A Man Called Ove

Photo: the paperback's cover, from its Goodreads page

Outstanding book, alternately funny and sad, wise and silly, that became a huge bestseller around the world via word-of-mouth--a true rarity. The author, a Swede living in Stockholm, hadn't had a bestseller before, but the grapevine took off with this one, and rightly so. You should read it.

Ove is an older man who loses his wife and his job in six months. Like most of us, especially as we get older, his life revolves around those two things, and with them both gone, he's got nothing. Or so he thinks. He spends a great deal of time not living, both before he met his wife and after she died, and this book is a good warning to not live that way. Your life is what you make of it, so you'd better make something of it.

The book is never preachy, but it seems very true. Things turn out pretty well, and almost everyone in it is like the Abominable--good people inside who just need someone to flesh it out. It's a little too nice and neat at the end, but that's the kind of pleasant book it is, and you'll be okay with that, even if you're not normally, in books and in daily life. I'm sure as hell not, and it worked really well for me.

Also true to know is that Ove is an older guy who is the definition of a curmudgeon. I've often been called a little grumpy myself, and the thing to know, this book says, is that such people a) have reasons for being that way, all sad and unbelievable, and b) that's not all who and what they are.

What is also good and rare about Ove is that he is no talk and all action (Stupid is as stupid DOES), and that he has a set standard of morals and life lessons he lives by that seem strict and unbending only to those who don't have them and who don't understand those who do. I speak from experience here. But he is a very strong and steadfast guy, of a high moral compass, even if he does come across as just a tick easier to deal with than Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. But where Melvin Udall (the character name just came to me) has a clinical obsessive-compulsive diagnosis (which Ove may also share), Ove has a life of hard knocks and solitary strength that has led him to become this man. 

Seeing him learn to live life again, and yet stay true to his own character, is a helluva ride that you'll want to take. And you won't forget that you took it. I recommend this book very, very much.

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.

High Lonesome: 40 Years of Stories from Joyce Carol Oates

Photo: from books.google.com at this link

Better known for her Gothic stories, especially the heavily anthologized "Where Is Here?" and a few others, this is still an extremely readable and often striking collection of short stories spanning 40 years, from 1966 to 2006. As with all collections of this length, and shorter, you may find some swings and misses here, but there are far more hits than misses. At worst, a few stories were okay, unimpressive, but not bad, exactly. Some are stunning. Some are memorable, sometimes for the writing, sometimes for the things that happen. (In one, an unhappy woman in her early 20s allows herself to have a messy, unstopped period while she and her family spoke with a priest at a seminary, where her brother would've been kicked out but for that spectacle.) Other stories are memorable for what they don't show, or say. (In one, a young man kills himself in his car. In the glove compartment is found an object that may insinuate he also would've killed someone else, but for some reason didn't. The story ends with a character asking the other what that object had been for--and the story ends right there.) Anyway, there are 11 new stories here (as of 2006), one of them the title story. This one is also perhaps the best of the bunch--a nice comment to be able to make, considering Joyce Carol Oates has been writing now for over 50 years, and apparently hasn't lost a thing. If anything, she may be getting better. So these are all good, and highly recommended, though I prefer her Gothic stories, none of which are here.

A short bulleted commentary:

--"Spider Boy" is very good. Chilling and short, as usual about the unknown side of someone's personality.

--"The Cousins" is an award-winning story.

--"The Gathering Squall" has a nice metaphor, tying a painting in with the story's theme. I tried Googling the painting, couldn't find it. Possibly invented for the story.

--"The Lost Brother" is a good story about the hopelessness of having hope for a lost soul in your family. And perhaps why you shouldn't.

--"High Lonesome" motivated me to start my own story. The best part of the story--the old, desperate, lonely man getting pinched while only wanting conversation from a hooker who's not a hooker--isn't even the main part.

--"Upon the Sweeping Flood" is good and memorable, and has a recurring image of children suffering at the hands of insane adults.

--"At the Seminary" was referred to above. Not to be missed, if only for the scene I described.

--"Where Are You Going...?" is perhaps the most anthologized story here, one the author says she regrets having to include in this volume because it's so prevalent elsewhere. I have it in the tons of other sweeping anthologies downstairs. However, it continues to impress, even after a great many readings. Sly, slow, charming, disturbing, seductive (not in a sensual sense) evil has perhaps never been captured so well, not even by Hawthorne.

--The collection is broken down into the decades. Stories from "The 1970s" are all good, though representative (except for "Manslaughter") of John Updike. Maybe Cheever, too.

--"The Hair" was a very good, very John Cheever, expose of suburban couples and the illusion of social and marital perfection that one couple holds over the other, until the ending. Reminiscent of reality; been there, done that. Got away just in time.

--"Life After High School" was referred to above. Interesting. The woman in the story reminds me of someone I know.

--"Mark of Satan" was a story I was highly critical of on my blog, a long time ago, for reasons that now escape me. I'd read just the last few stories of the whole collection at the time, and responded in anger about this one. I think I mentioned I thought it was a rip-off, but it's not, and I can't even begin to tell you what the hell my problem was. Anyway, it's okay, not great and not bad.

The title, by the way, is a phrase that means "drunk" or "bender," but which sounds depressive to me as well. This all makes sense, because there's plenty of all three here. Most of the characters and stories inhabit upstate New York, Richard Russo's (Nobody's Fool and Empire) stomping grounds, or New York City, when the stories sound a bit like Updike and Cheever.

And I would love to know her writing schedule. She's so prolific, she makes Stephen King seem like J.D. Salinger or Harper Lee. 

Kim Davis and Issuing Marriage Licenses

A few thoughts about Kim Davis:

1. She's being called a martyr by some, but I'm not so sure she is.  Why?  Well, she's obviously enjoying herself here, proud of her self-righteousness and her popularity.  I guarantee you that the second nobody cares about her situation anymore, she'll say okay and get out of there.

And, oh yeah--Martyrs don't typically enjoy their punishment as much as she clearly is.  Getting crucified, stoned to death, or hanged upside-down on a cross are not enjoyable experiences.

2. This is not about her religious beliefs.  It's about her.  In a narcissistic way.

3. And it's about her power.  Her mother issued marriage licenses for 37 years, and she was her deputy clerk for 27 of those years.  She's been issuing licenses herself for who knows how long, and her son has been her deputy clerk for years.  I'll bet she's thinking, Nobody...Nobody, not even a federal judge, can tell me who I have to marry.  In this way, it's not at all about religion.  It's about power.

4. Speaking of power, it's also about the power of judges--in the Supreme Court, and in other courts who have ruled on this--who don't like it when someone stands in front of them and tells them she is not going to follow their law.  No Supreme Court, or Superior Court, or any other type of judge will appreciate this.

5. Anyone notice that she looks like Carrie White's mother, minus the blonde hair?  Look at her eyes.

6. Someone find me the New Testament passage where Jesus says that marriage is only between a man and a woman.  What was Jesus's stance on this?  I don't know.  I guarantee you, Kim Davis doesn't, either.  Apparently, she's blipped on the passage where He says to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  After all, she has been married four times.  And what about those who are without sin casting the first stone?

7. Speaking of that, I like how her husband has been taking her side on this from the comfort of his own home.  He's behind her, all right--way behind her.

8. It's very disconcerting to see almost every Republican candidate for President publicly siding with her on this.  I didn't expect them to suddenly be for the gay community, but I'm surprised they are all so openly and blissfully unaware of the democratic dictum of Separation of Church and State.

9. I would not vote for anyone who so clearly did not understand the importance of separating Church and State.  Our Founding Fathers--who were very, very religious men--still put democracy over their religion.  They did this for a reason: Because when Religion rules the State, history has shown us that we'd have something really, really bad.  Look at many news stories today in some parts of the world.

10. Her lawyer is clearly not giving her quality legal advice, and may be purposely throwing fuel on the fire, which lawyers are not supposed to do.  His law firm is a Christian firm, and only has Christian clients with Christian issues.  He's clearly espousing his own agenda here, and not giving his client good legal advice.  This is the man who compared this woman's jail stay to that of Martin Luther King's.

11. Some politicians, judges and lawyers are saying that she should be excluded from issuing these licenses because of her religious beliefs.  They are trying to pass legislation that would exempt someone from doing any part of their job that they say violates their religious beliefs.

This is, of course, impossible, and ridiculous, for many reasons.

a) You can't decide what part of a job you will do and won't do.  In this case, her public is her employer, and she therefore has to follow the law that governs her public.  As one of the men seeking a license said, he was a taxpayer who was paying her to oppress him.  That is obviously a violation of his    civil rights, and is obviously unconstitutional.

b) Can I say that every single aspect of my job violates my religious beliefs, and therefore I will not do them?  Can I say that the parts I mostly don't like violates my religious beliefs? Cuz if so, I'm doin' it.  And still getting my paycheck.

c) Where is the line for the term religious beliefs?  Can Creationists flat-out refuse to teach evolution at all, not even mentioning it as a theory?  What would atheists say?  How about people who don't want to work with--or serve--divorced people?

12. Does the phrase, "...the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" mean anything to anyone?  I mean, really, can anyone tell people that they can't get married?

13. Marriage comes with some good tax breaks, insurance benefits, and ability to inherit money and land from a loved one.  It is not constitutional to prohibit marriage to someone for this reason alone.

14. Beware of someone whose life revolves around one person or thing.  Her religion is not that one thing.  Her beliefs are.  It's important to understand this distinction.  Because of this, her happiness predominates, to the point that she does not consider the happiness of others relevant.

Like I said, Narcissism.

Notes from A Stephen King Interview, Part 2

Photo: Stephen King at The Harvard Bookstore, June 6, 2005.  From his Wikipedia page.

[This is Part 2 of a blog started a few days ago, which you can go to here if you don't want to scroll.]

[Stephen King gave this sort of loose interview to The Atlantic on April 12, 2011.  The interview was in conjunction with a new-at-the-time short story, "Herman Wouk Is Still Alive," which you can read here.  (You should read the story first before continuing on with this blog entry.)]

To another vein.  You know how your writing and English teachers always tell you to walk around with pen and paper (or, today, an iPhone, or an iPad, or just talk into your cell, or--) because you must write down that great idea or you'll forget it?  Well, the guy who has sold more books than anyone currently alive says:

I never write ideas down. Because all you do when you write ideas down is kind of immortalize something that should go away. If they're bad ideas, they go away on their own.

For the record, I also believe this, and I very rarely write anything down.  When I do, I hardly ever use them.  I also believe that ideas you'll use will germinate in your head and simply not leave until you write them into a story.  All the other ideas are unwanted guests who are correctly shown the door.  The more I practice this, the more writing I get done.  The more I let every single idea take root, I stray or the elevator stops.

Out of nowhere, practically, King gives a pretty good description of what poetry is good for:

[Poetry] takes ordinary life, it takes things that we all see, and concentrates them in this beautiful gem. When the good ones do that, that's what you get. When the Philip Larkins or the James Dickeys do that, you get something that is heightened, that says to us that reality is finer and more beautiful and more mysterious than we could ever possibly express ourselves. Which is why we need poetry.

Indeed so.  I'm not a good enough poet to do this myself--I've only managed to sell one poem, though it's also true that I've only sent out one poem--but I agree that this is what good poetry can do.  It's life, super-concentrated, super-compact.  I wrote a line that says, "A poem is a thought shared in compacted time."  I believe this to be true.

But I respectfully disagree with King on one point.  When asked to compare the short story markets of his youth to the ones today, King said:

All those magazines published short fiction. And it started to dry up. And now you can number literally on two hands the number of magazines that are not little presses that publish short fiction.

While this may be true in terms of physical, tangible magazines you hold in your hands, this is not true overall.  There are a ton of markets--many of them big, that pay well--on the Web.  They're called e-magazines.  I've been published in a few of them, and they often pay better than the hand-held, paper ones.  A sign of the times, but a fact nonetheless.

In fact, when King says that people don't read short stories (or much else) anymore, I would politely disagree with that, as well.  Those online mags wouldn't be able to pay what they do if nobody was reading them.  And there's a ton of decent-paying online mags. Again, I know: I've been in them.

And, finally, here's an interesting irony:

JP: It is odd, though, if you think about it, that with all the speeding-up that we're being told about, and the dwindling of the attention span and all that, that people would rather chomp their way through a 400-pager than just get zapped by a little story ...

SK: And so many of the 400-pagers are disposable in themselves. When I see books by some of the suspense writers that are popular now, I think to myself: "These are basically books for people who don't want to read at all." It just kind of passes through the system. It's like some kind of fast-food treat that takes the express right from your mouth to your bowels, without ever stopping to nourish any part of you. I don't want to name names, but we know who we're talking about.

This is also true.  I'll name names for him: James Patterson.  Many of the heart-felt vampire books, or young-heroine dystopias.  But, I should also add, in all honesty: Stephen King himself, sometimes.

I think he would admit that, most of the time.  He was just having a negative, cranky interview.

When People Say Stupid Things About Others

Just a few quick things...

--Giuliani used to be the Joe Torre of NYC for those of us who don't live in NYC: a classy guy amidst a whirlwind of blech!  Not anymore.

--And, yeah, Obama loves his country.  The proof is the job he took--again, I might add--though he knew he'd have to deal with idiots saying stuff like this.

--And now the governor of Wisconsin says he doesn't know if Obama loves his country.

--Yeah, he does.  So much, in fact, that he's trying to make health care, voting and the economy fair for everyone.  In a democracy, what's better than that?

--I've had enough of people saying stupid crap about Obama.  Make it a point to notice: Those who are saying such things, they're not the President.  And they've had unsuccessful political aspirations, even if they're otherwise successful politicians, like Giuliani, who wanted to run for president many years ago, but just didn't have the support of his party.

--And, P.S.--Just because you don't like somebody, that doesn't mean you have the right to stay stupid crap about them.

--People who say such things, those things say more about them than they do about the person they're complaining about.  And they don't know this, because they keep on saying them.

--I've had it with people who say stupid crap about anyone, actually.  I wish I had the time to say stupid things about people.  Things get back to me every now and then about people who say crap about others, including about me.  I don't play that game.  I don't have time to.  I'm too busy actually doing my job, writing my stuff, livin' my life.  So busy, in fact, that I don't even know the stupid things said about people, or about me, until someone (or MSN) tells me. 

--Do I retaliate by doing the same?  Nope.  I simply don't have the time.  That's just not who I am.

--I'm not saying that makes me a better person.  I'm just saying that it's not what I want to do, and it's not who I want to be.  I don't define myself by comparing myself to others.  I just decide who I want to be, and then I try to be that.  Sometimes I fail and do incredibly stupid things, too--but usually not to the detriment of others.  Just myself.  I pretty much just leave other people alone in life.  I stay in my cave and I do what I do. 

--And I don't have the jealousy and bitterness that people like that have, that make them say the stupid things about people that they do.  I simply do not get jealous, or bitter, about others.  Because, again, I don't compare myself to others to begin with, so there's nothing to get jealous or bitter about.

--I'm just sayin'.

Do Not Write Like This!!! A List of Tired Plots.

Photo: One of the banners from www.strangehorizons.com.


This is a partial list of plot elements seen way too often in the business, from Strange Horizons, an online speculative fiction magazine.  Click the link to see the whole list, which I'll blog in partials.  (Strange Horizons allows this list to be published, in case you were wondering about copyrights.) 

After every story of this genre I write, I check out this list (of 51 things, most of them sub-headed, which will, as I said, be blogged about later as separate blog entries) and make sure that none of my stories in any way comes close to matching any of these.  You would think that this would be difficult, right?  Surely there's something in my story that has to match one of these.  Actually, no.  And stop calling me Shirley.  Sorry.  Anyway, upon a close inspection, I see that time and again, my stories do not match any of these main plot elements.  This doesn't mean my story is any good, of course, but it at least means that it won't get rejected solely for being one of these things.

If you've read as much of this genre as I have, or if you've watched as many movies or shows in this genre as I have, a few of these may remind you of one of the stories, books, shows or movies that you already think of as one of the worst you've ever come across.  I've read a lot of amateurish stuff--much of it self-published--that fit quite a few of these.  And they were all very, very bad.

And so I offer these to you, should you ever want to write and publish in this genre.  How many of them do you recognize in something truly awful?  (Not that you would ever do this, but comparisons to my published writing will earn an immediate delete when I moderate the comments!)

P.S.--2a sounds familiar, especially in lots of Stephen King's works, but I would argue that it's not the main plot element.  Jack Torrance in The Shining, for example, definitely has writer's block, but it's due to the evil of the Overlook messing with him, plus a healthy dose of the recovering man's blues.  Besides that, he was able to type "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" several thousands of times, sometimes in poetic form.

1. Person is (metaphorically) at point A, wants to be at point B. Looks at point B, says "I want to be at point B." Walks to point B, encountering no meaningful obstacles or difficulties. The end. (A.k.a. the linear plot.)
2. Creative person is having trouble creating.
   1. Writer has writer's block.
   2. Painter can't seem to paint anything good.
   3. Sculptor can't seem to sculpt anything good.
   4. Creative person's work is reviled by critics who don't understand how brilliant it is.
   5. Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.
3. Visitor to alien planet ignores information about local rules, inadvertantly violates them, is punished.
   1. New diplomat arrives on alien planet, ignores anthropologist's attempts to explain local rules, is punished.
4. Weird things happen, but it turns out they're not real.
   1. In the end, it turns out it was all a dream.
   2. In the end, it turns out it was all in virtual reality.
   3. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is insane.
   4. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is writing a novel and the events we've seen are part of the novel.
5. An AI gets loose on the Net, but the author doesn't have a clear concept of what it means for software to be "loose on the Net." (For example, the computer it was on may not be connected to the Net.)
6. Technology and/or modern life turn out to be soulless.
   1. Office life turns out to be soul-deadening, literally or metaphorically.
   2. All technology is shown to be soulless; in contrast, anything "natural" is by definition good. For example, living in a weather-controlled environment is bad, because it's artificial, while dying of pneumonia is good, because it's natural.
   3. The future is utopian and is considered by some or many to be perfect, but perfection turns out to be boring and stagnant and soul-deadening; it turns out that only through imperfection, pain, misery, and nature can life actually be good.
   4. In the future, all learning is soulless and electronic, until kid is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a book.
   5. In the future, everything is soulless and electronic, until protagonist (usually a kid) is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a wise old person who's lived a non-electronic life.
7. Protagonist is a bad person. [We don't object to this in a story; we merely object to it being the main point of the plot.]
   1. Bad person is told they'll get the reward that they "deserve," which ends up being something bad.
   2. Terrorists (especially Osama bin Laden) discover that horrible things happen to them in the afterlife (or otherwise get their comeuppance).
   3. Protagonist is portrayed as really awful, but that portrayal is merely a setup for the ending, in which they see the error of their ways and are redeemed. (But reading about the awfulness is so awful that we never get to the end to see the redemption.)
8. A place is described, with no plot or characters.
9. A "surprise" twist ending occurs. [Note that we do like endings that we didn't expect, as long as they derive naturally from character action. But note, too, that we've seen a lot of twist endings, and we find most of them to be pretty predictable, even the ones not on this list.]
   1. The characters' actions are described in a way meant to fool the reader into thinking they're humans, but in the end it turns out they're not humans, as would have been obvious to anyone looking at them.
   2. Creatures are described as "vermin" or "pests" or "monsters," but in the end it turns out they're humans.
   3. The author conceals some essential piece of information from the reader that would be obvious if the reader were present at the scene, and then suddenly reveals that information at the end of the story. [This can be done well, but rarely is.]
   4. Person is floating in a formless void; in the end, they're born.
   5. Person uses time travel to achieve some particular result, but in the end something unexpected happens that thwarts their plan.
   6. The main point of the story is for the author to metaphorically tell the reader, "Ha, ha, I tricked you! You thought one thing was going on, but it was really something else! You sure are dumb!"
   7. A mysteriously-named Event is about to happen ("Today was the day Jimmy would have to report for The Procedure"), but the nature of the Event isn't revealed until the end of the story, when it turns out to involve death or other unpleasantness. [Several classic sf stories use this approach, which is one reason we're tired of seeing it. Another reason is that we can usually guess the twist well ahead of time, which makes the mysteriousness annoying.]
   8. In the future, an official government permit is required in order to do some particular ordinary thing, but the specific thing a permit is required for isn't (usually) revealed until the end of the story.
   9. Characters speculate (usually jokingly): "What if X were true of the universe?" (For example: "What if the universe is a simulation?") At the end, something happens that implies that X is true.
   10. Characters in the story (usually in the far future and/or on an alien planet) use phrases that are phonetic respellings or variations of modern English words or phrases, such as "Hyoo Manz" or "Pleja Legions," which the reader isn't intended to notice; in the end, a surprise twist reveals that there's a connection to 20th/21st-century English speakers.
10. Someone calls technical support; wacky hijinx ensue.
    1. Someone calls technical support for a magical item.
    2. Someone calls technical support for a piece of advanced technology.
    3. The title of the story is 1-800-SOMETHING-CUTE.

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.

Phantom--Book Review

Photo: Jo Nesbo, from crimefictionlover.com.

This one took a little while to get going, but of course was well worth it.  Harry Hole is back from self-isolation in Hong Kong because the son of the love of his life has been accused of murder.  Helping Hole to hopefully set this boy free are his usual suspects, though they're mostly given short shrift here.  They pop up essentially to help out and then they disappear again.  I would've liked to have seen Beate some more, but I admit that there wasn't enough in the plot to place her there more often without making it look forced.  So...maybe later.

At any rate, the crime itself again isn't a mindbender.  An experienced reader will know who done it, though, again, the proof is hard to come by.  Watching Hole figuring it out and gathering it is why we read these.  But it shouldn't surprise you.  Also not much of a mystery to me was the identity of the old man who keeps showing up.  It probably won't be for you, either.  The italics portions struck me as unnecessary, but it was different for Nesbo, and so maybe that's what he was looking for.  It also provides a decent book-ending to it all, so okay.  I guess.

What will be a surprise, however, is the ending.  Rather infamous now, as this review comes a few years too late for the surprise ending, and since the tenth book, Police, has been out for awhile now.  If you haven't read this one, I won't spoil it for you, but...yeah, there's been a sequel, so...

And, yeah, I know I'm reading the Harry Hole books out of order.  I don't have them all, so bear with me.

The best part of these books, to me, is the honesty in which Nesbo writes them.  He doesn't shy away from the depressing, bottom-line truth of things.  The ending of Phantom is yet another, and perhaps the most glaring, example.  I had that part figured out because that is the way of these types of things, as Nesbo shows time and time again in this book.  It really couldn't have been anyone else, for any other reason, at the end.  Mattress Girl, in my soon-to-be-finished ms., can attest to that.  It is what it is.  Let's deal with the what-is before we try to make it the way we want it to be.

Innocent Men Set Free After 30 Years

Photo: from the AP article mentioned below: "In an an Aug. 12, 2014 photo, Henry McCollum sits on death row at Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C. He and his half brother Leon Brown have spent more than three decades in prison for the rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie in 1983."

I credited the caption from the article, but what I really wanted to write was:

For every overturned case due to newly-found DNA evidence that highlights a murder conviction based solely on bias--Doesn't this photo really say it all?

For the full report, read this article at this link.  Most of this entry is copied and pasted from this article, which states the facts much better than I could have.  Below the line is where I step in.

LUMBERTON, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina judge overturned the convictions Tuesday of two men who have served 30 years in prison for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl after another man's DNA was recently discovered on evidence in the case.

Superior Court Judge Douglass Sasser ordered the immediate release of Henry McCollum, 50, and Leon Brown, 46. The half brothers were convicted in the 1983 slaying of Sabrina Buie in Robeson County.

Lawyers for the men petitioned for their release after DNA evidence from a cigarette butt recovered at the crime scene pointed to another man. That man, who lived close to the soybean field where the dead girl's body was found, is already serving a life sentence for a similar rape and murder that happened less than a month later.

Sasser ruled after a day-long evidence hearing during which Sharon Stellato, the associate director North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, testified about three interviews she had over the summer with the 74-year-old inmate now suspected of killing Buie. The Associated Press does not generally disclose the names of criminal suspects unless they are charged.

According to Stellato, the inmate said at first he didn't know Buie. But in later interviews, the man said the girl would come to his house and buy cigarettes for him, Stellato said.

The man also told them he saw the girl the night she went missing and gave her a coat and hat because it was raining, Stellato said. He told the commission that's why his DNA may have been at the scene.

Stellato also said the man repeatedly told her McCollum and Brown are innocent.

Still, he denied involvement in the killing, Stellato said. He told the commission that the girl was alive when she left his house and that he didn't see her again. He told the commission that he didn't leave the house because it was raining and he had to work the next day.

Stellato said weather records show it didn't rain the night Buie went missing or the next day.

Authorities said McCollum, who was 19 at the time, and Brown, who was 15, confessed to killing Buie.

Attorneys said both men have low IQs and their confessions were coerced after hours of questioning. There is no physical evidence connecting them to the crime.

Both were initially given death sentences, which were overturned. At a second trial, McCollum was again sent to death row, where he remains, while Brown was convicted of rape and sentenced to life.

The DNA from the cigarette butts doesn't match either of them, and fingerprints taken from a beer can at the scene aren't theirs either. The other man now suspected in Buie's killing was convicted of assaulting three other women over 30 years before his last conviction.

Lawyers for the two men said the new testing leaves no doubt about their clients' innocence.
Ken Rose, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham, has represented Henry McCollum for 20 years.

"It's terrifying that our justice system allowed two intellectually disabled children to go to prison for a crime they had nothing to do with, and then to suffer there for 30 years," Rose said. "Henry watched dozens of people be hauled away for execution. He would become so distraught he had to be put in isolation. It's impossible to put into words what these men have been through and how much they have lost."

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I have nothing but outrage to add to this, a pity since outrage doesn't come across well in a blog.  So I'll just reiterate one point: 

"There is no physical evidence connecting them to the crime."

However, despite this, "...[b]oth were initially given death sentences, which were overturned. At a second trial, McCollum was again sent to death row, where he remains..."

How do you give someone the death penalty--TWICE--for a conviction not based on any physical evidence at all, ever?  How does a mentally deficient man get the death penalty based on a confession he couldn't possibly have given willingly, in a case in which there's zero physical evidence against him?  And this wasn't in the bigoted first half of the 20th Century.  This was in 1983--just 31 years ago.

How many times do you think a black man with a very low IQ has been given the death penalty based solely on a "confession" and zero physical evidence?

Why doesn't somebody of national relevance order a review of every single case in which a black and /or mentally deficient (because of an extremely low IQ) man has been incarcerated due to convictions based on a "confession" and zero physical evidence?

The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter

Photo: book's cover, from its Wikipedia Page

Outstanding collection of first-person observations of many ballplayers--mostly from the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Cincinnati Reds--from those who began their careers in the late-1890s / early 1900s (Tommy Leach and Sam Crawford) to those who finished their careers in the 1930s and 1940s (Paul Waner and Hank Greenberg).  I really liked this book because it initially talks a lot about many of the players I have in my 1909-1911 T206s, who I didn't know a lot about, outside of their names and stats.  It's nice to be able to put a personality to the face on the card.  It was also interesting to hear about what baseball was truly like in the early 1900s by those who played it, and about what they thought about their contemporaries.

Some of the things I learned:

--Though they were called "the minors," such teams were not like the minor league teams today.  The starkest difference is that these teams were not in existence to feed players to the parent team, like such teams are today.  (For example, the Pawtucket Red Sox is the AAA team for the Boston Red Sox.  The Pawsox's sole purpose is to provide a place for players to play so that Boston can call them up if it needs to.  If Boston did need a player, a phone call brings him to Boston.)  But in the early 1900s, smaller teams were not there to just supply players to the big-league team.  That type of farm system didn't exist until the 1940s.  Instead, a team in the Pacific Coast League, or the Mid-Atlantic League, or the Triple-I League, or the Southern League, or the Tri-State League--or in tons of other amateur, semi-pro or professional leagues--had to be paid for the player.  The players interviewed said that these teams were often helpful to the player's chance to make the majors--but they didn't have to be.  A few players said the smaller team's owner would involve them in the transaction process--and often take a lesser deal to grease the wheels for the player.  But the insinuation was that the team could hold on to the player for a year or two more than today's minor league teams would, thereby making their big-league careers shorter. 

--Many players said the pay between the smaller team and the big league team were almost the same.  In many cases, the big-league team only paid about $50 more per month--and the player wasn't always crazy about receiving more money, but playing much less often, at the big-league level.  A few were happy to be sent down so they could play more often, even if they were paid a little less.

--Managers played a much bigger role in the contracts and finances of the team and player than they do today.  The manager signed players to contracts and haggled over salaries.  Players often went directly to the owner when they were annoyed with the manager--but they had to deal with the manager first.

--Players frequently jumped from one team to another, often in the middle of contracts.  Many HOFers jumped to the Federal League (in the mid-1910s) mid-contract simply because someone from that league offered them more money--often a few thousand more, which was a lot back then.  They didn't hesitate to do this because teams would unceremoniously dump players with no notice, or lower their salaries despite career years, or trade them at any time, or send them to a lower league at any time.  For example, as late as the 1940s, the Detroit Tigers just flat-out sold Hank Greenberg to the Pittsburgh Pirates, for $75,000.  Greenberg had 44 homers and 127 RBIs the previous year.  Anyway, nobody was loyal to anybody.

--And the owners were very, very cheap.  Because they could be.

--The consensus was that Honus Wagner, and not Ty Cobb, was the better player 1900-1920.  After that, everyone agreed it was Babe Ruth.  The players were clearly in awe of Wagner and Ruth--even the other HOFers.

--Honus Wagner was apparently a Gold Glove-caliber player at any position at all on the field.  Even if Cobb was slightly the better hitter (which was not a given), Wagner was the much better defender.  Players were just as impressed with Wagner's defense as they were with his offense.

--Hall of Famers got traded shockingly often.  Managers, too.

--Supposedly the earlier players were uneducated, right?  Not so, say these players, and they knew tons of examples of ballplayers and the colleges and universities they'd attended.  They all said that the percentage of all players being college-educated was much, much higher than the percentage of college-educated people amongst the general public.

--Having said that, there were a tremendous number of hicks and "rubes" as well.  Literally, like Rube Waddell, and Rube Marquard, and...

--Most of the ballplayers didn't mind receiving slightly-lower pay on the smaller teams because even that pay was light years ahead of what was waiting for them outside of baseball.  Lots of miners and other hard-laborers amongst the ballplayers, and those players did that kind of work during the off-season.

--Players barnstormed as often as possible outside of the baseball season.  And they would go anywhere, even to very small towns and sparsely-populated areas.

--Most players loved John McGraw.  A few didn't.  Sometimes they seemed to be talking about different people.  Same thing for Ty Cobb, except most said Cobb was "very hard to get along with."  But they all respected his fire and passion.  A few said Cobb was okay to be around.

--All of the players cared a lot about their peers being nice guys.

--If you were injured, you lost your job.  Period.  And no play equaled no pay.

--Quite a few of them, such as HOFer Sam Crawford, had careers outside of baseball that lasted 25-35 years after they retired.  And, surprisingly, players lasting beyond age 40 was common.

--Most of them said that the ballplayers playing while the book was being put together (50s and 60s) were much better, overall, than were their peers.  And they all said that Willie Mays (not Mantle, Aaron or anyone else) was the best present-day player.

--But they all also said that their peers were much more baseball-smart than were the present players, mostly because the present-day players just wanted to hit homers, while their peers had to scratch and scrape for runs, because homers could not be hit in such huge ballparks with such a dead ball.

--Many pitchers between 1900-1930 blatantly marked up the ball.  Emory boards, tacks, spit, powder, and--most often--tobacco juice were loaded onto the baseball to make it harder to hit and to see.

--All of them said baseball life was lonely.  Which made nice people so important.

--Because only one umpire worked a game in the early-1900s, if there was a play at the plate (where the one empire therefore had to focus), baserunners would often not come anywhere near second or third base as they rounded the bases.

I could go on and on.  If you're into history, or baseball, or the history of baseball, you'd find this fascinating. 

Captain Phillips--Movie Review

 Photo: Movie poster, from its Wikipedia page.

This is a very well-acted and -directed film that maintains its tension even though you know how it's going to end.  (It's based on the main character's book, after all.)

Paul Greengrass, director of United 93, a couple of Bourne movies, and other good films, uses his favorite shots--grainy, documentary-like, hand-held, and jittery--and scenes of routine and family to good effect.  He does not direct to excess, as many good, flashy directors often do, nor does he waste any shots or use rapid-fire direction that overwhelms.  Spotless directing here from one of the best directors nobody knows.

Tom Hanks gives another outstanding performance--again, especially considering that we know how it's all going to end.  He's great as the family man who's also the absolute professional.  When thrown into tense and violent situations, he doesn't allow his acting to get hysterical or cliche.  It's a very authentic performance.

The actors who play the Somali pirates are also very, very good, especially the leader of the group, who comes across as desperate, yet professional and often intelligent and wise.  He's needy enough to follow through despite obviously tremendous odds against him, yet he's not self-reflective enough to wonder why his last haul--which netted millions--still did not change his destitute, starving life.  He says he's a fisherman, and that the U.S. has depleted the fish supply in the ocean waters near his home, but the viewer knows there's more to it than that--and we know that he knows it, too.  But his character refuses to mentally go there, anyway.

Though at least 95% of the film takes place aboard a ship and a tiny escape vessel, the action still has grandeur and scope--not to mention vast oceans, attack helicopters and destroyers--but the movie never loses its intense focus.

It's gripping and tense, well-acted and well-directed, and a movie worth paying for and watching.

Movie Review: Gravity

Photo: The movie's poster, from its Wikipedia page.  Read that, too.  Interesting stuff.

Other than the incredibly obnoxious idiots talking and exclaiming behind me all through the movie, I have nothing but superlatives to say about the movie Gravity.  (Admittedly, the chatty a--holes behind me were not the fault of the movie.)  It is a very short masterpiece, a (mostly) one-woman show, a visual monologue.  Think a much-shorter, female version of Castaway, except in space, and you've got it.  Gravity, in fact, is a much better movie than Castaway--especially since they both shoot for the same themes: lust for life; appreciation; survival.

This review has to be much shorter than my usual, because to write too much about the movie will give too much away.  The special effects are great, as they must be since over 99% of the movie is in space.  The direction is super, as Cuaron seemlessly goes from a third-person POV, to a first person limited POV, to a POV from inside one of their space helmets, to...you get the idea.  This is something agents and editors tell writers not to do, and it's pretty jarring usually when a director does it as well.  Here it isn't.  The timing is just right.

You'll be impressed by Sandra Bullock's performance here, too.  In a way, it's an uber-spunky version of Speed, but without the excessive cuteness she had at that age.  That's gone, but what's left over is a movie-appropriate, gritty self-determinism that I was surprised she could pull off.  If an older woman, now in her 40s, can be said to be spunky and cute, Bullock is that here.  But self-determined is probably a better term: in fact, through much of the movie, that's occasionally lacking, until she permanently acquires it (in a scene that shouldn't surprise you, though it apparently stupefied the idiots behind me) and uses it in a very MacGyver-but-in-space kind of way.  She doesn't have lots of socks and bandages on her, but she makes do, initially with the help of George Clooney, who was made for his role.

The self-determinism she holds on to is grabbed by this movie and used to transcend her own individual experience.  Ultimately, the movie tries to say that life is beautiful, though fragile, and that we can overcome almost impossible situations to survive.  It's a very cheerleading kind of movie, but only at the end, so don't be put off by any other reviewer who may say the movie does too much of that.  This movie is gripping and awe-inspiring throughout its entire app. one and a half hour run, which is a good thing, because I would have had to shout obscenities at the jackasses behind me otherwise.  But I didn't want to interrupt myself watching the movie, and you won't, either.

As another (paid and professional) reviewer put it, stop reading the reviews now and go see it.

The Rapture of Mystery: Stephen King's The Colorado Kid

Photo: Paperback cover from the book's Wikipedia page.

I read this one in a couple of hours, just after finishing Stephen King's Joyland.  They're both published by Hard Case Crime, and they both have covers of big-breasted, younger dames--covers of a scene you won't find in the story itself.  I don't know why I'm okay with that, and yet why I'm not, at the same time.

This mystery is sort of the idea of this book itself.  An actual mystery that, like most of life, you can't explain.  This is not a Sherlock Holmes locked-room mystery, nor is it an Agatha Christie trapped-on-an-island mystery.  It isn't either of those because this one is unsolvable, and purposely so.  The story isn't the case, or the mystery, but the three characters telling the story.

The story is, in fact, the story itself.  It's about being curious, about always questioning, always asking "Why?"  At my job, my little cohorts are always asking me why I ask "Why?" so much.  And I'm always asking them why they don't ask "Why?" enough.  (I suspect it has something to do with television, gaming and computers, as these things make us do, and watch, but not really think for ourselves.  Or am I getting old?)

But you sort of die when you stop asking "Why?"  And when you stop caring.  The thing is that you can't allow yourself to be put off by the inevitable "I don't know."  Where did we come from before this realm?  "I don't know."  Where are we going?  "I don't know."  You may have a religion that teaches you what to believe, but that's why it's called "belief."  Believing is not knowing.

And so this is the root of this short (especially for King) book.  The story isn't the mystery, per se, but is instead the wonder of "mystery" itself.  It's what keeps life interesting, right?  And a lot of things in life really don't have a clear-cut beginning, middle and end.  Where did we go wrong?  "I don't know."  Why did she change so much?  Maybe she was always like that and I didn't realize it?  "I don't know."  Some mysteries don't have answers, such as why an advertisement artist from Colorado suddenly had to feverishly catch a jet to Bangor, Maine, and drive hell-mell to middle-of-nowhere Maine and to die suddenly and inexplicably on a small beach.  Who knows?  It's cases like this that haunt real-life police detectives, I'm sure.  Drives them crazy.  But that's what life is--a series of inexplicable mysteries that you're wise to consider, but unwise to expect an easy answer--or an answer at all.

Sometimes there just isn't one.  And, if there is, it's often above our comprehension.  (That's what religion's for, I suppose.)  But this short book ends with the essence of all that: a ballfield full of players and umpires, looking up in a fixed rapture of confused wonder.

That's what this life is.  Rapturously confused wonder.

You'll appreciate The Colorado Kid if you get that.  You won't if you don't.

Silver Linings Playbook

Photo: movie poster, from its Wikipedia page

_____

[Note: The word "Crazies" here is used to denote the categorical, but not universal, behavior of the characters described, and the behavior of their real-life counterparts.  Never doubt that these behaviors cause these victims to suffer--especially when the self-realization and guilt hit.  These people are not crazy; they are ill.  They suffer, and they are victims--often of their own, often uncontrolled, behaviors.]

_____

Can two Crazies fall in love?  And if they do, is it really love, or are they just crazy?  Do Crazies know what love is, or is what they think love is just more of the obsessive behavior that embodies their craziness?

And does it matter?  Luckily, no, not at all.  Not in this film.

Believe me, I know Crazies (not going to go there), and I assure you that they are very much like the characters played by Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro--and yet nothing like them at all.  Will they scream bloody murder at each other and slap each other in public?  Yes.  Will the girl scream that he's harassing her, in public?  Yes.  Will she then turn on the crowd and the cop who respond to her yelling?  Yes.  Will she then lie to save the guy who she's just lied about to begin with--all of this still in public?  Yes.  Because that's what Crazies do.

But will the cop--who happens to be assigned to the Bradley Cooper character--walk away from this like he does in the movie?  No.  No, he won't.  And now the Cooper character, in real life, would have violated his probation, or whatever, and that's the end.

And there are a million more examples of this throughout the movie, examples of how Cooper and Lawrence represent real-life Crazies, yet not, at the same time.  The brilliance of this movie--especially to those like me who have been there, and who have, finally, walked away from them, and who have survived the hurricane caused by the damaging winds of their illnesses and personalities--is that you don't care about the discrepancies.  Maybe most audience members will wonder how someone can stay around people who are as much of a live wire as these two are--and possibly that's a great question, even without having to deal with someone like the guy's father, who's a Crazy himself--but the reality is that you can, for reasons we won't go into.

Granted, Cooper's and Lawrence's characters have things going for them that most bipolar obsessives with anger-management issues and lots of self-hatred and self-defeating behaviors don't have going for them--namely, an avoidance of drugs and alcohol; an avoidance of really nasty characters who don't have an avoidance of drugs and alcohol; and a large-enough support group, which in this case consists of a bipolar, obsessive and angry father, a counselor who doesn't advise his clients not to go to professional sports games where there will most likely be lots of alcohol and fighting (and who shows up there himself), a rather straight-laced brother, and some friends who don't run away from them, although they do things like wake up their parents at 3 a.m., throw books out of windows at 3 a.m., walk out of social dinners in the middle of the dinner, and spout whatever's on their minds, at a million miles an hour, without a filtering system of any kind (Cooper's character).  Or, they do many of the above things, and sleep with the entire office and half the town on top of it (Lawrence's character).  These support groups don't leave because they, somehow, don't suffer from the antics of these characters.  In real life, they would leave because such characters, ultimately, and after possibly many years, leave them no other choice.  Everyone gets injured, but you wish them well.

But that's not the reality of the movie here, and by the end of it, despite all this, you're rooting for them despite yourself, because they are sweet, and endearing, and they mean well, which isn't exactly reality, either, but whatever.  You want it to be the reality, and so it is, at least for two hours.  And that's the genius of this film: That despite the (many) conventions, and despite the (many) breaks from reality, the writing and, especially, the acting--from Cooper, Lawrence and De Niro--are so outstanding that they draw you in, and you root for them, and when the two Crazies fall in love at the end (because Cooper's character walks away from his film-long obsession, which such a real-life person wouldn't do, or at least not without the emotional devastation that would accompany it), you buy it, and you forget that these people are suffering from an illness, because you like them so much that you don't want them to suffer from the illness anymore, and so they don't.  And they live life happily ever after, in each other's arms and in each other's laps.  Smiling, laughing, and drinking beer, which real-life bipolar victims and obsessives simply would not do, not if they ever wanted to recover, to manage their illness, and to live something close to a real life.

Happily, real life is not what this is, and you'll love it as I did, so go see it.  (And don't think too much of the title.)

P.S.--Normally I'd blanch at a movie that makes the thirty-seven year-old (Cooper's age at filming) main character fall in love with the twenty-one year-old (Lawrence's age at filming) love interest, and vice-versa.  But these characters are supposed to be ageless; you're not supposed to consider their ages just like you're not supposed to consider that real bipolar victims' lives don't (and won't) work out this way.  It's a fantasy movie in which such people could live like this, and suddenly reverse illness and behave like this, and fantasy characters are ageless.  Jennifer Lawrence's performance, surely one of the year's best, transcends her real age anyway, and she more than holds her own with De Niro, never mind Cooper.  If I hadn't just mentioned it, you might not have considered the ages until movie's end, anyway.  I didn't.

P.P.S.--This from the movie's Wikipedia page:

Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph . . . describes the lead character as a "rambling headcase", his mental illness passed off as a lovable quirk and complains that Tiffany's reasons for being interested in him are largely unexplored. [Jennifer Lawrence] does manage to create a complex character from thin material, but he criticizes Russell [David O. Russell, the director] for ogling her.

(Me again.) All true, but I disagree with Collin about one thing: none of it matters.  That's how good the film's suspension of disbelief is.  So go see it.  (But while watching, you can't help but notice how often the film's mise-en-scene is Lawrence's butt, or chest, mostly during the dance rehearsing scenes.  That did weird me out a tiny bit.)    

Nonfiction Piece Published Now

 photo: Jackson the Greyhound, happy to be out for a walk

A short nonfiction piece, titled "Someone to Come Home to," about how my life improved when I adopted a greyhound, was published recently in an anthology, now available on Amazon at this link.  If you're interested in real stories about how to manage those anxieties that life can often throw at you, check it out.

And due to my spec. fiction sale, I've been accepted as a member of the Horror Writers Association.  (Besides our first name, it's probably the only thing that Stephen King and I have in common.)  Please click on the icon to the right and check them out!

If you feel like commenting about the piece, please do so.  Thanks!