Fiction, Non-fiction, The Press

Salt, Light, Memory, and a Few Good Books

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In the current issue of World Magazine, veteran journalist Cal Thomas talks about the scant trust in new media and some of his experiences over fifty years. Here’s one.

One of my favorite stories about what maintaining integrity and “guarding your heart” in the Christian life can mean came, surprisingly enough, from the pornographer Larry Flynt. In 2007, Flynt was offering $1 million to anyone who could “out” a member of Congress or other public ­figure who was a “family values conservative” in rhetoric, but something quite different in private life. One day, Flynt rolled into Fox’s green room in New York in his wheelchair (he had been shot and paralyzed by a gunman in Georgia in 1978). After exchanging perfunctory greetings, he said to me, “I thought you’d be interested in something.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“We did an investigation of you.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah,” Flynt said. “We didn’t find anything.”

I laughed. “Praise the Lord, a personal endorsement from Larry Flynt! You were just looking in the wrong place for my sins.”

Nostalgia: What do we make of the past? “A man who can reach a certain age—I cannot be precise as to what age—without experiencing nostalgia must have had a pretty wretched existence.”

Reading: Long-time editor and reviewer John Wilson offers a list of novels and books he’s looking forward to this summer, including the work of E.X. Ferrars and her Andrew Bassnet series, in which a retired botanist retires only to find he’s come across a murder.

The Soviet Man: In his book The Soviet Century, Karl Schlögel “argues that over its sixty-eight years of existence, the Soviet Union did succeed in its goal of creating a ‘new Soviet person’ (novy sovetsky chelovek). But, as he puts it, ‘The new human being was the product not of any faith in a utopia, but of a tumult in which existing lifeworlds were destroyed and new ones born.'” What helped build this new person was a curious amalgamation: “Soviet Americanism.”

Anniversary: In Hong Kong, they will not forget what happened in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. None of us should.

"Your heart is not the compass Christ saileth by." - Samuel Rutherford

From @SJMelniszyn /Twitter

Photo: Main Street, Iowa. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Someone Savage,’ by Mike McCrary

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There’s a kind of story that I hate and love. The kind of story where an ordinary man (or woman, I suppose, but I avoid those books) finds him (or her-) self in the middle of a violent crime situation for which they’re entirely unsuited, and they have to find a way to survive and overcome. I over-identify with such stories, knowing I wouldn’t survive ten minutes, but I read on, fascinated.

Mike McCrary’s Someone Savage is exactly that kind of story. Nicholas Hooper is a well-known and successful author who’s recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His only family is his sister Allison, with whom he has an affectionate but contentious relationship. He also has several ex-wives, but he doesn’t talk to them and he’s never fathered a child. Never felt up to the responsibility.

Now he’s rented a huge luxury home in the Poconos for 15 months. Ostensibly he’s there to write his last book, but actually he’s come to die. He even brought a gun with one bullet, in case he wants to go out that way. Mainly, he anticipates drinking heavily.

Then there’s a soft knock at the door, and he opens it to see two small children, undernourished and filthy. The boy says nothing; the girl just says, “Help.” He lets them in and tries to figure out what to do with them. As a start, he gives them bottled water and Cheetos, and sets them in front of a TV with Sponge Bob Squarepants on.

He calls Allison, who urges him to call the police. But the childrens’ responses make him hesitate. They don’t trust any adult, and are clearly traumatized. When he finally persuades them to go to town with him for a good breakfast, they catch sight of a local cop and panic. That moment is pivotal, and much danger will rise from it.

I identified intensely with Nick Hooper, and agonized through the story, which I pretty much read in one sitting. It grabbed me and held tight to the end. It wasn’t all that plausible (I’m pretty sure I’d have just called the police in [which would have been fatal in this situation] if I were in Nick’s shoes), but that’s fairly standard for stories like this. Someone Savage would make an excellent movie.

I recommend this book highly.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Dead Stop,’ by Alan Lee

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When I’ve read too many dark, gritty mysteries it’s always nice to pick up a Mackenzie August book by Alan Lee. They’re strong on tough, fairly clever dialogue, and it’s nice to follow a detective with a positive attitude and faith in God. So we have come to a Dead Stop, book nine in the series.

Roanoke, Virginia PI Mack August is married to Veronica, a beautiful lawyer. She surprises him by making him the gift of a trip on a luxury private train, Chicago to San Francisco. Mack has always wanted to take such a journey, in the spirit of the old Golden Age mysteries, and jokingly remarks that he hopes they’re attacked by bandits. That won’t happen, but what does happen will be about as bad. Fortunately, their friend Manny Rodriguez, a US Marshal, comes along too – though he’s disappointed to be stood up by his girlfriend.

Their quarters on the train are luxurious, the views are majestic, and the service is excellent. The main irritant is that some of the other passengers are annoying – especially a Republican couple and a Democrat couple who can’t stop sniping at each other. There also seems to be a fair amount of sexual hijinks going on.

Then one of the conductors disappears. And one by one, other members of the train’s crew vanish as well, to be found in the snow with bullet holes in their heads. Manny declares “marshal law” and they try to keep the other passengers calm (and away from each others’ throats) while doing their best to identify the murderer in their midst.

Dead Stop is a story with a message, and it’s not exactly subtle. Mack and Manny constantly try to remind their fellow passengers that they’re all on the same train and need each other, while those passengers are consumed with mutual hatreds – political, social, racial and international. The conservatives and liberals are about equally caricatured, so I don’t think anyone should take offense.

There’s a civility lesson I’m not sure I entirely agree with in the final solution to the crime. But all in all, the book was pleasant enough, and more positive than not in its (relatively heavy-handed) teaching moments.

As usual, author Lee could use a better proofreader. A particularly odd word error is when he tells us someone is wearing a “toboggan” on his head. Is there a piece of headwear known as a toboggan? Did he mean “toque?” Another mystery, this one unsolved.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Community,’ by Finn Eccleston

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Author Finn Eccleston contacted us through blog comments and asked if I’d like to review his first novel, The Community. I accepted a free review copy and discovered a book worth reading by a promising writer.

Jay Stevens lives in a small, somewhat primitive community whose reason for existence seems obscure. It’s located in an oasis of green surrounded by sand. Jay enjoys the status of being a supervisor. He makes sure all the members of the Community are following the numerous rules laid down for them by the ruling Council. There used to be a lot of building going on in the Community, but their meager forest land is mostly logged over now and projects have stalled.

Recently Jay has been troubled by flashbacks – moments of narcolepsy when he experiences what feels like memories, but they’re not memories of this life. They’re memories of life in a city, where he was a drug dealer and a killer.

When he accidentally discovers an electronic barrier surrounding the Community, and blunders onto the other side, he will begin a journey of discovery that will only lead to greater mysteries and an existential threat to his friends and himself.

The Community is clearly a book by a young writer. The prose could use a lot of polishing – there are many word mistakes – “paramount” where “tantamount” is wanted, “after affect” in place of “after-effect.” There are misspellings and plain awkward verbiage, like “Our paces were both quickened.” And sometimes the descriptions of places and events are hard to follow.

On the other hand, the characters are good, the plot moves right along, and there are occasional sly literary allusions that tell me the author reads and is interested in his craft. I think he shows great promise. The Community is the first book in a series, and I think each installment is likely to improve on the last.

Cautions for rough language and adult themes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The After-Hours War,’ by Colin Conway

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I suppose it’s better to tell a good story with occasional lapses in diction than to write flawless prose but fail as a storyteller. Colin Conway is a good storyteller who could use a better editor. I’ve grown quite fond of his The 509 series, but I liked The After-Hours War less than the previous books, for various reasons.

Several men are found robbed and shot to death in an after-hours smoking club in the Spokane area. Then another group of people are shot in an after-hours, unlicensed bar. The police suffer the embarrassment of investigating crimes committed in private clubs they didn’t even know existed. Turns out that, even though Prohibition has been gone a long time, people still like to break the liquor and tobacco laws with strangers, especially the rules about closing times. It’s a modern form of speakeasy.

The investigation is further hampered by interdepartmental rivalries. The county detectives hate the city detectives, thinking the investigation belongs to them. The city detectives feel the same way, the other way around. And they all hate Morgan, the Crime Task Force cowboy who breaks all the rules and steps on everybody’s toes.

What I like most about the 509 books is the faceting of the characters. We see each cop through the other cops’ eyes, and then we get to see through their own. There’s a lot of human understanding here.

But there were a couple things I didn’t care for. One was the sheer number of main characters in this book. I don’t like jumping back and forth between too many points of view.

The other problem (for this reader) was that it got into politics. When a couple white supremacists are arrested and interrogated, the accused bring out a lot of talking points, some of which they have in common with ordinary conservatives. I don’t know whether this is intended to suggest that conservatives in general are racists – but there are certainly a lot of people on the left who think so.

As before in this series, there were too many typos and word confusions. The author uses “ascetically pleasing” when he means “aesthetically pleasing,” and “a different tact” when he means “a different tack.” He could use a better proofreader.

Still, The After-Hours War was a good book and worth reading. I hope the politics don’t become a permanent fixture in the series.

Non-fiction

First-hand Account of Russian Invasion Translated

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A Russian paratrooper, who has sought asylum in France, wrote a lengthy account of experience in the invasion of Ukraine last year. Members of the Language-Enabled Airman Program, part of the Air Force Culture and Language Center, worked on translating the work into English.

“It was a difficult task: [author] Filatyev wrote in a stream-of-consciousness style filled with military jargon, typos, and colloquial expressions that do not translate perfectly into English.”

The account describes lousy equipment, lack of supplies, and poor communication.

“‘Who will be accountable for these lives lost and the wounded?’ Filatyev wrote about a suspected incident of friendly fire. ‘After all, the reason for their deaths was not the professionalism of the Ukrainian army, but the mess in ours.'”

He claims Russian is destroying itself with greed and envy.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Lieberman’s Folly,’ by Stuart M. Kaminsky

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Dr. Ernest Hartman’s office was in Uptown on Bryn Mawr right next to the el stop. Dr. Hartman’s patients could, while they were waiting or having their fluids drained or taken, indulge in neighborhood bird watching. The trains came rumbling in front of his window and a sharp-eyed woman with the flu or man with a murmur would occasionally spot a Black-Jacketed Daytime Mugger on the platform, though you were more likely to catch sight of a Fleet-Footed Purse Snatcher.

Stuart M. Kaminsky was one of my favorite 20th Century mystery writers, and I’ve reviewed a number of his books before – though not recently, because I think I’ve read most of them. But I’d never read Lieberman’s Folly, which happens to be the first book in his classic Abe Lieberman series.

Abraham Lieberman is 60 years old, a veteran Chicago police detective. He’s a loving father and grandfather, a devout Jew, and an advanced student of human nature. A fragile and old-looking man, he’s no hard-boiled cop. He’s more likely to offer an understanding ear than a punch in the jaw.

His partner is Bill Hanrahan, a tough Irishman who’s crawled into a bottle since his wife left him. Bill’s essentially a good cop too, but he’s been letting his work slide for a while.

Abe likes to spend off-work time – when he’s not with his family – hanging out with a group of old men at his brother’s delicatessen. It’s there that Estralda Valdez, a high-priced hooker and one of Abe’s informants, comes to ask him for protection. Somebody wants to kill her, but she’s leaving town. Could they keep watch on her apartment until she’s gone?

Abe can’t do it that night because of a domestic crisis. But Bill has nothing better to do. Unfortunately, he spends too much time, at his post in a Chinese restaurant across the street, drinking and flirting with a waitress. Estralda is stabbed to death, and their captain is not happy when he hears the story.

Through a narrative rich with eccentric characters and surprises, Abe will do his quiet best to uncover secrets and balance the scales of justice.

Lieberman’s Folly was – like most of Kaminsky’s work – solidly crafted and sympathetic. I enjoyed it very much.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Tan and Sandy Silence,’ by John D. MacDonald

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But the Tibetan bar-headed goose and her gander have a very strange ceremony they perform after they have mated. They rise high in the water, wings spread wide, beaks aimed straight up at the sky, time and time again, making great bugle sounds of honking. The behaviorists think it is unprofessional to use subjective terms about animal patterns. So they don’t call the ceremony joy. They don’t know what to call it. These geese live for up to fifty years, and they mate for life. They celebrate the mating this same way year after year. If one dies, the other never mates again.

So penguins, eagles, geese, wolves, and many other creatures of land and sea and air are stuck with all this obsolete magic and mystery because they can’t read and they can’t listen to lectures. All they have is instinct. Man feels alienated from all feeling, so he sets up encounter groups to sensitize each member to human interrelationships. But the basic group of two, of male and female, is being desensitized as fast as we can manage it.

Got another deal on a Travis McGee book by John D. MacDonald. A Tan and Sandy Silence is, I think, one of the master’s best – a taut tale that borders on horror and reveals our hero at his most vulnerable.

Travis McGee, Fort Lauderdale “salvage specialist,” nearly gets shot one day by old acquaintance Harry Broll, a real estate developer who talks his way aboard Travis’ houseboat. He says he needs to find Mary, his ex-wife, to get her signature for an important real estate deal. He knows she’s been in touch with McGee, he says.

Travis is troubled by this occurrence in two ways – first, he’d never have allowed anybody to get the drop on him like that in the past. Is he losing his edge? Is he getting too long in the tooth for the business of recovering people and their property? Should he accept the offer of Jillian Brent-Archer, the lovely, wealthy English widow who’d like him to move onto her boat and be her constant escort? It would be a soft retirement, and not really all that demeaning.

Secondly, he realizes that Harry Broll was right about one thing – if Mary has disappeared, she’s probably in trouble. But if she was in trouble, she probably would have contacted McGee – which she hasn’t. So where is she?

Talking to Mary’s friends, Travis learns that she’s vacationing in Grenada. She sends postcards now and then. So everything’s all right, right?

But is it? McGee still isn’t sure. So he assumes a false identity and flies down to Grenada. Where he will encounter an evil that reminded me of the horrific “Un-man” in C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra. It’ll be a close-run thing, and the plot will require something fairly close to a deus ex machina to get our hero through this time.

John D. MacDonald was near the top of his game when he wrote A Tan and Sandy Silence (published in 1971). I’m not sure anymore (and I can’t find the reference) when it was that major literary critics suddenly decided it was okay to praise his work, but I know it was around the time this book came out. There were a couple fresh elements here – one is a fairly realistic description of head trauma and PTSD:

Forget the crap about the television series hard guy who gets slugged and shoved out of a fast moving car, wakes up in the ambulance, and immediately deduces that the kidnapper was a left-handed albino because Little Milly left her pill bottle on the second piling from the end of the pier. If hard case happens to wake up in the ambulance, he is going to be busy trying to remember his own name and wondering why he has double vision and what that loud noise is and why he keeps throwing up.

Another new element is that McGee makes some kind of resolution to change the way he deals with women in the future. But I never entirely understood what that meant.

Religion shows up a couple times; there are a couple pretty awful Catholics in this book, and a group of very nice Jesus Freaks (a brand new phenomenon just then).

A Tan and Sandy Silence is a harrowing book. It contains what I consider perhaps the most horrifying scene in the series. But it’s also engrossing and lyrical and deeply humane. Sometimes funny too. I recommend it highly. Cautions for adult themes.

Music

‘The Mansions of the Lord’

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As you may recall, I have a fondness for this “hymn” from Mel Gibson’s movie, “We Were Soldiers.” In spite of its faulty orthodoxy. So sue me.

Yesterday I drove down to Kenyon, my home town, for a memorial service at a country church. A motorcycle group in the area does an honor ride every year for local people killed in action. This one was at the grave of a young man I graduated high school with, who died in Vietnam at the age of 19.

Gordie and I moved in different social circles (he was popular). But my brothers and I spent an afternoon with him and some other guys one summer afternoon, it must be going on 60 years ago now. Just walking the railroad tracks, wandering the woods, messing around by the river. Nothing illegal or dangerous. Just an easy summer day for country boys. Could even have been Memorial Day, I suppose. The woods we wandered were “Monkey Valley,” as we called it, a small river valley I renamed “Troll Valley” for a couple of my novels.

Music

Pentecost Singing: O Breath of Life, Come Sweeping Through Us

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Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day on which the Lord Christ sent the Comforter to dwell among us. This hymn, “O Breath of Life, Come Sweeping Through Us,” comes to use from the Irish woman Bessie Porter Head (1850-1936).

1. O Breath of life, come sweeping through us,
revive your church with life and pow’r;
O Breath of Life, come, cleanse, renew us,
and fit your church to meet this hour.

2. O Wind of God, come bend us, break us,
till humbly we confess our need;
then in your tenderness remake us,
revive, restore, for this we plead.

3. O Breath of love, come breathe within us,
renewing thought and will and heart;
come, Love of Christ, afresh to win us,
revive your church in ev’ry part.

4. O Heart of Christ, once broken for us,
’tis there we find our strength and rest;
our broken, contrite hearts now solace,
and let your waiting church be blest.

5. Revive us, Lord! Is zeal abating
while harvest fields are vast and white?
Revive us, Lord, the world is waiting,
equip your church to spread the light.