Crossfire is a B-Movie at its Best

 

CROSSFIRE (1947)

Directed by Edward Dmytryktryk

RKO, 86 minutes, Not-rated

★★★★

 

 

There was no rating system in 1947, but a “funny” thing happened on the way to making Crossfire. It was adapted from The Brick Foxhole by Richard Brooks, a novel about prejudice against homosexuals. That topic was utterly taboo under the infamous Hollywood Hays Code. That meant that the film eventually directed by Edward Dmytryk had to find another angle: antisemitism. Dmytryk turned out the first B-movie to be nominated for Academy Awards, five of them to be exact. (A “B-movie” was a low-budget film that was often the opener for a double feature.)

 

The war against fascism was over and Hitler’s plan to wipe Judaism from the face of the Earth collapsed, though he did slaughter about half of the world’s Jews. Remember, though, that GIs were not sent home the day after Germany’s surrender. It took time to demobilize millions of troops. Many former combatants remained in uniform lingering around bases and nearby cities until they could be processed. They had been through hell together and the tight bonds forged by war remained in place. Loyalty and fealty to superiors play big parts in Crossfire.

 

The movie opens with the murder of Joseph Samuels (Sam Levine) and Captain Finlay (Robert Young) is helping track down the killer. Soldiers were officially under his supervision and it was known that several had been with Samuels before he died. Samuels, a Jew, met GIs Floyd Bowers (Steve Brodie) Corporal Mitchell (George Cooper) and several others at a bar. As an ex-soldier who had fought in the First World War, Samuels kindly invited them to his apartment for drinks. They were joined there by Private “Monty” Montgomery (Robert Ryan).

 

Crossfire is a case of too many suspects and investigators. Soldiers cooperated with Captain Finlay’s queries, but they were also protective of their mates. Sergeant Peter Keeley (Robert Mitchum) begins an informal investigation of his own with the goal of clearing Mitchell and Leon (William Phipps), the latter a not-too-bright GI whom Keeley feared would be framed. Montgomery is outraged by the entire investigation and thinks the police and Finlay may be trying to pin the murder on his friend Bowers.

 

As things like this go, suspicion leads to deflection and breeds more suspicion. Mitchell, a square egg who wants little more than to reunite with his wife Mary (Jacqueline White), admits that he got so drunk that he didn’t remember much other than a disagreement between Monty and Samuels. He embarrassingly admits that he spent the evening in the company of Ginny Tremaine (Gloria Grahame). He insists he simply slept off the booze and left the next morning when her husband came home. Is he on the level?

 

Things get messier when one of the suspects ends up in the morgue, a victim of foul play. Finlay is convinced that antisemitism was the reason Samuels was killed and speculates that the second murder was a cover up. He devises a successful entrapment plan worthy of Miss Marple (though she never carried a gun!)

 

Strong performances help hide the low production values of Crossfire. Give credit to the Roberts: Young, Mitcham, and Ryan. They complement each other superbly. Young was calm and rational; Mitchum perplexed and inquisitive; and Ryan furtive and determined. It should also be noted that Grahame got a Best Supporting Actress nomination, through her role was a bit too thin to warrant it. (Crossfire did not win any Oscars because it lost to a better film about antisemitism, Gentlemen's Agreement.)

 

Dmytryk proved an old adage. If a director has great actors and knows how to handle them and keep their egos in check, the external look of the film matters less than you might think. As I noted in another review, Dmytryk gained notoriety during the Hollywood Red Scare because he cast suspicion that some in the movie industry were communists. How ironic, given that the Red Scare broke out the same year Crossfire was released, a film that deals with similar themes of fear, suspicion, and accusation. He might have been a fink, but the man knew how to direct. Crossfire is a forgotten gem worth resurrecting.

 

Rob Weir

Aftersun is Quiet and Powerful

 

AFTERSUN (2022)

Directed by Charlotte Wells

A24, 101 minutes, R (For ridiculous rating!)

★★★★

 

 

 

 

 Aftersun is the directorial debut of Charlotte Wells that, with considerable merit, accumulated heaps of critical praise including a few Oscar nominations. It is usually tagged as a coming-of-age film, which it certainly is, but it’s also an incisive portrait of depression. Not the dark, angry kind, more like the sort that sets in when you realize your life never seems to go in the direction that you hoped.

 

It is a classic small film about a father, Calum (Paul Mescal), who is amicably divorced. His ex-wife got custody of their daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio). Because Sophie lives in Edinburgh and Calum is in London, he’s not even a part-time dad–more like a once-a-year one. He and Sophie set off for a father and daughter vacation in the sun. Their journey takes them to Ölüdeniz, Turkey, so though several reviews wrongly located it in Torremolinos, Spain. (Presumably that’s because the film is British and that’s where the English flock to tan.) Sophie is 11 and a Calum is about to turn 31. Those ages suggest what went wrong: Parenthood at 20 is often a bigger challenge than some can handle. Calum hasn’t found himself and is so afloat that he wonders if he’ll even make it to 40. He can't help but notice the signs that Sophie is growing up fast: her subtle lip blush, her confidence, her worldly awareness, and the gnawing suspicion she’s more emotionally stable than he. She’s still a little girl, but the tide is definitely turning.

 

This is a good time to say that Aftersun is a quiet film, not an action thriller. In fact, Calum’s biggest problems are inaction and passive decision-making. Part of what we see on the screen comes from the 1990s style DV camera that Sophie uses to record her beach holiday with her dad. He’s the one who is camera shy, as we observe from Sophie’s attempts to interview him. Is it because he’s too empty to emote?

 

Mescal and Corio won praise for their performances and with good reason. What can you communicate from laying in the sun, rubbing on sunblock, and eating dinner? Quite a lot, but you need to read between the lines and have actors strong enough to send messages without appearing to do so. For example, Calum seeks to improve himself via Tai Chi, self-help books, meditation, and pop philosophy nostrums. The effort is earnest, but imagine the strain when results stall. Sophie, in turn, finds a group of slightly older kids and sits in on rambling banter about sex and romance. She’s not ready for any of that stuff, but she will experience her first non-parental kiss. She also comes away with the knowledge that her dad is a quiet mess who thinks she doesn’t know he smokes or drinks too much. She also realizes that he can’t afford his outward displays of affection, like replacing her lost snorkel mask, buying her sweet treats, the expensive Turkish rug he buys, or the vacation itself.

 

Eventually we learn that most of the tale we are seeing is the adult Sophie’s remembrance of that summer with her dad. Look for a symbol of what remains now that she’s grown, married, and has a child of her own. Notice also the film’s clever use of music to convey meaning. There is, for example, 11-year-old Sophie’s touching dance with dad to Queen/David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” and her letting loose at a rave as an adult. The score of the film works well throughout, so kudos to Oliver Coates for assembling a soundtrack that takes us from The Righteous Brothers to Blur by way of traditional Turkish music.

 

The film’s title ostensibly references Calum’s comment that he could never move back to Edinburgh and doesn’t want to be in London either. He insists he needs the sun. A metaphor? Yep!

 

What an impressive debut. In my estimation, Wells succeeded by keeping things manageable rather than aiming above her current reach. Hers is a name to watch, as I suspect is the name Frankie Corio. Aftersun is not a film that will make your heart race, but it might make it break.

 

Rob Weir

 

*This movie was rated R because we see Mescal’s naked butt and because of a few F- bombs from teenagers. Really!!? Blur the butt, delete the swears, and this movie is PG.

Caroline Cotter: July 2023 Artist of the Month

 

Why is it that so much summertime music is dominated by rhinestone cowboys, geriatric rockers, and Jimmy Buffett? If you’d rather have something sweet and calm, get your Romneys (“mitts,” get it?) on the new Caroline Cotter release. By the time you read this, her third national release Gently As I Go should be available.

 

Cotter is a Rhode Island native now dwelling near Acadia National Park in Maine. She is an unabashed folk artist and a road warrior who has performed in 45 states and 14 countries. Cotter has shared stages with Heather Maloney, with whom she shares sensibilities and vocal qualities, though to my ear her soprano tones sound even more like Kate Rusby. Like those two artists, though, she prefers to strip music to its basics: a mellifluous voice and an acoustic guitar.

 

Gently As I Go is filled with Cotter’s observations on life, love, loss, and connections.

“Don’t Wait” is the first spinoff single and carpe diem is its core message. There are all manner of things–ranging from getting out of bed to embracing true love or making up your mind–that freeze us in place. It sounds simple, but her “don’t wait” message is disarmingly wise.

 

That song is the only one available to preview as the album doesn’t officially drop until August, but I can attest that the other ten songs are similarly serene.* They also prod her us in parallel ways, but usually with velvet gloves. “Coming Your Way” is at once a road song and an embrace of love wherever it’s found and for as long as it endures: And if this doesn’t last as all things shall pass/I’ll be coming your way. The title track also probes the potential pathos of learning to love without being loved back, but instead of plotting revenge or screaming to the heavens, she sings of closing doors and windows gently as I go. That same sense of grabbing the moment prevails in “The Year of the Wrecking Ball,” a tale of a woman seeking meaning and revelation. The last refrain shifts from “she” to “we” in a cautionary way: We sing hallelujah/sing to the holes in the walls/sing for the light through the broken windows/and the year of the wrecking ball.

 

The lyrics of the “The Call” are somewhat cryptic, but it was written for her grandfather who died at 104, so we can assume that he did more than his share of sucking the marrow from the bone of life. In “Morning Mantra,” the album’s concluding song, Cotter suggests we open each new day with gratitude and walk the path of the good and strong. Perhaps that’s easier said than done on some mornings, but it’s not a bad goal.

 

I won’t tell you that Gently As I Go is a perfect album. The only real change of pace is her giddy and delightfully silly “Do You Love Me?” with its litany of promises you know will be broken. She sometimes sings Dylan covers in concert, which we don’t need on an album of her songs, but I suspect she performs them for exactly such mood-changing moments. I’d also recommend that, as convenient as MP3s are, you get an LP or CD of Gently as the narrow sound band of MP3 recordings make her articulation difficult to decipher in spots. (At the very least, download a lyrics sheet.) But I will say this; Caroline Cotter will soothe you like a breeze rustling through a shade tree.

 

Rob Weir

 

 *There are also videos of past material on YouTube.

 

 

The Island is Survivor For Keeps

 

THE ISLAND (2022)

By Adrian McKinty

Little, Brown & Company, 372 pages.

★★★★

 

 

It’s not exactly the scoop of the year to observe that there’s not much reality in TV “reality” shows such as “Survivor.” They are scripted to exaggerate danger and are really intended to induce grossed-out reactions in viewers. “Contestants” are seldom imperiled, though they might get dirty and uncomfortable, perhaps even suffer a scrape or two. In short, “Survivor” is a game show disguised as humans versus nature.

 

One of the things that makes The Island an exciting thriller is that its characters are placed in extreme danger and death is a palpable possibility. It begins innocently enough. Tom Baxter is a successful and mildly arrogant surgeon attending a conference in Melbourne Australia. He is accompanied by his younger second wife Heather and his two kids, 12-year-old Owen and 14-year-old Olivia. Heather isn’t much more than a kid herself; she’s a 24-year-old Millennial, a trophy wife too young to be a stepmom and with little incentive to learn. Moreover, the kids are still emotionally hollowed out from the horrible Multiple Sclerosis death of their birth mother.

 

The very presence of Heather and the kids is Tom’s attempt to better acclimate Heather into the family and fast forward the healing process for Owen and Olivia. Maybe an outing to see koalas can brighten moods. He gets a tip, rents a flash car, and makes his way to a small ferry dock that will take the Baxters to Dutch Island. It’s a three-by-five mile hunk of land a mile and a half out to sea. Ivan, the ferryman, gives them a limited amount of time to look around, just 45 minutes, a privilege for which Tom shells out big money ($600 Australian, over $400 US). Ivan bluntly warns the Baxters and a Dutch family traveling to the island to steer clear of the O’Neill clan, Dutch Island’s only family.  

 

You pretty much know that something will go terribly wrong and it does. Tom drives too fast, thinks he hears a thump, and finds that he has run over a young girl. Panic City! He moves the body off the road and hides it in the grass, his plan being to get off the island before her corpse is found. Like that will happen! This sets up a clash with the O’Neills, who are lorded over Deliverance-style by Ma, who is stern and vicious. This is “Survivor” without any built-in safety nets. Will anyone get off the island alive? Will it help to split up until the ferry comes? Heather and the kids head one way, Tom a different direction, and Dutch family, which has no connection to the Baxters, hopes to reason with the O’Neills, one of whose members seems open to resolving problems without violence. That’s not Ma’s perspective; she’s out for blood and doesn’t care whose it is. Can she be swayed by a more reasonable family member? Can Heather trust Rory, an old man living on the site of a prison that shut down in the 1980s but isn’t related to the O’Neills? Which side is Ivan the ferryman on?

 

Did I mention that there is no food or known water source on Dutch Island? Or that there is no cell phone service, Wi-fi, or Internet? Insofar as those fleeing O’Neill wrath are concerned, there is little evidence that the island has been seriously inhabited since aborigines drew on the walls of a hidden cave.

 

You could label this novel by Adrian McKinty “Heather grows up.” Her father was in the military, and she tries to channel him to stay alive. This is indeed a thrilling novel. It’s not a perfect one; Owen and Olivia are sometimes unconvincingly savvy and precocious. I was also not convinced by an extremely unlikely detail in the resolution. The Island is however, a diverting story that’s much more convincing than “Survivor.” Put this one on your summer reading list.

 

Rob Weir

Wakanda Forever Doesn't Know What It Wants To Be

 

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Directed by Ryan Coogler

Marvel/Walt Disney Studios, 161 minutes, PG-13

★★

 

 

 

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever made gobs of money, which guarantees there will be a third installment. Speaking from a critical perspective, that’s not a good thing. Wakanda Forever is a desultory effort stained by big-budget summer film clichés.

 

As most know, Chadwick Boseman was the original Black Panther. He tragically died of colon cancer, which certainly threw a monkey wrench into sequel plans. He appears in Wakanda Forever via stock footage that advances what one imagines was a rather hasty reimagining of the franchise. We see Shuri (Leticia Wright)  failing to recreate a heart-shaped herb to save her brother T'Challa (Boseman). This comes from the first film but as we know, the Black Panther died. The opening scenes of Wakanda Forever involve ritual mourning and Queen Ramonda’s (Angela Bassett) attempts to restore stability in her grieving homeland.

 

Fans know that Wakanda is a world power because it monopolizes a metal called vibranium, which allows scientific discoveries in advance of other nations. Queen Ramonda acts swiftly when she discovers that Western powers located vibranium on the ocean floor and are about to mine it. She also tongue lashes the United States and France who tried to condemn her actions at the United Nations. A greater challenge appears when an aquatic man with wings on his feet penetrates Wakanda’s defenses. He is Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejia), the leader of the underwater Mayan kingdom of Talokan that he formed centuries ago after killing a group of Spanish enslavers. He is a demigod born of a mortal woman and the god K’uk’ulkan. Namor offers an alliance with Talokan against the rest of the world, but Ramonda curtly dismisses him.

 

Alas, Wakanda Forever takes an unfortunate turn. A mad scramble ensues in which the Wakandans learn that another vibranium-locating machine is in prototype. Okoye and Shuri lead a team to find its creator, Riri Williams (Dominique Thern), an MIT student whose advanced engineering project was taken over by the CIA and the US military. This allows the scriptwriters to reintroduce Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), a CIA agent friendly to Wakanda, whom we met in the first film. You name it and paint-by-the-numbers tropes enter the film. The CIA, the Navy, and Namor’s agents pursue the Wakandans and Riri around Cambridge and Boston. We get car chases with crashing police cars in a film in which Wakandans use sci-fi spaceships to move from one place to the other! Did someone accidentally splice Wakanda Forever into the classically bad 1968 film Bullitt?

 

Namor captures Shuri and tries to curry her support by showing her the splendors and power of his Atlantis-like underwater empire. She is impressed, but like Ramonda, senses that he might be an expansionist demagogue. She is allowed to leave but when Namor shows up again in Wakanda he delivers an ultimatum: join an alliance with Talokan or face destruction. Ramonda stands firm and the ensuing war leaves Wakanda ruined and on the verge of collapse. This section is more like Star Wars than the ridiculous car chase in Greater Boston. Queen Ramonda dismisses Okoye (Danai Gurira), her head of the military, but is killed by Namor.  Another ritual and then Wakanda must address its leadership void and rebuild its compromised defenses.

 

Spy reports from Nakia buy some time. The former War Dog  has been living in Haiti where she fled after her lover T’Challa’s death. She is a teacher who is also hiding the son T’Challa fathered. This serves to reintroduce her from the first film, but it seems more like padding than instrumental to the plot. This is decidedly the case of a side story involving Ross and his ex-wife Valentina (Julia Louise-Dreyfus), the head of the CIA, who is either coming on to her ex-husband or seeking to entrap him.

 

All of the above simply stalls Shuri’s attempts to manufacture a heart-shaped herb as Riri marvels (get it?) over Wakanda. Queue more clichés: a near-annihilation oceanic clash between the Mayans and the Wakandans followed by a mano e mano rock-smashing clash between Namor and the new Black Panther. I’ll bet you know who that it is! Wright is fierce, but she’s also thin as a rail and I don’t for a nano second buy her instant herb-induced strength.

 

If you’re looking ahead to installment three, Nakia’s son Toussaint has a Wakandan name: T’Challa. I’m done after the overly long Wakanda Forever, which felt like an eternity.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

Yesterday a Charming Delight

 

YESTERDAY (2019)

Directed by Danny Boyle

Universal Pictures, 116 minutes, PG-13

★★★★★

 

 

 

I have friends who can't stand fantasy films. If that’s you but you’ve never seen Yesterday, set aside your bias and give it a try. It is a fantasy film, but one directed by the talented Danny Boyle who gave us such films as Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting. If you’ve seen either film, you know that Boyle has a soft spot for underdogs.

 

Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) decidedly falls into that category. He is a British-Indian folk musician in Suffolk who writes pleasant songs. No one notices him except starry-eyed Ellie Appleton (Lily James), his manager by night and a math teacher by day. Jack is relegated to gigs in cafes with hissing coffee machines and festival side tents attended by a handful of people who wandered in and children playing amidst hay bales. Ellie is secretly in love with Jack, but their relationship is more that of brother and sister.

                                             

Jack knows he's never going to make it, but the unexpected happens. As he is riding his bike home from his announced last concert, the lights go out for 12 seconds and he is hit by a bus. It leaves him with a smashed guitar, two missing teeth, and quite a few abrasions and bruises. Although he didn’t know it at the time, the 12-second blackout was worldwide. When Jack gets out of the hospital, friends throw a party for him and Ellie surprises him with a new guitar. He is badgered to perform a song and he reluctantly sings “Yesterday.” Everyone is gobsmacked that he wrote such a fantastic song. He thinks they are joking, but they have never heard of The Beatles, nor has anyone else. All Beatles records are missing from his collection and music stores. There are a lot of other things of which no one has heard, an amusing detail I will let you discover for yourselves.

 

What would you do if your favorite musical act disappeared, and you remembered the lyrics to their songs? Before Jack can say, “I believe in yesterday,” his friend Gavin (Alexander Arnold) has distributed a demo of Jack channeling Beatles songs as if he wrote them. Jack becomes an overnight sensation. Even more improbably, Ed Sheeran shows up at his door and asks him to open his tour that begins in Moscow. Although most of the audience is too young to remember communism, they go wild when Jack sings “Back in the USSR.” He and his stoner roadie Rocky (Joel Fry) are swept up in a popular culture maelstrom. Los Angeles promoter Debra Hammer (Kate McKinnon) pursues Jack like a shark that has spotted a seal. Ed and Jack become buddies who challenge each other to a songwriting contest; Jack wins with “The Long and Winding Road!” Soon, Jack is headlining at venues like Wembley in London and Principality in LA, as Debra vigorously and cynically packages Jack as an idol. (Revel in the hysterical putdown of marketers.)

 

But what of Jack’s old friends in Suffolk? What of Ellie? Jack lives in constant fear that his ruse will be exposed. Actually, two people do remember The Beatles, one of whom is played by the actress Sarah Lancashire (TV imports “Coronation Street” and “Last Tango in Halifax.”) Their reaction is surprising, as is the result of a tip Jack is given. The fame rocket continues to burn, complete with a rooftop concert analogous to The Beatles’ swan song. In a wry twist (that’s also poignant), Jack’s show is atop a closed hotel in the fading English resort town Gorleston-on-Sea.

 

Jack is awash in madness similar to the height of Beatlemania. He’s not even sure who he is anymore, a sentiment shared by his old friends, especially Ellie who is ready to move on. Once again, the question arises: What would you do? Embrace fame and fortune or be true to yourself?

 

“Yesterday” is a truly delightful film. It is indeed a fairy tale, though it was billed as a romantic comedy. It raises questions like those above, but is also a back door slam at the lure of commodified culture and how easily manufactured fads degenerate into mass hysteria. When you listen closely you realize that Jack is a mediocre singer, but director Boyle and Patel excel at casting illusions. Great credit goes to Ed Sheeran, the true musical talent, who is admirably self-effacing. Lily James is cuddly cute in a good way. Best of all, the movie leaves you humming tunes written by four of the greatest songwriters in Western history.

 

Rob Weir

Stella Maris: A Sad Farewell

 

STELLA MARIS (2022)

By Cormac McCarthy

Alfred A. Knopf, 198 pages

★

 

 

 I’m doing something I have never done before: dictate a stream of consciousness review.* I'm not a fan of stream of consciousness. It’s often idiosyncratic rambling attempting to hide that fact via nice turns of phrases. For instance, if your idea of reading is a good yarn, James Joyce is practically unreadable. That’s also the case of Cormac McCarthy's last novel Stella Maris. (McCarthy died on June 13, 2023.) I hoped for a masterpiece. As the saying goes, it just ain't so.

 

Stella Maris is not a person, rather the name of a mental institution in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Its lack of action is set in 1972, but I don't believe that Black River Falls ever had a mental institution. I've been there and it's a blow away town with not much to recommend it other than being a small county seat. Stella Morris was designed to be a prequel to McCarthy's The Passenger, which was bloody enigmatic in its own right. I was hoping that the prequel would clear up some of its more arcane parts, but it doesn't.

 

If you ask me what Stella Maris is about, I'd have to say not much of anything. The Passenger follows the travails of Bobby Western who has enormous difficulty finding his way in the world. We find out that he was the son of a famous scientist who helped develop the atomic bomb. Bobby is also troubled by the absence of his younger sister, so much so that we wonder if the two were lovers. Incest, of course, is taboo, but that would have been more interesting than what’s not revealed in Stella Maris.

 

Stella Maris is about Alicia Western, Bobby’s sister. She is a patient in Stella Maris, and we easily conclude that she’s seriously mentally ill, although she’s genius- level intelligent. Other than Bobby, the only identifiable love of her life is mathematics. She might have been world famous if only she were not batshit crazy. The entire book is a dialogue between Alicia and Doctor Cohen, a psychiatrist. What do they talk about? Well, that's a pretty good question and not one easy to pin down. If you have ever seen movies like My Dinner with Andre or Diner, you might remember that the conversations went in every direction except straight. It's one thing to watch that on a movie screen where we can pick up subtle expressions on the characters’ faces or see them smirk, laugh, or act confused; it's quite another to read dialogue that’s sometimes linear but mostly isn’t.

 

That's not to say that the dialogue is stupid. It’s erudite but goes off onto so many tangents that we lose any implied threads. You would really have to love mathematics to enjoy this book and I’m not talking just numbers. You would need great familiarity with the history of mathematics and detailed knowledge of its theorists to immerse yourself in this work. I do not know what McCarthy intended in his discourse and it is way more of a discourse than a novel. It really reads as if McCarthy was grandstanding. I certainly believe mathematicians and scientists should have their day on the pages of fiction, but I can't help but wonder who the intended audience was for Stella Maris. It's as if McCarthy wanted to be remembered for his intellect, but he didn’t need to prove to me that he was intelligent. We read him mainly for his probes of the human psyche, including its dark side.

 

Alicia is certainly plagued by a dark psyche. She yearns for death and Cohen correctly infers she is suicidal. Do we really want to read nearly 200 pages of what is essentially a two-person play masquerading as popular fiction? What topics do the two discuss besides mathematics? If by discussion we mean a two-way street, almost none because Alicia toys with Cohen like a cat with a mouse. He is infinitely patient, and she is resolutely buttoned down. Every topic, from love and music to electromagnetic shock treatment and medication finds Alicia dismissive if not condescending. In the end, we or left with high falutin’ banter that weaves like a punch-drunk boxer. It is not the way I wanted Cormac McCarthy to exit the world of publishing.

 

Rob Weir

 

* Full disclosure: I corrected punctuation. If this seems too smooth for dictation it’s because I often compose in my head.