Tag: march

Industrial Valley

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Kitty readsMcKenney, Ruth. Industrial Valley. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co, 1939.

I love first editions of books. I don’t know why. As a rule I don’t collect books based on what edition they are, first or last. Generally, I like books for what is between the covers. Still. I can’t help but be a little excited by reading the first edition of Industrial Valley. Please don’t ask me why.

The controversy surrounding Industrial Valley reminded me of the controversy Billy Joel faced when he wrote “Allentown.” In the begining townspeople didn’t really care too much for Joel’s bleak description of factory life. Yet, it was the truth. Ashamed or proud, that’s how it was. Same with Akron, Ohio. “Rubbertown” as some would call it.
Industrial Valley was written in a diary-like format. Near daily events, both political and social, between January 1, 1932 and March 21, 1936, recount Akron’s depressed economic state. Some entries seem unrelated to the depression (a boy’s death after being hit by a truck) while others hammer home the effect the ecomony had on daily life in an obvious manner (the suicide of a man who couldn’t feed his family). In the end, it was the historic Goodyear strike that changed the industrial climate. Democracy reined.

Favorite lines: “The bitter realities of unemployment and salary cuts conquered, in the end, any sophorific West Hill could imbibe” (p 60).
“All of Akron jumped like a housewife getting a shock from a loose electric wire on her washing machine” (p 219).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “Big Ten Country: The Literary Miswest (Ohio)” (p 29).

Drowning Season

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Hoffman, Alice. The Drowning Season. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979.

When I first started reading The Drowning Season I was reminded of Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris. Not for the style of writing, the use of language – but rather, the struggle between females within a family. In Yellow Raft you think you should despise the mother because of how she leaves her child. Then you learn of the mother’s past and you think you should hate the grandmother..until you hear her story. It’s all in the hands of perception. Same with The Drowning Season. Esther the Black was born to hate her grandmother. Her father named her as an insult to his mother, Esther the White. Everyone knows you don’t name a child after the living, only the dead. Because Esther the White rules the family with harsh words and a hating heart, even insisting that the family live in seclusion, Esther the Black has had a compromised upbringing. She longs for the day when she can escape not only Long Island, but her grandmother as well. But, then there is the grandmother’s view of the world. She bears resentment for having to raise her son’s child while he fantasizes about suicide every summer and his wife tilts the gin bottle back a little too often. Each generation, grandmother and granddaughter, has her own demons to battle. The Drowning Season is the story of how they go to battle against each other and eventually, when love conquers all, for each other.  

Favorite lines: “Phillip had named his daughter on a hot August day, with an ancient hostility and a smile” (p 5).
“And the beatings began when the house grew too small with winter…” (p49).
“Esther the Black was silent; she wished she could cry, but the sadness never seemed to reach her eyes – it stuck in her throat, unable to be moved” (p 196). 

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “A…My Name is Alice” (p 1) and the chapter called, “Families in Trouble” (p 82).

Lone Star

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Fehrenbach, T.R., Lone Star: a History of Texas and the Texans. New York: American Legacy Press, 1983.

I had to keep reminding myself Fehrenbach was not actually in Texas 40,000 years ago because his book, Lone Staris so detailed, so expansive that it felt like he should have been. In 719 pages Fehrenbach details every aspect of Texas one could imagine. From practically primordial beginnings to present day the birth, growth and development of Texas is detailed. Everything from agriculture, architecture and attitude to wars (civil and great) is meticulously described. Other reviews have used the words expansive, panoramic, extensive, vast, comprehensive, detailed…and I would have to agree. Not a stone in Texas is left unturned when it comes to recounting the political, the people, the powers, the progression of the state. What sets this book apart from other histories of Texas is the fact that Fehrenbach is from Texas. One can hear the passion for his home state woven into every knowledgeable sentence.

Favorite quotes: “Yet, such is human ingenuity that no other species ever used the resources of a country more fully: the Coahuiltecans consumed spiders, ant eggs, lizards, rattlesnakes, worms, insects, rotting wood, and deer dung” (p 14), and “…a citizen army had won battles, but it could not be used by its government as an instrument of policy during the peace” (p 243).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “Texas: A Lone Star State of Mind” (p 233).

Saint Mike

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saint mikeOster, Jerry. Saint Mike. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.

I love it when a book has me scratching my head and asking why in the first chapter. In Saint Mike it actually took the last paragraph at the end of the first chapter before the “huh?” kicked in, but just imagine this: two knights jousting in a field. At the end of the battle one of the knights unscrews his sword to reveal a vial of cocaine. After a good snort he gives it to his jousting mate and tells him they’ll get breakfast afterwards. The kicker is, the scene is neither here nor there in the overall description of the book as described by Nancy Peal in Book Lust, “When Susan Van Meter’s federal narcotics investigator husband is found murdered…she leaves her research position and takes on the task of tracking down and bringing to justice the murderer” (p 6).
I enjoyed every page of Saint Mike. With such a heavy plot (drugs, murder, avenging wife, federal agents) I didn’t expect such playful, witty, sexy language. Granted, there are some really weird scenes (yes, the armor comes back and someone dies by the sword in the most unusual way, but that’s all I’ll say about that). Overall it was an entertaining, fast read.

Favorite scene: I urge every parent of a child on the verge of becoming a teenager to read pages 12-14. Susan is trying to get her daughter up for breakfast, “The sound of drugs and drug paraphernalia and semiautomatic weapons being thrown out the window” (p 13). It’s hysterical.
Favorite line: “Rita tossed her head like a fandango dancer. “It is not just the penis that is flawed; it is the whole organism.”” (p 15).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Action Heroines” (p 5).

Bethlehem Road Murder

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Gur, Batya. Bethlehem Road Murder. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.

I have a confession to make. Bethlehem Road Murder is the last book in a series recommended by Pearl. I should have read this one last. Dead last. Instead I read it first. Oh well.

I read Bethlehem Road Murder at the same time as The Concubine’s Tattoo and immediately I was struck by a huge similarity between the two stories (besides the fact they are from the same chapter in More Book Lust). Both books are centered around the murder of a woman. Both women were strikingly young and beautiful. Both women had experience as fighters (one in the army, one as a samurai). Both women had secret lovers and complicated histories. Both women were in the early stages of pregnancy at the time of death (which always throws a wrench into the question of motive).

Bethlehem Road Murder takes place in Jerusalem in a community locked in the ancient culture of Israeli society. They have their own way of governing; their own way of thinking. In the middle of this community lies a mystery. A beautiful woman is brutally murdered. Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon must investigate the crime and solve the mystery while keeping within in line with the constraints of the rules of a close-knit community. Political and religion tensions between Jews and Arabs only serve to complicate the case. Of course, no murder mystery would not be complete without a little romantic intrigue and psychological guess work. Gur does not disappoint.

Favorite lines: “Each time he stood over a corpse…he imagined he felt every bone of his body and his skull laughing derisively beneath his flesh” (p 7). “Don’t you know that all real estate agents are crooks?” (p 9). I had to laugh at that one because just having gone through the process of buying a house for the first time my realtor is a saint!

Note: I think this was the first book I have ever read that included a no-nonsense account of most every detail of an autopsy.

BookLust Twist: In More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Crime is a Globetrotter: Israel” (p 58).

Daniel Plainway

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Reid, Van. Daniel Plainway, or, the Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath League. New York: Viking, 2000.

 One of the reasons why I love reading books that take place in Maine is because I can identify with most of the locations. Another reason is that sometimes I get to reconnect to a place I haven’t thought about (or heard about) in years. Such is the case with Veazie, Maine.

How to describe this book? I think I’m a little thrown off because Daniel Plainway is part of a series (of which I didn’t read the first or even second book). It’s like coming into a discussion when it’s two-thirds over. Daniel Plainway is a Maine country lawyer who is trying to solve the mystery of the disappearance of a neighboring family. When a portrait of his neighbor’s daughter is rediscovered, Daniel begins a journey that changes his life. Along the way he meets the members of the Moosepath League and that’s when the fun really begins.
Reid writes with hilarity. One of my favorite scenes is when there is an attempted robbery of the Moosepath League members. The robber, young and inexperienced, fumbles with the gun, slips on the ice and snow, and somehow hands his gun over to a member of the Moosepath League, knocking himself and the others down. The League members do not realize they are being robbed and try to give the man back his gun and offer him money for his troubles – for they think they are responsible for knocking the young man over. “He considered Thump’s card through a blur of tears, realizing that he had just tried to rob three men, and in return they might have saved his life” (p 51).
Another great scene is when the members of the Moosepath League are trying to deliver a letter. There is great confusion as to exactly who the letter should go to. In the end, after they think they has successfully did their duty, they do not know how to leave, “There mission completed (however unpleasantly) the members of the club wondered, in collective silence, if they should be moving on to other things, primarily any other things that would take them some distance from the present scene” (p 92).

Favorite singular lines: “Gerald Pinkney and Daniel Plainway had known each other since their days at Colby, and Daniel had always thought of Gerald as a slightly antagonized bee” (p 16). I just love the imagery of this “slightly antagonized bee.”
“Those quickest to kindness are also quickest to forget when they are kind” (p 94).

BookLust Twist: In Book Lustin the chapter, “Van Reid and the Moosepath League: Too Good To Miss” (p 199).

Concubine’s Tattoo

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Rowland, Laura Joh. The Concubine’s Tattoo. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

In addition to being a great 17th century Japanese murder mystery The Concubine’s Tattoo is a commentary on honor and relationships. Sano Ichirois the shogun’s investigator who has recently celebrated an arranged marriage. In both his professional and personal life Sano must balance a code of conduct that is morally, politically and, of course, honorably sound. Sano’s latest case (on the night of his wedding no less) is the murder of the shogun’s favorite concubine. Entwined in this murder are complications concerning an heir, long standing cultural differences and rivalries. Rowland displays Sano’s progress on the case through the eyes of Sano’s new wife Reiko, his enemy Chamberlain Yanagisawa, his partner Hirata, and Sano himself as well as many other fascinating characters. One of the best enjoyments of Rowland’s book is her vivid, descriptive use of imagery. The details are so sensuous and alluring. They exquisitely cater to all five senses. Here are two quotes I particularly liked, “Her voice was a husky murmur that insinuated its way into Hirata’s mind like a dark, intoxicating smoke” (p 86), and “The cold air had a lung-saturating dampness” (p 166). 

One other detail I thought I should point out – Rowland is not afraid to describe vivid sex scenes of varying natures. Man on man, woman on woman, husband and wife, illicit seductions, and even rape. The scenes while reminiscent of lusty bodice-rippers are not overly flowery or “heaving.”

BookLust Twist: In More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Crime is a Globetrotter: China” (p 60).

Three Roads to the Alamo

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Davis, C. William, Three Roads to the Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999.

When I first picked up Three Roads I thought to myself there is no way I want to carry this thing around with me. It’s nearly 800 pages long, and despite the pages being super thin, it’s a heavy book. However, when I quickly calculated that in order to finish Three Roads by the end of March (the month Texas became a state), I would need to read over 40 pages a day I decided carry it around, I would! 
When I read the reviews for Davis’s book one word always seemed to pop up: exhaustive. Exhaustive research, exhaustive detail, exhaustive portraits, exhaustive this, exhaustive that. It’s true. There is so much detail given to not only the personalities and lives of Crockett, Bowie, and Travis, but to the culture and landscape of both politics and era as well. It’s as if the reader is witness to the pioneering growth of Louisiana, Texas and Virginia by default. History, politics and geography all rolled into one book.
Because not much is known about Crockett, Bowie and Travis each has become a legend beyond compare. Using as much information as he was able to research (exhaustively) Davis does a great job trying to dispel rumor and myth surrounding each man, admitting that these are men of folklorish proportions, but not much of it can be substantiated.
Confession: knowing there was no way I was going to finish this in time I skipped to the last chapter of the book. It is, of course, the end of Crockett, Bowie and Travis. Davis paints a tragic picture of what their last days must have been like in Alamo, Texas. The one image that kept playing in my mind was the uncertainty of their fates. When their families did not hear from them they could only speculate and worry. Word travelled slowly in those days. A telegram dispatched two weeks earlier can give loved ones the impression you are still alive despite the fact you died the next day.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Texas: Lone Star State of Mind” (p 233).

HUGE woops. This was supposed to be published last month!

Continental Drift

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continental driftBanks, Russell. Continental Drift. New York: HarperPerennial, 2007.

This book was spellbinding.
Thing on LibraryThing: Russell Banks really knows how to tell a good story. On the surface, it’s about Bob Dubois and his downward spiral. Bob is a New Hampshire man who seems to have it all: a wife, two kids, a decent job, a house, a boat to take out on the weekends and even a girlfriend on the side. His problem: greed. He is a man who compares himself too often to the people around him: his brother, his best friend. He doesn’t let go of grudges or jealousies all that easily. Feeling like the man who has nothing to lose, he gives up everything to move to Florida for a “fresh start.” His tale is just the vessel for Banks to describe a society fueled by the overwhelming need for more and more. Excess is not enough. Bob soon learns the meaning of “good enough” when his life spins out of control.
One of my favorite parts is about halfway through the book, the two brothers, Bob and Eddie, are trying to have a conversation. Each one takes a turn to say something then the other responds. Only they aren’t talking about the same thing. Bob is trying to explain to Eddie that he (Eddie) needs to take away a handgun because Bob doesn’t understand himself anymore. He’s afraid of what would happen if the gun stays in his possession. Eddie responds that he has ulcers and his epilepsy has come back. Bob says he doesn’t want to kill anyone and Eddie reponds that he hates fukcing his wife. It’s comical and sad.

My favorite quotes:
“He’s never skied on water before; in fact, he’s never skied on any kind of surface, despite having been raised where people drive from cities hundreds of miles away just so they can spend a few hours careening down mountains on slats strapped to their feet” (p150). Having gone to school in “ski country” yet never skied, I can identify with this!
“She and her father never speak of the event again, not to each other and not to anyone else. There’s nothing to say about it to each other that is not already fully understood, so they remain silent about it, almost as if it never happened” (p 176). Can’t you just see this scene in a movie?
“There’s a mixture of passivity and will that he does not understand. They risk everything, their homes, their families, forsake all they know, and then strike out across the open sea for a place they’ve only heard about” (p 340). What struck me about this quote is where it’s coming from: Bob. Doesn’t he realize he’s just like them?

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust and the chapter “It Was a Dark and Stormy Novel” (p 129). Pearl isn’t kidding. I’m surprised this hasn’t been made into a movie yet.

Bluest Eye

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IMG_0663 Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Plume, 1970.

The LibraryThing Review:
“Because The Bluest Eye doesn’t have a traditional storyline plot the reader is free to concentrate on the complexities of the characters. The entire work is like a patchwork quilt of human suffering. Each character a different patch of sadness and survival. With each square, the ugly underbelly of society is exposed: poverty, racism, rape, incest, abuse, violence…Toni Morrison is the eye that never blinks in the face of such harsh subjects.”

These are the quotes that stopped me short. “They did not talk, groan or curse during these beatings. There was only the muted sound of falling things, and flesh on unsurprised flesh” (p 43). It’s the word ‘unsurprised’ that speaks volumes.
“He urges his eyes out of his thoughts to encounter her” (p 49). Another way of describing a deep-seeded prejudice.

One aspect of this novel that caught me up was the narrator hearing certain words in colors like light green, black and red. I have done the same thing with my imagination. I see words as certain shades or hues. Aside from the colors, this was a hard book to read and I can’t say anything that hasn’t already been said.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust and the chapter called “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Ohio)” (p 29).

Dalva

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Harrison, Jim. Dalva. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1988.Dalva

What I wrote on LibraryThing:
There are two elements that make this story compelling: the characters and the sweeping shadow of history under which they live. Dalva is supposed to be the main character, but her story is told through the richness of the other characters. Michael, the alcoholic professor bumbling his way through Dalva’s history in attempt to reach tenure; Duane, Dalva’s teenage half Sioux love; Dalva’s mother, Naomi; Uncle Paul and the diaries of her great-grandfather, the missionary who first came to Nebraska.

There are more quotes than this, but here are my favorites:
“You are at an age when you are not to yourself as you are to others” (p 51).
“I rehearsed my entire life and heard my heart for the first time” (p 56). Who hasn’t done this at least once?
“It’s not what turns one on, but what turns one on the most strongly” (p 61). Good explanation for the fickle.
“There was a loud noise that turned out to be my yelling, which I managed to do while running backwards” (p 115). Just a really funny image.
“In these semi-angry moods or after she had a few drinks she owned the edge of a predator” (p 122). Aren’t we all?
“Nebraska strikes one as a place where it never occurs to the citizens to leave” (p 126). I think that’s why I don’t know of anyone from Nebraska.
“Some wise soul said that grownups are only deteriorated children” (p 257).
“My mind so clear it shivered inside” (p 296).

The one thing I didn’t care for was the sense of false advertising I got from the description of the book – “this is the story of Dalva’s search for her lost son who was given away for adoption.” Out of a 324 page book it wasn’t until page 221 that Dalva has a serious dialogue about finding her son. Up until then it isn’t mentioned barely at all. That only leaves 103 pages for the story of searching. In truth, I found the first 221 pages were spent explaining Dalva’s past and the important people in her life. They all have stories to tell and fascinating ones at that!
BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust actually twice – once in the chapter “The Great Plains: Nebraska” (p 108) and again in “Men Channeling Women” (p 166).

Carter Clay

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IMG_0624
Evans, Elizabeth. Carter Clay: a Novel. New York: HarperFlamingo, 1999.

The LibraryThing review:
The premise of Carter Clay is a guilty conscience. Instantly, I was brought back to Charles Dickens because same could have said for Great Expectations. In Great Expectations, Pip becomes a gentleman through the generosity of a convict Pip was forced to help earlier in his life. When he first finds out, he is disappointed his benefactor isn’t someone more appropriate to society’s standards. In Carter Clay there is a similar parallel. Carter Clay is a homeless drunk who accidentally plows his van into a family, killing the father and seriously wounding the mother and daughter. His guilt and sense of debt drive him to be close to his victims, to care for them as penance. Additional factors, such as the man who wants to kill him, complicate the plot.
While I was impressed by the way Evans tells the story, weaving past and present through the different voices, I didn’t find her writing quotable. Nothing grabbed me in that way. Character development was my favorite. From flashbacks you got a sense of how everyone used to be before the accident. But, those flashbacks are subjective to human emotion and the desire to remember things a certain way which may or may not reflect reality. I found the psychology of what has or hasn’t changed for each character very interesting.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust and the chapters “Florida Fiction” (p 90) because most of the plot (and accident) happens in Florida, and “Teenage Times” (p 217) because Jersey, the daughter paralyzed in the accident, is a central character.

Great Expectations

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Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Believe it or not, I had never read this before. Not in high school, not in college, not in fun. Go figure. It’s a classic which translated (back in the day) into the assumption of being boring. It was written in 1861 which translated into practically a foreign language (ekerval?). All that translated into me being narrow minded. Great Expectations is wonderful. It opens with Pip (our young main character) encountering an escaped convict in a field. The convict threatens bodily harm if Pip can’t produce some food and, of course, a file. Why was Pip targeted? His brother-in-law is a blacksmith. Of course he is going to have instruments strong enough to tackle something like…leg irons. So, it starts out pretty exciting and not at all unrealizable.

Here are some of my (early) favorite quotes from Pip’s life with his sister and her husband, Joe:
“She concluded by throwing me – I often served as a connubial missle- at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me onto the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg” (p 7).
“My sister having much to do, was going to church vicariously; that is to say, Joe and I were going” (p 20). While Pip’s sister is seen as cruel I cannot help but find humor in both these passages.
After Pip decides to become a gentleman he makes an observation that struck me: “So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise” (p 206). Estrella, his love interest, has another observation akin to Pip’s: “I’ll tell you what real love is…It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter…! (p 227).

The LibraryThing review:
“A classic from Charles Dickens. All of the characters are so well developed that the reader cannot help but drawn into their individual plots. From Pip, the blacksmith apprentice turned gentleman in the making (and the hero of our story) to Miss Havisham, a wealthy woman locked away in self-induced seclusion. “

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust and the chapter “A Dickens of a Tale” (p 72). It’s funny that Pearl laments about Dickens having to be a high school mandatory read that students had to “choke down” because many of the reviews I have read recently about Great Expectations mention having to read it in this manner.

A is for Alibi

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Grafton, Sue. A is for Alibi. New York: Henry Holt & Co., Inc. 1982.

My mother-in-law was surprised to see me reading a Sue Grafton mystery. Mysteries have never been my thing. I don’t think she was convinced even when I explained that it was a Book Lust recommendation. I kept saying things like “I have to…” and “it’s on my list…” and still I got the skeptical stare. I’ve decided to loan her my “lists” in other words, my Lust books because I also have to read the F & Q books from Grafton.

I was struck by how much I have in common with Kinsey Millhone, Grafton’s main character. She dedicates Sundays to herself. I used to dedicate Friday with the same to do list: “laundry, housecleaning, grocery shopping. I even shaved my legs to show that I still had some class.” (p82) Kinsey runs even though she’s not good at it. She has conversations with her body when she runs. Me, too – although I could call mine arguments and not conversations. She’s big on breakfast. She drives fast. She even feels the same way I do about dogs if not plants. “I don’t know a lot about houseplants, but when all the green things turn brown, I’d take that as a hint.” (p. 33) Me, I’m a plant person. I may kill one or two along the way but if one dies I consider it suicide, taking one for the team.

Seriously, similarities aside I liked Sue Grafton’s first “alphabet” mystery. Kinsey is cool, as she should be. The mystery she was trying to solve had all the important gun on the table elements: murders, clues, infidelities, suspicions, low lifes, and more sex. My only disappointment? I had the culprit picked out before the end. Why? He was too good to be true.

BookLust Twist: Pearl has a huge mystery list in Book Lust. A is for Alibi comes from the chapter called, I Love a Mystery” (p 117).

7 1/2 Cents (with Spoiler)

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Bissell, Richard.  71/2 Cents. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1953.Bissell

This was a fun read. I loved the wit, the humor of Bissell’s main character, Sidney Sorokin. He’s the new superintendent of the Sleep Tite Pajama factory in lovely, just-not-Chicago, Junction City, Iowa. With a sharp sense of humor he tells his story of romance and industry, ulcers and alcohol.  
The “gun on the table” in 7 1/2 Cents  is an unavoidable strike if the workers don’t get a 7 1/2 cent raise. At the center of the controversy is Sid’s girl, Babe. She’s a worker in the Sleep Tite factory and the ring leader for a industry-ending slow down. She’s beautiful, smart and funny. Of course she leads Sid around by the you-know-what. He’s so smitten he not only gets her her 7 1/2 cent raise he proposes to her in the end. You many think I spoiled the entire story, but I didn’t. There’s more to the book that inspired the musical “The Pajama Game.”

BookLust Twist: From the chapter “The Book Lust of Others” in More Book Lust (p.34). 7 1/2 Cents was mentioned as an aside. Bissell’s other book, “High Water” was the featured read in the chapter.