Nigel has released his literary tourist audit of Rochester, NY.
In which I am cruel to be kind
Sunday was Danish Day at the Danish American Center in Minneapolis. You may recall that I came out of that event damaged last year, with a finger broken. This year I’m OK, largely because I did no fighting at all. There were a couple young guys to carry the load, and I’m still trying to fight off this bronchitis that’s draining my energy like a gestating alien in my chest cavity.
Sold a few books, and one of my buyers expressed interest in becoming an author. I tried not to encourage him too much, since only a sadist would point anyone in the direction of that pitiless muse.
“Being an author would be great,” he said. “You could travel all over the world and deduct it!”
I had to burst that little bubble, as it was burst for me long years since. “Unfortunately, that’s not true,” I said. “If you travel to attend a professional conference, or do a lecture, or something like that, you can deduct it. But just going someplace to get local color for your story—the IRS considers that a vacation, and you can’t deduct it.”
I could see the hope die in his eyes.
Which is, of course, a good thing.
Tonight I am prepping, in a way I shall not detail, for a medical text I shall not identify, scheduled for tomorrow morning. If I don’t post anything in the evening, it’ll be because I’m too mellow.
Reading Flannery
Biographer Jonathan Rogers is hosting discussion on stories by Flannery O’Connor all summer. See the reading list here. The first story is up this week, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”
There’s Nothing Worse
This is for our friend, Hunter Baker of Union U.
- There’s nothing worse than having a billboard block your view of a gorgeous sunrise. That’s why I use The Awayinator, an environmentally safe dashboard ray gun that will zap those billboards into the nothingnessville. Ahh! A clear view with the touch of a button. (A Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. Invention)
- There’s nothing worse than unrequited love. That’s why I use Money, a technique scientifically proven to keep women from falling out of love with you. Try it yourself today. Where all quality products are sold. Seriously, everywhere.
- There’s nothing worse than getting your key stuck in the ignition when the zombies are storming your parking lot, except perhaps eating a stale Rice Krispy treat when you sit there thinking what a dummy you are for paying $3 for what looks like a big, marshmallowy treat that can’t be stale because it’s $3 for Pete’s sake and yet in the back of your mind a little voice says it’s going to be stale and you argue with that little voice, spend the money, and take a bite–man, I hate that.
Don’t Look Back, by Karin Fossum
“It’s a legend, a story from the old days. If you’re out rowing and hear a splashing sound behind your boat, that’s the sea serpent rising up from the depths. You should never look back, just be careful to keep on rowing. If you pretend to ignore it and leave it in peace, everything will be fine, but if you look back into its eyes, it will pull you down into the great darkness. According to legend, it has red eyes.”
As you’re all aware, I’m very old and very wise, and therefore rarely surprised. If you’ve been following my reviews, you’ll know that although I’ve sampled several Scandinavian mystery writers (the genre has suddenly taken off in the backwash of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy), I’ve mostly not been overwhelmed with them. Too polite, too depressing, too politically correct, and usually not well translated. But when Norwegian author Karin Fossum’s Don’t Look Back
I was surprised.
This is a very good book (and the translation is one of the best I’ve seen). In my experience, female authors generally have trouble writing good male characters, but for my money Fossum nailed this one.
She grabs the reader by the short hairs from the very beginning. The novel starts with one of those police situations which anyone with a touch of human feeling has to follow with fascination and a cold clutch of fear at his heart. I won’t tell you how that turns out, but it actually leads into the real central mystery of the novel, the discovery of a dead, fourteen-year-old girl, lying naked and almost unmarked next to a mountain tarn, an isolated body of water which, according to legend, is home to a sea serpent.
Fossum’s hero is Inspector Konrad Sejer (his last name is Norwegian for “Victor”), an aging, empathetic city police detective who lives alone with his dog and mourns his late wife. As he gets to know the victim’s parents, her friends and their families, and her boyfriend, he uncovers one secret after another. There are plenty of motives and plenty of suspects, and plenty of unhappiness to go around in the small mountain town that is the story’s scene. The dead girl will not be the last person to get hurt.
Although religious questions aren’t central (Sejer is agnostic, as is almost everyone in the story—which accurately reflects Norwegian life) it’s interesting that Fossum makes Sejer’s partner, Jakob Skarre, a believer of some kind. His gentle explanation of his faith to his superior, dropped in passing, seemed kind of wishy-washy to me theologically, but (in my opinion) added depth to the whole story.
I’ve already purchased another Inspector Sejer book. Highly recommended, with cautions for language and adult themes.
Mystery, by Jonathan Kellerman
Most detective series novels require a certain amount of suspension of disbelief (and the more you know about real police work, the more is required). Fans (like me) of Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series are expected to believe that a Los Angeles psychologist would spend a large part of his free time helping a police detective friend solve crimes, and that the department would smile on the arrangement. But hey, the formula’s in place, it works, why rattle the scenery flats?
The title of Mystery is not a desperate, “I’ve run out of titles” reference to the book’s genre, but the name of the murder victim, a high end prostitute who operated under that name. By pure chance, Alex and his girlfriend Robin, out drinking the night before the murder, saw her sitting alone in a hotel bar, and wondered about the elegant-looking girl who seemed to be waiting for someone who never showed up. The next time Alex sees her is when his shlumpy homosexual detective friend, Milo Sturgis, asks him to come and see the murder scene, where her body has been dumped near a road in the Hollywood Hills. They still don’t know who she is, though, and further investigations lead them to a wealthy, extremely dysfunctional family with a lot of secrets.
I marvel at Kellerman’s ability to keep his formula fresh. What makes this book sing is the author’s profound psychological insight. A particular pleasure this time out is a sub-plot involving a former madame who is dying of cancer and wants Alex’s help in preparing her six-year-old son for her death. The madame’s character is wonderfully complex, at once acutely narcissistic and genuinely maternal. She comes off the page as a fully-rounded, living person, pathetic, offensive and (in some ways) admirable.
There was an oblique echo (not explicitly spelled out) of Kellerman’s belief, stated in his nonfiction book, Savage Spawn, that it’s unhealthy to teach children to use guns. I consider that entirely wrong, but he didn’t preach about it.
Recommended, with the usual cautions for language, violence, and sexual themes.
Who’s Who Infographic
Bob Canada has performed a great service for the Interweb with this Doctor Who infographic:
Posters are available. He also worked up one for the Doctor’s enemies. Continue reading Who’s Who Infographic
Standing Up to San Francisco Rioters
This is incredible and disturbing. Dustin Boyers sees his friend’s car windows broken by Occupy Wall Street thugs in San Francisco and starts yelling at them. He told them to stop breaking things and that they didn’t know the people whose property they were breaking up. He says,
And what was interesting was that they’re the sort of people that hang out with people who only have the same views as they do, so that what I said was almost something they’d never heard. At one point they started chanting, “White boy, go home!” And I answered: “I have a right to be here. I have a right to talk to you. I have a right to engage you.” And they were like, “Oh, yeah, I guess that’s true.”
It’s horrifying to see people vandalizing the streets en masse (there’s a video) and equally horrifying to realize some politicians defend them.
And on the radio, I’m hearing people are aborting their children because they want a boy instead of a girl! Dear God! Who defends this?!
A belated notice
Photo: New York Public Library Archives
Yesterday I failed to note the birthday of G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936). Here’s a snippet from All Things Considered:
[The collectivist] knows it would be cheaper if a number of us ate at the same time, so as to use the same table. So it would. It would also be cheaper if a number of us slept at different times, so as to use the same pair of trousers. But the question is not how cheap we are buying a thing, but what are we buying? It is cheap to own a slave. And it is cheaper still to be a slave.
Vlogging Pride & Prejudice
My sister has directed my attention to “a modernized adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel, Pride and Prejudice
Do people actually make money off the Internet? That is so 90s.