Thanks to all who made suggestions for the tag line for Troll Valley.
Although I had decided to go with something else, I thought it over and concluded that commenter Adam had the best suggestion. His tag line will go on the book, in a slightly modified form:
“The Fairy Tale Your Grandparents Never Told You.”
Adam will receive a free copy of Troll Valley once the thing is published. Assuming he has the capability to download e-books.
William Peter Blatty, best known for writing the horror classic, The Exorcist
…for the humiliating God’s-honest truth of the matter is that while I was working on “The Exorcist,” what I thought I was writing was a novel of faith in the popular dress of a thrilling and suspenseful detective story – in other words, a sermon that no one could possibly sleep through — and to this day I haven’t the faintest recollection of any intention to frighten the reader, which many will take, I suppose, as an admission of failure on an almost stupefying, scale.
I’ve read the original book, though that was a long time ago (I clearly remember reading it in the Minneapolis bus station while waiting for transportation home to the farm for Christmas, and I haven’t ridden a bus or had the farm to go home to in a long, long time). My memory is faint, but I’m pretty sure he’s telling the truth. The book is a thriller about a crisis of faith, not a work of horror in the usual sense. Even the movie bears the marks of that purpose, although the pea soup and revolving head tend to dominate one’s attention (Did her head spin around in the book? I don’t actually recall).
Anyway, if you’re looking for Halloween reading that’s strong-flavored and faith-friendly, you can do worse than The Exorcist.
On a side note, when I hear Blatty’s name, I don’t think first of The Exorcist, but of a TV movie he wrote earlier, a comedy western movie called “The Great Bank Robbery,” starring Zero Mostel, Clint Walker, and Kim Novak. I particularly recall one scene where Kim kisses the shy and quiet Clint, making him visibly uncomfortable.
“Did you like it?” she asks with a smile, as she walks away.
“Ma’am,” he replies, “Just ’cause I talk slow don’t mean I’m peculiar.”
I’m pondering a small problem with my upcoming e-book, Troll Valley. And I thought, hey, I’ll crowdsource it to the world’s smartest people, the few, the proud who read Brandywine Books.
Our own Phil Wade has been applying his considerable graphic skills to creating a cover, based on a photograph I took of the Gunderson House, the house in my home town (Kenyon, Minnesota) which inspired the house where the main characters of Troll Valley live.
Friends, this is going to be an awesome cover. I know the word “awesome” is overused, but I mean it literally. Or almost literally. Anyway, it’s great. Phil took a bright, sunny picture, ran it through some filters, and turned it into a dark, numinous sort of thing, with extras that you’ll just have to wait to see. Almost identical to what I envisioned, and much better than I dared hope.
But here’s where the problem comes. We’re laying it out with my name where it belongs (at the top). And the title, somewhat larger, near the bottom.
And it occurred to me that most books include some kind of tag line, a teaser to give people a hint what sort of story they’re looking at here.
I’m trying to come up with a tag line that will suggest the kind of weird book this is. Here’s where I solicit your help.
But you need something to work with. A short synopsis of the story: Continue reading Help needed
“The Parable of the Blind Leading the Blind,” by Abel Grimmer (1565-1630)
Joe Carter at First Thoughts links to an intriguing article by James Martin, S. J. in The Wall Street Journal, called “Jesus of Nazareth, Stand-Up Comic?” Before you take offense at the title, take time to read the piece. I think he makes an excellent point.
There are more overt signs of Jesus’s appreciation of a sense of humor. My favorite is the story of Nathaniel in the Gospel of John. When he hears that Jesus is from Nazareth he says, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” It’s a dig at Jesus’s hometown, which was seen as a backwater. What does Jesus say in response? You would expect the grumpy Jesus to castigate Nathaniel. But he does the opposite. Jesus says, “Here is an Israelite without guile.” In other words, here’s a guy I can trust! And Nathaniel joins the apostles. It’s an indication of Jesus’s appreciation of a sense of humor.
Jesus’ parables, I’ve long believed, are particularly opaque to modern Christians because of our wrong-headed insistence on treating them as solemn guides to exemplary living. My own reading of the gospels (though Heaven knows I’m no scholar, and understand Greek not at all) has convinced me that parables need to be taken one at a time. Some are solemn, like the story of Lazarus and the rich man. But others involve crazy exaggeration (Jesus loved hyperbole, to an extent that would probably get Him in trouble in the modern church), and can best be described as a spiritual kick in the pants.
Martin gives some examples, which I generally agree with. One of my own favorites is the Parable of the Unjust Steward, in which Jesus tells—with apparent approval—the story of a manager who first of all embezzles his employer’s money, and then, before cleaning out his desk, gets a bunch of his boss’s debtors to falsify their loan documents, so that they’ll owe him favors. How many Sunday School teachers have twisted themselves into logical knots trying to get a “Go and do thou likewise” out of that story? The real point is just that crooked sinners are smart enough to “feather their nests” by helping others, purely out of self-interest, and we should be smart enough to do the same with an eye to eternity, especially since we handle wealth that our Master wants us to share.
When I was in a musical group I always meant to write a comic skit re-imagining the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant as a Godfather-style gangster story.
“You wanted to see me, Don Vito?”
“Yeah, Louie. Siddown. You want a cigar? Somethin’ to drink?”
“No, no thank you, Don Vito.”
“Wanna get right to business, huh?”
“If that’s all right, Godfather.”
“Sure, sure. OK, here’s the thing. I been hearin’ some stories. Whispers in my ear, you know? Something about you and Benny the Ninepin. You know about these stories?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What I been hearin’ is that you beat him up, broke his arm with a pool cue. Is this true?”
“He owed me money, Godfather.”
“How much, Louie?”
“A C-note.”
“A C-note.”
“That’s right.”
“One-hundred bucks.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Now Louie, I’m confused. ‘Cause I seem to recall a time when you came up short… what was it? Two million simoleons?”
“Uh, somethin’ like that.”
“An’ all the boys told me I ought to break your neck and bury you out in the flats, so the other collectors would be more careful next time. But you was my cousin’s husband, so I said, ‘Nah, I’ll let it go this time. Put a scare in him and see if he cleans up his act.”
“I’ve always been really grateful, Godfather. You see, that’s why I was tryin’ to collect from Benny, so I could start payin’ you back–”
“A hundred bucks on two million? For that you broke Benny’s arm? Did it occur to you that a guy who’s had two million bucks written off ought to give a break some bum who owes him chickenfeed? What kind of a goombah are you…?”
I felt what Maggie had tried to describe to me on more than one occasion when we were married. She always called it the burden of proof. Not the legal burden. But the psychic burden of knowing that you stood as representative of all the people. I had always dismissed her explanations as self-serving. The prosecutor was always the overdog. The Man…. I never understood what she was trying to tell me.
Until now.
I still haven’t entirely warmed to Michael Connelly’s “Lincoln Lawyer” character, Mickey Haller, who strikes me as somewhat irresponsible (a useful quality, perhaps, in a criminal defense lawyer).
But The Reversal, “A Lincoln Lawyer” novel, is as much a story of Mickey’s half-brother, police detective Harry Bosch, as it is one of Mickey’s, so I had no problem getting on board. And the story as a whole seemed to me as engaging and sympathetic as Connelly has written in some time.
It begins with Mickey doing something he’s always sworn he’d never do—go to work (on a temporary basis) as a county prosecutor, making and presenting a case against a convicted child murderer. DNA evidence has won the convict a new trial, but the District Attorney’s office still believes they have the right man. The most important element of their case is the eyewitness, the victim’s older sister, who was only a child at the time.
Mickey agrees to do the job—just this once—on the condition that he gets his ex-wife, prosecutor Maggie MacPherson, as his associate. (He wants to improve his relationship with her.) With Harry Bosch as chief investigator, it makes the entire prosecution a family affair.
The narration switches back and forth from Mickey’s point of view (presented in the first person) and Harry’s (in the third person). The alternation makes an interesting counterpoint. Mickey is all about tactics and strategies, intuiting the Defense’s moves on the basis of his own considerable experience on that side of the courtroom. Meanwhile Harry runs down leads and dogs the suspect in his accustomed, obsessive way, his focus always on his duty (or vocation), as an officer of society itself, to see justice done and the evil removed from our midst.
This being fiction, of course, even the best courtroom strategist can’t foresee, or prevent, the big surprise that takes the story’s climax out of the safety of the courtroom and into the perils of a city full of innocent bystanders.
The Reversal is an excellent thriller from a master storyteller. Recommended for adults. Cautions for language and icky stuff.
My latest article for The American Spectator can be found here. It’s about the old Robin Hood television series we Baby Boomers enjoyed in the 1950s.
I note that Michelle Malkin wrote about Robin Hood today too.
Great minds, and all that.
Full disclosure: This should probably be called a Netflix review rather than a DVD review, but I can’t link to Netflix on Amazon.
Full disclosure number two: I’m not a horseman. I’ve ridden some, and generally managed not to fall off, and my brothers and I had a pony when we were kids. But I know I’m a tenderfoot. I qualify in no way to evaluate the horse training methods discussed in this excellent documentary.
It sure makes a good story, though.
Buck Brannaman, the subject of Buck, is one of the most famous proponents of what might be called the “new school” of horse training, an approach that concentrates on understanding the horse’s fears, calming those fears, earning the animal’s trust, and then becoming its thoughtful master. Buck seems to be able to take all but the most damaged animals, and fairly quickly to gentle them and get them doing what he wants them to do.
He was one of the inspirations for the book The Horse Whisperer, and served as technical consultant and stand-in for Robert Redford’s movie adaptation. Nowadays he travels the country nine months out of the year, conducting four day seminars on horse training.
The most remarkable and moving aspect of this film is its treatment of the abuse Buck and his brother suffered at the hands of their father, after their mother’s death. Fortunately they were removed from his care and placed in a loving foster family where they gradually learned to trust grownups again. Buck explicitly links this experience to his approach to horse training, feeling that he understands the horses’ fears (they’re essentially afraid that we’re predators trying to eat them) on a profound level.
With all I’ve heard of “Horse Whisperers,” I was half prepared for a lot of new-agey, PETA-style sentimentality and romanticism in the the film’s treatment of horses. I’m happy to report that there’s none of that here. Buck still considers himself a cowboy, and an important part of his technique is getting the horse (and its owner) to understand who’s supposed to be the boss. A dangerous horse must be put down, for the sake of humans.
This is a fine, moving documentary. I recommend it. I think there’s a little rough language, but I don’t have a strong recollection of it.
Tonight, as we approach the weekend, a couple links. Both will lead you to delicious compendiums of obscure information, with which you may amaze your friends and win bar bets (not that any of our readers ever go to bars).
First, from Listverse: Twenty Great Archaic Words. Words that we’ve somehow allowed to slip out of common use. Yet a few of them seem (to me) to be very useful. My favorite:
17. Apricity – The feeling of the warmth of the sun in winter. This word sparked this list when I used it in conversation and no one knew what it was. Nothing particularly funny, just a great word and a great sensation.
One of my favorite sensations, and a word I need to work into conversation from now on. I suspect I’ll get the chance before many months have passed.
(Caution: The last archaic word is one you might want to shield small children from.)
Also, from The Scotsman, Vikings and Scotland: Ten Lesser-Known Facts:
Clan names are a visible relic; MacIvors were originally the sons of Ivar, MacSween, the sons of Swein, Macaulay, the sons of Olaf, MacAskill, the sons of Asgeir and so on.
I didn’t know about those names. I did know about MacLeod, the sons of Ljot (some people say Ljot means “Light,” and others say it means “Ugly.” I’m not qualified to judge, but I’d bet on “Light.” Just a hunch.
Have a great weekend.
Harry Bosch is not my favorite among Michael Connelly’s continuing characters. That honor goes to Terry McCaleb, whom Connelly killed off a few books back (McCaleb makes a welcome appearance in one of the stories in this book). But I appreciate Harry more than Connelly’s replacement for McCaleb, Micky Haller, the “Lincoln Lawyer.” Not that there’s anything much wrong with Haller. He’s just newer and (to all appearances) less damaged by life than the others. It’s the scars and calluses on the older characters that make them interesting to me.
Suicide Run is a collection of three short stories starring Harry (Hieronymus) Bosch, Los Angeles police detective. Warning: It’s a short collection. Much of the bulk of the book is taken up by a preview of Connelly’s next novel, The Drop. Since I never read such previews (they only frustrate me), I was a little disappointed in that.
But I enjoyed the stories nonetheless. In “Suicide Run,” Bosch investigates the murder of a beautiful Hollywood starlet, disguised as a suicide. In “Cielo Azul,” he goes to visit a killer on death row, in an attempt to persuade him to reveal the burial site of one of his victims. In “One Dollar Jackpot,” he tackles the murder of a famous female poker player, shot to death in her automobile.
The genius of the Harry Bosch stories, in my view (and in all Connelly’s work), is the compassion at their heart. Harry, like a character in a painting by the artist he was named after, lives in a world filled with horrors and apparent irrationality. Yet his personal vocation is to speak for the dead, to do them the last possible service through seeing that their killers pay the price.
For me, the outstanding story here was “Cielo Azul,” a bittersweet tale in which Harry goes on a seemingly hopeless quest to learn one truth before it’s too late. I don’t know what author Connelly believes about God or the afterlife, but he asks the right questions here, and that’s something.
Recommended for adults.
This disappointing novel is another book I can bury in my “not very good, but at least I got the e-book free” file.
I was drawn to Stewart Buettner’s The Shakespeare Manuscript because of the remarkable (though surely coincidental) parallels between it and my own novel, Blood and Judgment.
Both books deal with the discovery of a lost Hamlet manuscript—in my story an original draft, in this one an original of a lost prequel, “Hamlet Part I”.
Both involve the relationships and frictions involved in the production of a play—in my case an amateur company, in this case a professional one.
My book, however, was a fantasy. This book is… I’m not sure. It seems to be a sort of mystery, but the stakes are never raised high enough to build much tension, and the only death that occurs turns out to be natural.
And that’s the problem with The Shakespeare Manuscript. A lot of people run about doing things and irritating each other, but there’s no real dramatic arc.
The book starts with a New York rare books dealer, Miles Oliphant, on a trip to England, being mugged. While he’s unconscious in hospital and still unidentified by the police, a box of manuscripts he sent home is opened by his daughter, April. She finds a manuscript among the papers which, she soon realizes, looks very like a lost play of Shakespeare’s, in his own hand. Continue reading The Shakespeare Manuscript, by Stewart Buettner