Lavonne Neff says that despite the slow burn on J.K. Rowling’s new novel, The Casual Vacancy, the story builds out of what she believes is a “profoundly biblical worldview.” The story is one of a small English town, clearly described as post-Christian, and when the most Christian man around dies, a large body of characters step up to reveal themselves as the hypocrites they are. Neff says the story is bleak, but possibly noteworthy.
Category Archives: Fiction
In a Dry Season, by Peter Robinson
I’ve always been a sucker—I’m not entirely sure why—for the “cold case” story, the mystery that goes back a generation or two, where old letters and the dim memories of the elderly are the chief sources of information. English writer Peter Robinson’s In a Dry Season is an excellent example of this type.
The hero is Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, a Yorkshire policeman currently in “career Siberia” due to conflicts with his superior. When that superior sends Banks to investigate the discovery of a skeleton found in a shallow grave in the ruins of a small town, drowned by a reservoir for decades but now uncovered in a severe drought, it’s because he considers it a nothing case.
But forensics reveal that the skeleton belonged to a young woman, and she died from strangulation and stabbing. Clearly murder. With the help of an attractive female detective (with whom he predictably strikes sparks), Banks sets about learning what life was like in the town of Hobbs End during World War II, and about a beautiful young woman who came to town as a “land girl” (a substitute agricultural worker) and married the handsomest boy in town. Who had a motive to kill her, and why is everyone who remembers her certain she left town alive?
As a parallel to the investigation narrative, the author switches periodically to an old manuscript, an account of the whole business written by someone who was very close to it all.
Author Robinson does some serious literary work here. The investigation, and its setting, take on metaphorical significance as he examines the nature of memory, and of love and guilt. Alan Banks is a very good protagonist, seriously flawed, especially in his relationships, but generally decent—motivated, we are told, by a hatred of bullies. Although the few political comments tend to the liberal side, there’s a refreshing contempt for draconian smoking laws, and even a suggestion that not having a gun in the house can be a dangerous thing. Also, Robinson seems less certain than the average Englishman that the death penalty is a bad thing.
I liked In a Dry Season very much, taken all in all. Cautions for language and adult themes.
Fun When It’s Not Disturbing
Some of the stories have an eery sound to them, and when they come after a few humorous ones, they deflate me a bit. But the quirky and humorous ones come around soon enough. Naturally, if every story had perfect pitch, it would be easy to rave, even if I could only say that you had to read it to know what it’s like. It’s possible short short stories simply don’t reach deeply enough to stir our hearts. Perhaps they can’t, being only 100 words. I like to think they can, even though they are just snatches of stories.
I still have my copies of Story quarterly from the mid-90s. They ran short short stories competitions which had to be kept under 1,500 words. Brady Udall’s piece, “The Wig,” from the Summer 1994 issues, has always stuck with me as a beautiful, human moment. The first line goes, “My eight-year-old son found a wig in the garbage Dumpster this morning.” Story‘s editor, Lois Rosenthal, said, “In three hundred words, Udall’s deft tale of an enormous loss swiftly reduced most of our contest judges to tears.” I think I cried too. At least, I felt the loss he described. (The story is available with others in Udall’s anthology, Letting Loose the Hounds
When I’ve posted 100 word stories here, “The Wig” has been in my ear as the pitch I’m hoping to sustain. It’s hard to tell if I have.
Oh, speaking of Loren Eaton, he has another delightful 200-word tale here: “Silver Sea, Salmon Sky.”
Stories of the Cursed World
Loren Eaton writes, “We love Aslan breaking endless winter’s chill grip on Narnia and Aragorn being crowned King Elessar and Christ the Bridegroom triumphing over that serpent of old. Yet in appreciating these good tales, we’ve largely ignored what Frye calls ‘the story of winter,’ those narratives that slide from bliss into torment.”
On Story Warren, he is writing about tales of winter and the virtues of exposing children to downbeat stories. It reminds me of the beautiful animated movie, The Secret of Kells, and how my girls didn’t like it. It also makes me wonder what we would have gotten if Lewis had written of the story in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe as a trilogy–longer, deeper, and probably darker because winter would have lasted for two books at least.
A snippet for the Day
For Talk Like a Pirate Day, once again a little Long John Silver from Treasure Island, one of the greatest adventure stories every written and (in my opinion) the very best adventure story ever written for boys. One of its great pleasures for me was always just hearing—in my head—the dialogue of the rogue Silver:
Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe with great composure and then ran on again.
“Now, you see, Jim, so be as you ARE here,” says he, “I’ll give you a piece of my mind. I’ve always liked you, I have, for a lad of spirit, and the picter of my own self when I was young and handsome. I always wanted you to jine and take your share, and die a gentleman, and now, my cock, you’ve got to. Cap’n Smollett’s a fine seaman, as I’ll own up to any day, but stiff on discipline. ‘Dooty is dooty,’ says he, and right he is. Just you keep clear of the cap’n. The doctor himself is dead again you—‘ungrateful scamp’ was what he said; and the short and the long of the whole story is about here: you can’t go back to your own lot, for they won’t have you; and without you start a third ship’s company all by yourself, which might be lonely, you’ll have to jine with Cap’n Silver.”
So far, so good. My friends, then, were still alive, and though I partly believed the truth of Silver’s statement, that the cabin party were incensed at me for my desertion, I was more relieved than distressed by what I heard.
“I don’t say nothing as to your being in our hands,” continued Silver, “though there you are, and you may lay to it. I’m all for argyment; I never seen good come out o’ threatening. If you like the service, well, you’ll jine; and if you don’t, Jim, why, you’re free to answer no—free and welcome, shipmate; and if fairer can be said by mortal seaman, shiver my sides!”
“Am I to answer, then?” I asked with a very tremulous voice. Through all this sneering talk, I was made to feel the threat of death that overhung me, and my cheeks burned and my heart beat painfully in my breast.
“Lad,” said Silver, “no one’s a-pressing of you. Take your bearings. None of us won’t hurry you, mate; time goes so pleasant in your company, you see.”
Ratcatcher, by Tim Stevens
“Fast-paced,” “action-packed,” and “breathlessly exciting” are adjectival terms you expect to use when describing a good spy thriller. They all apply to Tim Stevens’ debut novel, Ratcatcher. I discover, however, that it’s possible to take those virtues too far.
The term “Ratcatchers,” we are told, is what English spies call a top-secret, independent group that works to apprehend and eliminate secret agents who’ve gone bad. The hero of the book, John Purkiss, was an English agent until the murder of his beloved fiancée, a fellow agent named Claire. Claire was killed by yet another agent named Fallon, who was convicted of her murder. Then Purkiss left the service and was recruited as a Ratcatcher.
As the story opens Purkiss learns that Fallon has been given early release from prison, and has now been reported in Estonia. Purkiss is sent there to investigate, and soon discovers evidence of a conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism during an upcoming visit by the Russian president.
I can’t deny that Ratcatcher is an exciting book. My problem with it is that it reads more like a Sylvester Stallone movie than a novel. Because of the very nature of cinema, an audience will swallow a lot of improbabilities that the more contemplative environment of reading makes it harder to accept. Just as in a movie, the principal characters here suffer severe, repeated physical trauma without much loss of effective physical function. They mostly get shot at by bad shots. And their own guns never seem to run out of bullets.
I must admit, though, that there were a couple very neat plot twists at the end. And the prose itself, both dialogue and exposition, was professional.
Ratcatcher is worth reading, purely for entertainment. Cautions for language and violence. The sexual content was fairly mild.
Murder at Thumb Butte, by James D. Best
The Western mystery story is not as rare a phenomenon as you might think. The conventions of the mystery transfer pretty well to the Wild West, and many famous mystery writers cranked out westerns as well, back in the days when you could make a living writing for the pulps.
Contemporary author James D. Best carries on this tradition with his Steve Dancy stories. Steve is a former gun shop owner from New York City, transferred to the west where, although his primary concern is business, he has made a reputation as a gunman. I thought this approach added freshness to the whole enterprise. We often forget that cowboys shared a country and a time with men like Thomas Edison and Cornelius Vanderbilt, but Steve Dancy straddles both worlds.
Murder at Thumb Butte starts in Carson City, Nevada, where Steve and his friend Jeff Sharp are arguing about where to go next. Steve wants badly to go to Prescott, Arizona. There’s a man in Prescott who has some stock certificates, worthless in themselves, which could cause difficulty for Steve in a project he’s contemplating—using Tom Edison’s electric light to illuminate mines. Unfortunately, Jeff already knows this man, who once slandered him in the vilest way possible. When they get to Prescott, Jeff loses little time in punching his old enemy and telling him he’ll kill him next time he sees him. When the man is found murdered the next morning out near Thumb Butte, with Jeff’s own rifle lying next to the body, he’s arrested for the murder by Constable Virgil Earp, and Steve has to set his mind to clearing his friend. With the help of another friend, Pinkerton agent Joseph McAllen, who comes to town with his daughter Maggie and a married couple who are also operatives, he sets about that project. Continue reading Murder at Thumb Butte, by James D. Best
Themes, Observations on Bertrand’s ‘Back on Murder’
When I review novels here, I fight with myself over wanting to write something deep with observations on the rich parts of the book vs. saying too much and spoiling it for new readers. Since it’s easier to go light, I usually do, so I doubt you expect to read great, thoughtful posts from me. No, no. It’s my fault. I’ve already given you a positive, light-handed review of J. Mark Bertrand’s Back on Murder (A Roland March Mystery)
“Ward” wows “World”
Colin Cutler’s The Ward of Heaven and the Wyrm in the Sea, for which I wrote the Foreword, has gotten a favorable review at World Magazine.
Herman Melville didn’t do Norse mythology, orthodox Christianity, or short books. But other than that, he could have written The Ward of Heaven and the Wyrm in the Sea. The deep currents of the language, swelling and moving in great cataracts of imagery, clearly hark back to Melville, even as the surface churns with the kenning and alliteration of old Germanic poetry.
Thanks to Loren Eaton of I Saw Lightning Fall for letting me know about this.
Graveyard Special, by James Lileks
…Two people + their problems < hill of beans. Not an equation we understood. And he shot the guy, too: the soundtrack seemed extra sharp – it echoed in the bare room, and I felt Tatiana jump when roscoe barked, saw her smile when Claude Raines threw in with justice and liberty. I wanted a cigarette. I wanted to snap a match and smoke and sneer at a dying Nazi and make a remark he’d carry down to hell. But the Minnesota Clean Air Act forbade these things.
For some time, James Lileks of lileks.com (I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this, but I did a half hour of radio with him once) has been telling us about a series of interconnected mystery novels set in Minneapolis he’s been working on. Graveyard Special, the first of these, is out at last, for Kindle users. Other formats will be forthcoming.
Graveyard Special is a semi-autobiographical book, loosely based on Lileks’ student days, when he worked at the Valli Restaurant (dubbed the Trattoria here). There are lots of familiar landmarks in this story for me, because although I didn’t live in the University neighborhood of Dinkytown myself, my friends and I used to head over there quite often to eat in our own college days, a few years earlier. We liked to dine at Bridgeman’s or Best Steak House, but we never patronized the Valli. I know exactly where I was when this story is supposed to have happened too (fall of 1980). I was a few miles away, in south Minneapolis, attending Brown Institute of Broadcasting on Lake Street.
Robert Thompson, the narrator, is an art student from Motley, Minnesota (a real town, I swear to you) whose life at this point revolves around his shifts at the “Trat,” where most of his housemates also work, and where they love to hang out in their off hours to play the arcade machines. He’s waiting tables one night when the night manager takes a break to huff some propellant from a Redi-Whip can and dies, shot by a bullet coming through the restaurant window. Being a witness gives Robert the chance to meet a very attractive reporter for the University student newspaper, and when he begins to notice suspicious behavior on the part of some of his housemates and some denizens of the Trat, he brings them to her, just as an excuse to get to know her better. Which eventually gets him in over his head, and involves him in bombings and a bloody Zamboni ride at a Gophers hockey game. Continue reading Graveyard Special, by James Lileks