at length interesting. Flora? sits off kilter on a windowsill with a closed suitcase at her feet. A parrot sits on the suitcase while another swoops in from above. Are they the reason she looks about ready to topple out the open window? She leans at an awkward angle with a hand in the air as if to say, Catch me!

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter obviously called “Hail, Columbia” (p 91).

If Beale Street Could Talk

gr4c5Leave a comment

Baldwin, James. If Beale Street Could Talk. New York: Laurel Book, 1974.

Reason read: Baldwin’s birth month is in August.

Part One: Troubled About My Soul
Nineteen year old Clementine breaks the news to her incarcerated twenty-two year old boyfriend she is pregnant. Then she has to tell Lonny’s family and her own. What follows is a typical commentary on out-of-wedlock teenage pregnancy when one parent is in jail. Of course the families do not agree on anything.
This is a stark portrayal of what it means to be black and poor in New York City. What we discover about Lonny is that he has been accused of rape by a woman who picks him out of a lineup. It’s an open and shut case thanks to a cop who has it in for the oft-in-trouble teen. Clementine’s mother is the most heroic, amazing character in the whole book.
Part Two: Zion
Questions. Will Fonny and Clementine’s families raise enough money for bail? Will Fonny survive prison? What are his chances of receiving a fair trial in such an unfair society? What is to come of his unborn child?

Quotes that caught me, “Trouble means you’re alone” (p 9) and “I am imprisoned somewhere in the silence of that wood, and so is he” (p 191).

Book trivia: You could read this in a day, but it’s too painful to do so.

Author fact: I am reading seven different books by Baldwin. I have finished three so far.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: He Say” (p 10).

Anarchy and Old Dogs

gr4c5Leave a comment

Cotterill, Colin. Anarchy and Old Dogs. New York: Soho, 2007.

Reason read: to continue the series started in May in honor of Laos Rocket Day. This is book four.

The opening scene sets the stage for the mystery: Dr. Buagaew, a retired blind dentist, has been run down by a logging truck after picking up a mysterious letter from the post office. Dr. Siri Paibaum, now 73 years old and still described as Laos’s reluctant coroner, must figure out who was Buagaew and why had he a letter written in invisible ink in his pocket when he died? Another death is far more disturbing. A ten year old boy is found dead in a river. He has two different rates of decomposition and his death doesn’t look accidental. Who would have wanted this boy dead and why?
For the most part, all of Siri’s friends are in Anarchy and Old Dogs except this time  Mr. Geung is recovering from his ordeal in Disco and is only brought up in mention at the beginning and end. Dtui’s mother has died and best friend Civilai has a new secret.

An element of Cotterill’s writing that makes the Dr. Siri series so interesting is his “cross -contamination” of characters. Siri was inspired by Inspector Maigret who is a character of mysteries written by Georges Simeon.

Cotterill also includes a running commentary on the political climate. Laos has reached a point where the Communism government has become increasingly oppressive. Oppressive to the point that “even the death of livestock, even from natural causes, had to be accounted for in writing” (p 3).

Other quotes I thought worth mentioning, “But he felt bad about pulling out the wrong teeth and that” (p 31), ” When you are drinking with a corpse there is no such thing as irreverence” (p 38) and “As many counterrevolutionaries would have you know, when in the midst of diverting a national crisis, there is always the case for taking a little time off for tourism” (p 139).

Author fact: Cotterill has taught in Australia.

Book trivia: Anarchy is the fourth book in the Dr. Siri series. I said that already, but that’s all I got on this one.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Laos” (p 128).

High and the Mighty

gr4c5Leave a comment

Gann, Ernest. The High and the Mighty. New York: William Sloan Associates, 1953.

Reason read: August is Aviation month.

Ignore the dated details like being introduced to your flight crew before boarding, stewardesses taking your coats as you settle into your seat, it being permissible to smoke once en route and so on…and you will have the classic tale of impending tragedy. The story unfolds in the typical fashion. Readers are introduced to the crew, warts and all. Then, the passengers and all their bad habits. Typical of a suspense thriller is the sense of foreboding. Something is wrong but no one can quite put a finger on the exact problem. Everyone, passengers and crew alike, noticed something “off” but either can’t articulate the worry or just pass it off as part of an overcautious imagination. As a result everyone on board flight four-two-zero keeps mum until it’s too late. It’s extremely interesting to watch the fear build in lead controversial character, Dan Roman.

As an aside, I have a 1953 copy of The High and the Mighty and it is covered in stains and full of small rips. This was a oft-read book!

Author fact: Gann wrote many, many other novels. I am reading Fate is the Hunter and Hostage to Fortune as well.

Book trivia: Best seller. Also made into a movie in 1954 starring who else? John Freaking Wayne. Need. To. See. This.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called what else? “Flying High Above the Clouds” (p 89).

Sign of the Four

gr4c5Leave a comment

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. Sign of the Four: The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Vol. 1. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1930.

Reason read: in memory of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who died in July (1930).

Originally published in 1889, this is the second Sherlock Holmes mystery. We meet Dr. Watson’s future bride-to-be, Mary Morstan.
One of the most  prominent characteristics of Sherlock Holmes’s personality is his cheeky hubris, especially when he makes comments like, “Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs” (p 4), or “I cannot live without brainwork” (p 8). Aside from his ego, Holmes carries a sharp sense of reasoning and deduction and of course, the acute ability to draw unsuspecting witnesses out of their privacy, getting them to spill the beans by pretending to know everything they do already. An age-old police tactic.

To sum up the complicated mystery: it involves a secret pact between four criminals, a treasure and Mary Morstan. Mary’s father has been missing for ten years. He disappeared without a trace. Four years after his disappearance Mary started received a pearl a year from an unknown benefactor. Where’s rumor of a hidden treasure.

As an aside, it’s the sign of the times when I am shocked to read the details of Sherlock Holmes’s drug use – he’s shooting up cocaine on the opening page.

Author fact: Doyle’s full name is Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle.

Book trivia: This is the second Holmes mystery in the series.

BookLust Twist: sort of from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 123), but not really. Pearl lists The Complete Sherlock Holmes but tCSH is made up of four novels and 56 short stories. In all fairness I wanted to list them separately.