Slow Burn by Ace Atkins: A Book Review

Not too much to say about this Ace Atkins effort. Pretty good. Not bad. He's done better. I've read a lot worse from writers hired by the Parker Estate. (Are you hearing me, Michael Brandman?)

This one is a comfortable pair of slippers for those who've read all of the Spenser novels. It fits in, and does not detract, from it. It doesn't add to it, either, exactly, but that's okay. That's not why people read #44 of a single series, is it? For something very different?

It was a little jarring to read that Spenser has had a knee replacement, though. Not quite as bad as Superman needing dentures, but still an unwelcome reminder that even our heroes get old. Spenser won't be keeping up with any long-distance runners (a la Crimson Joy), I guess. Susan Silverman, by contrast, seems to be getting younger, thinner, sexier. This is a glaring inconsistency that you'll go along with, because who wants to hear that Spenser's had a knee replacement, and that Susan needs to wear Depends? What's next, Hawk swinging around his walker and whining about taxes?

So it was pretty good. Not especially memorable. Not bad. A comfy, if worn, pair of slippers.

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. 

The Accidental Tourist

Photo: from the book's Goodreads page

Smooth as silk novel with such believable characters and life-lessons that it seems like a life parable, which I guess it is. Spot-on writing has no genre to fall back on, so no tropes, no easy scenes or action to pass the pages. Just life, and daily living, making the mundane magical and the ordinary extraordinary. This has always been one of my favorite books, though I haven't read it in over 20 years, and it's only gotten better with age. One of the unique things about it is that there is no villian, exactly, except maybe fate and life itself. A writing teacher will tell you that Sarah is the antagonist, and I suppose on paper she is, but really the biggest obstacle for Macon Leary is Macon himself, which is the whole breathy idea of the book: We are our own worst enemies, as is our inability to adapt and move on. Simultaneously impossible and necessary, moving on is the only way to live, even if it makes living more difficult. Would Macon have done so if Sarah hadn't left him to begin with? No. Would it even be necessary but for what happened to their son? Of course not. But you have to ride the wave, or (as the extended metaphor shows near the end) you have to just ride the plane's turbulence and strap yourself in, because what else can you do? You can't prepare to much or worry to much, or live your life not living your life. If you do, you may turn into a man so afraid of the world that he writes travel books about not experiencing anything, about not leaving your hotel room, or trying new restaurants, or doing anything but what you've got to do for business in that city and then going back home. But life isn't like that, and your idea of what home is may change as well. The entire conceit of The Accidental Tourist is one of the best extended metaphors in all of fiction, and all the novel and writing have to do is just follow the wave it makes.

Anyway, you owe it to yourself to read this one. The movie is good, too, but don't let it stop you from reading this. This is a rare book that you can read 20 years apart and still get as much, if not more, out of it now than you did then. Like a classic movie, this book can be experienced over and over again, and savored like a favorite line or a classic meal. I couldn't effusively praise it enough.

IT -- Movie Review

Extremely good movie, high on creepiness even if it was low on scares. I'm normally not a fan of movies with child actors, but these guys did not disappoint. One of the better young casts, equal, but not better, than Rob Reiner's Stand by Me, based on King's novella, The Body. Good movie, quite a feat if, like me, you're a big fan of the book, so you know what happens. Faithful adaptation of the book with good new, creepy scenes.

Jackson the Greyhound Doing Better

A loud call-out to those of you who have emailed, called, or have otherwise sent get-well messages--via other media or in physical reality--to Jackson the Greyhound. Surgery to remove the cancer was apparently a success. The specialist, who did not perform the surgery, said that "over 99.9%" of the cancer was removed. And, since this cancer is the slowest acting form, it is "likely that, at his age, he will die of something else." It may not sound like it at first, but this was actually a good thing to hear. The Old Man will be 14 on Halloween, and he's still very energetic, very hungry and very spoiled.

So thanks for all the positivity, law of positive attraction, etc. Greatly appreciated and undoubtedly beneficial. Jackson thanks you as well.

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks

Extremely well-written book by the Pulitzer-prize winning Brooks. Very evocative and very clear, you will get a you-are-there feel while reading it.

Unlike other books that gave me the same feeling, I also got an oddly detached feeling while reading this, even though I was immersed in it and felt like I was there.

The only explanation I had for this--which I felt while reading--is that the book was oddly too well-written, if that's possible. I think it is, because I've felt like that before, while reading James Joyce, who, to be fair, intentionally writes his books with himself in mind. I don't think Brooks purposely does that here, but her book was still so sparsely well-written that it drew attention to itself and lightly loosened my otherwise solid suspension-of-disbelief while reading it. I can only say that this must be a good problem to have. It will not shock you out of the book, and despite the good writing, it'll still land a punch or too, and it covers some grotesque scenes without losing the grossness of it all, as glossed writing sometimes does.

The plot is pretty simple, though a lot happens. In fact, an awful lot happens in this, a book about a small town that quarantines itself during the last Great Plague in England, in 1666. I'd read that plague towns not only quarantined themselves as a town, but as individual dwellings in that town, as well. In other words, not only could people not go in and out of the town, but they couldn't go in and out of individual homes, either. I'd read that homes were shut up--with the sick and not sick of that family together, so that the sick would definitely die, and the well would almost definitely get sick. And if everyone survived the plague, they still might starve--and that guards would be posted outside. Sometimes these people would hang a noose towards an unwary guard and hang him so they could escape. Only certain physicians and healers, and the town carters and gravediggers, and maybe the town's clergy, could still walk around and go in and out of infected homes.

Well, that doesn't happen here at all. The main character is in THE infected home--the one where the London cloth merchant resided, thereby bringing the Plague to Eyam (according to tradition). Then her children die of it as well, so she is definitely in an infected house. Nothing is ever mentioned in the book about homes themselves being quarantined--just that people would naturally stay away from them. That doesn't happen with the narrator's home, either, though she is definitely the town healer after the town's real healers get killed by the townspeople, who feared they were witches. Of course.

I make this sound much more questionable here then the book ever is. Geraldine Brooks, an award-winning reporter and world traveller, who wrote some very important pieces from some very harrowing places, certainly does her research for this historical fiction novel, which is why you'll feel like you're there. And certainly she cannot be blamed for maybe taking a creative license about the home quarantines--after all, how much can happen in a story if the main narrator can't see anything or go anywhere? I'm keeping that in mind, as Eyam plays a part in one of my WIPs, too.

Anyway, this is a deservedly popular novel by an author who I haven't heard too much of since, for some reason. I have March, which I'll read soon, by her, and reading this book has made me want to read Anita Diamant's Last Days of Dogtown again, and maybe start her Red Tent, too. So if historical fiction is your bag, or if you like good writing with believable female narrators, or if the Plague or the time interests you, you should read this book, as a great many have.

Bones by Jan Burke

This book has been sitting on my shelf for years, so maybe there were unrealistic expectations.  I was also impressed with the Edgar Award for best mystery this book won, as well.  But I wasn't overly impressed by the end.  It left me underwhelmed.

The first third or half was solid.  Investigators in the mountains; a serial killer with them.  Bodies turn up and you know the killer will get away.

But there were so many missteps after that.  The dialogue is really, really terrible.  Very stilted, very unrealistic.  It talks down to the reader and overexplains really simple things, as if the author didn't think the readers could follow along.

Some scenes just backfired.  When the killer mails to the main character, a reporter, a pair of her own underwear, she and her co-workers break into inexplicable laughter.  The author tries to say that the hilarity is due to extreme tension, but it never comes across that way.  It's just an awkward scene.  There's a lot of those.

An example that blends both of these: a bomb is set up beneath one of the bodies in the mountains, and the killer gets away (after awhile) in the confusion.  The author/narrator (or the first-person main character) asks: How could have known that was going to happen?  I read that and immediately thought, I did.  You will, too, even if you're not a particularly astute reader.  Awkward.

And the end is unrealistic.  The killer, a genius, suddenly comes to her workplace, where there's an armed guard or two, plus co-workers, plus a helicopter that lands on the roof--and he doesn't know any of this, even though he has stalked all of his other victims to the point of knowing their lives better than they do.  The ending is really unfulfilling.  It hinges on the identity of the killer's helper, but you'll figure that out before too long.  You might even see it right away, not too far into the book.

These could be forgiven if the writing was good enough, but it's not.  It's awkward, the dialogue is just plain bad, and it mellows in a sentimentality and, at times, in suddenly jarring religious-speak (the main character suddenly says out loud to someone that they don't have to work on the Lord's day--even more confusing, since the narrator says she's mostly a non-believer)--and, well, the book's an award-winning mess.  I have nothing against a suddenly and unrealistically religious character, or occasionally bad dialogue, or scene and plot missteps--but not all at once in the same book.

This book is the 7th in the series, but you don't have to read any of the previous ones to read this one.  Unfortunately, I have no desire to do so, nor to read any of the next ones.  I see that I have written more negatively of this book than many have, but I don't see any way around it.  If you wish, someone please let me know if the previous ones, or the latter ones, were any better.  I've never seen the show based on these books, but the clips look good, and the show's been successful for some time now.  If you're watching that, please let me know if it's any better than the books.

No Longer A Vet--Now I'll Pay the Toll at the Gate

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know I never write about my job.  Few of you know what I do for a living, and any reference to it in a comment--good, bad or neutral--makes me delete that comment.

For the most part, that won't change now.  I won't write about the job, but I do have an announcement to make.  In keeping with my policy of not writing about my job, it may seem like code to those who aren't associated with it.

This entry is for those of you who are.

It is with great regret that I have to announce that I am [see title].  This was a brutal decision to make, and I even (almost) had an emotional moment after it was said and done.  There was paperwork to sign, and a long walk back to my seat.  (And they forgot to sign something, so I had to do it again.) I'm told that I made that walk both times with my head down, and that I did not look happy.

Though the job itself remains the same, I will be at a different building, working with a different community.

(However, it seems like I will be allowed to continue with the after-work program at the first building, so stay tuned for that.  It is still on my way home, and so I can still run the program on Wednesdays, from 2:30 to 3:00, which was the plan anyway.  Stay tuned for further details on that.)

I worked for 14 years at the building I left.  I ran an after-work program there for 14 years, with good-to-great success.  I served the same building in a different capacity for 4 years a long time ago. Overall, I spent 18 years--a large percentage of my life--in that one building.

But the building will be a different type of building in two years, and I could not see myself being successful with the new job requirements.  I may have been transferred to another building anyway--quite possibly to the building I am now.  But there was a small chance that I would have been transferred to another building, or asked to stay where I was, with new workers and new requirements, where I felt I may have been less successful at my job.  The bottom line: for me, and to support my loved ones, I felt compelled to switch to a different building so I can work with the same type of workers--the same ones I've worked with for the past 14 years.

I will miss the workers I worked with, many of whom joined the after-work program I ran, as well as the other workers who stated they were very happy to be able to work with me again next year.  Some of them had to talk to people to make that happen, and it seems like they went out of their way to do so.  Now that won't happen.  I do feel, a little bit, that I have left you and that I have let you down.  I hope you don't feel the same way, and I hope you understand my explanation.

Job certainty is an important thing.  So is knowing I will be able to stay in the same type of work environment for the foreseeable future--now, and long after any current worker has moved on. Hopefully, I'll be doing this for the next 25 or so years.  We'll see.

And I may be seeing some of you again in two years, when you are sent to work at my new building.

I also look forward to the challenge of my new building.  I have already met with some of the other workers (literally, the workers) and everything seems great.  This new building also has an after-work program of the same type, so it would be cool to compete against this building's after-school program, should I be allowed to do so.  Maybe I'll be asked to anchor it.  I'd rather anchor the program of my former building, but we'll see.  I look forward to a successful year with my new fellow workers--both literal and figurative--and I look forward to every challenge this building offers.

I take my job very seriously--perhaps too much so, on occasion--and I take the responsibilities of supporting my loved ones very seriously, too.  As much as I, they deserved to know that I had job certainty, and that I was able to work in a situation where I felt I would do the most good, and to be the most successful.  If I am not successful at my job, I am not happy.  Nothing else at work matters.

I did what I could for the building, for its workers, and for the community--for 14 years.  I spoke publicly against those who wanted to shut down or transform that building.  I care for the building, its workers and its community, and don't let anyone tell you different.

I will always be a vet; I'll always be very pro-veteran.

And so I say goodbye.  Maybe just for now; maybe for good.  Even if we had our differences, I hope that you agree that I did the best I could at my job, every single day.  And that my best was good.

Be good.

Be safe.

Be happy.

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin -- Book Review

Photo--Paperback copy, and the one I read, from its Wikipedia page.


A very good book, but not as good as its predecessors.  This has been much remarked upon, so I won't belabor what's already been said...

Except to say that Martin has to try something different, and focus on different characters, doesn't he?  Readers forget that the writers themselves also have to be entertained (as U2 reminded its fans when the band made techno-pop stuff the masses hated); I would imagine that after approximately 4,000 pages (which probably means up to 8K to 12K pages, edited and often deleted), Martin felt that, to stay sharp, he would have to focus on different characters--many of them not the major ones--and also do little things, like refer to characters by their new status, or tongue-in-cheek nicknames, in the chapter headings.  This doesn't always work, and is at times confusing, but you've made it this far, through 5K or so pages, so you'll get it before long.  He did this a bit in the previous book, perhaps less successfully and more irritatingly, but you got through that, right?  So will you here.

And you'll like this one more than the last, I think.  It really picks up in the second half--maybe the last third, if you're picky--and it goes by in a rush after that.  Like Stephen King and maybe a few others, Martin's writing is compulsively readable, even when its not at its best, so you'll find yourself sailing along, even if you're not completely thrilled with what's going on.  This is a must, if one is to read about seven thousand pages before it's all over, so it's a good thing he's able to do this.

By the end, you'll be far further along than the Game of Thrones series on HBO, so you'll have to be quiet about what happened.  (Notice the lack of a summary of any kind here.)  There won't be another book in 2015, or so said Martin recently in an interview, so we'll have to make do with the show for now.  I expect the show to drag out quite a bit of what happens here, unless they want to finish with the show before Martin finishes with the books.  (He'll share his outlines and notes of the last two books with the show's creators, I would assume.)  If so, this would be a rare event.  Normally the book(s) end first for the movies and shows (a la Harry Potter) to drum up even more interest in the movie and successive books.  That may not be the case here, as J.K. Rowling was a quicker writer than is Martin.  But who knows?

Willa

Photo: Bus depot in, I assume, Clifton, Arizona, considering this article where I filched the image.

I've been trying different things to get back in the writing groove again, and nothing's been working.  I slipped off the rails when I got sick about ten days ago, and though I'm much improved--I can breathe, and I can somewhat function--I'm still not up to par.  This at a bad time in the job, too, when I especially need energy and focus.  So I laid off the allergy pills for a few days--they dry me out, like they're supposed to, but I have a serious sinus infection, probably from being too dried out for too long.  Anyway, I've been very foggy-headed, and the pillow has been too comfy and too cool.  I'm sleeping like I haven't in years, but it's not a good sleep.  Long and dream-filled, which is good--but too long, too heavy, too dreamy, and all of it caused by allergies and exhaustion.  I'm yawning all the time, feeling exhausted and drained, blowing my nose, which I don't normally do because I'm so congested all the time, and everything's clear because I need an antihistamine--but to get one, I'll get congested, and around we go.  I've also been on strike against the antibiotics I got four days ago, but I'm taking them now...

Anyway, all this to say that I'm in a fairly confused place, with my novel's unwritten Chapter 41 staring me in the face, so I reverted finally to a tactic that spurred some writing a few years ago: read a short story, then write a chapter, then read another short story, then write something besides my main book--maybe another book's chapter, or a short story, or one of my very many nonfiction things...or even a blog entry.  Lots of writing to do for a guy who hasn't done any in awhile.

So I remembered a little snippet in this week's Entertainment Weekly (a friend of mine lets me read hers) that said that a show, or a movie, or something, was being made of Stephen King's short story, "The Things They Left Behind."  And I remember thinking, What the hell was that?  King has written literally hundreds of short stories, so nobody--including King himself, I'll bet--can remember them all.  But even if I've forgotten about something, I usually remember that I used to remember it, if you know what I mean.  My memory is good enough so that some kind of bell rings.  But not this time.

(What did I do--buy the book and never read it?  You know, two things go when you get older: the first thing's your memory, and I can't remember what the second thing is.)

I picked up the book collection--Just After Sunset--and read the story, which is in the middle of the book.  (It'll be reviewed in another post.  Suffice it to say it's a quick little story about the nightmare and guilt of 9/11.)  Then I remembered that reading short stories used to jumpstart my writing, so I read the first story, and--yeah, it worked again, thank God.  Chapter 41 is done, for those who care, and I like it.  (I don't always.  No writer likes his work all the time.)

Now I'll do this every day until it doesn't work anymore and I've been derailed again.  And while I'm at it, I figured I'd write a post about any of the short stories it jives me to do so.  And so...

Speaking of being derailed--

"Willa" is the first story in the book, and it's very good.  It involves a group of people who are dead (this is Stephen King, remember) from a train derailment.  Most of them know it, though just one allows herself to fully let it sink in.  Her fiancée lets it sink into him, too, finally.

But this story is more than just that.  In this genre, there are thousands of stories where the characters are dead--so much so that editors openly say they don't want any more stories where the characters find out in the end that they're dead.  (See that list of Please No More of These Plots in this entry.)  Stephen King can do what he wants, of course, and he'll get published, but he gives us more because he knows his readers have seen that before.  And maybe because he has, too.

This story is more about being different.  About walking your own road.  The Amtrak train derails and they all die, but everyone stands around in an old train depot while Willa walks away and enters a honkytonk dive in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming.  She wants people, and music.  She wants to live.  David, her fiancée, wants to find her, but everyone tells him not to go.  He'll get lost.  He'll get eaten by wolves.  He'll miss the recovery train...One even says his fiancée doesn't give a damn about him--if she did, she wouldn't have just walked off, right?

But Willa sees what's in front of her face, even if everyone hates her for it.  He finds her, accepts that he's dead, and they both go back to tell everyone else.  (Various things happen in the story to prove they're dead.)  But nobody believes them, and after many insults they start walking back to the bar.

The story ends with a lot of nice, wistful images.  Everyone's standing in that bus depot, that now we know really isn't in operation (it's about 30 years after their train accident, but time's elastic in death) and they're all wasting their time, not doing anything, not moving on, not living--even in death.  Get it?  All stories of all genres have themes and points.  This one: You can't move on if you can't accept harsh truths.  The story ends with the knowledge that the depot will be demolished soon...and what will happen to those unknowing ghosts then?  Will they just wisp away in the desert wind?

Very good story.  Makes me think of a few to write myself.

Check it out if you haven't already.  Or, even if you have.

P.S.--I often wonder how authors come up with their characters' names.  I try to come up with a name (I have one tried and true--and...different...method) and I see if it matches the character's traits in any way.  If it's too obvious--well, that might be okay.  So I'll guess Willa's origin:

1.  The story takes place in the desert prairie of Wyoming.  Willa Cather (or, how many other Willas are there?) wrote novels and stories that took place on the open prairie, though usually in Nebraska.  (Though she lived mostly in NYC and, before that, in Pittsburgh.  And she was born in Virginia.  But, whatever.)  Stephen King--a former English teacher and a very literate (if not literary) writer--would know this.

2.  Willa Cather's stories were often about headstrong women, a century ahead of their time.  Willa Cather herself was a headstrong woman well ahead of her time, for many reasons.  The Willa in King's story is a very headstrong woman, different from everyone else derailed in the train.

3.  They both had a very strong will.  I mean, c'mon.

Revival by Stephen King

Photo: The book's cover art, from its Wikipedia page

Another compulsively-readable book by Stephen King, Revival is one of his recent best.  A mish-mash of Frankenstein (thematically) and Lovecraft (in plot, Otherness, and The Angry Ones, as well as some fairly fearsome Gods) and Hieronymus Bosch, it reads like a first-person confessional (which is a well King has tapped for some time now) and it ends with one of the more horrifying things that King--or anyone I've read--has ever written.
 
Especially if it's true, if that's really what's waiting for us Afterwards.  If you've ever seen Bosch's Seven Deadly Sins or his Garden of Earthly Delights, you'll know what I mean.  Nasty, disturbing and memorable stuff.  This book's ending--and the potential ending for us all, good or bad--are just that: nasty, disturbing and memorable.  Frightening, because the "good" or "bad" doesn't matter.  The ending depicted here isn't the ending of the bad.  It's the ending of all of us.

In recent interviews, King has said that the views expressed by the narrator are not necessarily his--a fact that any reader is well aware, in anyone's writing.  But he has also said recently that he thinks about Death and God a lot (which King fans have always known), and that he does believe in God.  Sometimes he says that there has to be a God, because otherwise he would not have survived his accident or his addictions.  (This begs the question: Since others have not survived being hit by a car, or concurrent alcohol and coke addictions, does that mean there isn't a God?  Or does God simply not want them to live?)  Lately, King's been using Pascal's Wager to express his views.
 
(Pascal's Wager has always seemed like a cop-out to me, but it's really not meant to be.  And as I get older, and I contemplate that slab of stone more and more, Pascal's Wager sounds infinitely more rational.  Though I don't know how one can live a life as if one believes in God, which is what the Wager advises, if one truly does not believe.  But I suppose an agnostic like myself could pull it off.)

This is actually not much of a digression, as a belief in Something is very much at the core of this novel.  Picture an agnostic who grew up with devout, religious parents, and throw in some family tragedies, a wasted life of coke and booze, and some Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror, with Bosch's view of a potential eternity in Hell and a Frankenstein theme, and some hellish chaos on Earth at the very un-Stephen King-like end (after all the Frankenstein / Lovecraft / Bosch stuff), and you've just about got the narrator and his story.

There are some other horrors until then as well, neatly tucked into this novel.  There's a car accident you won't soon forget, and a dream about dead family members that those of us with dead family members will all relate to--and not happily.  And his ending after the ending (a writing style I've pointed out in my last ten or so reviews of King's work) is even more unforgettable.  It's debatable, in fact, if the first or second ending is more horrible.  Since I don't believe in the existence of the first, and since I very much believe in the existence of the evil--or of, worse, the tragic inexplicable--portrayed in the second, I'm going with the latter.  You watch the news, you see this.

The writing is as compulsively-readable as always, but--finally!!!--here are some horrors, terrors and chills, too.  If forced to rate out of five stars, I'd say this is a four--only if compared to his truly great stuff, like IT and The Shining.  But compared to his most recent stuff--some of it quite terrible, and sometimes, at best, rather pedestrian--Revival would get five.  Though the title refers to the revival of the narrator and a few of its almost-dead characters, it could well refer to King's horror writing as well.

Read it, regardless.  And then Wikipedia Pascal's Wager, if you have to, and tell me whether it makes more pragmatic, rational sense than it may have in your youth.

Cheap Shot--Book Review

Photo: The book's hardcover...cover?  From its Goodreads page.

Another good, compulsively-readable entry into the series by Atkins.

There's not much here you haven't seen before if you've read the others by Parker and Atkins.  But this one still stands apart from the others because of its purposely scattered structure.  Spenser's all over the place, from Boston to NYC and back again.  He speaks to old characters (Gerry Broz runs a fish store?!?), only some of whom are actually useful for this case.

This is the one startling aspect of this book.  Old, non-regular characters either come up (Broz; Tony Marcus; Ty-Bop) or are brought up (Rachel Wallace; April Kyle) simply to stir them up in the readers' minds.  Doing this could've led to disaster, almost like name-dropping, but Atkins handles it well.  It doesn't distract.  It adds.

This one reads a little more gritty, a little more true-to-life.  This is also different than many, but not all, of Parker's.  His often tended to get wrapped up neatly.  The better ones, now that I think about it, didn't end that way: Looking for Rachel Wallace and April Kyle's second (and last) come to mind.

Who-dun-it is not a surprise, exactly, although I was a little surprised about how it suddenly came to a head.  I mean this in a good way.  It makes sense, and the reader and Spenser were kind of heading there, but it all gets sidetracked, as did Spenser, as does the reader.  So when the ending happens, it all makes sense, and isn't really surprising, and yet it was a nice, little twist at the same time.

In a gritty, realistic kind of way.  Would it really happen that way?  The motel room?  The trunk?  Yes, I believe it really could happen that way.  But in the trunk?  Yes, because he just didn't care.  (I won't reveal the end, so you'll just have to read it to fully grasp what I'm talking about.)  Would it have ended that way in Parker's hands?  Nope.  But that's okay.

It works.  That's all that matters.  Things change.  People change.

And, often, they don't change.  The bad ones, when they get really pissed, tend to stay that way.  And then they do bad things.  And then everything sort of goes to hell.

Sometimes that kind of thing ends well.  Other times--I'm thinking Cormac McCarthy here--they don't.  As it is in real life as well.

The Cockroaches (Harry Hole #2) by Jo Nesbo--Book Review

Photo: Jo Nesbo, from his official website

Extremely well-written follow-up to Nesbo's The Bat, this book takes Hole's character and adds a little more depth to him.  We see more of his sister, and we see the ex-girlfriend, Kristin--mentioned in the first book--even more here, to good effect.  The girlfriend from the first novel is mentioned frequently here, too, as is his compunction for alcohol--though he may have a new drug of choice by the end of this one.  But then, if I had to spend this much time in the traffic and heat and humidity of Bangkok, Thailand, I might feel the need as well.  (I'm a wuss; I need the central air.)

Anyway, the plot of this novel is quite intricate, though the reader shouldn't be hard-pressed to figure out who done it.  The "Why?" and the "How?" may throw the reader; however, when you learn the how, you won't feel badly about not figuring it out.  Nobody would, or could, have.  Except Hole, of course, who is so good at this kind of thing that two characters openly marvel at it.

Nesbo, the Raymond Chandler of Nordic Noir, writes a book that is a classic of its kind.  The bad guy is memorable, as well, especially in a scene right out of Titus Andronicus near the end.  (This has to be on purpose, because Hole finishes it all off with an instrument from Shakespeare's early play as well.)  I always saw the guy who plays Jaime Lannister in Game of Thrones as the villain, though I'm not sure he's described that way.  Weird.  At any rate, Nesbo varies the writing a bit here from his last: some chapters show the villain straight out doing his villainy, especially at the end; more chapters start off with a minor character's POV before quickly focusing on Hole once again.  A couple of chapters don't feature Hole at all, which is also different from the first book.  (I think only one chapter was without Hole in the first book.)

I read this book in less than 24 hours.  I'm on vacation, so I can do that.  You might not, but you'll read it quickly.  It's that good.  And as openly depressing as its predecessor, so be forewarned.

Killer by Jonathan Kellerman--Book Review

Photo, from Kellerman's Facebook page
 
Another step in the right direction from Kellerman, whose last book, Guilt, was also very good.  Both novels are more readable and much less judgmental than were his previous 8 to 10 works, perhaps more.  The last two books are also much less vicious and violent.

By now, if you've read Kellerman's twenty-nine Alex Delaware novels as I have, you've figured out his formula: The first 10%-20% of the work sets up the very large cast of characters, their backgrounds, and any of the many conflicts that may--but often, not--have anything to do with the book's major crime.

Then the vast majority of the book is Q & A between Delaware and Milo and the large population of characters in the victim's lives.  There's a ton of supposition, a lot of maybe this and perhaps that, by Delaware and Milo and many of the supporting cast.  The vast majority of the time, none of it pans out.

About 80% to 85% of the way through, we meet a seemingly-minor character who rings Delaware's alarms.  That starts the unraveling.  The rest of the book is a slippery slide to the ending, which neatly wraps things up.

This has always been Kellerman's M.O., though a few times in the past, the seemingly-irrelevant character would come completely out of left field.  As a consequence, the reader (well, at least this reader) would feel cheated and more than a little aggravated.  In this genre, you have to give the reader at least a chance--however small--to be able to figure it out (or at least to suspect) who the killer might be, and what might have happened.

That's what happens here, with Killer.  (A ridiculous title, as it could have been the name of any of his novels, and there's more than one killer here, anyway.)

The unraveling happened when and how I figured, and I honed in on the seemingly-irrelevant character right away.  The character appears when I suspected, as per the blueprint above.  This was aided because I wasn't buying all of the suppositions Delaware and Kellerman were selling.

Ultimately, this was a very quick and satisfying read, done just right.

Dark Visions, Vol. 1--Memorably Good (and Short) Horror Stories

Photo: book's cover, from beforeitsnews.com


If you like horror, and you like short stories, go get a copy of Dark Visions 1: A Collection of Modern Horror, an anthology of original short stories, edited by Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson.  It's available on Amazon, here.  A few notes about a couple of the stories to show you why it's so good:

--Mister Pockets, by NYT bestselling author and multiple Stoker Award-winner Jonathan Maberry.

Very effective short story about a "twelve-year old fat kid" who is barely beginning to understand his place in the world, and where others think his place is.  His place at present is in a town that's just recovering from The Trouble.  Nobody talks about it, but it happened, and it may be happening again.  What's The Trouble?  Well, suffice it to say that the kid goes one-on-one with a very pretty and very alluring vampire-like thing, and he would've been done for had he not earlier given a candy bar to a strange-smiling homeless man, nicknamed [see title].  (Great title, by the way.)

Maberry may be one of the more successful horror writers I've not heard of before.  The short author bio before the story lists an unbelievable amount of writing this man has been paid for since 1978.  If that sounds a little like envy on my part, it's because it is.

The Weight of Paradise by Jeff Hemenway

Creepy story about scientist-wannabes who find a cure for cancer.  By doing so, the cured become immortal.  But, as it turns out, forever comes for a price, and it's painful.  If you're familiar with the genre, you've seen this sort of morality tale before, but not as well-done as this.  It's a horror tale with the wistful sadness of some of Jack Ketchum's short stories.  That's a good thing.

Incidentally, it's always cool to see that a professional  author has been published in the same magazines as you.  In this case, Hemenway's been in Big Pulp, the same good folks who recently purchased the rights to my story, "The Zombie's Lament."  Another author, later in the collection, will soon be published in Space and Time, as I was.  Cool deal, man.  Good for the old ego.

The Troll by Jonathan Balog

A 20-page story that reads like 10, which is one of the things I look for in a slightly-longer short story.  (I like my short stories short--10 pages or fewer--and I tend to write very short ones, too.)  Anyway, the troll of the story looks more like a metrosexual pimp, but what he tells the 12-year old narrator to do is a bit more.  Though he does pimp the kid out, if I may be so bold.  The troll is quite a bit like Pennywise the Clown, except when the story's done, the reader may wonder who the real troll was--the troll, or the narrator?  A good study of adolescent evil.  Very well-written, and very quickly read.

Delicate Spaces by Brian Fatah Steele

Perhaps my favorite so far in this collection.  A group of paranormal researchers answer a dare for free rooming at a hotel that wants to drum up business, hoping they'll stay longer.  Very realistic dialogue and action make the reader feel like he's observing the middle of something, just being dropped right in there.  What they see before they're about to leave will catch the reader breathless.  Very professionally written and described; you'll feel this frightening incident could actually happen.

There are 13 stories in all, and there's a lot to like here.  So, suffice it to say, if you like your horror in small pieces, you'll like this book as much as I did.  Again, it's available here at Amazon.  The Kindle is only $3.99, and a new paperback starts at $11.94.  It's worth it.

Approximate Word Count Is Back

Just a quick shout out that...Well, see the title.

I've been writing since it's hiatus and its sporadic entries, but I've been lacking writing consistency for quite awhile.

But I've been more consistent, though not at the same time every day, since earlier this week. 

::knock on wood::

If you'd like to give it a look, click on the tab above, or click this link.

It's good to be back!!! 

American Hustle--Movie Review: Great Acting; Tepid Movie

Photo: Movie's poster, from its Wikipedia page.

Outstanding performances by Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence didn't save this movie for me.  It's worth seeing for their performances alone--especially Adams', who appears like I've never seen her before--but you shouldn't necessarily think that the movie will be great because of them.

Though normally you would, right?  If you have three great performances--it's really Bale's film--and two other very good ones, then the movie should be great.  This is a first for me, that one movie could have so much great acting and yet still not work for me.  I mean, it was alright, but you'd expect much more, right?

The problem is in the writing.  Essentially, the scriptwriters wrote themselves into a corner that they couldn't escape.  The whole point of the film is that everyone's conning everyone, including themselves, and in the end, someone's got to walk away, which means someone's going to get the most conned.  And the way it was pulled off really didn't work for me.  And I mean, really.

For many reasons.  First, I had no doubt who'd walk away.  [Spoilers now.]  Bale and Adams were clearly going to stay together, and Lawrence was clearly going to walk away with her criminal boyfriend, yet stay on good terms with Bale.  You didn't know what would happen to everyone else, but you hoped for the best.

Well, that doesn't happen.  Jeremy Renner's character, who comes across perhaps as the nicest in the movie, gets sent to jail, as do the other politicians whose hearts are in the right places, but whose hands are in the wrong wallets and pockets.  And the FBI agent, who had a hubris problem and ultimately wanted his name in lights more than he wanted to fight crime--but who was still fighting crime, and killers and mobsters!--at the end looks dejected and doesn't get the credit for the politicians' arrests that he deserves.  And he may get fired, as well.  The serial killer mobster gets away, as do the two main characters, who essentially preyed on the pathetic, lost and desperate before they were caught. 

This makes the viewer--at least this viewer--feel like he's had to swallow too much Castor oil.  The acting is so good that you root for Bale and Adams and Lawrence, though you understand that the first two are criminals, and that the last one is an annoyance that her prettiness and crazy courage hide most of the time.  These are not nice people, though they are all trying to be, kind of, though you don't see enough of that to really root for them.  You just take their word for it when they say so, and they're so sad, and they're trying so hard, that you root for them.  And Bale cares about this kid, and Adams and Lawrence are so pretty, and then you realize that you're not really talking about the qualities of the film anymore, or the characters, and that something's amiss.

And that's the biggest problem.  You root for them because of the great acting, and not because of the characters' inherent worthiness.  Bale and Adams constantly say they're trying to be good, but only Bale convinces, and that's only at the end.  And he fails miserably trying to be the good guy who tries to save the actual good guy who's done an unwise thing.  These two characters are also likable more for the acting of those who portray them than they are for any likeability they actually have.  Bale, again, comes across as the more likeable, since he looks so ever-suffering, and since he truly loves both women, and the son of one of them--a boy who's not even his.  Adams comes across as very likeable (and as very very...well, never mind), though the viewer wonders where her loyalty lies, probably because she does, too.  Ultimately she wasn't as strong a character as she could have been, as I wanted her to be.  That was another big letdown.

Another issue is David O. Russell's sleight-of-hand.  The director shows you all of their hustles, all of their swindles, and he shows you all of the conversations about all of the hustles and swindles--but then doesn't show you the one that really matters at the end.  You don't know the hustle is on because you weren't shown it, while you were shown all the others.  That's a writer's and director's cheat.  How could the viewer possibly know it?  You see all of Bale's and Adams' conversations, and heart-rending conflicts, but you don't see the one they put together when it matters?  And when we're finally shown it, it isn't that awe-inspiring.  Essentially, it's just a lie, really.  The one they lie to is a charismatic, fast-talking, hyperkinetic--a role Bradley Cooper has played quite a few times now, in almost every film he's ever been in.  (Sorta makes me wonder if he's acting, or if he's playing Bradley Cooper playing these characters.  But I digress.)  The problem here is that he's at least fighting crime, not doing it (though he walks that fine line for awhile), and he's interesting and funny--and he's the one that loses out.  He doesn't get the credit he deserves, although he ambitiously reached for the stars, and wasn't boring.  Now he's got to go live with his annoying mother and his ignored fiancee--which wasn't very nice of him, either, the way he treats her, but that's really the least bad thing in a movie full of characters who all do some very bad things.  He's at least not hustling her, as he lets her hear as he tells Adams' character that he'll be right over.  Adams, who knows he's engaged, is still more than happy to spend time with him, and...bleh.

Why do some get away with it, and why do some don't, and why does the worst--the serial-killing mobster--get to go home?  It's never explained, and by the end, I was so over it that I just wanted to praise the performances and move on.

The worst thing I can say--if I haven't said enough already--is that this movie is by far the shortest of the ones I've seen recently, but it felt like the longest.  The Desolation of Smaug and Catching Fire were much, much longer movies--but didn't seem it.  American Hustle was much shorter--by about an hour, compared to the other two--yet seemed too long.  True, the others are action films, and the acting in them doesn't come close--yet, they may have been better films anyway.

It's too bad.  Not since Edward Norton's performance in American History X and Denzel Washington's in Training Day have I loved the performance and disliked the movie.  I don't dislike American Hustle as much as I disliked those two--as I mentioned before, this movie was okay--but it was still such a letdown. 

Those other two movies only had one great performance in them.  American Hustle has at least three--and it still left me with a case of Whatever.

Irrelevant Note: It was nice to see in the previews that Kevin Costner will be back soon in two major movies.  There will be other old geezers from the 80s and 90s returning to film this Christmas through February, and all of their movies look good.  (Let's hope they actually are.)

Irrelevant Note 2: Viewers of Boardwalk Empire will note Shea Whigham (who plays Nucky's brother) and the guy who played the assassin with the ruined face (who was really the best character the last few years) in American Hustle.  The director, David O. Russell, came to popularity with Three Kings, which co-starred Mark Wahlberg.  And what does Mark Wahlberg co-produce?  That's right--Boardwalk Empire.  It's not what you know, it's who you know, I suppose.  Of course you know that Lawrence and Cooper followed Russell from Silver Linings Playbook...Don't ask me how I know and remember such things--I just do.  

Book Review--Robert B. Parker's Wonderland, by Ace Atkins

Photo: Book's hardback cover, from robertbparker.net

I've gone on before about titles that contain the name of an artist as its main selling point, so I won't do so again here--except to say that book titles that contain the name of a deceased writer is even worse.  At least when John Carpenter used to title his movies with his name in it, he was still alive, directing them.  But when the publishing house (or perhaps it's Parker's estate) does so, it comes across as a bit gauche to me.  Especially when the real author, Ace Atkins, is doing such a credible job since taking it over.  How about giving him a little credit now?  Or does someone think that Spenser's loyal fans will forget that Robert B. Parker gave birth to him?

Having said that, Wonderland is a good book that could have been better if Atkins hadn't tried so hard to make Spenser so witty.  Even Parker didn't make his narrator this much of a wiseass.  Here Spenser drops something sarcastic, or witty, or banal (depends on your appreciation for what he says, I guess) in his dialogue and in his narration, a double-whammy here that makes it seem that Spenser is a little verbally out of control.  One minor character even says that he comes across as immature to people who don't think he's funny.  (Nobody ever dared call Parker's Spenser immature, except maybe Susan.)  There's way too much here, and it comes across as Atkins trying too hard, and not, surprisingly, like Spenser trying too hard.  Some of it is funny, but occasionally one sounds forced.

Another distraction here is that every now and then a piece of Spenser's dialogue simply doesn't sound authentic.  I've read every single Spenser, since the first--The Godwulf Manuscript--and I'm telling you that every now and then Spenser says something that sounds inauthentic, and it clunks.  A major tell-tale is that Atkins makes him speak on occasion too grammatically correct: he doesn't use contractions when anyone--especially Spenser--would.  One example of many is on page 273.  Henry Cimoli and Spenser are talking about how bad Spenser's psyche got when he got shot up by The Gray Man.  Henry calls it, "The really bad time."  Spenser responds: "They are all bad times when you are shot."  It's just too stiff.  Spenser, one of the more comfortable conversationalists in all of detective fiction (if not fiction in general), simple would not have sounded so formal, especially to Henry.  He would've deadpanned: "When you're shot, they're all bad."  Or something like that.

But, of course, this is a very quick read.  I might read faster than some, but I'll bet a Spenser fan will read this in a couple of days.  There are no great surprises here; the supporting characters are all users and being used.  The main characters go back and forth guessing who the guilty parties are, but the reader shouldn't.  Truth be told, the family-relation reveal towards the end shouldn't have been a surprise to Spenser, Healey, or Belson.  It is, though, and it's handled well.  I didn't consider the oddity of it until I'd finished reading, so that's good enough.  Your suspension-of-disbelief won't be ruined.  The writing is good, but Atkins has done better with Spenser.  I like the way that Atkins says a lot with very little, as Parker had.  Atkins might actually say more with his little.  Spenser fans won't be disappointed.  New readers to the series won't be blown out of their socks, but they shouldn't throw it away with great force, either.  It's a good read.

One caveat: Atkins shows his hand a little bit with the dating.  As Parker had, he throws in a sentence or two to let us know Spenser is narrating from some future date.  Something like, "The winter was especially cold that year..."  In Wonderland, Spenser frequently mentions how very, very bad the Sox are with overpaid stars and a manager that has won with them in the past.  So it's got to be 2011.  They were disappointing under Francona in 2005, 2006, 2008-2010, but they still won more than they lost, and they made the playoffs--or almost did--pretty consistently.  But the book says they were very, very bad, so it's got to be 2011.  Spenser has always gone out of his way to remind us that he exists in our real universe, during our real time--just an indiscriminate year in the past.  Here, he seems to have almost caught up to us.  This was a little jarring to me, though it may not be to anyone else.  I'm just putting it out there.  Feel free to politely disagree.

The Obama Care Website: A Plea

Photo: President Bush and President-Elect Obama meet in the Oval Office on November 10, 2008.  From Obama's Wikipedia page.

This isn't exactly a political rant, so stay with me if you felt like leaving because of that.  It's more of a plea, I guess.

There are so many Republicans slamming Obama for the recent website problems, and for what some are perceiving as his sleight-of-hand about being able to keep current policies.  (I don't know about that.  Though both parties have their hands in the health care industry's pockets, which one do you think counts more on money from it?  I'll provide a hint: It's the party that's not trying to change it.)  Some Democrats seem to think that his ship is sinking.

It's not--though it has taken a torpedo hit.

The bottom line here is that there's a website that's not working right.

There's an insurance industry that said one thing to Obama and then did another.

Or, in fairness, perhaps the President himself said one thing to the insurance industry, then did the other.

My guess is that it's both.  And surely the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing here.

But that's all.  It's surely a mess.  It looks bad.  It's Obama's biggest misstep so far.  And what was he thinking when he hired a Canadian internet company to do an American website?  This is bad enough, in terms of our economy--and even worse when you consider that Canada itself fired this internet company when it flubbed work for Canada.

Maybe Obama didn't make that decision himself, but the buck stops with him, and he'll say the same himself.

But let's take a step back.

Did we actually think that overhauling the American healthcare industry would be easy?  Is a radical change ever simple?  And what's wrong with trying to change American socio-economic parity as we know it?  Wouldn't you think there'd be a few mistakes along the way?

This is ground-level health care and social upheaval, and we thought a mouse click would make it all perfect?  That there wouldn't be mistakes, "fumbles," and some honest errors and humane shortsightedness?

So the site doesn't work.

It'll get fixed.

It's the first huge step for equity in health care in this country, something that hopefully narrows the gap between the rich and the poor.  A simple website won't make it all happen by itself, but it's a step in the right direction.

And it'll get better.

Let's all stop rattling our sabres against those who try to make drastic change for the better good and who make a few mistakes while doing so.  Are we not to have groundbreaking change unless it's quick and easy and perfect?  Drastic change is never easy.  And no one thing--health care or anything else--is going to be perfect for everyone, all at the same time.

Yes, Obama dropped the ball here.  But he cared enough to try to make the play to begin with.  He'll pick it up again.  He'll learn from his mistakes.  My guess is he doesn't like to be wrong, at all.  He knows that this will be one of the biggest things he'll be remembered for--good or bad.

And here's one more sports metaphor for you: an infielder who gets to more grounders (and who therefore has more range) will make more errors than will an infielder who never gets to the ball to begin with.  This second infielder will have a misleadingly and superficially better fielding percentage--he'll make fewer errors--because he won't attempt a great play if he thinks there's a chance he'll make an error.

Those who try to make great plays will make more mistakes than those who don't.

Possibly Obama's reach has exceeded his grasp here.  But he attempted to make the play that nobody else could--or would, or wanted to--and then he bobbled it.  And then he dropped it.

But he tried to make the play.

Let's applaud that.  And let's have some patience as he makes the play without a drop next time.  Or would we rather have a nation of leaders who don't try to ever again make a great and sweeping change for fear of such an impatient and unforgiving public and political backlash?

He was at least brave enough to chance failure.

And then he failed.

But that's temporary.

Let's understand that most politicians would never have attempted such legislation and change to begin with, specifically because of the very real probability of failure, and of the fear of the political finger-pointing afterward.

Nobody would know the stakes better than the first black President in American history.  Aware of the severe ramifications, he tried anyway.

Let's be proud of those who selflessly take chances for the better good.

And let's help them fix their mistakes rather than blaming them for their very humane imperfections.

Unless we have a better idea to create beneficial social change for the good of those less fortunate than ourselves--and I didn't see anybody else trying anything lately--let's help those who do, and not just point our fingers at them.

P.S.--According to his website, the health insurance marketplace is once again open.  Try it now, if you need to.  Give it a chance, and be thankful, as I always am, when someone tries to help.  Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but people don't often go out of their way to help change people's lives, do they? 

Two Dreams

Photo: Freud's Vienna office, from forpilar.blogspot.com.

Despite being woken up more than six times by my car's alarm that inexplicably went off three times, and by my dog, who whined constantly through the night, I somehow managed to sleep deeply enough to have two very strange dreams.

Dream #1

I'm rooming with another guy, who seemed likeable and reasonable enough, but in the dream I become more and more concerned that he is not a good guy at all.  I ask questions and he doesn't answer them.  He gets that lean and hungry look, as Shakespeare's Caesar called it.  Somehow it becomes clear that he's a murderer, and I come upon a giant folder of files and documents, one of which seems to prove the issue when I pick it up and read it.  When I lower it from my eyes, there he is, looking dangerous, obviously about to do something nasty.  But before I have the chance to do something about it, either my car alarm goes off in the garage, or my dog whines and wakes me up.

The most surprising thing at all: the dream makes it very clear who this person is: It's Red Sox back-up thirdbaseman Will Middlebrooks.  Who, despite striking out way too often, I'm sure is a nice enough guy in real life.  That was just weird, man.

Dream #2

It's in the future, not too distant.  I work under a bridge that crosses a wide, beautiful river.  Things are so bleak in this existence that countless people jump off of this bridge in an attempt to kill themselves.  My job is to rescue them from the river, and resuscitate them.  I get a bird's-eye view of this bridge (of which I did remember the name, but some time in the last fifteen minutes, I've forgotten it; I hope to remember it by the time I finish typing this, and I can tell you it's a simple name, like the Point Bridge, or something.  It's not something famous, like the Golden Gate Bridge, or even something real).  It's a long suspension bridge; it's fall, because the leaves are turning color.  The river water is very smooth and clear.  There are no boats. Everything's serene and peaceful and beautiful.

Except it's not, because people are jumping.  I save quite a few people over a short period of time on this day.  Maybe a dozen, or more.  I don't have a boat to get them.  (Maybe there's a gasoline or engine shortage in this future.)  But the last person to jump, a tall, full brunette, is different.  I can't find her in the water at all.  This has never happened before.  Never has someone gotten away, or died.  But just when I'm about to give up, I see her, and soon she's on the riverbank and I'm trying to force the water out of her lungs.  This happens for a very long time, much longer than is useful.

I look at her.  I don't know her.  She's got a solid enough neck, a pretty face, and soaking wet black hair that trails on the damp ground.  Her eyes remain closed (though I know in real life, a dead person's eyes stay open) and, when I stop blowing in her mouth, trying to revive her, that, too, closes.

She's completely still.  She's dead.  I've lost her.  For the first time, I've lost one.

And then the dog's whine wakes me up.

And that's it.  Two strange dreams.  I never did remember the name of the bridge, but I'll go with the Point Bridge for now, until I remember.

Freudian analysis, anyone?

P.S.--A very hearty thank ye to Ashley Cosgrove, who was kind enough to put a link to a recent Shakespeare entry (the one about how he did not play a part in the 1608-9 publication of his sonnets) on her Facebook page--and without me asking (or even being aware of it, at first); and to Gibson DelGuidice, who was nice enough to recently say very complimentary things about my blog (and to place a link to it) on his blog.  And I didn't even know about it, either, until recently.  You guys rule.