This week I’ve featured John Irving’s new novel and an older one from Mark Haddon. Here’s a book clean-out in short review form. One must move some books out to make room for others!
Mysteries Solved:
I enjoy mysteries, cozy and not. Now that I’ve exhausted most of the Robert Parker collection, Michael Connelly has replaced him as my go-to read. I quite enjoyed The Drop (2011, 387 pages). This is a Harry Bosch novel whose very title involves a twist. Harry has been an LAPD homicide detective for many years about to retire. He’s not on active cases because he’s in the transitional Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) for four years. To keep him out of trouble he’s in the Open-Unsolved unit that looks at cold cases to see if they should be reopened using new methods. Harry is looking into a murder/rape from 1989 and discovers that the now 29-year-old man convicted of the crime was just 8 years old when sent to adult court. Harry smells corruption. At the same time, Harry is handed a new case. The son of City Councilman Irvin Irving is found dead outside a fancy hotel. Irving was once a cop who disliked Harry and now has the power to cut funding for DROP. Shockingly, Irving demands that Harry investigate his son’s demise; he hates Harry, but trusts him to ferret out the truth. Did his son jump or was he dropped from above? Irving is furious when Harry works both cases at once and also finds some time for romance. Not to mention Harry’s deep dive into feuding taxi cab companies.
I also enjoyed Connelly’s The Night Fire (2019, 456 pages). This Bosch novel also includes LAPD Renée Ballard, who is new school to Harry’s old school methods. Ballard lives in her car and has been demoted to the graveyard shift after accusing a superior of sexual harassment. She’s tough and fearless, which is exactly what scares Bosch. Renée hangs out in an unsavory neighborhood and is investigating possible homicide when a homeless man dies in a tent fire. For his part, Harry has been given a murder book by the widow of a deceased cop friend. Why? To complicate things further, a judge is stabbed to death in broad daylight in a public park. There is DNA evidence linking a young man arrested for the judge’s murder. He is being defended by Mickey Haller, who knows Harry. Is there a connection between the judge, the fire, and a long ago murder? Get the feeling something much bigger is at play?
Inspires:
Jess Walter is an author who seeks unique ways to tell a story. In his dark satirical novel The Financial Life of the Poets Walter takes potshots at the 2007-09 housing market collapse and financial crisis. The Arizona Republic cogently summed it as a novel that “would be sad if it weren’t so funny and so funny it if weren’t so sad.” At age 46, Matt Prior is living the middle-class dream: a nice house, a lovely wife (Lisa), and two boys. He’s also typical in that he’s leveraged up to his eyeteeth, his kids are struggling in school, and Lisa’s e-Bay business is tanking. Matt foresees the decline of newspapers, but makes the first of a series of bad choices by quitting his job and launching a Website dispensing financial advice in the form of blank verse (no ending rhymes). Who wants a haiku on adjustable mortgages or stock advice in the form of a sonnet? No one. When the excrement hits the air circulation device, Matt is so broke that he needs to raise $30,000 in seven days or he will lose his house. His senile father is no help; he was bilked by a Las Vegas stripper! Matt is wallowing in so much desperation that when he meets a group of young guys of questionable character at the local 7-Eleven he ends up smoking powerful dope with them and surrendering his favorite slippers! Soon, Matt wants to buy more pot to sell. Not the best idea as it’s illegal, plus there are some serious bad guys who are all about turf. Soon, Matt is the verge of losing his marriage as well, as Lisa seems to be having a Facebook affair with an old flame. (Not that her decisions are any better.) Will the Priors join those families that went down in flames? This is a satire in which you laugh and say “ouch!”
Don’t laugh, but I learned about Stoneyard Devotional (2023, 291 pages) from Sarah Jessica Parker. She’s a serious reader who has served on Booker Prize committees. This novel from Australian author Charlotte Wood was shortlisted for a 2024 Booker. I might have voted for Wood for her skill in compiling a short novel that feels like non-fiction. An unnamed middle-aged burn-out case leaves Sydney to rejuvenate at a rural monastery. She never returns, though she’s neither a believer nor a member of the Catholic Church. She is attracted by the routine and the relative silence. Wood’s novel is akin to opening a detailed diary recounting the three big crises of her time there. The first is the nunnery’s mouse infestation, by which I mean so many mice that trenches are dug for three-a-day rodent burials. The second rocks the nuns as word arrives of the discovery of Sister Jenny’s bones, who disappeared in Thailand years before. She may have drowned or have been murdered. It sets off a bout of jealousy; Sister Bonaventure was Jenny’s friend but others have been in charge of what to do about a burial. The bones come back to the monastery via Helen Parry, an activist nun who is a world celebrity. She’s a bit like a cross between Greta Thunberg and Nurse Ratched, but she stimulates old memories in our narrator who was once a school mate. Seldom have I read a book that is so inwardly judgmental yet so calm.
Misfires:
If I were a young gay or trans person, I’d probably love the latest T. J. Klune novel Somewhere Beyond the Sea ( 2025, 416 pages.) Klune writes fantasy novels in which the LGBTI + community takes center stage. My problem is that each of his books has the same story: the prejudice facing those of non-normative sexuality and how love overcomes adversity. Klune novels are easy reads and this is the fifth I’ve perused, but I think I’m done. This is a sequel to Klune’s heralded 2020 House in the Cerulean Sea, which could stand as a sort of Harry Potter for gay folks. This one takes us back to Marsyas Island where Linus Baker and his partner Arthur Parnassus run a home for troubled magical children: Lucifer, Chauncey (a blob), Talia (a bearded female gnome), Theodore (a wyvern) Phee (a sprite), Sal (a were-cat), and new resident David (a Yeti). Jeanine Rowley is the new head of the Department of Magical Youth (DICOMY) and wishes to close down the orphanage because the resident “children” are too “dangerous,” especially Satan’s son Lucifer. It is far too easy to figure out that each character is a stand-in for something else; Rowley represents the intolerant political right, Marsyas and environs are a sanctuary city, Lucy is a victim of labeling, Sal is so big that no one thinks he’s a kid, etc. Klune has already made most of these points in Book One, so he tries to hinge the book on property ownership and crown it with a syrupy wedding. It feels (and is) lightweight.
If you asked me to identify my favorite living comedian, I’d pick Steven Wright. I love his surrealistic humor, his wry/dry delivery, the brevity of his stories, and his hilarious punchlines. As in music, often a performer is much sharper live than on a record. Wright’s novel Harold (2024, 256 pages) is an example of this in comedy. Harold is an offbeat seven-year-old who might be high-functioning autistic. He’s clearly bright but experiences the sensation of birds flying into his head whenever he contemplates somethings and deposits Harold in surreal places. The book covers a single day of Harold’s school- and family-life. Harold, like his creator, takes us to some seriously odd places, but I seldom guffawed because what works on the stage didn’t translate on the page.
Rob Weir
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment