Category Archives: Fiction

Fiction, Reviews

Lancelot, by Walker Percy

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Do you know what I was? The Knight of the Unholy Grail.

In times like these when everyone is wonderful, what is needed is a quest for evil….

“Evil” is surely the clue to this age, the only quest appropriate to the age. For everything and everyone’s either wonderful or sick and nothing is evil.

Honesty comes first. I’m not at all sure I understand Walker Percy’s novel Lancelot. I think I understand some of it, but it’s one of those books that I come away from pretty sure I’ve encountered something written for people smarter than me.

But it was a fascinating read, and I’ll tell you what I thought. For whatever that’s worth.

The main character and narrator is Lancelot Lamar, formerly the scion of a fine old Louisiana family, owner of a handsome estate, successful lawyer with a record of civil rights advocacy, and loving husband to a beautiful wife.

Now, as he narrates the text of this book, he is a patient in a mental hospital, having been declared insane after blowing up his home, killing his wife and her movie industry friends. His confidante is his friend Percival, a priest (or a former priest; it’s never made clear) who never contributes a word to the narrative. Continue reading Lancelot, by Walker Percy →

Fiction, Publishing

Snippet Four, Troll Valley

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“Meadow Elves,” by Nils Blommer (1850)

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Miss Margit’s face, faceted in my tears. That face, longish and stern, with the gold blaze in the black hair above her right eye, could be gentle when she chose, and her gray eyes would soften with a sweetness that had nothing of sentimentality in it.

“What’s the matter, Kjære?”

I told her, between sobs.

She sat, elegantly careless of her black dress, in the straw beside me. She took my left elbow and fingers in her hands. I shuddered as I always did when someone examined my deformity. There is no nakedness like it.

My arm was permanently bent. More than anything else it resembled a plucked chicken’s wing. The useless fingers curled back toward the elbow, and the flesh hung loose and flaccid on the forearm. I never willingly rolled up my sleeves where anyone could see, which hid the worst of it, but I was an obvious cripple. I had learned early to expect the quick-glance-and-look-away that people use for politeness, or pity.

“You think you are to blame that your papa is unhappy?” Miss Margit asked, stroking the arm, making me shudder.

“If it weren’t for me—ʺ

“If it weren’t for you your family and Mr. Lafferty would find another way to persuade him. Your papa hasn’t the strength to withstand them. If he must be overborne, it’s just as well he do it for love. It’s a kindness you do him, Christian.”

“It doesn’t feel like a kindness.” Continue reading Snippet Four, Troll Valley →

Fiction, Reviews

Deadly Stillwater, by Roger Stelljes

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It’s generally a pleasure for me to read novels set on my home turf. Not only do I enjoy being able to visualize known locations as I follow the story, but for some reason I have a childish conviction that places are somehow validated, made more interesting, because they’ve been laminated between the covers of a book.

There was lots of that for me in Deadly Stillwater, by Roger Stelljes. The action ranges around eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, but most of it happens in the Twin Cities, and the climax is set near Stillwater, just to the east.

The hero is Mac McRyan, a St. Paul police detective. As one of the police chief’s “boys,” a decorated group of smart and effective cops, he’s called in from a vacation day (this all takes place over the Fourth of July holiday) when Shannon Hisle, daughter of one of the city’s most prominent—and wealthy—attorneys, is kidnapped. There’s added urgency because Shannon is a Type 1 diabetic. The police are already going all out when the criminals up the ante—they kidnap the police chief’s daughter as well. These are smart and organized villains who plan with military precision. It will take hard work, some luck, and a lot of ruthlessness to save the girls and bring a very motivated gang to justice. Continue reading Deadly Stillwater, by Roger Stelljes →

Fiction, Publishing

Snippet Three, Troll Valley

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They were still discussing it around the wash table outside the mud porch when we got to the house. Bestefar was dipping water from a pail into the washbasin, and as he rolled up his sleeves, loosened his shirt and started to scrub the dirt off he said, “Peter, I think Otto’s got a point. The problem with you is you ain’t got brains enough to know when you’re smart.”

Papa folded his arms and twisted his mouth. “You know how many men try that sort of thing every year and lose their shirts?”

“Ja, some of them fail. But none of the ones who don’t try, succeed,” said Bestefar, lathering his arms with a cake of soap. His hands were red-brown as an Indian’s to the wrist, the arms paint-white from there on up. “Look at me. If I hadn’t been willing to take a chance, I’d still be fishing sild in Norway.”

“You tell him, Ole,” said Otto. Continue reading Snippet Three, Troll Valley →

Fiction, Reviews

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

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To young men of a studious turn of mind, who did not desire to go into the Church or the Law, magic was very appealing, particularly since Strange had triumphed on the battlefields of Europe. It is, after all, many centuries since clergymen distinguished themselves on the field of war, and lawyers never have.

It is my settled custom to delay discovering great novels until everybody else has already praised the life out of them. And so it is with Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. A marvelous, original conception carried off with what looks like effortless grace, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is a sprawling, lengthy epic in the heroic fantasy vein, but set in early 19th Century England and narrated in a style reminiscent of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen (and probably other Victorian authors of whom I’m ignorant. I was always a little weak on my 19th Century English fiction). If you’re looking for headlong, fast-paced adventure, this is not the book for you. This is a leisurely book, whose pleasures are subtle ones. I found it totally delightful.

(I might also add that I forgot the author’s name, and could not recall throughout my reading whether the author was a man or a woman. Coming from me, that’s high praise.) Continue reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke →

Fiction, Reviews

Our Daily Bread, by Lauren B. Davis

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Albert Erskine, 21, is “mountain,” which distinguishes him and his clan (all more or less family) from the “townies” of Gideon. They keep to themselves, and they don’t spill their secrets to anyone. Life, as Albert describes it, is a river of sewage; you have to swim through it the best you can and keep your mouth shut. He lives near the top of North Mountain, which has gorgeous views of the sunrise and sunset almost every day, but the Erskines aren’t a nature-loving, life-affirming clan. They are horrible perverts who abuse themselves and their children in every way. Albert has tried to separate himself from his uncles (who have been making moonshine for years, but are branching into methamphetamines now), his grandparents and mother, but he can’t leave. He doesn’t want to abandon the children, ages 2-15, who can only dodge and hide from the adults to survive.

Tom Evans is a father who lives in town and loves his wife dearly but wonders if she really loves him. He doesn’t understand what’s bothering his son, Bobby, but then who can understand a 15 year old? Bobby’s distant, doesn’t seem to fit in—kind of like his wife actually. Maybe an anniversary trip, a special meal on the day they returned to Gideon as a couple, will spark her interest again. And maybe after a few years, they’ll grow out of their current problems.

Continue reading Our Daily Bread, by Lauren B. Davis →

Fiction, Publishing

Snippet Two, Troll Valley

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CHAPTER I THRESHING

It really was my fault. There’s no getting away from that.

It started during the threshing.

I remember I was angry till I saw the red caps. Then I was frightened. As always.

Regular people, my brother Fred had explained to me recently, laughing, do not see red Norwegian caps (luer) with long tails and tassels dancing in the grass whenever they lose their tempers. All around me the caps rushed and gamboled in my sight, like flaming fox tails among the fields. I never saw the folk who wore those caps, nor wished to. They danced, it seemed, just underground, moving through the earth like fish in water.

So I’d learned to stop and take a few deep breaths whenever I got angry. The red caps usually went away then.

“Chris! Auggie! Fred! You think those shovels were made for leaning on?” Continue reading Snippet Two, Troll Valley →

Bookselling, Fiction

Snippet One, Troll Valley

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[To whet your appetite for my new novel, which I hope (but can’t promise) to have out by Christmas, here’s a snippet. I’ll post them here from time to time until the book is released. Every Friday, and possibly more if I’m feeling generous. lw]

PROLOGUE:

THE PRESENT.

Shane Anderson woke up in a room he didn’t recognize. He had no idea where he was, and no idea who was with him.

This was not unusual for him.

Never before, however, had he awakened in an attic room (he could tell by the slanted ceiling) in what was clearly a very old house, with no company but a very big Native American in a gray sweat suit, sitting in an armchair and reading a Bible.

“Where am I?” Shane asked. The bed he lay in didn’t go with the room, which had old-fashioned figured wallpaper and carved woodwork around the doors and windows. It was a modern adjustable bed, with some kind of control panel on a side rail. A hospital bed.

The Native American looked up from his reading and said, “You’re home. Or it will be your home someday. At least legally. If you don’t O. D. or break your neck.”

“The big house in Epsom? What the—ʺ

“No profanity, son. I have your mother’s instructions to wash your mouth out with soap if you speak profanities or curse. It’s one of the things in your life she’s particularly concerned about.” Continue reading Snippet One, Troll Valley →

Fiction, Reviews

Agnes Mallory, by Andrew Klavan

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‘Look,’ she said wearily from the stairs. I was leaning against the stove, studying her stupid sneakers. My arms crossed, my soul leaden with sorrow. ‘I just don’t want to approach you too fast. I know you don’t like journalists. I saw you on TV: slamming the door? That’s why I was watching…’

‘Oh, admit it: you were being mysterious and romantic.’
‘Jesus!’ One of her little sneaks gave a little stomp. ‘You sound just like my father.’
Fortunately, this arrow went directly through my heart and came out the other side, so there was no need to have it surgically removed, which can be expensive….
Back in 1985, the young author author Andrew Klavan had a novel published in England which didn’t find a home in the U.S. This novel is Agnes Mallory, which is now, thankfully, available in a Kindle edition from Mysterious Press.
The narrator of the story is Harry Bernard. Harry lives in a secluded cabin, outside the New York suburb of Westchester. He is a recluse, a broken man, a disbarred lawyer who has left his family behind.
He wants nothing to do with the young woman who follows him home one evening, in the rain. Klavan introduces her in such a way that the reader isn’t sure at first whether she’s real or a ghost. And that’s appropriate, since this is a kind of a ghost story—but the ghosts are the memories we carry with us and the dreams we’ve buried in the cellar. Continue reading Agnes Mallory, by Andrew Klavan →