Mr. Holtsberry is talking about a “quirky novella” called Duck by Nic Bettauer. “It is a sort of melancholic dystopian sentimental minimalist story; if that makes any sense,” he says.
Havana, by Stephen Hunter
Stephen Hunter’s most popular books are the two series about Earl and Bob Lee Swagger, father and son. It started with Point of Impact, in which he introduced Bob Lee Swagger, a decorated sniper from the Vietnam War whose highway patrolman daddy had been murdered in his childhood. Then Hunter started giving Daddy Earl stories of his own. This creates continuity problems, as Hunter attempts to shoehorn incredible adventures (I suspect he may like Earl as a character even better than Bob Lee) into the short lifespan decreed by the first book. Sometimes continuity breaks down, and a new book contradicts a previous one. Hunter cheerfully admits this fact in the Acknowledgements, but he makes no apologies. Each book, it would appear, exists in its own alternate universe.
Hunter is very canny in writing his thrillers. His politics (or so I heard him say in a radio interview) are libertarian/conservative, but he makes sure to be evenhanded with his heroes and villains. The Swaggers seem to be pretty conservative (they’re certainly NRA members), but the villains of this book are the thuggish police of Batista’s Cuba, and cynical CIA agents.
Havana begins in the year 1953. The CIA is looking for a sniper to assassinate a dangerous revolutionary in Cuba. (Several U.S. corporations and the mob are also concerned.) At the suggestion of a young agent named Walter “Frenchy” Short (whom we know from the novel Hot Springs), they select Marine veteran and Medal of Honor winner Earl Swagger, persuading him to travel to Cuba as a bodyguard for a goatish Arkansas Congressman.
This is Batista’s Havana, a year-round Carnivale for Americans with money to spend, and there’s plenty of opportunity for humor as the upright Earl, a solidly reformed alcoholic and relentlessly faithful husband, observes it all but keeps his distance. Continue reading Havana, by Stephen Hunter
Who’s the Smug One?
Author Anne Lamott doesn’t like McCain-Palin. She even left church the other Sunday over it:
A man and a woman whose values we loathe and despise — lying, rageful and incompetent, so dangerous to children and old people, to innocent people in every part of the world — are being worshiped, exalted by the media, in a position to take a swing at all that is loveliest about this earth and what’s left of our precious freedoms.
When I got home from church, I drank a bunch of water to metabolize the Dove bar and called my Jesuit friend, who I know hates these people, too. I asked, “Don’t you think God finds these smug egomaniacs morally repellent? Recoils from their smugness as from hot flame?”
And he said, “Absolutely. They are everything He or She hates in a Christian.”
Later on, she devotes a paragraph to ridiculing the names of the Palin children. The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto observes that she and her friend appear to be the very “stereotype people on the left typically hold of conservatives, and religious conservatives in particular: smug yet insecure, dogmatic and intolerant and filled with hate and rage. Even Lamott’s descriptions of Palin more aptly describe Lamott in the act of describing Palin!”
Last Call for Blackford Oakes, by William F. Buckley
It’s been longer than I thought since I’ve read a Blackford Oakes novel. Stuff has happened in Blackie’s life that I wasn’t aware of, and I fear some of the information I gained in Last Call for Blackford Oakes will take away some of the suspense when I read the ones I’ve missed.
On the other hand, I’ll probably forget.
I wrote a few days back that the late William F. Buckley’s novels are a quiet pleasure for me. The Oakes books are my favorites in that group. It’s nice to read about a spy who knows which side he’s on, and isn’t tortured by doubts about whether democracy or a police state are superior systems. And instead of shadowy puppetmasters in darkened rooms, Oakes’ bosses are the actual, historical people who ran the CIA. A number of other historical figures also make appearances.
Chief among these are the British defector Kim Philby, about whose character Buckley (and Oakes) is/are in no doubt. There is no romance in Buckley’s portrait of Philby.
In this final book of the series, Oakes is a senior agent, something of a legend in the CIA. In the first chapter, in December, 1987, he’s called in to meet with President Ronald Reagan. There are rumors of an attempt to assassinate Soviet Prime Minister Gorbachev, and Reagan wants Oakes to look into it. Continue reading Last Call for Blackford Oakes, by William F. Buckley
Fair is fair
I’ve seen a lot of comments on the blogosphere about Saturday Night Live making a joke about incest in the Palin family.
Tasteless? Yes. A cause for conservative outrage? Not so much.
Hugh Hewitt played the audio of the entire skit last night, and in fact, taken in context, it was a piece that could have been written by clever Republicans (there are a few, I’ve heard). The skit involved an editor sending a group of reporters to Alaska expressly to find dirt on Gov. Palin, and the reporters’ questions (including the incest one) were actually meant as examples of how out of touch the reporters were, how prejudiced against anyone living outside the liberal coasts.
The big laugh was when the editor informed the group that there was no Thai take-out in Alaska, and half of the reporters backed out.
It would be better to get outraged about issues that have some substance. There are plenty of those out there.
Coke Blech
I haven’t tried Coke Blak, so I can’t opine on its flavor. I don’t need to say that I don’t think it is a good idea–first blush–because I haven’t given it a chance to impress me. But this video of Anderson Cooper trying Coke Blak on live TV is worth the click. The clip is too long for my taste, but its fun.
That zincing feeling
Outside, it was like summer in Minneapolis today. Just beautiful. Air conditioning weather.
But it is winter in my head.
My first cold of the year has arrived, with its entourage in tow.
I’m getting tired of this. Last winter, if I recall correctly, consisted entirely for me of a very long bout of flu, bookended on either side by unusually long colds.
I’m losing my faith in zinc tablets.
I’m beginning to suspect that zinc tablets are like the secret police of a particularly inept military dictatorship. They manage to beat down the resistance, but they cannot wipe it out. It waits, and organizes, and grows in strength in the shadows, until it bursts forth with volcanic violence in terrorism and revenge and blood in the streets.
It is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It’s the beginning of the beginning of Cold Season.
Pseudoscience: Believe It or Not?
… traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. [The study] also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.
On the Way to the Emmys
Comedy writer Earl Pomerantz chat us up with his experiences at the Emmys. The highlight? “I shook hands with Raymond Burr.” Perhaps that should be the title of his memoir.
No Lil’ Bratz in Scholastic School Flyers
The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is claiming a victory in a children’s publisher’s decision to pull Lil’ Bratz-related books from its book club and fair fliers. Scholastic, Inc. is not going to recommend picture books based on the Lil’ Bratz dolls in their sales fliers, and many parents are glad for it.