61 a Great Drama, but Mediocre Film

61  (2001)

Directed by Bill Crystal

HBO/Warner Brothers, 129 minutes, TV-MA (language)

* * ½

Each spring I watch a baseball movie or two to get myself psyched for May and June–when the games begin to matter more than they usually do in April. This year I decided to watch one I've not see before. 61 recounts the 1961 season when both Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris threatened to break what was then the single-season homerun record: Babe Ruth's 60 in 1927.

First, let me get a rant out of the way. Is there a law that says that the music for a baseball film has to be as schmaltzy as polka night in down-market bar? Marc Shaiman's score is insufferable in a we-can't-trust-viewers-to-fashion-their-own-emotions fashion. Not even the Lifetime channel would be able to stomach the 61 score.

Okay, on to the film. 61 was directed by comedian Billy Crystal, a serious baseball fan and devoted Yankees fan. The project was originally done as an HBO exclusive and was later picked up by Warner Brothers for broader distribution. It has many of the earmarks of a TV production: broad character development, a tendency to simplify, a sense of triumphalism, bathos, and infusions of moralism. In other words, it's more light entertainment than masterpiece.

Still, scriptwriter Hank Steinberg knows his way around the keyboard and was nominated for a Writers Guild of America prize for 61. The film was also cast well, especially Barry Pepper as Roger Maris and Thomas Jane as Mickey Mantle. Each looks the part. Jane captures Mantle's crooked smile and Pepper channels Maris' straight arrow demeanor. Christopher McDonald also sticks out as broadcaster Mel Allen, as does Peter Jacobson as sports journalist Artie Green.  

We open to documentary footage from 1998 when the Cardinals Mark McGwire was set to obliterate Maris' record. Members of the Maris clan were on hand to witness the event and were charitable in ways that Babe Ruth's widow Clare had not been 37 years earlier*.  From that point on, we are thrust back to the 1961 season and the media frenzy that ensued. We are so used to media circuses these days that it's easy to forget they were relatively rare back then, unless you were a jetsetter with a trail of paparazzi on your tail.

In 1961, baseball was decidedly America's pastime. The season opened with Maris as the reigning MVP, having hit 39 homers and driven in 112 runs in 1960, but "The Mick," as Mantle was dubbed, was the local golden boy. Another thing that might surprise is that personal lives were not scrutinized as much in the early 1960s, which was a good for Mantle, a heavy drinker and a womanizer, though he had a wife and kids back in Oklahoma. We later found out that he and Whitey Ford were also peeping toms. As the summer and the bats heated up, New Yorkers were pulling for Mantle to break Ruth's record. The media hyped competition between the two, which was not true. As the movie correctly shows, the M and M Boys–a media creation that became an actual business partnership–were very good friends. Maris even convinced Mantle to share an apartment with him and Bob Cerv, an attempt to keep Mickey healthy and sober. Ironically, Mantle got injured late in the summer, the result of a botched "energy" shot that left him with an ulcerated hip. As Maris got closer and closer, the strain on him was so great it caused patches of his hair to fall out and the boo-birds to come out of the woodwork. In stark contrast to McGwire in 1998, even Ford Frick (Donald Moffat), the Commissioner of Baseball, was against Maris. (He had been friends with and a ghostwriter for Babe Ruth.)

Diehard fans probably know that Frick announced that Ruth's record would stand unless Maris broke it in the same number of games (154). He made it to 59 in game 154, but was stymied by Orioles' knuckleball hurler Hoyt Wilhelm. (Fun fact: former major leaguer Tom Candiotti, who threw a knuckleball, portrayed Wilhelm.) Maris hit number 61 on the last day of the season, game 162. Frick promptly inserted an asterisk beside the record, an indignity that lasted for 9 years until a new commissioner decreed that all records were for a season, however many games that might be.

61 is also about the loss of innocence. Maris was the opposite of The Mick—a guy who married his high school sweetheart Pat (Jennifer Crystal Foley), was a devoted father of six, and was polite and painfully shy–not the sort you want to feed to the New York media sharks. To say that Roger Maris did not receive his due is an understatement. He died of cancer in 1985 at just 51 and never saw McGwire break his record, nor is he in the Hall of Fame.

The Maris saga is a compelling story, though Billy Crystal's film is frequently more melodrama than drama. It seeks to be iconic in the way that many sports-as-metaphor-for-life films often do. To reiterate an earlier point, it paints with a broad brush and its  made-for-TV credentials are very much in evidence. Serious baseball fans will not be pleased with portrayals of teammates such as Whitey Ford, Elston Howard, Yogi Berra, and Bill Skowron, who appear more as wallpaper than fully realized characters.

61 as a film leaves much to be desired. If, however, you are a younger fan who does not recall those days, 61 will whet the appetite to dig deeper. The rest can relive our youth and grumble about how a great drama was reduced to so-so theater.

Rob Weir

* McGwire would hit 70 homers and the Cubs' Sammy Sosa 66. Barry Bonds subsequently passed them both.

Transcription a Good Read, but Falls Short of the Hype

Transcription

By Kate Atkinson

Little, Brown and Company, 352 pages.

★★★½

Late in Kate Atkinson’s recent novel, one of her characters remarks, “Nothing is as simple as it looks….There can be many layers to a thing. Like a spectrum.” This snippet of dialogue could easily serve as a summation of the novel.

Transcription is set mostly in 1940, with brief forays ten years in the future. Its main character is Juliet Armstrong, an 18-year-old who is drawn into service with MI5, Britain’s parallel to the CIA.* It’s the early days of World War II, but late enough that it looks as if Britain will soon be the last European holdout against Nazi Germany. Juliet’s job is precisely as the title suggests; she sits in a room and types transcripts of conversations she can make out–we’re talking technology from nearly 80 years ago–between an MI5 agent Godfrey Toby in an adjacent room chatting with members of the British fascist movement who think he's a Nazi sympathizer. Toby is especially adroit at charming women associated with the fascist underground: Betty Grieve, Trude Hedstrom, and Dolly Roberts, but he’s not made much headway with Mrs. Sciafe, a rich woman who is probably the money conduit. Soon, Juliet is primed to be a spy posing as Iris Carter-Jenkins and charged with ingratiating herself to Sciafe. It doesn’t take Juliet long to realize that rash actions can lead to tragic consequences.

We meet other British spooks, such as Fraulein Rosenfeld, Miles Merton, Oliver Alleyne, Rupert Hartley, and Peregrine Gibbons, the last of whom Juliet holds out hope might become her lover. (She’s desperate to lose her virginity.) Perhaps it surprises to learn that Britain had far right fascist groups when it was at war with Germany. It should not; so did the United States. The reason is simple. During the Great Depression, just a handful of nations avoided economic disaster. Among them were fascist Germany, Italy, and Japan. Some Brits held out hope that Hitler’s troops would roll into London and “save” England. There were veritable (and imagined) Fifth Columns–homegrown enemies–in both the US and Britain. The question was how to discern harmless cranks from real threats.

Transcription is thus a spy novel, but it has a twist. We move forward to 1950, when a no-longer-innocent Juliet is working for BBC Radio. She gets a note threatening to make her pay “for what you did.” Who sent the note? When you’ve been a spy, the list can be long. Against her better judgment, Juliet tries to reconnect with some of her former MI5 colleagues, all the while launching her own investigation. All I will say is that this is a book about moles, agents, double agents, idealism, and agendas that go beyond the stated goal of ferreting out domestic fascists.

Kate Atkinson is a very good prose stylist. I am not, however, convinced that this book warrants the tons of praise heaped upon it. It’s certainly a cut above the pulp spy novels that strain the racks of used bookshops, but it does play to formula. This is glaringly the case in springing a last-minute reveal. I’ve no qualms with this per se–this is what most thrillers and detective novels do–but it feels abrupt because the entire 1950 part of the story is rather thin. Atkinson also assumes her readers are familiar with how values held in 1940 were no longer acceptable in 1950. I know this, but I’m a historian whose job it is to know. I wonder if younger readers will have any idea about the thinly veiled principals to whom she alludes.

I did enjoy Transcription, but it lacks the imaginative touch of Life After Life or A God in Ruins. I recommend you read it, though. Do NOT do the following until you’ve finished: Google Kim Philby and Guy Burgess. This was once big-deal stuff in Britain. Once you know, the gaps in Transcription become crystal clear.

Rob Weir

 

* Technically the CIA was created in 1947 when the World War II Office of Strategic Command was refashioned as the Central Intelligence Agency.  

Thoughts for a May Tuesday

I was sitting by the Mill River at Yup Coffee enjoying the sun, which I'm told is the name of that fiery yellow orb in the sky. Thank goodness it's cloudy again and preparing to rain, he says sarcastically. There's nothing like a cup of Joe, some rushing water, and a bit of warmth to get the brain to shift into high gear. So here are musings on sports and politics–a mix of the trivial and apocalyptic.

1. It feels like it's a good thing the Celtics' season will soon end. 

Remember how the C's were supposed to waltz to the NBA finals? It didn't even come close to playing out that way. What went wrong?

·      Kyrie Irving is an amazing talent, but he's not as good as he thinks he is. Kyrie doesn't make the players around him better, takes too many shots away from other guys, and has never proven that he can carry a team on his own. It won't be a disaster that he's unlikely to come back except….

·      You can forget about Anthony Davis, who probably won't give Boston a second thought once Kyrie walks. That means the Celtics will continue to get crushed close to the rim unless Robert Williams turns out to be a stud, not a spare part.

·      Alas, I think I was right in predicting that Gordon Hayward's elite status ended on Day One of the 2017 season. His injury was just as horrible as it looked. He now looks good on occasion, but Hayward is never going to be great again. Trade him? I would.

·      Is the bloom off the Brad Stevens rose? He looked like a genius when the C's weren't supposed to be good, but is the guy to raise another banner? Maybe not, but he'll get another chance or two as upcoming rosters won't be better than this year's. And the last thing the Celtics need is another bunch of middle of the pack first-round draft "projects." Danny Ainge miscalculated in stockpiling picks.

2. See Democrats. See them commit suicide.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has announced that no candidate opposing an incumbent member can run as a Democrat. Are you freaking kidding me? Some have called this the Anti-AOC Amendment. I'd label it the Sclerotic Sinecure Strategy.

This only makes sense if you think it's fine to have a party full of wheezers older than I. Shall I mention that's it's also a piece of autocratic idiocy that's destined to encourage young folks and people of color to stay home on Election Day? Are the Democrats trying to be as tyrannical strategies as Trump? This latest idiocy reminded me of why I quit the party decades ago and registered as an independent.

3. Stop dawdling and take down Trump.

Democrats continue to tiptoe around Trump for fear of pissing off voters. Hello! Memo: Voters are already pissed off. I'm so sick of hearing the word "moderate" I could hurl. Being statesman-like will not defeat Trump.

Take off the kid gloves. Go after his corporate shenanigans, order the Treasury Department to turn over his tax returns, and indict, indict, indict…. Do to Trump what the GOP did to Bill Clinton: cut off his goolies. Let Trump face "yuge" fines for his crooked business dealings. Make him go before Congress to answer Michael Cohen's charges. Call hearings in which women assaulted by Trump testify. Adopt a Scandal of the Day policy. Rinse and repeat.

Make no mistake; we have crossed the border between embarrassment and danger. The United States cannot afford another four years of this Brownshirt Comb-over, and neither can the planet. It's this simple: If someone doesn't take him down before 2020,  Trump will be reelected, and we're all doomed for sure if we're not already. Eco-disaster looms and we must adopt green policies. Being anti-science is no longer a choice.

4. Unregister and vote for Bill Weld.

You can help the anti-Trump cause by unregistering as a Democrat. Say what? Given the Democrats' search for a backbone, one way to dump Trump is to join me as an unenrolled voter. You can then go to the primary poll, request a GOP ballot and cast it for Bill Weld, who is challenging Trump. This is your at-least-he's-not-nuts strategy.

5. Musical delusions of grandeur.

I was listening to a Dick's Picks compilation of the Grateful Dead this morning–Volume 24. I'll leave the fact that it's fairly pedestrian music and move onto this: There's no rock and roll act not named The Beatles or Bruce Springsteen that has ever made enough good music to warrant 24 volumes! (And, yes, that includes The Rolling Stones, who have been mailing it for the past three decades.) 

6. Major League Baseball needs to save itself from hypesters and analytics freaks.

I've had it with WAR, WAR+, OBPS, launch angle, exit velocity, yada, yada, yada. These clowns are ruining the game. They don't even care about baseball beyond the little fantasy games they like to play. Please go away and do what children used to do: bounce a tennis ball off a wall and play Make Believe.

It's bad enough analytics have sterilized the game, but much worse is that they are ruining young bodies. Players are bulking up so that they can hit tape measure homeruns that still don't go as far as those hit by Mickey Mantle with his alcohol-diminished body. The result is that today's players are strong, but lack flexibility and agility. Things are even worse for pitchers. Tommy John surgery is almost a rite of passage now–even in Little League!

In 2018, the average ticket price for a game was $31 and was over or just under $50 for Cubs, Red Sox, and Yankees home games. That's a helluva lot of money to not see your favorite players because they're on the Disabled List.

Rob Weir

Ellie and the Harpmaker is a Charming Debut

Ellie and the Harpmaker (2019)

By Hazel Prior

Berkley/Penguin, 336 pages.

★★★★

Ellie and the Harpmaker is a quirky little novel whose charm grows the deeper you get into it. Set in Exmoor, which lies near Bristol in the southwest of England, it centers on two loners whose relationship is seldom what you’d imagine. Although Hazel Prior’s story is nothing like that of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, there are similarities in tone and the overall unusualness of the two tales.

Dan Hollis is the titular harpmaker. Although Prior never uses the term autism, we suspect he’s on the spectrum. In his isolated barn Dan fashions gorgeous instruments; a small sign proclaiming him the “Exmoor Harpmaker” is the only hint of a shop with nearly three dozen hand-carved harps, each fashioned from wood Dan carefully chooses and adorned with a pebble he plucks from a brook. Dan leaves sales to his sister Jo, as he has no head for business or much of anything else that’s practical. He makes only Celtic harps, which he can tune but cannot play because he has done so since childhood. Dan’s the kind of guy who counts ants and stars, notices the color of socks, brews coffee for its smell but doesn’t drink it, and serves sandwiches to his rare visitors, which he cuts into precise triangles. (It is a major effort to adjust to cutting them into rectangles.)

Overall, Dan is far more at home in the woods and upon the moors than in social situations. Metaphors and irony stump him, and he answers all questions literally and without filters. He has just one friend, Thomas, his postal carrier, though he does claim to have a girlfriend he calls Roe Deer–though her name is actually Rhoda Rothbury, a harper*–whom he knows lives precisely 23.1 miles away. She’s been his girlfriend for eight years, though is doesn’t dawn on Dan that they’ve not been intimate or on a date for six years and that she disappeared for a year.

One day, Ellie Jacobs sees his small sign and impulsively visits Dan’s shop. Thus begins their connection. Dan dubs her “the Exmoor Housewife,” and impulsively gifts her a harp that she cannot play. Ellie is married to Clive, who purports to adore her, though theirs is a jealous, manipulative relationship–so much so he browbeats her into returning the harp. In turn, Ellie tries to hide the fact that she is taking lessons from Roe/Rhoda, that she regularly visits Dan, and that he keeps her harp in his shop.

This sets up a series of situations, some hysterical, some fraught with tension, and some touchingly poignant. There’s even a character named Phineas, who is a pheasant! This is a book about what happens when a guileless innocent is drawn into situations that call for tactful disingenuousness–especially when encountering another as rigid as he, but decidedly not so innocent. It is also one in which individuals who lack confidence and self-esteem find music and affinities that make the soul soar.

If I might return to the unusualness theme, little that I’ve said truly captures this book’s essence. Ms. Prior knows something about the impact of music; she too is a harper. Hans Christian Anderson remarked, “Where words fail, music speaks.” Ms. Prior’s characters aren’t exactly wordless, but both actual music and what we might call the music of the heart help those who struggle to articulate convey their inner natures and build connections.

I will not pretend that Ellie and the Harpmaker is destined to become a literary classic. In parts it is overly sentimental and it occasionally skirts the border of cliché. It is nonetheless a sweet debut that sounds triumphant notes for characters who find joy in simple things and rediscover innocence. To circle back to my opening, it is a novel whose major virtue is its charm.   

Rob Weir

* Although many people use the term “harpist,” years ago acclaimed Scottish musician Alison Kinnaird advised me that the correct term is “harper.” If anyone knows, it is she!

What April Suggests about the Baseball Season

May Days, May Days

April is a cruel month for baseball fans, as anyone who has sat through a game north of Atlanta can attest. (Full disclosure: I support a shorter season.) April is also a prankster that can make dandelions look like tulips. (Last year's Diamondbacks, anyone?) Here are some thoughts now that about 18 percent of the season is behind us.

The Real Deals:

Right now there are just two sure things: the Dodgers and the Astros. Each has a powerful lineup—Bellinger is white hot right now–but more importantly, each has a pitching staff that should hurl them deep into the postseason.

Stick a Fork in 'Em; They're Already Done:

Compost the putrid Marlins and call a taxidermist for the once-proud Orioles. The Royals are more like a deposed monarchy and the Angels are bound for hell once again. What was Mike Trout thinking when he signed a long-term contract with Anaheim. Do you see any hope in the next 4-5 years? I don't.

How are those Sonny Gray, Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp acquisitions working out for the Reds? You can probably stick the tines in San Francisco as well. The Yankees AAA players just blew them out of the water and made the Giants look like midgets in the process.

Not as Bad as You Think:

The White Sox probably won't make it .500, but they won't embarrass themselves. Some of their younger players–like Anderson and Moncada–are figuring things out.

The Rangers might have the most potent lineup of any lousy team. They will score a ton of runs, but they'll give up a ton and a half. The Padres are the NL West equivalent of the Rangers. Machado isn't hitting much right now, but he will, as will Hosmer and Tatis. Myers will continue to tantalize and disappoint, as will any pitcher not named Yates. 

The Tigers are in rebuild mode and need to shed some onerous contracts, but they're not pushovers. These cats are starting to flex their paws.

Wait Until Next Year:

We already know about Vlad Junior, but he's not the only thing to like about the Blue Jays. They are just an arm or two away from making the AL East a four-horse race. It won't happen this year, but you do not want to go to sleep on these guys or they'll lay some hurt on you.

Call it a hunch, but the Braves look as if they are going to take a step backward this year. It's a team dependent upon a handful of vets to close the holes of youthful inconsistency. That might happen, but I'm not seeing a pitching staff that can take them to the Promised Land. This needs to be redressed before some of those vets (Freeman, McCann, Markakis) reach the end of their productiveness. Next year?

I Don't Believe In You:

The Diamondbacks are playing above their pay grade right now. You know–just like 2018. It won't last.

I said it last year and will say it again: the Cubs pitching isn't very good. Plus Bryant and Rizzo aren't hitting their weight. I'd not be surprised if they miss the playoffs.

Never bet on the Pirates. You get the team you pay for and Pirates' ownership keeps its riches buried in a bank somewhere far from where the three rivers join.

Parsimony and young players who fuzzed out but never blossomed are the reasons I don't believe in the Twins. They're not a bad team, but in the long run they'll struggle to rise above mediocrity. Even if they click on all cylinders, they simply can't match the Indians' pitching.

I'd be remiss not to mention the perpetually tightwad Oakland A's. Look down their roster and tell me how many names you recognize other than Khris Davis. (Semien is good, though.)

They'll Probably Break Your Heart:

The Phillies spent like drunken gamblers to sign Bryce Harper. He's hitting .250, which is just about right for a player who might be the most overrated in all of baseball. The Phils should have bought some pitching. Arrieta is on the downside and Nola and Elfin have yet to rise.

The Mets are the opposite: potentially great pitching but if McNeil and Alonso cool off, where's the offense?

The Mariners are on fire at present, but I'd be higher on them had they not traded their best pitcher (James Paxton) to the Yankees. Their lineup consists of a lot of castoffs, has-beens, and late arrivals. I think this holiday will soon sink back to workaday tedium.

Don't the Nationals always break hearts? They show signs of sorting things out, but when you look at their roster, you'd think they should be great. The Nats are like brilliant students content to earn a C. 

Waiting to Catch Fire

The Brewers have too much in the bank in addition to Yelich to be playing penny ante baseball. In fact, without Yelich they'd be in serious trouble by now. Time to man up in Cheesehead Town.

Exchange the cheese for bad beer and the same is true for the Cardinals, who plucked Goldschmidt from Arizona and Ozuna from Miami. (Did I mention the Marlins should be in the Eastern League?)  About half of the Cards' pitching staff needs to step up or move out.

The Indians have been only middling good in a bad division. Cheapskate management is a problem in Cleveland as well, but the Indians should be fine when Kipnis, Naquin, and Lindor heat up. There's really no reason in the world why the Tribe shouldn't waltz to another division crown.

Mysteries Wrapped Inside Enigmas

In a sense, the Red Sox were destined to disappoint. They had a season for the ages in 2018, and no serious fan expects them to duplicate a .667 winning percentage. But to be a tick above the Orioles? I can't imagine that will last, but there's got to be concern that signing Sale to a big contract instead of re-signing Kimbrel was a bonehead move given that Sale hasn't been brilliant since the middle of 2017. Porcello thus far has been in the "other" side of his every other year effectiveness, and there is also concern that Moreland, Pearce, and Bradley had career years in '18. Commonsense says that Bogaerts ought to be moved to third and Devers should become a DH. Devers' glove is simply B-A-D. But if you ask me if the Red Sox will finish below .500 this year I'd reply, "Are you nuts?"

The Yankees are a mystery in the sense that one wonders how in the hell they are winning with 15 players on the disabled list. LeMahieu was a great signing, Voit was a steal, and getting Paxton a fleecing, but the only way you make any sense of their early success is to concede that their minor league system was every bit as good as touted. Nonetheless mystery surrounds the Bronx Bombers. Will Sanchez figure out how to catch and hit consistently, or is he a bum receiver who is all or nothing with the stick? Will the Yanks go on a roll when the big guns return? Logic dictates they should, but baseball has a habit of making fools of the Stat Heads. The biggest mystery of all is why the team hasn't fired every single one of its conditioning coaches. It baffles my mind how MLB thinks launch angles and pro wrestling sized muscles are more important than flexibility and durability. For the record, Detroit has the deepest fences of any stadium: 420 feet to dead center. So who gives damn if a homerun travels 470 feet?

The Rays are also an enigma. I like Pham and Diaz, but I don't see enough bats on this team to justify their otherworldly record in April. Morton and Snell are proven pitchers, but are Glasnow and Chirinos for real? I don't think the Rays have enough, but if the Red Sox don't start winning, the Rays might steal a playoff spot.

Let's end with the yearly mystery team: the Rockies. The hitting is there, but the staff has an ERA the size of Mount Elbert. I think they'll be in the middle of the pack, but it seems that nobody really knows how the Rockies will fare until the season is over.

Layover is Pulp Fiction. In a Good Way.

Layover (2019)

By David Bell

Berkley/Penguin Press, 416 pages.

★★★

If you enjoy psychological thriller movies that make you bolt upright and shout, "Oh no! Do not open that door!!!" David Bell's novel Layover is like that. No matter what the medium–movies, novels, campfire tales, TV shows–such works rely upon building tension to a level where you are fully immersed in the moment. Alfred Hitchcock famously remarked, "Logic is dull." He meant this in the sense that effective melodrama goes for the gut, not the brain's logic center.

Or is it the heart? Or the gonads? Joshua Fields is pretty much the poster child for the well-scrubbed All American lad. He's considerate, altruistic, clean-cut, attractive, smart, and successful. That's not to say he doesn't have his crosses to bear. He was raised by a doting father and went into pop's real far-flung estate and development business right out of college. Joshua is making lots of money, but he's never really stretched his own wings. His job is dull, but he soldiers on because he doesn't want to disappoint his father. This takes its toll, as Joshua is a nervous flyer who needs Xanax and airport booze to get onto an airplane. He also has a longtime girlfriend, but the fire of that relationship is (at best) on smolder.

One evening he's in Atlanta waiting to change planes–the titular layover–when he meets Morgan Reynolds, an attractive young woman in her twenties. The two have a drink  and part ways, but not before Morgan surprises Joshua with a body-grinding kiss that practically makes him jump out of his khakis. On impulse, Joshua decides not to meet his dad in Florida and instead finagles his way onto a flight to Nashville, which is where Morgan said she was bound. Yet when he surprises her on the airplane, the same woman claims she is not Morgan Reynolds, rings the flight attendant, and asks her to make Joshua stop harassing her.  

Bummer! But when Joshua looks up her profile on Facebook–hey it's the 21^st century!–there she is, along with various postings that say she's missing. Joshua tries to explain this to airport police in Nashville, who basically say she's an adult and has the right to go missing if she wishes. A rational person would move on, right? Well, that wouldn't make for much of a novel, would it? Instead, Joshua decides to investigate on his own.

Meanwhile, in (fictional) Laurel Falls, Kentucky, Detective Kimberly Givens is under pressure to locate a missing local businessman, Giles Caldwell. The mayor is up for reelection, Giles' aggressive brother Simon is raising a stink, and the mayor has pretty much ordered Givens–who was already passed over for promotion once before–to work around the clock to find Giles. That's hard to do if you're divorced and have a (barely) teenaged daughter.

The two stories will, of course, intersect. At each step of the way Joshua is warned to go back home and leave the investigation to professionals. Instead, he continues to open doors he shouldn't, even when each new one brings him more grief and places him in greater danger.

Objectively speaking, Layover is pulp fiction that frequently demands that readers suspend disbelief. Who knows? The news is filled with tales of those who have done more illogical things than Joshua, so maybe there's more verisimilitude to Bell's novel than we'd like to admit. I can say, though, that Joshua wiggles out of a few legal situations from which he'd be unlikely to walk away in real life. This is a 416-page book that feels like it's barely half that long. In otherwise, this is your proverbial page-turner. It releases in July, and I can imagine it will be a popular beach read.

David Bell is an English professor at Western Kentucky University with eight previous novels to his credit. Layover is no Woman in White. It's not even Gone Girl. But let's give Bell credit for writing a novel with great mass appeal. Sometimes all a reader wants is good juicy thriller.

Rob Weir  

Note: I received an advance copy of this book from Berkeley and NetGalley to review. I note, however, that it seems to be available on Kindle.

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Revisiting A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)

By John Kennedy Toole

Grove Press, 405 pages.

★★★★

From time to time I like to re-read favored books from my youth to see how well they hold up. Recently I decided to give A Confederacy of Dunces another whirl. After all, it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981. Here’s some irony to consider. The book was written in 1963, could not find a publisher, and its author John Kennedy Toole, committed suicide in 1969, allegedly feeling misunderstood and rejected. The book’s posthumous award notwithstanding, A Confederacy of Dunces probably would not find a publisher today, as it is one of the most politically incorrect novels of the past hundred years.

The book takes its title from a Jonathan Swift epigram: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” The open question is whether Toole’s protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly is that genius, or whether we are supposed to believe that Toole is the genius and Ignatius is among the dunces. He is certainly one of the more unique main characters you’ll ever encounter.

If you crossed a street bum with Oliver Hardy, Don Quixote, Falstaff, and Boethius, you’d still be a few weirdnesses short of Ignatius. He fancies himself an erudite man on all subjects and has contempt for the masses, whom he sees as destroyers of good taste, morality, and ancient wisdom. He is also a compulsive eater who is grossly obese and whose pyloric valve opens and closes when he is annoyed, which is pretty much all the time. I won’t make you run to your medical dictionary; a malfunctioning pyloric valve means Ignatius belches like a junkyard muffler and farts like a church bean supper. Food nests in his unkempt mustache, crumbs hang from his clothing, and he seldom ventures out without stuffing himself into a parka, donning a green hunting cap with the flaps pulled down, and a heavy scarf wrapped around his neck. Did I mention that the novel is set in New Orleans?

Ignatius has fewer social graces than a rutting hog, but he does have a big vocabulary and such an unusual way of expressing himself that others often assume he’s well educated. Not that it would take much; A Confederacy of Dunces isn’t populated by the brightest bulbs in the socket. Ignatius lives with his widowed mother, Irene, who still hopes her “boy”–he’s 30–will fulfill his potential. She also has a small drinking problem, which might explain why she thinks Ignatius has potential. He is, to put it mildly, vocationally challenged, as we see in hilarious stints as an office manager at a pants factory and an inventory control and motivationally challenged hotdog vendor.

Toole’s novel is a hoot that’s comedic in ways inspired by slapstick, farce, and bawdy medieval tales. But let’s cut to why this book would disturb those of delicate sensibilities. Among the other characters are a jive-talking black man, Burma Jones, who is street smart but not any other kind, and whose speech Toole writes in exaggerated dialect. There is also Ignatius’ pen pal and sparring partner, Myrna Minkoff, a Jewish beatnik and sexual libertine whom he met in his brief time at LSU and whom he berates as a “whore;” a pair of swishy gay men and several aggressive lesbians; Lana Lee, who purveys porn from her sleazy bar; Darlene, a would-be exotic dancer trying to teach her cockatoo to rip her dress off; Trixie, the dementia-suffering “project” of a factory owner’s wife; the widower Claude who rants about the “communiss;” and patrolman Mancuso, whose captain punishes him by making him wear ridiculous getups and look for perps in places such as bus station bathrooms.

So how did A Confederacy of Dunces hold up for me? I found it even funnier now than when I first read it sometime around 1982. It is safe to say that there simply aren’t many novels that can rival it for surrealism and absurdity. However, I’d advise anyone thinking of teaching it not to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Not unless you want to face a pitchfork brigade made up of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, fat rights activists, LGBTQ warriors, and maybe even sex workers and weenie stand promoters! I would argue–though I would get nowhere–that it’s a great book for the Age of Trump in that Ignatius’ world contains more phonies and bloviatrs than geniuses. The safer route, though, would be to buy a used copy, cover it with a cut-up shopping bag, and howl in the privacy of your own home.

Rob Weir

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