We're All In This Together by Owen King -- A Book Review

Photo: Book's cover, from its Goodreads page

Extremely good writing here, in Owen King's first effort, which I decided to read after having read his recent collaboration with his more-famous father, Sleeping Beauties. The self-titled novella is a bit over-written about in the promos, and it took awhile to grow on me, but the shorter stories are excellent.

More Jack Ketchum than Stephen King, Owen King does sad and weird very well, which I mean as a compliment. (I'm thinking of Ketchum's excellent and sad zombie stories as I write this.) The stories here, though, also have an odd scariness, more of the everyday and common-to-life variety, I guess. There's a 1930s ballplayer who's bringing his kind-of girlfriend to an alley abortionist and wondering if he's a decent person: "Wonders." (That scene isn't to be missed--and it's not grisly at all.) There's a tooth-pulling in a locale straight out of The Revenant--and this in 2006, long before that movie: "Frozen Animals." There's a sad and strange story about life-drifting people who would seem like losers if they weren't like so many of us, and perhaps most of us: "My Second Wife." As I said, the novella picks up steam halfway through and is touching and meaningful by the end, and has perhaps the best fleshed-out characters. One story, about a lost teenage boy running into a shyster and his snake at a hole-in-the-wall mall didn't really work for me, but has things in common with the other stories that worked in those.

The end result is a memorable read, with scenes very Tarantino-like, more of a build-up to a tense payoff than anything horrifying. The writing and characterization are really very good, up to par with his father's characterization at his best, and frankly the overall writing is better here--though Stephen King is a much better storyteller. Overall I prefer Owen King here to anything Joe Hill, his more-famous brother, has written, though in fairness I haven't given Hill's stuff a very serious look. I have given it a serious effort, though--and just can't get into it. Owen King's stuff was much easier to dive into. One wonders why Owen King hasn't become more popular, especially since he shares the famous last name that Hill has gone out of his way to distance himself from. Maybe Owen King hasn't written as much, and not in the same genre. 

Contest Winner!

Photo: Cover of Spring 2012's Space and Time Magazine, with my first sold story, "Hide the Weird."

And the winner of the contest, of all the comments on the entry announcing the publication of my last story, is......

Jonathan N.!!!

Jonathan, you've won the issue of Space and Time Magazine.  I've emailed you via the one you gave me.

Thanks to everyone, from Rhode Island to Australia, who commented and participated.

And thanks for reading!

Please stay tuned for more contests and prizes to come.  Prizes will be different, too.

Speaking of that, on my blog Steve's Baseball Blog--Cards and Commentary, I mentioned in my last blog entry today that I will be having contests over there as well, giving away one free 1909-1911 T206 card. These cards are extras of my collection, and are not professionally graded by SGC, PSA or anyone else. But they're cool cards, worth at least ten bucks or more, even in bad condition.

Do you have any collections of anything?  If so, what's your specific favorite in that collection?

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King--Book Review

Photo: Book's cover art, from its Wikipedia page.

Mr. Mercedes is a much better book than King's last, the truly terrible Dr. Sleep.  (Is he starting a trend of putting titles in his titles?)  It is compulsively readable, as always--as is even his really bad stuff--but it is also better told, without author intrusion or author judgment.  He does not judge his characters here, and he even seems to go a bit out of his way to not let his characters judge each other, as well.  The result is a quick, satisfying read that's a bit skimpy on the supernatural--a pattern for King now as well, it seems.

It starts like an episode of Law & Order might, with a longishly short segment on some soon-to-be victims of a guy who purposely plows a stolen Mercedes into a line of people.  Soon we turn to a typical burned-out cop who's about to eat his gun--that is, until Mr. Mercedes (Get it?) sends him a taunting letter.  This revitalizes the cop, and the search is afoot.

It's told via differing limited-but-omniscient third-person POVs (another King staple) between the perp (who incorrectly refers to himself as the "perk") and the retired cop.  There's nothing in the perp's life we haven't seen before (including a sad little brother right out of "The Scarlet Ibis"), but it's told directly and honestly, and we believe it.  (If you've been watching Bates Motel, you already know almost everything there is to know.)  There's some good stuff about how this guy is all around us--that such people "walk among us," which is another common theme lately in King's work--and there's a bit of computer savvy here that almost is too much, but stops just short.  The peripheral characters in these guys' lives all ring true.  King took pains not to be as lazy with his characters as he was in Dr. Sleep.  Every single character rings true here.

The obligatory younger woman is here, just as she was in 11/22/63 and Bag of Bones, and it seems as real here as it did in those.  Which means, not so much.  This is one of the two minor caveats here: The protagonist's relationship with a woman almost twenty years younger (He's 62 and she's 44, but still...) is so unrealistic that almost everyone in the novel comments on it--especially the guy, who keeps saying to himself that he's unattractive, very overweight, and almost twenty years older than the woman, who's described as very pretty.  And she, of course, comes on to him.  Very, very directly, I might add.  This worked a lot better in 11/22/63 and in Bag of Bones.  As you read, you'll see why it's necessary for the plot, for the main character's motivation at the end, but still...It doesn't bother me too much, except that it's a pattern by now in his work, and it really sticks out in this narrative.  More of an itch than a problem, I guess.  The reader will roll his eyes and easily move on...

There's a lot to like here, especially with the minor characters.  King gets a bit maudlin with one of them, the way Robert B. Parker did with Hawk, and it works as well here as it did for Parker--which, again, means not so much.  This is the second minor caveat.  It could've been cut and nothing would've been lost.  Now that I write about it, I see that this bothers me more than the relationship did in the paragraph above.  But, again, it was easy for me to roll my eyes and move on.  I actually skipped those passages as they came.  You'll see what I mean when you read it.  Feel free to skip those spots as well.  You won't miss anything.

Anyway, this is a likeable read with mostly-likeable characters, except for Mr. Mercedes, his mom, and a certain aunt.  I read its 436 pages in a few days.  It's not his best, but it's far from his worst, which is sort of all I hope from King these days.  That sounds depressing, but I don't mean it to be.  It's like watching a Hall of Fame ballplayer in his last few years.  Good enough is good enough (exactly the opposite of what I believe for most things in life), and you smile as you compare what's in front of you with what used to be.  Not a bad thing, at least for me.

Though I'm still waiting for him to write something really scary again.  It's been too long...

Quick Jots of November 12th

Photo: from the AP's Bullitt Marquez, on msn.com.

Some very quick randomness:

--I sold my pool over the summer, but I kept the cover for it because the guy didn't want it.  I just used it to cover my best firewood and my expensive double Adirondack seat, and my entire shed porch.  You can never have too many things, like plastic or pool covers, that can cover other things.

--Just saw a gorgeous, fiery-red sunset.  But, baby, it's cold outside.

--I love firepits and fireplaces, but they dry up my sinuses to the point that my face is inflamed, or I get nosebleeds, or both.  You just can't win.

--Because I don't want to run the heat all winter and pay a ton for it, too.

--And it's going to be a very cold winter, much more so than usual.  I hope I'm wrong.

--It took me about four hours to clean out and organize my shed the other day.  And the entire second shelf of the large unit just inside has a ton of little black pellets on it, if you know what I mean.

--I took my North and my Route 95 signs down from the chimney yesterday, and hung it up in the garage.  I'm thinking that I don't want the metal freezing to the chimney bricks, and maybe ruining some of the brick.  Am I wrong for thinking this?

--This time of year makes me feel very content and homey, yet sometimes very blah and heavy as well.  Gotta keep busy...

--I don't write as much or as often as I should.  Do I have reasons, or excuses?

--The only shows I watch right now are The Universe; American Pickers; The Walking Dead; and American Horror Story.  I'm so busy, I've even missed a few Patriot games recently.

--What happened in the Philippines this weekend is terrible, and it's only going to get worse, as people get very sick from stomach and intestinal illnesses due to the bad water.

--And the storms that hit it will get more and more massive in the future, as well.

--80% of everything in the storm's track was flattened, and so many people have died that they're just laying in the streets.  And I thought I was having a bad day.

--And they just had a strong earthquake last week that also killed many.

--The health care website has been a huge pothole in Obama's otherwise stellar and productive years.

--Nobody from any other party has managed to take advantage of this, and Hilary still looks like the sure bet in the next election.

--I voted for her before; I'd vote for her again.

Signs You Have Too Many Books

Photo: The Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library, Manhattan

I realized recently--okay, I've had this "realization" frequently over the years--that I have a book-hoarding problem.  You know, like those people on the show Hoarders, who have psychotic breaks when a professional therapist, visiting the squalid house, tells them that pooping and peeing on their stereo speakers because they have too much stuff in the way to make it to the bathroom is not a normal thing?  Well, I'm not that bad, as my floors and hallways are mostly bare, but I have lots of piles of books in the living room, on the table, and on the kitchen table, and in my office on my desks and chairs.  I have books in seven bookcases in the house, and in about nine boxes in the garage, and in a giant bookcase in the spare office/bedroom downstairs, which has ten deep bookshelves.

If this sounds like you, these are signs enough that you have a book-hoarding problem.  But here are a few more signs that you have too many books:

--You find yourself reading six books at once, and yet you still look for more things to read.

--You realize that fifteen bookcases are not close to enough to hold all of your books.

--Your reading material in your bathroom impedes your path to your "favorite chair."

--And you look forward to needing to go to the bathroom so that you can read.

--You read much more than you need to in order to research your novel or story.

--You have so many books that you actually consider opening your own free library, somehow.

--Except that you don't want anyone else reading your books.

--You have so many books that you end up getting duplicates at yard sales or library sales because you forgot you had them to begin with.

--You buy books that your friends want to borrow from you because you don't want them to read yours.

--You own every book ever written by Stephen King, and Robert B. Parker, and Jonathan Kellerman, and Mickey Spillane, all of whom have written at least 40 books each.

--You've forgotten which books are in the seven or eight boxes in the attic and basement.

--You have about fifty anthologies of short stories, poems and short novels.

--You still have all of the books you ever needed to read in college, and you majored in English and Philosophy.  That's a lot of required reading.

--You tell your friends that they should ask you if you have a book before they buy it, even though you have no intention of ever letting them borrow one.  (See the comment five bullets above.)

--You have to instigate a policy of no book-buying for yourself.

--You promise yourself that you'll just get new books from the library, so that you can read them without being driven to keep them.  And you know you won't follow through with this.

--You say to yourself that you won't buy anything new until you've finished reading all of the books you have, even though this couldn't possibly happen during what's left of your lifetime.

--You realize that you'd rather stay at home and read a lot rather than go to Disneyland or some such thing during your vacation.

--You think that the best thing about summers is the reading you can do on your house deck or in your house in the central air.

--Your favorite characters are more endearing to you than are your favorite people.

--You realize that you like more characters than you do real people.  And you're okay with this.

--You think that e-readers of any kind are blasphemous.

--You have books by Wilkie Collins on your computer desktop.  Unread.

--You think that one of the best things about finishing a book is the review you'll write on Goodreads.

--Or for the blog entry, of course.

--You've considered wall-papering a wall with small posters of your favorite book covers.

--You can actually tell someone why the white bookcovers of the post-1990 Catcher in the Rye is a sinful, crying shame compared to the classic red carousel horse and NYC skyline of the original.  And you sound like a lunatic doing so, and don't care.

--After you've recently shelved literally hundreds of books into your new library, someone says to you, "Are you actually keeping all of those?"  You say, "Yes," and don't realize their incredulity until over an hour later.

--You've been in minor branches of public libraries with fewer books than you have in your house.

--You have five favorite genres.

--One of your favorite places in Manhattan is the New York Public Library.  And an actual wish is to have one that's just as beautiful, if not a little smaller, in your house.

--You have three different editions of Shakespeare's Complete Works.  And you're not getting rid of any of them.

--You realize you have more books in your home than some of the more poor schools do in their classrooms, their bookrooms and their libraries.  Combined.

--You have over 30 bulleted reasons about why you have too many books, including this one.

Published Poem Now Available

Photo: Book cover of the anthology that contains my recently-sold poem, "An Old Man."

You'll find it in this anthology of "poems of hope throughout the world."  This recent write-up says it better:

We are delighted to announce that “Hope Springs A Turtle” is now available to order from Amazon or your favourite bookshops. Thank you for taking part in this project, we are delighted with the unique beauty and inspirational quality of this anthology.This anthology is an eclectic collection of beautiful photographs and inspiring poetry from all over the planet,  proving that hope is the power that unites everyone.

This book is an ideal gift for the young and old showing everybody the importance and joy that hope brings.

10% of all profits goes to support Mind U.K., a mental health charity in the United Kingdom.

Thanks for reading.  Sorry for the unabashed plug!  An actual blog entry will come tomorrow.  (I'm an unapologetic tool.  But at least some of it's for a good charity.  Hell, I've had many days when I've done much less.) 

Anyway, click here for the printed book and for the e-book.

The Wind Through the Keyhole--Stephen King

photo: The book cover of the mass hardcover (not one of the 800 limited edition covers) from stephenking.com.

An excuse me, I forgot something entry into the Dark Tower series, this one is actually two novellas--both completely different, though both take place in Dark Tower territory--in which one is sandwiched (or bookmarked, or framed, if you will)--by the other.  (Actually, it's literally a story-within-a-story-within-a-story, but whatever.)  As a Dark Tower book, the novella with Roland takes precedence, but the other story, with Tim Stoutheart, is actually the better, and a mini-Dark Tower series in of itself (with a touch of Jack Sawyer from King's and Straub's The Talisman).  Roland's story, with a third-person omniscient narrator, has him as a much younger guy, tracking down a shape-shifter (called the Skin-Man) who's been killing lots of people.  Roland himself tells the other story, about Tim Stoutheart, while he and a young boy await the arrival of a group of men--one of whom is the shape-shifter.  The story he tells involves a Man in Black, who readers of the series will remember, and he even comes with the initials RF, for die-hard King fans who remember Randall Flagg's various guises.  This one has a disturbing bit of Life of Pi in it (it's got an existential tiger), as well as a mischievous and possibly evil Tinkerbell-like character.  It's full of the wonderment that I like from the series, and goes easy on the crossover stuff, which some of the other books got bogged down with.  This one is better written than the Roland part, as well.

My theory on this book--as it's rare that a writer or publisher will throw in a book that comes much earlier in the series, and a series that is complete without it, no less--is that this is a tied-together piece of two novellas that had been discarded by King and/or the publisher.  The shape-shifter story is much shorter, and, though okay, isn't particularly memorable or exceptionally well-written.  I think King wrote this as part of the Wolves of Calla string, maybe, and tossed it aside, for the reasons I just mentioned.  The Tim Stoutheart story strikes me as a possible tale of Roland's beginning, as it's essentially the foundation of how Tim, a lad who essentially lived in The Shire, grew to be a fearsome and famous Gunslinger--though not as revered as Roland, of course.  King, I think, decided that the story would not do for Roland, but, as has been his wont of late, thought it good enough to publish--but how?  Well, like this.  Though narrated by Roland, the voice is obviously King's, and is a welcome one that we're used to.  King tones it down quite a bit, and dispenses with his favorite C-word--which is otherwise used extensively in the Roland story, when it's clear that King is the third-person omniscient voice--because Roland is certainly too distinguished to ever use it.

All in all, the book is a quick read, though the framing is certainly forced, and you won't want the Tim Stoutheart tale to end, and you'll be slightly disappointed by the second half of Roland's frame.  It's also slightly more unbelievable, considering Roland is the strong and silent type, yet tells a long-ish story, but he'd been more verbal in the latter books of the series, so what the hey.  Ultimately it's a good read, though nothing you haven't seen before.  You'll come away very pleasantly disappointed, as you'll be wishing Tim and his mother well.