Tabloid City

Tabloid City by Pete Hamill
Little, Brown & Company, May 2011
Advanced Reading Copy , 278 pages
ISBN-13: 9780316020756

http://www.petehamill.com/
highly recommended

Synopsis

In a stately West Village town house, a wealthy socialite and her secretary are murdered. In the 24 hours that follow, a flurry of activity surrounds their shocking deaths:
The head of one of the city's last tabloids stops the presses. A cop investigates the killing. A reporter chases the story. A disgraced hedge fund manager flees the country. An Iraq War vet seeks revenge. And an angry young extremist plots a major catastrophe.
The City is many things: a proving ground, a decadent carnival, or a palimpsest of memories—a historic metropolis eclipsed by modern times. As much a thriller as it is a gripping portrait of the city of today, Tabloid City is a new fiction classic from the writer who has captured New York perfectly for decades.

My Thoughts:

Set in New York City, Tabloid City by Pete Hamill follows a myriad of characters, at least 16, for one 24 hour period. Each new section in the novel lists the time, character, and location. Sam Briscoe, the 71-year-old editor in chief of the New York World is the central voice of the novel. The voices of each character are followed as the action all culminates in one location.

Characters include: Sam Briscoe, editor of the New York World; Josh Thompson, a disgruntled, disabled war veteran; Helen Loomis, a long time "rewrite man"; Cynthia Harding, a socialite and longtime lover of Sam; Lew Forrest, an elderly successful artist; Myles Compton, a hedgefund manager on the run; Freddie Wheeler, a vindictive gossip blogger; Sandra Gordon, Cynthia's adopted daughter, Myles lover, and vice president of an ad agency; Ali Watson, a police detective on the anti-terrorist task force; Bobby Fonseca, a young journalist; Malik Shahid, fanatic, Muslim fundamentalist, son of Ali Watson; Beverly Starr, a comic book artist; and Consuelo Mendoza, an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

Tabloid City is ostensibly a murder mystery, but despite what the synopsis says, the murders don't actually occur until around page 100, in a novel of only 278 pages. Before this the large cast of characters are introduced. In the end all the action culminating at one location with the murderous threat of the want-to-be jihadist, felt contrived. Making this the main focus of the plot didn't work for me.

Several of the characters have no real purpose in the plot other than to tell their story. They may have connections to other characters or to each other, but their presence in the novel makes no difference. The character of Beverly Starr could have easily been left out. Lew Forrest knew other characters, including Consuelo Mendoza, but both of them made no difference in the final plot. It's almost as if Hamill wanted to write a book with some short story character sketches. Perhaps the over abundance of characters was also meant to mimic the crowded streets, reflect a "there are eight million stories in the Naked City" attitude, but in this case it didn't work.

What does work in Tabloid City is Hamill's descriptions of a newsroom. It stands out and shines above the rest of the novel. It's a tribute to what is becoming a dying occupation. You know that Hamill is intimately acquainted with a newsroom, the hustle and flow, the action and excitement. The Sam Briscoe character was the highlight of the novel. Tabloid City would have been a better novel had Hamill left out the contrived plot focusing on the murderous young extremist and tightened the focus to make the novel about the last day before the printed paper closed in favor of an online version. Perhaps something reminiscent of O'Nan's Last Night at the Lobster.

Additionally, there is no doubt that Hamill is a very good writer. He knows New York City and his familiarity with the city shines through his prose. He expertly captures not only the location, but the energy of the city. His fans know and expect this. His use of dashes to set off dialogue rather than using quotation marks helps establish a frantic, staccato pace that mimics the bustle of the city.

Hamill also displays his wide range of knowledge of artists, writers, and musicians. While I was able to follow his very noticeable naming of artists and writers, having taken quite a few art history classes and being generally well read, and his knowledge is impressive, I'm unsure that most readers are going to be acquainted with all the names he drops. Perhaps that won't matter, but then it begs the question: If it doesn't matter, why mention so many names?

Tabloid City does a great job mourning the death of print journalism, the loss of a lover, how time changes everything, and it even has a glimmer of hope, but the lackluster murder/mystery is no mystery. If I was giving a number rating, I'd give it a 3.5, so we'll call it highly recommended, especially for fans of Hamill.

Disclosure: I received this novel through the Goodreads First Reads program.

Quotes:

Here comes Briscoe, seventy- one years old, five foot eleven, 182 pounds. He turns a corner into the city room of the last afternoon newspaper in New York. He is the editor in chief. His overcoat is arched across his left shoulder and he is carrying his jacket. The cuffs of his shirtsleeves are crisply folded twice, below the elbows. His necktie hangs loose, without a knot, making two vertical dark red slashes inside the vertical bands of his bright red suspenders. He moves swiftly, from long habit, as if eluding ambush by reporters and editors who might approach him for raises, days off, or loans. Or these days, for news about buyouts and layoffs. His crew cut is steel gray, his lean furrowed face tightly shaven. The dark pouches under both eyes show that he has worked for many years at night. In the vast, almost empty room, there are twenty- six desks, four reporters, and three copy editors, all occasionally glancing at four mounted television screens tuned to New York 1 and CNN, Fox and MSNBC. A fifth screen is dark. Briscoe doesn't look at any of them. He goes directly to a man named Matt Logan, seated at the news desk in the center of the long wide room. Other desks butt against each other, forming a kind of stockade. All are empty. opening

–Where was I? he says. Oh, yeah. The Fonseca kid got the mother. Her son was admitted to Stuyvesant two years ago. Now he's shot dead in the street.

Logan makes some moves on the keyboard, and then Briscoe sees six photographs of a distraught thin black woman pointing at a framed letter.

–That's the mother, Logan says. The letter is from Stuyvesant. When he was accepted.

She is staring into the camera, her face a ruin, holding a framed photograph of a smiling boy in a blazer. The woman is about thirty-five, going on eighty.

–The quality sucks, Briscoe says.

–Yeah. We don't have a photographer tonight so Fonseca shot it with a cell phone. Anyway, that's the vic in the other picture. The dead kid. In his first year in Stuyvesant, after winning a medal for debating.

Logan points to a young man's body on a sidewalk, facedown, chalk marks around him.

–Then he's dead, late this afternoon. Shot five times.

–Why?

–The usual sh*t, Logan says. Drugs. Or someone got dissed. So say the cops. Who ever really knows? But there's a Doom Page angle too. The mother lost her job six weeks ago. They're gonna throw her out of the house, and the cops think maybe the kid started dealing drugs to save the house.

–Put that in the lede. If it's true.

–I already told Fonseca. pg. 6

Briscoe knows in his heart that it wasn't the end of cigarettes that took the music out of her. Not really. With Helen, it was the final triumph of loneliness. Young Helen Loomis was only one of many great reporters he'd known who were drawn to the rowdy newspaper trade because of the aching solitude in their own lives. Their own pain was dwarfed by the more drastic pain of strangers. As bad as your own life might be, there were all kinds of people out there in the city who were in much worse shape. Their stories filled the newspapers. And for a few hours, the lives of reporters and rewrite men. Until the clock ticked past all deadlines. And the profane, laughing city room emptied. Helen Loomis was now a straggler at a late- night party that was already over. When the deadline was gone, she had nothing left but cigarettes and loneliness. The music of her prose was gone forever. pg. 8-9

And carrying coat and jacket he walks to his dark office at the far end of the city room. Thinking: The kid, that Bobby Fonseca, has loneliness in his eyes too. Except when he's writing. Briscoe unlocks the door. Flicks on the lights. Hangs his garments on a gnarled coat tree he carried away when P. J. Clarke's was remodeled. On his desk, there is a wire rack holding folders. One is marked "Newspapers." Full of dismal news clippings or printouts about shrinking circulation and shrinking ad revenues and shrinking page sizes and rumors of extinction. Layoffs, buyouts, furloughs. The papers themselves were a subset of the main story of Doom, everything that had followed the obliteration of Lehman Brothers that day in September 2008 . In the newspapers, everybody was hurting. The Times. The Tribune Company. McClatchy. The Boston Globe. Gannett. The San Francisco Chronicle. Briscoe didn't know if anybody really cared, except the people who made the newspapers, the people he loved more than any others. In his mind's eye he sees the three young techies working on the World website in their small uptown office. Culling stories from the newspaper, from the AP and Reuters. Lots of raving blog messages from readers. This just in. Breaking news. Nobody in the city room bothered to read the site. Not even Briscoe. But one man certainly did. The man they all called the F.P., the F***ing Publisher. pg. 9

Caleb's Crossing

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Penguin Group, May 2011
Advanced Reading Copy, 306 pages
ISBN-13: 9780670021048

http://geraldinebrooks.com/the-books/calebs-crossing/

highly recommended

Synopsis:

Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.
The narrator of Caleb's Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe's shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb's crossing of cultures.
Like Brooks's beloved narrator Anna in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves an emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha's Vineyard and the intimate spaces of the human heart. Evocative and utterly absorbing, Caleb's Crossing further establishes Brooks's place as one of our most acclaimed novelists.

My Thoughts:

In Caleb's Crossing, author Geraldine Brooks takes the scant information regarding Caleb Cheeshahteaumauck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, and fashions a fictional colonial historical narrative surrounding his life. "Caleb's crossing" refers to not just his crossing from the island to the mainland, but his crossing from one world into another. In actuality, though, this is the story of our narrator, Bethia Mayfield, the daughter of a Calvinist minister. It is set in Massachusetts during the mid-1600's, first at the settlement called Great Harbor on the island that is now Martha's Vineyard and later at Cambridge, by a young Harvard College.

While Bethia is the narrator and her life forms the core of this historical novel, her covert friendship with Caleb allows Brooks to explore the conflicts between the two cultures, as well as the conflicts created by the social and religious customs of the times. Bethia secretly becomes a friend to Caleb, a Wampanoag, before he comes to live with her family to study with her father. She secretly instructs him even while he teaches her his language.

As a girl any further education beyond the rudimentary lessons her father has already taught her is withheld from Bethia, so she must learn in secret, listening to the lessons her father teaches to her brother, and, later, the two Wampanoag young men, including Caleb. Bethia continues her clandestine learning when she ends up going to Cambridge to work while the young men receive further studies.

As she did with Year of Wonders, Brooks has taken a little known historical fact and used it as an inspiration for her novel.She does an excellent job bringing history to life with the language used and the period details. Brooks also thoughtfully shows the role of religion in the community and the conflicts between cultures. Bethia is an especially intriguing, well developed character, firmly placed in the historical setting. She is conflicted, wanting an education but knowing it is not allowed, and struggles to find a way to learn but stay with in the societal expectations of the times.

The character of Caleb, however, is not as well developed as one would expect. In the first section of the novel, when Caleb and Bethia meet as young teens and form a secret friendship, Brooks does a much better job with his character than in the remainder of the novel. His character fell flat in the end. It almost appears that Brooks felt inhibited to fully use her creative license to explore his character once he was at Harvard. Perhaps it would have been better to use his real story as inspiration for her novel, and then not worry about following the few known facts.

Geraldine Brooks is a brilliant writer, though, which helps to transport Caleb's Crossing from what could have been an average novel to a highly recommended one.

Disclosure: I received this novel through the Goodreads First Reads program.

Quotes:
Since this is an ARC, I have selected excerpts from Chapter I, found at Penguin books.

He is coming on the Lord’s Day. Though my father has not seen fit to give me the news, I have the whole of it.
They supposed I slept, which I might have done, as I do each night, while my father and Makepeace whisper together on the far side of the blanket that divides our chamber. Most nights I take comfort in the low murmur of their voices. But last evening Makepeace’s voice rose urgent and anguished before my father hushed him. I expect that was what pulled me back from sleep. My brother frowns on excessive displays of temperament. I turned on my shakedown then and wondered, in a drowsy way, what it was that exercised him so. I could not hear what my father said, but then my brother’s voice rose again.
“How can you expose Bethia in this way?”
Of course, once I caught my own name that was an end to it; I was fully awake. I raised my head and strained to hear more. It was not difficult, for Makepeace could not govern his tongue, and though I could not make out my father’s words at all, fragments of my brother’s replies were clear.
“Of what matter that he prays? He is only—what is it?—Not yet a year?—removed from paganism, and that man who long had charge of him is Satan’s thrall—the most stiff-necked and dangerous of all of them, as you have said yourself often enough. . . .”
My father cut in then, but Makepeace would not be hushed.
“Of course not, father. Nor do I question his ability. But because he has a facility for Latin does not mean he knows the decencies required of him in a Christian home. The risk is . . .” ....

Caleb is coming to live in this house.
In the morning, I did not speak of what I had overheard. Listening, not speaking, has been my way. I have become most proficient in it. My mother taught me the use of silence. While she lived, I think that not above a dozen people in this settlement ever heard the sound of her voice. It was a fine voice, low and mellow, carrying the lilt of the Wiltshire village in England where she had passed her girlhood. She would laugh, and make rhymes full of the strange words of that place and tell us tales of things we had never seen: cathedrals and carriages, great rivers wide as our harbor, and streets of shops where one who had the coin might buy all manner of goods. But this was within the house, when we were a family. When she went about in the world, it was with downcast eyes and sealed lips. She was like a butterfly, full of color and vibrancy when she chose to open her wings, yet hardly visible when she closed them. Her modesty was like a cloak that she put on, and so adorned, in meekness and discretion, it seemed she passed almost hidden from people, so that betimes they would speak in front of her as if she were not there. ....

Now, here, in the scant days I have left before Caleb comes to us, I have decided to set down my spiritual diary, and give an accounting for those months when my heart sat so loose from God. I have gathered what scraps of paper I could scavenge from my brother’s store, and I intend to use whatever moments I can eke out before each day’s weariness claims me. My hand is unlovely, since father did not school me in writing, but as this relation is for my own eyes, it makes no mind. ....

God alone ordains the damned and the saved and naught that I set down on these pages can change that. But since Caleb is to come here, trailing about him the smoke of those heathen fires and the scent of those wild, vision-filled hours, I need to be clear in my own mind and honest in my heart where I stand with regard to such matters, so that I can truly put them from me. I must do this for his sake, as well as for my own. I know that father sets great store in Caleb. He sees him, more than any other here, as a great hope to lead his people. Certainly Caleb seems to want this also; no one toils at his book more diligently; no one has gathered such a rich harvest of knowledge in the scant seasons he has had to study these things. But I also know this to be true: Caleb’s soul is stretched like the rope in a tug o’ war, between my father and his own uncle, the pawaaw. Just as my father has his hopes, so too does that sorcerer. Caleb will lead his people, I am sure of it. But in which direction? Of that, I am not in the least bit certain.

Juniper Tree Burning

Juniper Tree Burning by Goldberry Long
Simon & Schuster, 2001

Hardcover, 464 pages
ISBN-13: 9780743202039

highly recommended, reread

Synopsis

Jennifer Braverman was once named Juniper Tree Burning, and she hates that name. It represents the childhood she escaped: her hippie mother, Faith, caught up in mind-altering salvation; her well-meaning father, Ray, interchanging kiss and slap, and her sickly little brother, Sunny Boy Blue, whom she could not save. Jennie, now a successful adult, newly married to a seemingly perfect man, Christian Braverman, is a strong, fiercely intelligent woman. She has left Juniper Tree Burning behind. All of this changes when she learns of Sunny's suicide. Whether an act of despair or revenge, her brother's final message sends Jennie running from her husband. Part love story, part family saga, and part road trip, Juniper Tree Burning is the story of Jennie's mad dash across the mountains and plains of the American West, toward the site of Sunny's death.

My Thoughts:

Juniper Tree Burning by Goldberry Long is a novel about the psychotic break of a woman who has always been running from her family and her past, but now has to come to terms with her younger brother's suicide. Moving back and forth in time from when Juniper was young to the present, we see the dysfunctional hippy family life she experienced growing up as Juniper Tree Burning in contrast to her current life where she is known as Jennifer. Juniper's parents use her and her younger brother, Sunny Boy Blue, as pawns in their own troubled marriage.

Long moves effortlessly between the present and the past, using first and third person narratives, as the story slowly unfolds. She paints a vivid picture when describing her characters and the setting while more and more of the story is revealed.

Having first read Juniper Tree Burning after it was first released, this is a reread for me. I'll have to admit that the second time was not a charm in this instance. While it is still undoubtedly a very good novel, this time around it felt overly long and Jennifer/Juniper was not quite as compelling a character and became a bit tiresome.

Highly recommended - reread

Quotes:

I wasn't speaking to my brother, but he phoned anyway, hours before he went into the sea. I can couple this fact with what he Seattle policeman told me. opening

Before he kidnapped me from my own wedding reception, Sunny Boy Blue -- that little prick, that darling Backwards Boy -- he nearly skipped the Big Event altogether. He was scheduled for Christmas, but to the tune of my mother's tears, he missed his flight. Then he missed another, and it seemed that Russia was holding him back, like honey, or a fly trap. Alas, he pulled free with less than twenty-four hours to spare, time enough to wreak a little havoc, assassinate my New Year's Day, my birthday, my wedding day, all my big holidays clustered together, a gaggle of ducks waiting to be shot down by this drunken imposter flown in from Russia. By the reception dinner, I wished him dead. pg. 15

"The point!" the Brother announces to the room. "Juniper wants a point!" He leans over her shoulder and breathes his smoky vodka breath into her face. "Am I getting on your nerves? Am I pissing you off?"
She looks into his see-through eyes. She tells him no.
His nose touches hers. He whispers, "Liar, liar, Juniper Tree on Fire." He straightened. "The point," he said, raising his flask again. "To Juniper Tree Burning, the lovely bride!" I stared down at the boots he wore with his tuxedo, heavy black combat-issue storm troopers. He leaned around me and pointed the flask at Chris. "To her brave groom, Mr. Braverman."
"I'll drink to my bride," Chris said, raising his glass. "To the lovely Mrs. Braverman." He was smiling, playing along with the joke, only his eyes in my direction were checking on me, saying, I'm on your side, Cinderella.
Then Sunny looked straight at my groom. When he spoke, his voice was cold, sober, hateful. He said, "Here's hoping she doesn't leave you like she leaves everyone else." pg. 17

I have always known my rightful place in the world, which was not in New Mexico, not with my parents in a mud house without running water, and most of all, not with a name like Juniper Tree Burning. I was not meant to live like that. Even a kid knows when she's in the wrong place.
I wanted to be the bride. I wanted to fall backwards into the comfort of normalcy, like a child in the wilderness who nestles into the snow and sleeps. I don't understand those people who want to be outside the universe of the ordinary. I was the bride, and this was enough for me. It was not snow, but a featherbed, gloriously warm and safe: it was rest.
But Sunny would not allow me to rest. He kept pulling me back into the wilderness, calling me Juniper, trying to make me be what I am not. pg. 18

I am my father's daughter, and my father is the King of Leaving. So, almost nine months after this fiasco of a wedding, less than the time it takes to gestate a baby or finish a school year, this bride, this Jennie - on a lark, a whim - will leave the new husband behind of her very own volition. pg. 29

How far back is far enough? Where is the beginning of Sunny Boy Blue jumping into the sea? Can you ever find the moment, the second, the seed? pg. 51

The Friends of Meager Fortune

The Friends of Meager Fortune by David Adams Richards
MacAdam/Cage, 2007
Hardcover, 377 pages
ISBN-13: 9781596921894
very highly recommended

Synopsis from Cover:

It's the mid-twentieth century and the Canadian lumber industry is dying. Only men who are strong in both body and spirit, men like Will Jameson, can lead the expeditions to harvest timber in the perilous mountain landscape. But when Will dies in a tragic accident, it falls to his younger brother, Owen, to take command.
Recently returned from military duty, Owen watches his war-hero status quickly fade as he becomes entangled in a triangle between Reggie, the man he saved on the battlefield, and Reggie's wife Camellia, the woman he desires. As the town turns against him and the logging expedition becomes more treacherous, Owen seems trapped in a destiny full of betrayal, love, envy, and jealousy.

My Thoughts:

"Betrayal is such a vicious sin, worse than the cauldron Dante put his sinners in." (pg. 303)

In The Friends of Meager Fortune, David Adams Richards returns to New Brunswick’s Miramichi Valley in the mid-twentieth century to explore gossip and betrayal in a small town that turns out to be just as treacherous as the Canadian lumber industry. It follows the Jameson family who own one of the last family-operated mills during the last days of the lumber industry - before it is taken over by mechanization and corporatization.

After establishing the setting and characters in The Friends of Meager Fortune (and readers will note that Meager Fortune is a man, introduced on page 92), Richards follows two storylines of betrayal: the rumor and scandal circulating through the town; and the danger facing the men logging through the winter at the Good Friday cut. David Adams Richards uses historical settings to further the exploration of archetypal human emotions. It is to his credit that I, who have never really had any interest in the Canadian logging industry, was as totally engrossed in the story of the men working through the brutal winter as with the rumors circulating in the town.

The Friends of Meager Fortune is mythical in its universal tale of fate. There are flawed heroes. There are far-reaching, terrible acts of betrayal. There are examples of human weakness. There are feats of superhuman strength. There is good among the evil. And, amidst all of this, there is a chorus of harpy-like townspeople, where rumor and gossip turn emotions and sentiments on a whim. Any one who has ever lived in a small town will understand how truly treacherous they can be, with public opinion easily swayed and quickly changing.

Now, I will mention that Richards’ books can feel overwhelmingly melancholy and there is usually a religious element present. In The Friends of Meager Fortune, Meager Fortune said of the evil men do: "That men have rid themselves of God, and are famished, and therefore do terrible things to make such famine go away." (pg. 333)

I can't help but wonder why more people aren't singing the praises of David Adams Richards. He is an incredible author and I am more and more impressed with his writing after each book I read. In fact, I have been purposefully acquiring his novels, but delaying reading each next book of his, not wanting it to be the last and alternately afraid it will not be as good. But each book has been just as good as the one before it. Perhaps the following quote offers some explanation:

"Its failure to win prizes rests mainly in the demands it makes of its readers. The book must be read slowly, intensely and repeatedly in a way that is common enough among everyday readers but becomes increasingly difficult for professionals at a time when too many trees give up too much life to mediocrities that will never leap into tongues of flame nor rise as pillars of smoke and carry our dreams with them." Prophetic and Retrospective by T.F. Rigelhof

Very Highly Recommended - one of the best

Quotes:

I had to walk up the back way, through a wall of dark winter nettles, to see the ferocious old house from this vantage point. A black night and snow falling, the four turrets rising into the fleeing clouds above me. A house already ninety years old and with more history than most in town.
His name was Will Jameson.
His family was in lumber, or was Lumber, and because of his father’s death he left school when just a boy and took over the reins of the industry when he was not yet sixteen. He would wake at dawn, and deal with men, sitting in offices in his rustic suit or out on a cruise walking twenty miles on snowshoes, be in camp for supper and direct men twice as old as he. opening

If we Canadians are called hewers of wood and drawers of water, and balk, young Will Jameson did not mind this assumption, did not mind the crass biblical analogy, or perhaps did not know or care it was one, and leapt toward it in youthful pride, as through a burning ring. The strength of all moneyed families is their ignorance of or indifference to chaff. And it was this indifference to jealousy and spite that created the destiny Jameson believed in (never minding the Jamesian insult toward it), which made him prosperous, at a place near the end of the world. pg. 4

In local legend the wife of Paul Francis was said to have the gift of prophecy when inspired by drink, and when Mary Jameson insisted her fortune be read with a pack of playing cards, she was told that her first-born would be a powerful man and have much respect – but his brother would be even greater, yet destroy the legacy by rashness, and the Jameson dynasty not go beyond that second boy.
Mrs. Francis warned that the prophecy would not be heeded, and therefore happen. It would happen in a senseless way, but of such a route as to look ordinary. pg. 4

This was the bowing and scraping to a propriety that men of Will Jameson's ilk believed they never bowed or scraped to. pg. 8

He jumped one log to the next with this wall at his back. And as he moved the logs themselves grew up over him. But even then, his brother heard later, he managed to dodge the first volley of logs that fell almost on him. He made a giant Hail Mary leap, when the logs as loud as a crack in the center of the earth swallowed him whole. pg. 25

Mary said she did not want wood for her younger son. Nor any part of wood, any measure or drift of wood or the complex commitment of it, or of the men who made their living in the pitiless world associated with it. For it was a pitiless world - for animals, horses, men, it was every bit as pitiless as the sea. pg. 30

That is, he accepted what the town said about its citizens, and had long ago realized the town did not wish greatness from its citizens. It secretly wished mediocrity. pg. 32

Owen joined the North Shore, trained, decided to be killed in action, and left for Europe in 1941. pg. 36

Alive or not, Owen Jameson did not come readily back to Canada after the was. He stayed away until October of 1946./ He wanted the town and his mother to forget him. pg. 42

He was no longer that shy child Reggie had cared about but just another man motivated by his own wounds to wound as well. pg. 60

Meager Fortune coming through the door.... Owen had traveled with Meager in the war and had hired him as a general camp keeper. pg. 92

Betrayal is such a vicious sin, worse than the cauldron Dante put his sinners in. pg. 303

"That men have rid themselves of God, and are famished, and therefore do terrible things to make such famine go away." pg. 333

Death of a Chimney Sweep

Death of a Chimney Sweep by M. C. Beaton
Grand Central Publishing, February 2011
Hardcover, 247 pages
Hamish Macbeth Series #27
ISBN-13: 9780446547390

highly recommended

Synopsis

In the south of Scotland, residents get their chimneys vacuum-cleaned. But in the isolated villages in the very north of Scotland, the villagers rely on the services of the itinerant sweep, Pete Ray, and his old-fashioned brushes. Pete is always able to find work in the Scottish highlands, until one day when Police Constable Hamish Macbeth notices blood dripping onto the floor of a villager's fireplace, and a dead body stuffed inside the chimney. The entire town of Lochdubh is certain Pete is the culprit, but Hamish doesn't believe that the affable chimney sweep is capable of committing murder. Then Pete's body is found on the Scottish moors, and the mystery deepens. Once again, it's up to Hamish to discover who's responsible for the dirty deed—and this time, the murderer may be closer than he realizes.

My Thoughts:

Death of a Chimney Sweep by M. C. Beaton is the twenty-seventh cozy mystery featuring Police Constable Hamish Macbeth. In Death of a Chimney Sweep, Captain Henry Davenport and his wife, Milly, have recently moved to the village of Drim. Davenport orders Milly to get the chimney cleaned and then goes for a walk. He and the chimney sweep end up dead. While it appears the chimney sweep is the culprit, Hamish Macbeth realizes that a more sinister killer is on the loose.

This delightful cozy set in Scotland is a simple police procedural and a quick read. While there are several murders, they are all carried out precipitously, and, along with some humor, Beaton includes enough plot twists and turns to keep any mystery fan interested. Obviously Death of a Chimney Sweep will greatly appeal to cozy mystery fans, especially those following the series.

Actually, this was my first Hamish Macbeth book. Even though I don't have a long history with the series and the characters, it was quite easy to read and characters were very accessible. No, the writing is not demanding and simple sentences abound, but Death of a Chimney Sweep follows the tried and true format of a cozy. Cozy mysteries are: always easy to read; set in a village or small town; the murders are quick and not detailed; there is no gritty language; and there is always an element of humor. In this case, Beaton's short, simple sentences and quick pace made this the perfect book to read at the end of a busy week.

Highly Recommended for fans of cozy mysteries

Disclosure: Death of a Chimney Sweep was sent to me by the publisher from a giveaway.

Quotes:

The Village of Drim in the county of Sutherland at the northwest of Scotland was rarely visited by outsiders. Not even the most romantic member of the tartan lunatic fringe of the lowland cities could claim it to be a place of either interest or beauty. opening

The nearest policeman, Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth, was some miles away across mountain and moorland in the village of Lochdubh, and although Drim was on his beat, he rarely had any reason to visit the place. pg. 2

He sat back on his heels. "I'm afraid there's a body stuck in the chimney."

"Oh, that poor sweep!" gasped Milly. pg. 6

Hamish ignored that remark and went on: "So say this person meets him and they walk back to the house. This person quarrels with Davenport and bashes his head in wi' a tyre iron, and then like a bad elf, down the chimney, out pops Pete. It's one of the old-fashioned chimneys with climbing rungs inside from the days when the sweep sent a boy up. Pete could get up there himself. He was all skin and bone. The murderer kills him, takes a few objects to make it look as if Pete was a robber as well, gets him in he sidecar, and goes off over the moors to fake the whole thing. Returns to the house and searches for something he wants, can't find it, and in a rage he stuffs the captain up the chimney, the captain himself being pretty skinny, hoping it'll be some time before the body is found."

"Oh, come on, Hamish. Let it go."

"No! I bet forensics never examined the sidecar properly. I want to see it." pg. 9-10

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Copyright 1997

Trade Paperback, 360 pages
ISBN-13: 9780374525644

nonfiction

Very Highly Recommended

From the Publisher

When three-month-old Lia Lee Arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos. The Hmong, traditionally a close-knit and fiercely people, have been less amenable to assimilation than most immigrants, adhering steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Lia's pediatricians, Neil Ernst and his wife, Peggy Philip, cleaved just as strongly to another tradition: that of Western medicine. When Lia Lee Entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication.

My Thoughts:

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman is a balanced account of the clash between a Hmong family and Western medicine. Fadiman follows how the medical community handled or mishandled the case of Lia Lee, and her parents Nao Kao and Foua, a Hmong family. She also follows the history of the Hmong.

The Lees immigrated to Merced, California, from Laos in 1980. At three months old, Lia was diagnosed with what American doctors called epilepsy, and what her family called quag dab peg or, "the spirit catches you and you fall down." The problem was that, to put it simply, the medical community and the family were unable to understand each other.

The problems went beyond a simple language barrier. In addition to the language barrier, there was no understanding of religious or social customs. It was a complete cross-cultural failure on all levels.

Lia's anti-convulsant prescriptions changed 23 times in four years, which would put a strain on any family. And just like, in my opinion, any family, the Lees were sure the medicines were bad for their daughter. The difference is that most American families could question their doctors and make their feelings known. The Lee's were unable to communicate their displeasure with the medication. Even when the medical community wrote down prescriptions or amounts for the Lees, they had no idea that the Lees could make no sense of the numbers and letters. Additionally, the Lees would have liked to address the spiritual connections they felt were essential for Lia's healing.

Lia's doctor, rather than finding a way to work with the Lees and make sure Lia received her medication, reported them for "noncompliance" and child abuse. Lia was placed in a foster home. Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the misunderstandings between them led to tragedy. When Lia's death was believed to be imminent, the Lees were permitted to take her home. Two years later, Fadiman found Lia being lovingly cared for by her parents, who were still hoping to reunite her soul with her body.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, my edition of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down includes: a preface; notes on Hmong orthography, pronunciation, and quotations; notes on sources; chapter notes; a bibliography; acknowledgments; an index; and a reader's guide.

I have had The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down sitting on my shelf, waiting to be read for four years. Shame on me. This is a beautifully crafted, careful study in cross cultural medicine. While it would be very easy to take a "side", Fadiman is extremely even handed. She presents the facts, acknowledges short comings on both sides, and somehow tells the whole tragic story without any condemnation. This should be a must read for anyone in the medical field.

Very Highly Recommended - one of the best

Quotes:

...I had come to Merced, California, where they lived, because I had heard that there were some strange misunderstandings going on at the county hospital between its Hmong patients and its medical staff. pg. viii

Foua conceived, carried, and bore all her children with ease, but had there been any problems, she would have had recourse to a variety of remedies that were commonly used by the Hmong, the hilltribe to which her family belonged. If a Hmong couple failed to produce children, they could call in a txiv neeb, a shaman who was believed to have the ability to enter a trance, summon a posse of helpful familiars, ride a winged horse over the twelve mountains between the earth and the sky, cross an ocean inhabited by dragons, and (starting with bribes of food and money and, if necessary, working up to a necromantic sword) negotiate for his patients’ health with the spirits who lived in the realm of the unseen. A txiv neeb might be able to cure infertility by asking the couple to sacrifice a dog, a cat, a chicken, or a sheep. After the animal’s throat was cut, the txiv neeb would string a rope bridge from the doorpost to the marriage bed, over which the soul of the couple’s future baby, which had been detained by a malevolent spirit called a dab, could now freely travel to earth. pg. 4

The Hmong have a phrase, hais cuaj txub kaum txub, which means "to speak of all kinds of things." It is often used at the beginning of an oral narrative as a way of reminding the listeners that the world is full of things that may not seem to be connected but actually are; that no event occurs in isolation; that you can miss a lot by sticking to the point; and that the storyteller is likely to be rather long-winded. pg. 12-13

The history of the Hmong yields several lessons that anyone who deals with them might do well to remember. Among the most obvious of these are that the Hmong do not like to take orders; that they do not like to lose; that they would rather flee, fight, or die than surrender; that they are not intimidated by being outnumbered; that they are rarely persuaded that the customs of other cultures, even those more powerful than their own, are superior; and that they are capable of getting very angry. Whether you find these traits infuriating or admirable depends largely on whether or not you are trying to make a Hmong do something that he or she would prefer not to do. Those who have tried to defeat, deceive, govern, regulate, constrain, assimilate, intimidate, or patronize the Hmong have, as a rule, disliked them intensely. pg. 17

They recognized the resulting symptoms as quag dab peg, which means "the spirit catches you and you fall down." ..... In Hmong-English dictionaries, quag dab peg is generally translated as epilepsy. It is an illness well known to the Hmong... pg. 20

They therefore hoped....that the quag dab peg could be healed. Yet they also considered the illness an honor. pg. 22

Neil sent a copy of this note to the Health Department and to Child Protective Services. In it he also wrote that:

"because of poor parental compliance regarding the medication this case obviously would come under the realm of child abuse, specifically child neglect....It is my opinion that this child should be placed in foster placement so that compliance with medication could be assured." pg. 58-59

Ever since they had arrived in the United States, the Lees had been meeting Americans who, whether because of their education, their knowledge of English, or their positions of relative authority, had made them feel as if their family didn't count for much. Being belittled is the one thing no Hmong can bear. pg. 96-97

"Suddenly, Lia was, as Bill Selvidge once told me dryly, "just the sort of patients nurses like." she had metamorphosed from a hyperactive child with a frightening seizure disorder and inaccessible veins into an inert, uncomplaining body who would probably never need another IV. Simultaneously, in the eyes of the family practice staff, her parents were miraculously transformed from child abusers to model caregivers. pg. 214

However, I have come to believe that her life was ruined not by septic shock or noncompliant parents but by cross-cultural misunderstanding. pg. 262

Solomon Spring

Solomon Spring by Michelle Black
WinterSun Press, Copyright 2002
Trade Paperback, 314 pages
ISBN-13: 9781929705061
http://www.michelleblack.com/

recommended

Synopsis

Kansas, 1878
A natural wonder, sacred for centuries, is about to be profaned-but not if Eden Murdoch can prevent it. She and her young daughter have returned to the mystical Solomon Spring to seek solace after the death of Eden's Cheyenne husband. But when the owner of the Solomon Spring Company decides to bottle its mystical waters, Eden decides she must stop this travesty. Inspired by Thoreau's essays on civil disobedience, she enjoys some early success, but makes deadly enemies in the process.
Meanwhile, her past races to catch up to her: Brad Randall, Eden's one-time lover, brings the astounding news that the son lost to Eden as an infant fourteen years before has been located and is living nearby. The joy of her reunion with Brad and with her son is clouded by the reappearance of Lawrence Murdoch, Eden's long-estranged first husband. The warring couple plunges into a vicious custody battle. When Murdoch is found shot to death in an alley, Brad is jailed and sentenced to hang.
To save him, Eden can must discover the solution to the murder, and bring the real killer to justice at the edge of Solomon Spring.

My Thoughts:

Solomon Spring by Michelle Black is historical fiction termed a novel of suspense from the Victorian West It is the second book in a series of books featuring Eden Murdoch and Brad Randall. The first is An Uncommon Enemy. The third is The Second Glass of Absinthe.

In this outing Eden heads to Washington to get someone to help the Cheyenne who are facing starvation since the government has failed to send them the food they promised. She is also hoping to stop the desecration of Solomon Springs, a sacred site to the tribes. In the meantime Brad, who is the Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, becomes frustrated that no action is being taken to help the Cheyenne. He takes a leave of absence and heads west. He is also hoping to tell Eden that her son, whom she thought was killed as an infant, survived. Eventually they both end up back in Kansas.

And that is only a small part of the beginning of the story. There is much more. I have a feeling that Michelle Black is a story teller at heart, so she keeps the plot moving quickly forward and does so with competent writing. You will not be bored reading Solomon Spring.

While there is non-stop action in this historical western, there really is no suspense. The mystery itself is quite thin. It is obvious who done it right away. Additionally the mystery part of the novel doesn't even start until around page 195. I began reading Solomon Spring because it was supposed to be a "novel of suspense, a mystery, so I was quite disappointed by the lack of suspense.

However, it is most certainly a fast paced plot, with the characters moving from one scene to another at a brisk pace. I have a feeling that if you are a fan of historical fiction you will probably appreciate Solomon Spring much more than I did, especially if you begin reading it knowing it is not really a mystery novel. The historical details all seemed quite appropriate for the time.

Recommended for me, highly recommended for fans of historical fiction

Disclosure: I received this novel from the author through Goodreads First Reads.

Quotes:

The pale winter sun cast milk shadows on the brick floor of Brad Randall's cell as it shone down from the high, barred window. He had opened the wooden shutter to gain some fresh air to breathe. The draft from the window was bracing cold, but at least it offered a respite from the stale, lifeless atmosphere of his cell. The remnants of dried urine and vomit from previous tenants seemed to live in the mortar between the bricks and endured despite the weekly mopping the floor received.

Unfortunately, opening the shutter let in the unwelcome sounds from outside as well. The sawing and the hammering, the occasional shout of one workman to another--he did not need a reminder of what they were building. A gallows. opening

But how could he explain to an eight-year-old boy with mere words on paper that he stood at this fearful precipice because of his love for a woman, a woman who was not his son's mother? How could he possibly make the boy, whom he loved so dearly, understand the impossible complexities that added up to
a single human life, his life?

His thoughts traveled back to the first day of September last, less than five months ago. It now seemed like another lifetime. The events of that day had set in motion much of what had brought him to this sorry pass. pg. 3

"If you could but inform Captain Randall that I come seeking information about a woman named Mrs. Eden Murdoch, I'm sure that he would make time to see me."

Eden Murdoch. He had not heard that name spoken in nearly a decade and yet not a day had gone by in all those years that he had not thought of her.

Randall rushed to the door and opened it. He beheld an Army officer, a major in the infantry by his uniform, standing before Mrs. Post.

"Come in at once, Major." pg. 16

"The old man confessed that his son was not really his flesh and blood, but rather adopted," Simon continued. "He found the boy when he was just a babe, abandoned on the prairie. His mother had apparently been traveling on a stagecoach when it was attacked by Indians." pg. 18

The leave would afford him the opportunity to resolve, informally at least, the Cheyenne situation and thereby circumvent Secretary Schurz's decree on the subject. pg. 21

Her daughter outwardly resembled the others, but she was a far cry from them in so many other ways. Born in a Cheyenne camp along the Tongue River, raised by her Cheyenne stepfather to be Indian in every sense, could the child successfully make the transition, given such odds. pg. 27