Hour of the Witch: Good Seasonal Read, though Flawed

 

HOUR OF THE WITCH (2021)

By Chris Bohjalian

Doubleday, 406 pages.

★★★ ½

 

Chris Bohjalian offers a spooky treat that makes good Halloween reading. Hour of the Witch and its characters are fictional, but the dilemmas he describes are not. Although the North American colonies paled in comparison to Europe where at least 40,000 people were executed for witchcraft, 26 or more people met their ends after being convicted of consorting with Satan and scores of others were accused.

 

 Hour of the Witch is set in Salem, but in the 1660s, decades before its infamous 1692 witch trials. The latter overly compress a much wider phenomenon. (The first American “witch” was hanged* in 1647.) It seems incredible today, but as Bohjalian writes, “It was always possible that the Devil was present.” Even Mary Deerfield believed that, she being the central figure in Bojhalian’s novel. Mary is beautiful and handy with herbal cures and midwifery, but her world was dominated by men to whom she was expected to be compliant and subservient. That includes her husband, Thomas. At 24, Mary is his second wife and acquires a step-daughter, Peregrine, who is her age. Thomas is 45, but Mary is blamed for not getting pregnant. It doesn’t help that Peregrine already has two children and another on the way. Nor is it a good thing that Mary befriends Constance Winston, an unmarried older woman who isn’t a church member and provisions Mary with some of her “simples” (remedies).

 

Even if you’ve not made an exhaustive study of the pre-scientific world of Colonial America, you probably know it didn’t take much to upset the fragile Puritan worldview. How does one explain a cow that suddenly goes dry, unexpected deaths, a garden that withers when a neighbor’s thrives, freak accidents, barrenness, strange markings, or poppets? In a world so fraught, even the importation of three-pronged forks disrupts a community in which gossip, grudges, and fear dominate.

 

A fork plays a part in Mary’s woes. Her father is an important merchant in Salem and it was he who received some forks in a shipment from England. He gives one to Mary, but this being New England, not Olde, some locals see the humble table implement as the “Devil’s tines.” Mary’s marriage is also a shambles. Thomas is a bully who drinks too much, subjects her to rough sex, and repeatedly “corrects” (beats) her. In one drunken outburst he drives the fork into her hand and breaks it. These acts prompt Mary to seek divorce from Thomas. I won’t go into historical detail; let’s just say that very few women were granted divorce in the 17^th century. Mary’s lawsuit, though (mostly) supported by her birth family, sets tongues a-clacking.

 

Bohjalian introduces chapters with “documents” (most are made up) pursuant to Mary’s divorce and subsequent witchcraft trials. Mary forges a unique strategy to defend herself. Massachusetts Bay Colony was a theocracy (a religion-based government) in which the line between pulpit, courts, and authority often overlapped. Because ministers hold power, Mary knows she needs clerical allies. What rulings are appropriate for a woman with a reputation for piety?

 

It is at this juncture that Bohjalian oversteps both history and credulity. Whilst Mary is estranged from Thomas, she develops a lustful infatuation for another man and isn’t very good at hiding it. (At least Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne had the wisdom to tryst in the woods!) Mind, this is during a time local wags and those with vested reasons to hate her insist she’s a witch. The novel’s resolution goes a step further down I-Don’t-Think-So Lane. It’s lifted from a folksong (Child Ballad 95) and might be how we’d like things to go down, but not how they actually did. It’s fictionl, so Bohjalian can invent and imagine to his heart’s content, but there is a great tonal inconsistency in leaping from the legalistic and religious to a swashbuckling caper.

 

Hour of the Witch is a decent read, for the season, though I doubt this will be remembered as one of Bohjalian’s best. There is no surfeit of witchcraft novels and, let’s face it, a one-off from Bohjalian isn’t going to dethrone Alice Hoffman from her roost as the queen of witchcraft fiction. If you’ve not already done so, you might want to read her Magic Lessons as a companion to Hour of the Witch.

 

Rob Weir

 

* Contrary to common belief, no witches were burnt in the Americas.

Judy Collins: Artist of the Month October 2021

1975

 

 

Earlier this month I signed up to usher a Judy Collins concert. Given that she’s 82 years old, I did so with some trepidation. I’ve been listening to Judy blue eyes since the 1960s—yes, the Crosby, Stills & Nash song “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” was written in her honor—and I know that Old Man Time can be cruel to singers. He stole Linda Ronstadt’s voice and reduced Pete Seeger to a croak, a descriptor that would be charitable if applied to 76-year-old Stephen Stills. Joni Mitchell is five years younger than Collins and you are unlikely ever again to hear her on the stage.

 

Now

 

Imagine the delight at being able to write this line: Judy Collins still sings like an angel. Unless you ascribe to the theory that she met the Devil at the crossroads and traded her soul for the ability to sing, a lucky roll of the genetic dice is the only possible explanation. It would be facile to say that she sounds as good as she ever did, but her voice is to agelessness what Catherine Deneuve’s body is to the human figure.

 

Collins performed a 90-minute set at Northampton’s Academy of Music in which she transformed the theatre into an intimate living room in which she held court with song and story. As you might imagine from one whose career began in 1959, Collins has quite a collection of tales to tell, though most of them are slice-of-life amusing rather than slash-and-burn slams. She recounted a few stories about those she has known well: Seeger, Dylan, Eric Anderson, Leonard Cohen, Sandy Denny, Willie Nelson, Stephen Sondheim, and others.

 

It hasn’t all been roses. Her 1958 marriage to Peter A. Taylor ended in divorce in 1965 and their only child, Clark committed suicide in 1992 at age 33. She has been candid about this, her bout with smoking, and struggles to overcome TB and bulimia. She also had high-profile relationships with actor Stacy Keach, singer John Phillips, TV personality Geraldo Rivera, and Stephen Stills before beginning a relationship with fashion designer Louis Nelson in 1978. (They married in 1996.) I suppose by the standards of the day, this makes Collins practically a saint!

 

Music, though, has always been at the fore of Collins’ life. Curmudgeons sometimes dismiss Collins. She has raised ire by covering so many Dylan songs, though why you’d want to hear his vocals over hers is beyond me; the clarity of Collins’ tones are unparalleled.  She’s seldom a grit-and-drama performer, though she’s a first-class interpreter other people’s compositions. Two of her biggest hits, “Both Sides Now” and “Chelsea Morning” were penned by Joni Mitchell at a time when Collins was a far bigger star than Mitchell. Collins’ career speaks for itself: 28 solo albums, 4 of which went gold and two others that rose to platinum. In addition to her folk and pop offerings, she has also interpreted Stephen Sondheim songs–he won a Grammy thanks to her cover of “Send in the Clowns”–other show tunes, popularized Leonard Cohen offerings, and was practically a one-woman Jacques Brel revival machine. I’m not ashamed to say that her 1975 album Judith is among my all-time favorites.

 

At the Academy of Music show, Collins stuck to her folk repertoire. For most of the show she stood front and center with her 12-string guitar and was accompanied by a pianist. Later, she plopped down on the bench and, as one who was schooled in Mozart, proved she knows her way around the ivories. She was especially adroit at lush arpeggios–perfect for spotlighting her ability to ascend and descend the scales. It was also the right tool for one of her own superb compositions, “The Blizzard,” a song so beautiful it aches. My only beef is this: Lose the baroque wig!

 

Here is a list of my ten all-time favorite Collins recordings, in alphabetical order. My first brainstorm had twice as many titles, so if you ask me tomorrow, I might have a different list.

 

·      “The Blizzard” – It turns winter and trust into magic

·      “Both Sides Now” –Cover that arguably made Mitchell a household name

·      “Houses” – One of her own, orchestral and lovely

·      “Last Thing on My Mind” –Early recording that gave boost to Tom Paxton

·      “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” – Deeply moving Jimmy Webb cover

·      “Rainbow Connection” –Not even Kermit can sing it better!

·      “Send in the Clowns” –No bloody wonder Sondheim won a Grammy

·      “Silver Skies Blue” –This is what Collins sounds like in her 80s

·      “Suzanne” – Leonard Cohen classic, but who’d you rather hear sing it?

·      “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”– I heard this before I knew of Sandy Denny and am forever grateful to Collins for the introduction

 

Rob Weir

 

             

 

Hamnet as Hamlet? Gadzooks!

 

HAMNET: A NOVEL OF THE PLAGUE (2020/21)

By Maggie O’Farrell

Alfred Knopf, 384 pages.

★★

 

 

Hamnet is an imaginative but historically suspect look at what inspired William Shakespeare to write “Hamlet.” In Maggie O'Farrell’s retelling, “Hamlet”–a recognized alternative spelling of Hamnet–was Shakespeare's attempt to expiate his guilt over the death of his 11-year-old son and his dereliction of family duties. In essence, his grief over young Hamnet’s demise was projected upon Prince Hamlet, with William playing the role of the paternal ghost. Some of Shakespeare's dysfunctional birth family dynamics were similarly transferred to the play.

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I remind readers that I am no fan of the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. I find Shakespeare stilted, overly wordy, and long to see his plays rewritten in modern English. I did, however, hold high hope that the novel would pique my interest. Had it truly been a plague novel, that might've been the case. Instead, Hamnet is an anachronistic feminist tale glued onto dodgy psychology.

 

Here's what we know. The historical Hamnet died in 1596, though the cause of death isn’t listed in any known records. He could have died of the plague, as the Black Death still flared in the late 16th century. It’s equally plausible, though, that Hamnet died of something completely different. Sadly, the death of children was commonplace in an age when the average lifespan was just 43. (Shakespeare was a relative elder when he died in 1616, at the age of 52.)

 

We also know that Shakespeare’s parents were severe people and that his glovemaker father John was reputed to be a harsh and bigoted man. Not much is known of William’s wife Agnes Hathaway–often known as “Anne” Hathaway–other than she was the daughter of a yeoman and his first wife. In Hamnet, Shakespeare's family are uppity tyrants and that of Agnes a template for simple rural virtues. Both family portraits are feasible, though speculative.

 

It is also factual that as Shakespeare rose in renown, he spent less time in Stratford and more in London. O’Farrell’s take is that his fine Stratford home–by 16th century standards–was more for show than his personal comfort. That too is within the realm of possibility. Such homes were markers of bourgeois respectability.

 

O’Farrell’s greatest strength lies with her command of the details of everyday life in the late 16th century. We learn a lot about tending gardens, wildcrafting, the din of the marketplace, what it was like to prepare food in Shakespeare’s day, and even the social role of cats in Elizabethan England. There's also a succinct and believable account of how plague fleas traveled from monkeys to Alexandria and made their way to Warwickshire via Venice, Cadiz, and London.

 

O’Farrell is a novelist, and we expect her to take liberty with some details. This comes with risks when applied to a figure as revered as William Shakespeare, but there are enough holes in his biography to allow for invention. It's tricky, though, to write 21st century-style feminism into a novel set more than three centuries earlier. Moreover, the title is a misnomer, as it’s more about Agnes and Hamnet’s twin Judith than either the namesake character or the plague. O’Farrell would have it that Hamnet made a bargain with God to take him rather than his beloved sister, and that Agnes was driven first to madness and then to deep resentment toward her husband. Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?

 

I was wholly unconvinced by O’Farrell’s plot device of having Agnes make a secretive journey from Stratford to London to watch “Hamlet,” and conclude that grief triggered in William a dual psychological transference. She allegedly sees, “her Hamnet as he might have been, had he lived, and the ghost, who has her husband's hands, her husband’s beard, who speaks her husband's voice." Methinks O’Farrell hath gotten too modern, a problem that also emerges in Agnes’ newfound but non-16th century independence.

 

Shakespeare aficionados will like this book. So too will those who engage in the Shakespeare-denier cottage industry and long to see him taken him down a few cloak pegs. If you are neither, you can join me in the shrug brigade.

 

Rob Weir

Albert Freixas, Delgres, Alisa Amador, Left Vessel, Dirty Snowman, Fernando, Grace Womack

 

 

Albert Freixas cut his teeth in the jazz scene of his native Barcelona before spinning off into other genres. Chroma, his third solo venture, shows us both the foot inside the door and the one stepping out. He calls his music “hard bop” and John Coltrane comparisons pop up, but Chroma covers too much turf for that. The “Every Time We Fall” video opens to rising smoke. It has a pop vibe and we witness Freixas playing a lap electric, a straight up electric, and a bass guitar. We notice his smooth voice and well-patterned melody lines. By contrast, “Personal Light” is atmospheric and enigmatic, a blend of pop and elements of Catalan jazz. “My Well” is soulful, and “I Call” a short a capella with backing vocals. “Broken Song” is bluesy, moody, and supplemented by spoken word, rap, and horns. Get the point? Freixas is always controlled, but seldom constrained by categories.

 

Delgrès is a dynamic “power trio” based in France, but with Caribbean roots. Most of the songs on 4:00 am are sung in Creole, and the band is named for mulatto French officer Louis Delgrès, who switched sides during an 1802 rebellion in Guadeloupe. “Mo Jodi” (“I’ll Die Today”) is where funk meets swamp blues and a New Orleans funeral band. As you will hear, most of the songs are just Baptiste Brondy’s drums, Rafgee’s sousaphone-acting-as-bass, and Pascal Danaë’s guitar and booming vocals. “Lundi Mardi Mercredi” has a more delicate opening, but it doesn’t take long till they unleash the grunge that backs Danaë’s singsong rap-like lyrics. You’ll not make out most of them, as Delgrès is more about groove and move. They so deemphasize clarity that a song like “L’ecole” evokes lo-fi music. (Could we say they give it the old-school try?) Mostly it doesn’t matter, but on “Just Vote for Me” it would help to hear the lyrics more clearly. The video is ironic and poignant. Watching world leaders past and present (including George W. Bush, Trump, Yeltsin, Putin, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Kim Jong-un) trying to prove their “commoner” statuses via “dance” moves is hysterical, but Delgrès makes a deeper point by juxtaposing white candidates making rather obvious overtures to people of color. Newsreel footage of violence drives home the message. Still, it would be nice if we could make out lyrics like these: If you give me your hand/I can take you anywhere/You know I am your friend….

 

Alisa Amador comes from solid musical stock. Her parents founded the award-winning pan-Latin Sol y Canto, of which Alisa is a sometimes member. She is, though, very much her own person and possesses the chops to grab your attention in English or Spanish. On Narratives, she serves delights such as “Burnt and Broken,” an exploration of the fragility of life and love. “Timing” is shot through with vintage Motown, and, yes, she can pull it off. If you want to hear something in Spanish, listen to “Nada quever” (“Nothing to See.”) You’ll notice that Amador likes to loiter on chanteuse benches. She also tosses in occasional notes that skirt the borders of atonality. The latter make them moodier than a lot of folk music.

 

Left Vessel is the stage name of Nick Byron Campbell, and was inspired by being plunked on the noggin by a falling pine cone. It’s also the name of his former band. On One (and Driftless), Campbell exchanges his rock and roll duds for a shaman’s soft goods and an ever-present knit cap. The music is often atmospheric and electronically New Age-like, as heard on “Arrival” or “Empty Frame” in which his voice climbs into the falsetto range. One (and Driftless) is a concept album that Campbell calls “sound art.” I generally dislike such made-up appellations, but it fits, if we allow room for songs such as “Your Winter” and “Hold Your Laughter,” which some might label folk. I wouldn’t. Both are a bit too oblique, but Campbell is up to some intriguing things. He won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, though, so listen and see what you think. 

 

If need to get loud, Colorado’s Dirty Snowman Society is a potage of punk, psychedelic, and arena rock. Its recent record is called Snowblind. If titles like “Kiss Me or Kill Me,” conjure grunge, you wouldn’t be wrong. It’s where big bass, wailing guitar, high-octane, pounding drums, attitude, and danger collide. “Once” sounds softer, but not really. The instrumentation throttles between simulated vibes and jam band riffs that stuff Frank Costantini’s vocals into a wall-to-wall sound envelope. “Mirror” is everything you’d ever want, if you like your decibels high. Slide the volume to the right and rock on. This one reminded me of Black Sabbath with a better singer. (Yeah, Ozzie was always overrated.) 

 

Looking for something different? Try Anuang’o Fernando and Maasai Footsteps. It’s an appropriate title as Fernando is as much dancer as musician. I wish there were more videos of him dancing, as the songs draw inspiration from the traditional music of Kenya’s Maasai people. “Source” (and source-like) recordings are often less interesting out of context. Movement is crucial for the Maasai, whose dance styles are at once grounded but airy. Watch this video if that statement sounded contradictory. The songs are often drone-like behind keening lead vocals. “Emburkoi” and “Mukula” are in this vein, though “Eranjoi” has what could be incongruously labeled an old-time revival sensibility.  

 

Grace Womack is a junior at the University of Texas. Her Yellow Cowboy Hat introduces a voice with promise that’s not yet ready to graduate. The title suggests country music, but Womack mixes of pop, R & B, and piano bar jazz inevitably draw comparisons to Lake Street Dive, Kacey Musgraves, and Billy Joel. I’d call these aspirational rather than descriptive labels. “Pity the Fool,” an infatuation-gone-bad tale, showcases songbird vocals and piano, but the melody fails to land. “Oblivion,” her second single, has similar virtues and drawbacks. We must go to the title track before Womack’s soulful tones and energetic backing music command attention. In a word, Yellow Cowboy Hat lacks solid hooks, which is precisely what a new singer needs in a market flooded with pretty voices.   

 

Rob Weir

 

The Guide a Mediocre Good Book?

 

THE GUIDE (2021)

By Peter Heller

Alfred A. Knopf, 257 pages.

★★★

 

 

 

Let’s talk really good mediocre book. Peter Heller’s The Guide is a sequel to the more polished The River (2020), an echo of the British film Never Let Me Go (2020), and selective culling from recent news stories, such as that of Richard Cooke, the world-class jerk who killed a tame lion inside a Zimbabwean game reserve. It has other issues as well, but Heller gets away with things that would raise alarms were they offerings from writers of lesser skill.

 

Heller fans have met Jack before. He and his best college buddy Wynn went on a tragic canoe trip in northern Canada in The River. He blames himself for Wynn’s death, as well as that of his mother, whose horse slipped off a mountain trail. In short, Jack suffers from a double dose of PTSD. His father and uncle assure Jack he is blameless, but the sprawling Colorado ranch feels so claustrophobic that he needs to get away and clear his head, a search that lands him at Kingfisher Lodge, a retreat for the elite on on Colorado’s Taylor River near Gunnison National Forest. Kingfisher needs a “guide,” though not of the backpacking sort. The Taylor is famed for trout fishing, and Jack’s job is to be a glorified babysitter for wealthy folks coming to angle in the Billionaire’s Mile, a section of well-stocked waters.

 

Day One is just what the doctor ordered: solitude, jaw-dropping beauty, a small cabin, and Zen-like fishing. Jack is leery of Kurt Jensen, who manages Kingfisher and has niggling little rules and threatens to dismiss those who can’t follow them, but Jack is here to heal not rebel. One command gets his attention: stay clear of the sign warning “Don’t Get Shot,” the explanation being that a cranky neighbor named Kreutzer doesn’t tolerate trespassers. But Jack enjoys an amazing dinner, which compensates for an odd meeting with the laconic Cody, another guide.

 

 On Day Two, he meets the person he will guide, Alison K*, her surname suppressed because celebrities coming to Kingfisher want to escape the fame game. Good luck with that when you’re dropped off by the head of your security detail. They’re in the Rockies, but it only takes a New York minute to determine that she is a famed country singer. Luckily for Jack, she’s also down-to-earth. Her fly-fishing technique requires fine-tuning, but Alison’s a natural, loves the outdoors, and relishes both Jack’s company and deep silences.

 

Too good to be true? Duh! Jack and Alison notice that none of the other guests are fishing and Cody doesn’t do any guiding. Nor does it help when Alison and Jack must duck for cover when she goes beyond the sign when landing a large trout. Jack is dressed down for that when they return to the lodge, but how does Kurt even know about it when Jack, Alison, and whoever shot at them were the only ones on the river? They observe that some of the guests seem spacey, perhaps ill. Jack also keeps getting warnings to play everything by the book, as the autocratic Jensen is really following the orders imposed by Kingfisher’s owner, Mr. Den. Only housekeeper Ana seems genuine around Jack. When she discovers he speaks Spanish, she whispers four numbers to him. Why would she whisper inside his cabin? Why was he hired in midseason? What happened to his predecessor?

 

Jack might be a Colorado rancher’s son, but he’s also a Dartmouth grad and there are simply too many things that feel wrong. A foray into the mountains affords an overview of Kingfisher and adjoining properties. If Kreutzer is a rival, why are the chain-link fences surrounding Kingfisher, Kreutzer’s, and another lodge interconnected? Why do the barbs face inward rather than toward the river? More to the point, why does Jack see a person in a hospital gown running from Kreutzer’s and witness Cody, Jensen, commandos, and the local law enforcement on the grounds? Alison has similar questions, and the two begin to spend personal time with each other, another rule violation. In a drive to Crested Butte for dinner and Wi-Fi connectivity, Alison learns a distressing fact about Mr. Den.

 

At this juncture, the cowboy and the songstress tale mutates into a Covid-era thriller. (Covid factors into the plot, but in an unusual way.) Frankly, the final third of the book stretches credulity, especially when Jack transforms into James Bond-as-cowboy. The novel’s denouement is abrupt and contrived and, in my view, Heller adds an unnecessary subplot about what’s happening at Kreutzer’s.

 

For all of that, The Guide is a chilling page turner that is so hard to toss aside that I read it in just two sittings. Heller ropes us in through vividly sketched characters–not just Jack and Alison, but also minor ones such Ana; Shay, who oversees food services; and guests such as the Sir William Barron and Teiji and Yumi Takagi. Moreover, Heller’s love of wilderness comes through on every page and he makes you feel nature’s majesty–right down to a simple description of nighttime clouds parting to reveal skies “freckled” with stars. I don’t fish, but Heller’s river sequences are like liquid meditation. The Guide is not a patch on The River and it’s certainly not The Dog Stars, Heller’s stunning debut, but it will reel you in.

 

Rob Weir

 

*I immediately wondered if this character was a veiled Alison Krauss reference, but neither Krauss’ age nor profile fit.

 

 

 

 

Winter Counts is a Bit Obvious, but Holds Fascinations

 

WINTER COUNTS (2021)

By David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Ecco, 336 pages.

★★★ ½ 

 

 

 

The skinny on Winter Counts is that it's a fascinating look at Lakota (Sioux) culture, but an easy-to-crack mystery.

 

The title references a calendar reckoning game common on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, southwest of the more famous/infamous Pine Ridge Reservation. Both, sadly, lie in parts of the state deemed less desirable by whites living in places such as Rapid City, sometimes dubbed “Racist City” by Native Americans.

 

At the center of the story is Virgil Wounded Horse, an “enforcer” on the rez. That's a thing. Reservations are, in theory, autonomous nations onto which outside law enforcement seldom venture unless a serious or federal offense takes place, and even then, they only respond about half the time. Tribal police are notoriously ineffective and reservation governments are too often dens of corruption. If a score needs to be settled, enforcers like Virgil are the ones who take care of it. Virgil does the dirty work that others won't touch and that’s okay in the minds of most, as he’s only half Lakota, an iyeska (roughly, a “half-breed).

 

Virgil is also the guardian of his nephew Nathan. Virgil doesn't have many parenting skills, but what can he do? His sister was killed in a car crash and Nathan has no one else. Nathan seems like a good kid– until he overdoses on heroin. He survives, but when a lot of oxycodone is found in his locker, Nathan is headed off to jail and the Feds are ready to adjudicate him as an adult and send him to a penitentiary, though he's just 14 years old. Nathan swears the pills were not his, but he's caught in the middle of a campaign to get serious drugs off the reservation at a time in which Ben Short Bear hopes to become Council president and won’t pull strings for Nathan.

 

Ben is, however, willing to bargain. He thinks a drug peddler named Rick Crow is smuggling heroin into Rosebud and wants Virgil to nail him. In the interim, Virgil has to try to get Nathan out of jail, which isn’t easy for a guy who drives a Pinto and has no valuable property for collateral. A former girlfriend, Marie, who is Ben's daughter, recommends a good lawyer, Charley Leader, but that's a money issue as well. Small wonder that Virgil is interested in the $5,000 that Ben offers to put Crow out of business.

 

There are side stories involving an indigenous foods guru; disputes between Marie and her supervisor Delilah Kills Water; battles over commodity beef allocations; and deep suspicion that tribal money is being siphoned by graft. Virgil also discovers it’s one thing to think about going after Rick Crow; it's quite another to venture to Denver and into neighborhoods controlled by drug syndicates. It looks as if Nathan's only shot is to cooperate with the Feds, wear a wire, and make a heroin buy on reservation land.

 

Winter Counts could use more red herrings. I sorted out the baddies before halfway through the book and read on to see how it played out. With minor twists, it was just as I had imagined. Again, the primary fascination with the novel is learning more about Lakota life – yuwipi vision quests, contested battles over the Badlands, the long historical memory of indigenous peoples, spirit names, and (sadly) the appalling conditions on the reservation. For those on the rez, life is often a series of compromises and the hope that the right ones have been made.

 

I doubt that the author intended an anthropology lesson, but it is a major takeaway from the novel. Many mystery writers unnecessarily complicate their plots.; this one over simplifies by too starkly sketching good and bad. Nonetheless, I recommend it. You will like Virgil, Nathan, Marie, and their extended network of family and friends. The thing about tough places like Rosebud is that you learn who greases your fry bread.

 

Rob Weir

Supernova Well-Acted but...

 

SUPERNOVA (2021)

Directed by Harry Macqueen

Bleecker Street, 95 minutes, R (language, adult situations, brief nudity)

★★ ½ 

 

 

 

If you love someone, could you let them go? That's the burning question in Supernova.

 

Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci) have been a gay couple for more than 20 years. Sam, a concert pianist, and Tusker, a writer and amateur astronomer, have led a good life – travel, gourmet food, lively friends, family acceptance, and intimacy. Their world is shattered by Tusker’s diagnosis of early onset dementia.

 

That's the fulcrum of this heart-versus-mind film. We come in upon a quietly tense and sullen road trip. The mood is set early when we notice that Tusker can’t really read the road map, falls asleep easily, and confesses that he did not bring his medication with him. He tells Sam that they both know it doesn't help, which establishes the central issue: Sam sees, but looks away because he can't bear to admit the truth.

 

The two are on their way to England's Lake District to revisit a site where they first camped, a prelude to visiting Sam’s sister, Lily (Pippa Haywood) and her husband Clive (Peter MacQueen). The eventual plan is for Sam to make his return to the concert stage. A surprise party reunites Sam with dear friends he hasn't seen in a while, but one of them lets a proverbial cat out of the bag. This and discoveries Sam was supposed to make ex post facto takes us to the crisis point: Tucker plans to commit suicide before he could no longer exercise that option.

 

I’m not giving away much, as this is pretty much all the film is about. What would you do if you were Sam? You can imagine being strong enough to help those who can't care for themselves and won't even know who you are, but are you? Who gets to choose, those inflicted or those who love them?

 

Some movies are slow because their plots need time to marinate; Supernova is more like a short story padded to novel length. Frankly, it would've been a better one-act play than a movie.

 

Two things partially redeem it. First, Dick Pope’s cinematography is glorious. Granted it's easier when you have the Lake District as your backdrop. Pope, though, skillfully exploits its changeable light and weather to match moods demanded by the screenplay.

 

Second, we need actors the caliber of Firth and Tucci to make the threadbare script work. Sam is a combination of silent rage and fear, his clenched jaw tongue pressed against cheek our tip that he's not really in control. Tucci, by contrast, is calm, rational, and last-hurrah charming. He knows the score and is willing to concede before the last inning is played.

 

Supernova looks good and is well-acted, but it's a so-so film. In addition to being   stretched to 95 minutes, its title is a contrivance. Tusker explains to a young girl that she is made of star stuff, but what are we to conclude about that? Tusker shows no indication of mysticism of any sort, nor does he connect his stargazing to his portending fate.

 

There is a more substantive flaw in the film. For a guy who is supposedly in the midst of an inevitable decline, Tusker is too often lucid, logical, and capable of sustained discourse. It would be safe to say that Tusker would have to end his own life, as he would not meet doctor-assisted suicide standards for such a choice. Overall, Tusker’s part is under-written. A clear indication of dementia – absent from the film– is that sufferers recycle the same remarks in exactly the same words. They also have trouble following conversations and are certainly not the life of a party.

 

See Supernova for its exteriors and to observe how two great actors play off one another. Frankly, though, Sam and Tusker should've been played by gay actors. Firth and Tucci are convincingly tender playing old lovers, but they are decidedly straight.

 

Supernova will tug at your heart strings, but for a more accurate portrayal of dementia, see superior films such as Away from Her (2006), I’ll See You in My Dreams (2015), Still Alice (2014), and The Father (2020).

 

Rob Weir