new york journal of books

Heart of the Game: Life, Death, and Mercy in Minor League America by S. L. Price

2010-07-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

(Harper Collins, May 4, 2010)

Heart of the Game, by S. L. Price of Sports Illustrated, is a story about a talented athlete who followed his dream of playing professional baseball until the evening that dream was squelched for good by a foul ball.

Price takes readers through the life of veteran minor league baseball player, Mike Coolbaugh, as he pursues his ambition of making a living by playing professional baseball. The story is tragic in so many ways other than its ending. The story of minor league baseball is on display in these pages, and it’s not always hot dogs and apple pie.

Coolbaugh, regarded by some veteran scouts of Major League Baseball as a prospect, never could get over the hump of becoming an established Big Leaguer despite years of excelling in the minors as an all-star infielder. After finally succumbing to the realization that he would never enjoy more than the few “cups of coffee” he had in the Majors, Coolbaugh turned to coaching.

It was here that a fluke occurrence played out on the diamond: Coolbaugh was struck in the head with a foul ball that killed him instantly. Not only does Price describe scenes of the accident, with his years of experience writing and reporting readers get an inside perspective into what happened, how it happened, and how it ultimately affected everyone from the family of the player himself to the various organizations and players who knew and respected Mike Coolbaugh.

Heart of the Game has been lauded by one national sportswriter as the “best baseball book [he] ever read.” Price’s poetic, as well as stoically clear story, about life in baseball’s minor leagues is a sobering tale of both triumph and pain. Where there was hope, there was also a lot of despair, as readers get an insider’s view of how difficult it really is to become one of the lucky few who are fortunate enough to don Major League uniforms and get paid to do so.

Reviewer Tom Caraccioli is the co-author of Striking Silver: The Untold Story of America's Forgotten Hockey Team and Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.

Star Island by Carl Hiaasen

2010-07-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

(Alfred A. Knopf, July 27, 2010)

In the celebrity crazed culture we currently live in, Carl Hiaasen’s newest novel, Star Island, fits right in. This is a world where a picture of a dead celebrity can bring millions and a photographer will do anything to get that “money shot.”

Enter Cherry Pye, once Cheryl Gail Bunterman, a child star turned pop sensation hoping for a comeback despite the fact that she can’t sing a whip. However, due to the availability of real singers to cover for her and the art of lip syncing, this is not a problem for Cherry—as long as she is conscious, which, often unfortunately is a problem since Cherry’s also desperately addicted to sex, booze, and almost any drug she can get her hands on. Since Cherry can be counted on to occasionally overdose and be out of commission, enter Ann Delusia.

Ann is a wanna-be actress who stands in for Cherry whenever Cherry’s “gastritis” acts up. Star parties, movie premieres, and A-list events all sound exciting, but Ann is usually relegated to a back room for an hour or so then rushed out just so an “appearance” is made and the paparazzi get their shot. Or at least they think they get their shot—and that’s what’s important to Cherry’s mom, her management team, and her entourage of attendants.

Speaking of paparazzi, the novel would not be complete without Cherry’s most devoted follower, Bang Abbott, a dubious photographer who follows the star 24/7, simply waiting for her eventual final OD and the ensuing pictures that could make him rich—that is until a surprise plane ride with sweet Cherry turns him into much more than your standard dirt bag pap. After that encounter, he’s out for revenge.

Hiaasen’s wild ride also includes a former Florida governor nicknamed “Skink” whom Hiaasen readers might remember from a previous book. Now he is turned rogue environmental conservationist who isn’t above kidnapping or assault with a sea urchin to protect the wetlands. Add in a creepy bodyguard with a unique arm appendage, and some other slightly fantastical plot twists, and you’ve got Star Island.

Basically, the novel’s central question is whether Cherry can keep up her career and lip sync her way back to stardom when she can barely stay upright or will Ann be outed as the fake “Cherry” after all those photo ops?

It’s a rollercoaster ride, loaded with Hiaasen’s signature twists and turns. In the end, although the brown-eyed Cherry lookalike Ann is the only character worth caring for, the rest provide sweet comic relief. And overall, though certain elements may strain credulity, Star Island provides enough pop cultural references and zany antics to make it a good read for adult Hiaasen fans and casual readers looking for an entertaining and humorous book.

Reviewer Courtney Webb is a former librarian and reviewer for Charlotte Mecklenburg County Public Library Reader’s Club and Book Hive: A Guide to Children’s Literature and Books.

Design Is How It Works by Jay Greene

2010-07-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

(Penguin Publishing, July 29, 2010)

Jay Greene’s book takes its name from a famous quote by Steven Jobs who said that the iPod’s design is “not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” While one might expect Apple to feature prominently in this book, it’s actually only really discussed in the introduction, with the balance of Design focused on case studies of eight companies that adhere to Jobs’ philosophy, whether they consciously realize it or not.

Moreover, these eight case studies have both the usual suspects—such as Porsche, OXO, and Nike—as well as some you might not expect to make it to Greene’s short list: such as Cliff Bar, REI, and LEGO. With each case study, the author lays out his argument that these companies are successful because they each address a personal need for the company’s individuals. By doing this, the companies, in turn, create an experience that their customers also value. Porsche, for example, focuses on the driving experience, while OXO focuses on the shortcomings of such mundane products like spatulas and vegetable peelers. Yet along the way, they pick up not only design awards but also rabidly faithful customers.

The idea, Greene repeats throughout his book, is for a company to cater to its own needs via excellent design and through that address the “unspoken desires” of its customers. In that way, design becomes an integral part of how a product works, rather than an afterthought to make something look pretty.

Therein lies the deeper meaning of Jobs’ quote and Greene’s title: that, at its core, design is about creating desire because something works exceptionally well, such as OXO’s staple remover; or responds to a particular need, such as REI’s Quarter Dome Tent; or is just plain cool, like LEGO’s robot kit, Mindstorms NXT. It’s noteworthy to mention that all of the aforementioned are best sellers in their categories. And they’re best sellers exactly because they address the itch that the companies themselves felt needed a scratch: the staple remover that didn’t rip paper, the tent that could withstand 25-mile per hour winds, the toy that could teach about something as esoteric as robots.

Greene manages to weave these common elements through his eight case studies. Still, he acknowledges that some—ACE Hotels in particular—may be so cutting edge with regards to design as to be potentially too forward-thinking, much like former technology innovator Bang & Olufsen, which Greene discusses in his introduction.

What the author does not do, for better or for worse, is delve into particulars as to how each company achieves its design goal. In that sense, Design is, at best, an introduction regarding the intersection of design and business. However, Greene handles it well and those that want to know more about how companies incorporate design into the fiber of their businesses would do well to begin here.

Reviewer Logan Lo is a small business consultant under the guise of an intellectual property attorney and a certified general real estate appraiser. He is currently an associate at the commercial litigation firm Woods & Lonergan in their Intellectual Property and Real Estate Practices.

Brown Dwarf by K. D. Miller

2010-07-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

(Biblioasis, April 1, 2010)

Think back to your childhood friendships. Did you ever do or say anything that resulted in the death of a childhood friend? In K. D. Miller ‘s novella Brown Dwarf, just such a sense of culpability has haunted Toronto mystery writer and Hamilton, Ontario, native Rae Brand, neé Brenda Bray, ever since the death of her friend Jori Clement when they were twelve in 1962. The narration alternates between chapters entitled “Brenda” that are told in the third person about the twelve year old girl, and others entitled “Rae” that are addressed to Jori by the adult woman Brenda becomes.

Both girls are bookish, only children. Brenda’s mother Annie, a bigoted depressive prone to violent mood swings, is the widow of a bus driver who died when Brenda was eighteen months old. During her mother’s bouts of madness that Brenda calls “hurricanes,” Annie berates Brenda for being fat, but during her calmer days Annie pushes high caloric food in front of her daughter. Before Jori transferred from an elite private school to Brenda’s public school at the start of seventh grade, neither mother nor daughter had any friends. Even Annie’s mother, Thelma, will initially have nothing to do with her daughter and granddaughter because Annie was pregnant with Brenda just before she married her husband, Art.

Jori’s parents, an avuncular university professor and a brittle medicated faculty wife, are open-minded inquisitive liberals who treat their daughter almost as a peer. Jori mistakes Brenda’s social isolation at school for elitism and befriends her assuming she is a like-minded snob. One visit to the Clement home makes Brenda realize her mother’s lack of taste. Just as Brenda dominates and manipulates her parents, Jori is also the dominant partner in her friendship with Brenda.

Brenda is grateful for Jori’s friendship but resents her pretentiousness and is not entirely comfortable with their sexual experimentation; Jori is clueless to Brenda’s ambivalence. Jori may be precocious, but Brenda finds her obsession and infatuation with escaped child molester/murderer Clarence Frayne weird and disturbing. Brenda initially plays along with Jori’s scheme to capture Frayne in the cliffs and crevices of the Niagara Escarpment traversing their city of Hamilton, but comes to realize that Jori’s grasp of reality is no better than her mother’s.

The title of the story comes from astronomy, in which a brown dwarf is a celestial body much larger than a planet that lacks the requisite combustion to become a star. In detective fiction a brown dwarf is a dull, unassuming character whom no one suspects to be the criminal. Brenda sees her mother as the social equivalent of the astronomical brown dwarf, and fears she herself fits the fictional definition.

It took this reader fifty or so pages to get into this 143-page book. At first the intended target audience is unclear: Is it adult or juvenile fiction? And the fact that the story was about 12-year-old girls would normally be less than interesting to an adult male. But the reader with these doubts is in for a pleasant surprise. Brenda turns out to be a psychologically more complex character than the unhappy fat girl we meet in the novella’s opening chapters. This reviewer recommends Brown Dwarf to all readers, especially parents of tweens.

Reviewer David Cooper is the author of two poetry ebooks, Glued to the Sky and JFK: Lines of Fire (PulpBits, 2003), and the translator of Little Promises by Rachel Eshed (Mayapple Press, 2006). He also covers the New York Jewish culture beat for examiner.com.

Lights Out: Ten Myths About (and Real Solutions to) America’s Energy Crisis by Spencer Abraham with William Tucker

2010-07-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

(St. Martin’s Press, July 6, 2010)

Spencer Abraham is the former U.S. Secretary of Energy who now serves as the chairman and CEO of the Abraham Group, an international business/strategic consulting firm. The book jacket is plastered with blurbs of praise from the former CEO of Ford, the CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, the Director of JPL, and a former astronaut who is currently the director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

This book is recommended reading for everyone and anyone, as the issues are important to every American. The book provides a good overview of the current U.S. energy policy (or lack of), but also contains one or two glaring absences and inconsistencies (which will be pointed out in this review).

Spencer Abraham was an interesting choice to serve as Secretary as Energy for George W. Bush, as when as senator he cosponsored a bill to eliminate the Energy cabinet post. He was appointed with the proviso that he had changed his mind on that issue, which he had (unlike Bush’s appointment to the UN, who actively sought while in office to diminish the UN). Spencer Abraham admits that “energy is a very complex topic,” but this book has been clearly and ably written.

Abraham is not shy with myth-busting as he believes the “propagation of these myths have proved fatal to the development of good energy policy.” The Ten Myths are provided to the reader in bold print on the first page of the first chapter of the book:

1. We can achieve energy independence.
2. If gas prices rise abruptly it must be due to an oil company conspiracy.
3. Global warming is a complete hoax
4. Nuclear plants are just as unsafe as they were at 3 Mile Island.
5. Renewable energy is universally popular and completely safe for the environment.
6. We are entering the age of natural gas that will follow the ages of coal and oil, and it will largely solve our energy problems.
7. Raising CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards 30% will produce 30% reduction in oil consumption.
8. Electrical transmission lines cause cancer.
9. All you have to do is to choose the right energy technology and subsidize it.
10. All we need is a new Manhattan Project to solve our energy needs.

It would be impossible to cover everything but a few key points in this review. Myth #1, American oil peaked in 1970, when we produced 10 million barrels per day. World peak oil discovery happened in the 1960s, and peak production from conventional sources around the world occurred in 2006. Today we consume 14 million barrels per day and 60% of it is imported. It appears that we can’t replace oil in U.S. as an important source of energy for the foreseeable future. Even if we drill-baby-drilled in Alaska, there might be only two years’ worth of oil there (at 1M barrels/day).

As to Myth #2, The price of oil today matches the rate of inflation, and as to oil company conspiracies, Abraham admits that at the time of California’s power outages, he hadn’t followed the goings on at Enron as well as he should, which negates the busting of this particular myth.

As to Myth #3, Abraham believes in science, which put him (quietly) on the opposite side of the president who appointed him.

For Myth #4, his claim is that science and technology have advanced well beyond the events of 3 Mile Island in 1979; that half of our current fleet of 104 working nuclear plants had been completed after 1979.

In regards to Myth #5, the claim is that for any renewable source, there can be found a lobbyist squarely against it. For example, wind mills produce an annoying hum, can cause death to birds and bats that fly into them, and alter scenery to the worse whether placed on mountain ridges or off the coast.

Myth #6, LNG exploitation is in its early stages; natural gas is better for cooking or heating than for replacing coal. Gas turbines that produce 20% of our energy are 39% of our capability. Gas turbines are mainly used for peak power as they are easy to start and stop but expensive to run. And anyway it’s too soon to tell as estimates tend to be optimistic. Are there 60 years worth of LNG or only 15 years?

In Myth #7, auto mileage improvements only reduce the rate of energy consumption, but will never reduce the total amount used. If miles per gallon improve, people will simply travel more. (Abraham does not address the role of public transportation in reducing oil consumption, a serious oversight.)

Myth #8 has long been argued as flawed by science. But to explain the reason why, Abraham does not mention science’s explanation, the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, perhaps because that would counter his argument favoring greater numbers of nuclear plants.

Myths #9 and #10 are based on the limits of science. There is no clear-cut technology winner to back, and the Manhattan Project was a feat of engineering, not science. “There is no game-changing source of power waiting around the corner.”

For future policy, Abraham proposes a mix of energy sources, what he calls the 30-30-30 plan. 30% renewable, 30% nuclear and 30% clean coal plus LNG by 2030.

Abraham addresses each element of the 30-30-30 plan in turn. Today, only about 3% of our energy needs come from renewable sources—and the unanswered question is how to grow renewables from 3% to 30% (except by additional funding for research). The current sources for renewables come from solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, tides, and hydrogen (maybe). There are immense obstacles to increasing the amount of energy from these sources in a short period of time. Hydroelectric can’t be really expanded (6% of U.S. total energy) as most every useable location has already been dammed. Ethanol has been shown by recent attempts to scale up to be not terribly effective as an energy substitute. The problem with wind and sun is that these sources are intermittent, and efficient storage of electrical energy on the large scale remains an open problem in science. Mechanical storage has been solved, for example, by raising and lowering water levels in a reservoir, but this solution suffers from NIMBY, Not In My Backyard.

And what of CO2 in the environment? The amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere are as high today as they were 650,000 years ago, the data coming from ice samples from Greenland. That there is a need to reduce our carbon footprint, reduces the likelihood of licensing new coal fired plants. The point of the cap-and-trade policy was to take the paying for carbon sequestration out of the hands of the government (through taxation) and placing the responsibility into the hands of the pollution producers. Costs would then be paid for indirectly (by you and me in increased prices). Cap-and-trade failed politically due to the uncertainty in effectiveness of “offsets.” Offsets allows a carbon polluter to offset pollution rather then remove it directly by paying someone else to do the carbon sequestration, for example by planting trees. Are carbon emissions produced by coal plants in Europe offset by planting trees in Africa? Is the whole concept a shell game? No one knows, and cap-and-trade as a policy goes into political limbo.

Abraham claims the only way to reduce greenhouse gasses effectively is to transition from coal to nuclear power. Nuclear power currently provides approximately 20% of U.S. energy needs, but no new licenses have been given since 1980. Abraham wants to grow the number of nuclear plants by 50% (50 new plants in 20 years) and in exchange reduce the equivalent number of (dirty) coal-fired plants. The issue unaddressed is that 50 new nuclear plants have to be placed somewhere, into someone’s back yard. But what about nuclear waste? The proposal to house nuclear wastes at Yucca flats is in political limbo. Abraham then puts his foot in his mouth in arguing that there is no such thing as nuclear waste by defining “waste” as something else, a manner of semantics that might remind the reader of a different politician’s parsing of the word “is.”

Note that oil being more problematic is not addressed at all in the 30-30-30 plan, and further on Abraham addresses the difficulties inherent in the politics of oil, but does not offer any solution. In fact the problems related to oil are worse than they appear, there have been no new oil refineries build in the U.S. since the 1970s, and the bottlenecks to increasing the U.S. energy supply have been as much in infrastructure, that is, new refineries and transmission lines as much as they have been in maintaining or growing the oil supply.

Cracking shale for oil has shown 10% growth per year since 2006, but there is a question as to how long these reserves will hold out, ranging between 15 and 65 years. Coal contains contaminants that include sulfur and mercury. There have been attempts to bring power plants in line with environmental regulation to remove these contaminants before they get into the environment. Old facilities are grandfathered in and do not have to follow new regulation, while new plants must fully comply. Repairs of old plants thus become a judgment call. If the cost to repair an old plant is high, the facility would be considered a new plant after repair and full regulation would apply. So rather than upgrade, utilities instead skimp on repair. We all know where that tactic can get us. One new technology towards clean coal is coal gasification. Clean coal, Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) converts coal to methane and the pollutants come out of the process. IGCC is still in its infancy, and methane does still produce greenhouse gasses.

The biggest threat to U.S. energy use is the law of supply and demand. Economic growth is tied to affordable energy. That is why there is continual pressure to: drill in U.S. oil reserves, drill in protected nature areas in the Rockies and Alaska (ANWR—Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge), drill off the Gulf coast (where a significant portion of our seafood comes from), and in deep water, and other counter-productive tactics. But more drilling is not the long-term answer.

Oil is not a domestic issue but a geopolitical one. The dominant issue to date has been oil as import. Global energy demand is expected to increase much of which will go to India and China who will be competing with the U.S. We do get much of our natural gas from Canada and Mexico, but there are problems with transport, and their energy supplies are also up for global competition.

The two major questions to be asked are: “Does the amount of oil we import really matter?” and “Does it matter from whom?” The big risk is what would happen if the control of oil fell into unfriendly hands, (the prevention of which causing two wars with Iraq). Related to this is the fear of terrorist attack that can be used to drive up prices. As for cartels, OPEC may be a force for good or for evil depending on your point of view. Their intent is to produce market stability but they do this by manipulating the price (by varying the amount of oil they produce). If the U.S. begs for their help to reduce prices (by pumping more oil) this only increases our political debt, helping maintain their decidedly non-democratic regimes and increases the percentage we import.

Abraham also takes the time to point fingers and assign blame why not much has changed in U.S. energy policy in the past 30 years. Basically Americans are in a political stalemate of various inconsistent opinions. It is easier to do nothing, to complain and suffer the consequences than to do something and suffer the consequences. One problem with U.S. politics (and probably any government’s politics) is that it takes a crisis to get any attention at all. Abraham states, “When oil hit $145 per barrel, I remember thinking how absurd it was that we were once concerned about $30-a-barrel oil.” And concerns shifts from the environment to “drill-baby-drill” sound bytes.

The problem more or less is how to balance the concerns of U.S. energy needs, the environment and costs, and how to achieve this balance through energy policy. As to the policy itself, which energy resources to conserve and which to exploit, which technologies to use and which refrain from using, one needs to be able to predict the impact of any choice over time—which is near impossible. Simply raising taxes on energy use will certainly reduce consumption, but raising them will hurt the poorest first, and raising taxes are never the popular choice in politics. And to which technology will the tax dollars go?

And so we continue to have an inconsistent policy with no traction. Everyone should be concerned. As difficult as our choices are today, they will be more difficult tomorrow. At some point there will be no room to maneuver.

Reviewer Robert Schaefer is a Research Engineer at MIT Haystack Observatory.

Freeing the Breath: Health, Relaxation and Clarity Through Better Breathing by Leslie Kaminoff [Audiobook]

2010-07-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

(Sounds True, July 28, 2010)

What happens when humans breathe? When we inhale, do we pull or push the breath? Neither! When humans breathe, air is pushed into the body by atmospheric weight. What we do is create space for the atmosphere to fill. Although the breath is automatic, it follows, and is affected by, physical and psychological patterns in life. In Freeing the Breath, Kaminoff presents two sessions (about two and a half hours) of guided practice for better breathing.

Both sessions are introduced with brief and pleasant background music. Then Kaminoff’s clear, steady voice delivers concepts to guide the exploration of the breath and the body as a whole. He offers simple, understandable explanations of breathing anatomy, brain actions, and the Sanskrit yoga terms he uses. He gives easy-to-follow instructions in movement and self-observation, and encourages the listener to discover and explore their own pace of practice. He repeats instructions when appropriate and allows plenty of time for the listener to experience the practices.

First, Kaminoff discusses the fundamental life forces of prana and apana (inhalation and exhalation), how they support the intake of nutrition and the expulsion of waste, and how they relate to sukha (permeability, ease) and stira (stability) in the cells and the body. He begins the breath exercises with an observation of the path of the breath in the body.

Next, he explains the body’s breathing patterns. Kaminoff defines breathing as shape change in the abdominal and thoracic cavities. He illustrates how the abdomen (like a water balloon) has a flexible shape, and the thorax (like an accordion) changes shape and volume, shifting the pressure of the air in and out of the body. Exercises continue, illustrating three-dimensional breath in the body: top to bottom, into the sides, into the front and back of the body.

The listener begins to learn that the primary purpose in breath training is not to control or master the breath, but to uncover learned patterns that interfere in the body and in life. Becoming conscious of habits, some learned in infancy, is essential in freeing the body to respond appropriately now.

In session one, numerous exercises continue, boosting one’s ability to observe the movement of the breath in the body. The exercises begin with simple awareness and gradually add various postures, movements, visualizations, and breath manipulations from the abdomen or throat. One learns to notice how the body, breath, mind and emotion respond to each other. According to Kaminoff, it’s all about reduction of effort. Less work plus more relaxation equals better breathing, and better breathing can break patterns of tension in the body.

Session two incorporates exercises from session one into several guided practices done in seated, standing, and reclining positions, according to the time of day, and in relation to what one will do following the practices. For example, if one practices at bedtime, one might start in a standing posture, transition to sitting, and conclude in a reclining posture. Body alignments for all postures, and focal points for gazing, are well instructed.

In Freeing the Breath, Kaminoff teaches not only breath consciousness and training, but the importance of letting the breath flow freely and naturally, uncontrolled. He suggests the experience of being at an ocean shore, enjoying the sound of the waves’ rhythms without controlling them. Likewise, one can let the breath go, wait, feel the body’s need for air, and allow the inhalation to arise again on its own. It happens differently with each breath in each individual.

In stressful situations, one tends to hold the breath. Instead, one should remember to breathe! This awareness can be taken successfully into the workplace, the home, or into relationships with others. For example: when the phone rings, when there is a repetitive task or a contentious person to deal with, one can become aware of the breath, take another breath, and then respond. One can practice a simple visualization or movement with the breath, as a way to transform the quality of a relationship in a stressful moment. Noticing the breath, and remembering to breathe, can improve eating patterns, too.

Everyone has a choice in their relationship with prana, the fundamental life force. Freeing the Breath is highly recommended for those who seek a greater sense of well being and want to take the first steps toward better breathing for better health.

Reviewer Birgit W. Patty is proprietor of Apex Yogic Living in Apex, NC. She is a perpetual yoga student and a certified Integral Yoga teacher.

Complexion Perfection by Kate Somerville

2010-07-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

(Hay House, March 15, 2010)

Complexion Perfection offers a fair amount of useful information for people who are interested in making their skin look better. Not a dermatologist but a paramedical esthetician, Somerville shares her years of experience helping people of all skin types achieve healthier, more beautiful-looking skin.

In the introduction, the author begins by relating events from her childhood and her ordeal dealing with severe eczema while growing up. In the story she stresses the relationship between a positive mental attitude and healthy skin, and talks a bit about the dangers of stress. The reader learns how the author grew from an insecure young girl to a successful esthetician and owner of a popular clinic sought out by celebrities.

The core of Somerville’s method rests on her Skin Pyramid, which consists of protecting, hydrating, stimulating, feeding, and detoxing the skin as a way of achieving a healthy complexion. The author describes various skin problems such as Sun Damage, Melasma, Pigmentation, Acne, Scarring, Redness, Rosacea, and Aging, and proceeds to offer helpful advice on how to address these issues.

Daily skin care includes the right diet (food and supplements) as well as adequate treatments for the skin. The treatments range from laser/light to injectables to pharmaceutical products to professional peels. Though most of these treatments are too expensive for the average person, Somerville states that there’s something for every budget. Particularly informative is the section on ingredients found in different products, what to look for and what to avoid depending on one’s skin type. Toward the end of the book there are many before-and-after photos highlighting the various skin types and issues mentioned.

Complexion Perfection is written in an engaging, interesting style. The prose is light and straightforward, making this book an easy read. The author’s approach is encouraging and motivational, giving the reader the feeling that healthy skin is accessible to everyone who follows her advice, tips, and suggestions. This reviewer particularly enjoyed the chapter on diet and supplements, as well as the author’s list of top 15 beneficial foods for the skin. Readers interested in how to improve their complexion will find this book useful.

Reviewer Mayra Calvani writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. Her nonfiction work, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, was a ForeWord Best Book of the Year Award winner. She’s had over 300 stories, articles, interviews, and reviews published.

White Heat by Brenda Novak

2010-07-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

(Harlequin, July 27, 2010)

Fans of Brenda Novak’s romantic suspense stories will not be disappointed by this her latest novel, White Heat.

This time the author takes the reader on an exciting, dangerous adventure in the town of Paradise, Arizona, where a fearsome, charismatic new leader named Ethan Wycliff has set up his own cult in the middle of the desert.

A young woman and former cult member has disappeared, and Department 6’s private security agents Rachel Jessop and Nate Ferrentino are called to the case. Rachel would rather, much rather go on her own. After all, not only does she find Nate distractingly attractive, but she also doesn’t want to be reminded each minute of her existence of the humiliating situation she experienced with him six months before. Nate, on the other hand, doesn’t think she should be assigned to the case. He believes it is too dangerous.

Posing as a young married couple, Rachel and Nate go undercover and try to infiltrate the group. Soon, the true nature of the cult begins to reveal itself: its primitive, patriarchal views and, especially, its shocking views about marriage and relationships. As danger escalates, and the number of missing members rises, the couple must put aside their personal feelings in order bring the crazy leader and his helpers to justice.

The story is told from two points of view: Rachel’s and Nate’s. Novak keeps the description to a minimum and focuses on dialogue and action scenes, making the novel move at a fast pace. As in other of Novak’s books, the characters are incredibly sympathetic in spite of their flaws—exhibited especially through the natural, entertaining dialogue. The constant bantering between the hero and heroine is fun and adds a touch of humor to the frightening scenes. Of course, the relationship between the protagonists is explosive, so fans of romance won’t be disappointed.

Novak has a gift for building compelling plots and creating characters the reader will identify with and care about. White Heat is pure entertainment from start to finish.

Reviewer Mayra Calvani writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. Her nonfiction work, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, was a ForeWord Best Book of the Year Award winner. She’s had over 300 stories, articles, interviews, and reviews published.

The Opposite Field by Jesse Katz

2010-07-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

(Three Rivers Press, July 13, 2010)

“Better bring your own redemption when you come/
To the barricades of Heaven where I’m from . . .”
—Jackson Browne

“Some nights I think, just maybe, I have found the place I belong.”
—Jesse Katz

There are probably just three groups of people who will be attracted to this memoir by Jesse Katz—parents, baseball fans, and those who love the greater city of Los Angeles. No, make it four groups, as nomads must be included. Nomads in this case being defined to include those who were born and grew up in one part of the United States but found their true, instinctual home in another part of the country.

Jesse Katz is one of those nomads but in his case it was genetic. His parents met and were married in Brooklyn, but felt the need to move a million miles west to Portland, Oregon. This was the pre-hip Portland, a city of mostly white persons before it became the ultra-cool city that attracted Californians—a city with a bookstore so big that it requires a map to find one’s way around inside it.

Author Katz grew up in a humble apartment complex near downtown Portland’s Chinatown, his father a suffering artist and later a professor at Portland State. Katz’ mother was a late bloomer, a Robert F. Kennedy inspired feminist-activist who eventually was elected to the State Legislature, then became the first woman selected as Speaker of the Assembly before becoming a two-term Mayor of the Rose City.

But this is Katz’ story which describes his escape from Portland as a teen, moving to the wilds of Los Angeles, a city that he so accurately describes as the anti-Portland. In L.A. Katz—“a white boy”—found that, “I had become a minority, the exception . . . I was a curiosity even. God how I loved it! Los Angeles . . . Where had you been my whole life?”

Katz first lives north of downtown before he moves to the multicultural community of Monterey Park. Monterey Park, a city of taco stands, noodle shops, and Mexican restaurants, bereft of national retailers, in which the local 7-Eleven sells the Chinese Daily News. There he burrows into the Hispanic-Asian suburb (yet an independent city) just seven miles east of downtown L.A.’s skyscrapers. And he finds a new life that centers around the seemingly minor sport of Little League baseball.

Katz, a reporter by profession, becomes the Little League coach of a team that plays at the La Loma fields in Monterey Park, coaching a team that includes his son Max. Max, unlike his father, is himself multicultural, the product of his Jewish father and Nicaraguan mother. The game of baseball as played by children may not seem to offer great lessons, but Katz comes to find the truth as expressed by writer John Tunis: “Courage is all baseball. And baseball is all life; that’s why it gets under your skin.”

The game gets under Katz’ skin to the point where he agrees to serve as the Commissioner of Baseball for the multi-age league centered at La Loma. This means that every waking moment for several years, not devoted to reporting on gangs for the Los Angeles Times or writing about the city for Los Angeles magazine, is reserved to keeping the league afloat. It is, in many respects, serious business but also fun . . . “I could not escape the feeling that Little League was like summer camp for adults, a reprieve from whatever drudgery or disorder was besetting our regular lives, a license to care about things, about events and people, that otherwise would have passed us by.”

Katz wisely chooses to omit little of the successes and failures that he encountered, both as “The Commish” and as the single father of a teenage son. This is a look back at a life lived both large and small, and a look at a city, Los Angeles, that embraces the people that make up its communities. Yes, the city and its suburbs embrace its citizens in a fashion that is far more real than the media’s myths of L.A.’s violence and tawdriness.

This reader, who lived in L.A. and learned to love it (and was embraced by it), would love to raise a toast to Jesse Katz (AKA Chuy Gato). Perhaps one day he will let me buy him a beer at the Venice Room in Monterey Park (“the seamy cocktail lounge that sooner or later everyone ended up at . . .”). A toast to greater L.A., the barricades of Heaven—a place to which we were not born, a place we discovered before it was too late.

Reviewer Joseph Arellano has worked as a government Public Information Officer, and has done pre-publication review and editing work for a publisher based in England. His book critiques have appeared in several publications including San Francisco Book Review.

The Berenstain Bears and the Haunted House by Jan and Mike Berenstain

2010-07-27T00:01:00.001-07:00

(HarperFestival, July 27, 2010)

The Berenstains’ latest release is a lift-the-flap book designed for young children, ages two to six. This whimsical paperback with colorful illustrations takes the young child on a journey into the unknown. Each page offers a flap or “door” for children to explore another scene.

Brother and Sister Bear's kitty, Gracie, is lost and the two decide to search for her inside the haunted house on Spook Hill. Peering behind the shutters, they go inside, search upstairs behind a full-length mirror, into cupboards, behind curtains, and in the dumbwaiter, but are unable to find Gracie.

Next, they enter a huge room, glance inside a suit of armor, wander into the library, and finally enter a room where they find Gracie sitting on the lap of the homeowner, Missus Grizzus. Missus Grizzus welcomes the Bear siblings into her home and offers them pie, which they decline.

As they depart with their precious Gracie, the two children agree that their precognitions of the old house as being haunted proved wrong. Once their love for their kitty supersedes their fear as they search for her, they also learn that the owner of the house, whom they believed was frightening as well, is, in fact, a warm and friendly older woman.

Some readers may consider that this tale might imply to young children that it is okay go into unknown or frightening places. However, this reviewer feels this charming story can offer parents and teachers a chance to educate children about certain unfamiliar dangers, as well as offer them confidence about the world in which they live.

Reviewer Nancy Carty Lepri is the author of a children’s chapter book, Tiny Angel, and is an illustrator and freelance editor.

Dragongirl by Todd McCaffrey

2010-07-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

(Del Rey, July 27, 2010)

Reading the Pern books isn’t like it was when Anne McCaffrey wrote them.

While it’s good to see the world still telling us its stories, Todd just doesn’t have his mother’s gift for clear and emotionally entangling writing: Dragongirl reads alternately like a weird YA version of the series and overambitious fanfiction making it difficult to get through. And then, all at once about three quarters of the way through, it’s like the book finally finds its feet. It feels more defined, the word choices change and become more varied, and, somehow, it ends on a triumphant and tragic note worthy of the series.

This is Todd McCaffrey’s sixth book, and the third one written solo as he’s taken over the series, but so much of it reads like a muddled first novel. There are numerous conversations involving too many people with too-similar names who all talk with the same inflections and word choices, regardless of their differing histories.

A lot of the physical action doesn’t make sense, sometimes because it feels like important parts are missing, sometimes because it’s like people have access to information they shouldn’t know and reach conclusions that aren’t logical. Most of the characters are young, some extremely so, but there’s little behavioral difference between them and the older characters they interact with.

There are glimmers throughout of the solid story this book is built around—new young Weyrwoman Fiona has to hold the dragonriders together as their numbers fall and hope seems increasingly lost—but in those first three quarters of the book, those glimmers only serve to point out that so much of the book is lost in blurry events, sometimes nonsensical logic, unexplained references to past events that rely too heavily on a strong and recent reading of the previous books, a vast cast with little to define or differentiate them, and a cloud of action tags that consist almost entirely of nods and running. It’s irritating to read, to say the least.

Even so, there’s heart there. Fiona makes sense and manages to be quite likable, even as she mopes over a functioning polyamorous relationship and manhandles everyone into the positions she wants them in so the story can continue. Kindan and Lorana are beautifully tragic, and T’Mar is charming and interesting. All the other characters that seem so important in the beginning—Xhinna, Terin, all the little girls introduced throughout the first half—wind up superfluous by the end. The point of the story is that the only way to save Pern is to do the unthinkable, and by the end, the main characters are strong enough and clever enough to do it . . . it just takes a hideously long time to reach that point of clarity and cleverness.

After the conclusion, some of the failings are forgivable as many of the weirder plot points are the result of complicated time-travel and therefore only clarified when they reach the other half of the story, but even then, the most important one happens after the half-way point of the book, renering unnecessary much of the plot of the first half .

This is perhaps the middle of a new series of Pern books, and it jumps off directly from the last book and leads immediately into the next one: the classic downfall of every second movie in a trilogy, but not really acceptable in a book, where each volume, though carrying on the overarching storylines, should have a defined arc of its own. Halfway through, it felt as if it was all lost and that realization is almost enough to make a reader drop the book, because surely nothing they do can change the fact that we know how it will turn out. The best part of that surprising end is the revelation that there’s more to what’s going on than the characters are privy to . . . though it would have been nice if there were a bit more clarification to those of us who are reading it and can be told more than the characters know. Half the fun of reading is trying to figure out the story ourselves, and the hints were given at the wrong times.

There is this to be said, though: The ending is great, if too quickly resolved after the long buildup, and it more than reaches the goal of making this reader want to read the next one, which should, after all this set-up, get to the point much more quickly and be a better story.

All in all, Dragongirl is difficult to muddle through. It’s not the best in the series, but it’s a necessary setup for the next book. Let’s hope that one is a bit more satisfying.

Reviewer Samantha Holloway is a freelance writer and editor, and is working on her first novel. Her most recent short story is in Fiction International’s FREAK issue and an upcoming anthology, and her academic work has appeared in The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader, and at various conferences.

The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Los Angeles by Kevin R. McNamara

2010-07-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

(Cambridge University Press, June 30, 2010)

Not long after the City of the Queen of the Angels was founded, its many newcomers and its few natives lamented its decline. “The Anglo ‘invention’ of Los Angeles required a narrative of paradise lost as well as found.” William Alexander McClung’s summation echoes over the fifteen essays compiled here. Various critics agree. The myth of L.A. as a palm-shaded resort dissolves into a mirage of resigned disappointment more often than a desert-adjacent oasis where dreams come true.

Kevin R. McNamara introduces the common themes of desire and delusion that comprise the literary reactions to this coastal megalopolis, this arid sprawl, and this cosmopolitan confusion where no driver agrees upon how far Los Angeles spreads into the interior from its Pacific proximity. The difficulty with defining what is dully designated the “Southland” in media reports or the “L.A. Basin” in weather forecasts permeates the imaginary as well as real responses to its disturbingly potent allure.

Such a star-studded stage set was manufactured early on. Its fabled Mexican heritage with Ramona became a nineteenth-century commodity for gullible tourists and conniving boosters. Such utopian features of a citrus-blossomed, Spanish-style hacienda overshadowed those who spoke its fantasy script and kept its props stable. L.A.’s unreal glamour, as recorded by those visiting, clashes with those living here who fail to recognize the stereotypes. Often it takes an insider to note this dissonance. David Wyatt on mid-century fiction and Patrick O’Donnell on postwar L.A. enliven their essays with personal accounts of growing up in this changing city, most of whose sections rarely gain attention.

As David Wyatt asks: “Yet, who works”? Outside of Mildred Pierce, it appears that not many Angelenos do. Fiction trumped reality. Wyatt shows how Tinseltown versions of L.A. dominated the imagination as its writers—often turned screenwriters—churned out their own exposés. These, for over a century, have competed in the ways we view this city. Many novelists taking on L.A. today follow suit: They expect to sell their stories (often about movies) for the movies.

Chip Rhodes examines Hollywood fictions concerning this intertextuality; Mark Shiel surveys the Southland on screen. They explore the relationship between the older and the newer media. In a collection on literature of L.A., the lure of the story being distorted into a larger-than-life spectacle tugs against the fiction writer’s modest ambitions to get a tale simply published and read.

As writers competed for attention, their ranks grew. Charles Scruggs studies the African-American contribution. Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress presents a familiar archetype. “The poorest man has a car in Los Angeles; he might not have a roof over his head but he has a car. And he knows where he’s going too.” But as Wanda Coleman shows in her story “Hamburgers,” a character who lives on fast food so he can keep up payments on an unaffordable set of wheels may not survive this pressure to hang on to his car—even if it must become his home. Kicked out after falling behind on his rent, he learns a hidden truth. “Los Angeles may promise the world, but the last thing it provides is spiritual nourishment.”

Postwar L.A., Mark Shiel explains, promoted films that confront the loss of open space and the squalor of stucco. Too many veterans and their families arrived to sniff the orange blossoms; these were chopped down for tract homes. Across a hundred miles of housing, “automobile use became unnervingly routine or compensatory for some sort of psychological lack.” Film noir churned out angst; countercultural entertainment pumped up sex, drugs, and sun as hedonistic remedies for such anxiety.

Science fiction countered this attitude as postwar writers and filmmakers reveled in catastrophes that leveled pleasure palaces. “The literature of urban rebellion” full of strikebreakers and then looters darkened distant hottub or surf-splashed vistas. Meanwhile, inner city or modest suburbs languished as rarely explored—at least rarely in the poems, novels, or films garnering a wider audience. James Kyung-Jin Lee alerts readers to a city many outside of L.A. may not recognize, where a Redondo Beach fish market’s Latino workers speak in Korean to tourists from Seoul arriving at the pier not far from LAX airport.

This multicultural city earns coverage in most essays, most likely by virtue of its scarcity from earlier texts as well as its later presence. Yet, this reviewer noted a slight dissonance here. Essayists all use “Justice Riots” for the 1992 “uprising” following the Rodney King verdict. As a native of Los Angeles, who the night this “civil unrest” exploded had to evacuate my adult-school students from the South-Central campus where I taught, I never have heard “Justice Riots” used by my colleagues, my students, or anybody within earshot. This term may be favored by those in elite or progressive settings. However, “Justice” rather than “Rodney King” or “1992 riots” has never entered the vocabulary of the diverse Angelenos with whom I live, work, and socialize.

That being said, most contributors, in spite of their professorial status, manage to write efficient, readable prose that conveys a command of the essential books and films that cover their specialty. The Californios, British expatriates and German exiles, Asian and Latino interactions, sleuths, and nature all earn their own chapters. Sections often suffer from a compression that leans more toward plot summary rather than explications of key passages. (Charles Scruggs by examining Walter Mosley’s excerpts handles this coverage well). Some entries nod too much toward the three surveyors whom anyone familiar with L.A. on the page already knows: Carey McWilliams, Joan Didion, and Mike Davis.

Therefore, Eric Avila’s cautionary note about Davis’ influential (at least in elite or progressive settings) but binary, either/or emphasis was welcome. Davis views class war as the fundamental perspective. “For all of its insight or depth, City of Quartz proffers an analysis that remains bounded by the subjective limitations of a white-male Marxism that slights the salience of race in a deeply racialized metropolis.”

Avila’s own chapter on essayists ends by glancing at complexity and nuance as necessary factors in judging this region. Urbanists and critics, alongside novelists and screenwriters, tend to sell us what we expect from a too-familiar L.A. As exemplified by James Kyung-Jin Lee’s nimble juxtaposition of Asian-American and Latino encounters, may this volume encourage a more diverse, and more honest, reaction to the real Los Angeles that defies as often as it defines fictional responses on page and on screen.

Reviewer John L. Murphy coordinates the Humanities sequence at DeVry University in Long Beach, CA. He researches medieval and modern literary, religious, and popular culture.

The I Hate to Cook Book: 50th Anniversary Edition by Peg Bracken and Johanna Bracken

2010-07-26T00:01:00.001-07:00

(Grand Central Publishing, July 26, 2010)

Long Before Food Network personalities Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee showed us how to turn out worthy meals in record time, there was Peg Bracken, an over-stressed working mother who unapologetically wrote The I Hate to Cook Book in 1960. With a healthy dose of humor, she set out to convince women that with the help of a few ready-made ingredients like frozen vegetables, canned soup, and onion soup mix, you could whip up a meal in no time and not miss out on the cocktail hour.

Now, 50 years later, and just in time for the new season of “Mad Men” (the popular TV series which takes place in the early 1960s) we are being treated to the 50th anniversary edition of this once popular cookbook which offers a (sometimes horrifying) glimpse into the way we once cooked and ate. Make no mistake, when it comes to the evolution of American cooking and gender roles, we’ve come a long way.

Back in 1960 it didn’t matter whether you liked to cook or not, if you were a woman, the cooking fell to you. The I Hate to Cook Book was written “for those of us who want to fold our big dishwater hands around a dry Martini instead of a wet flounder, come the end of a long day.” It was born out of “a luncheon with several good friends, all of whom hate to cook but have to. For variety’s sake, we decided to pool our ignorance, tell each other our shabby little secrets, and toss in the pot the recipes we swear by instead of at.”

For sheer entertainment value, the recipes in this book cannot be beat. Whether you were raised in the 1960s, cooked during the 1960s or just want to know what Don and Betty Draper of “Mad Men” are eating, The I Hate to Cook Book will either leave you chuckling in recognition or shaking your head in utter amazement. Here is a sampling of what’s in store:

Cancan Casserole, described as “the easiest tuna casserole that ever happened,” is made with (you guessed it) canned ingredients like evaporated milk, cream-style corn, and tuna along with eggs, green pepper, and grated onion. The instructions tell you to “pour it all into a buttered casserole dish and bake it, uncovered, at 325º for one hour.” Imagine, by the time you’ve finished opening all the cans and dumping everything into a casserole dish, your husband will have mixed and poured your martini! (Given that it takes a full hour to bake you’ll even have time for a second one—which you will need in order to fortify yourself for the meal you are about to eat). Now that’s a clever recipe.

Or how about this one for all of you whose mothers used to serve meatloaf (which was never made the same way twice): Swiss Loaf, described as a “somewhat more interesting sort of a meat loaf,” is made with hamburger, diced Swiss cheese, and the usual seasonings, milk, and bread crumbs. “Just mix these things [not ‘ingredients,’ but ‘things’] together in the approximate order they’re given, then press it all into one big greased loaf pan, or use two. Bake, uncovered, at 350º for about an hour and a half, then yodel for the family.” Pity the poor woman who used two loaf pans instead of one and cooked them for an hour and a half. Maybe that’s why Peg Bracken referred to it as a “sort of meat loaf.” A “sort of concrete brick” would have been more like it.

While she wrote the book ostensibly for women who hate to cook, Peg Bracken’s voice is that of every woman who feels the pressure of having to cook or entertain when she’d rather not. “A thing to beware of, when you hate to cook, is the taut, dogged approach when you’re faced with cooking for company,” she writes. “Listen: if, by some odd happenstance, you should put together a perfect little symphony of a dinner, with no slips or absent-minded moments, you might scare some of your female guests to the point where they’ll never invite you to their house!”

Her recipes may have been questionable, but her advice was rock solid. The I Hate to Cook Book went on to sell three million copies and Peg Bracken went on to become a spokesperson for Birds Eye frozen food. Because of Peg Bracken, women everywhere started to give themselves permission to get out of the kitchen and get on with their lives. For that, we all owe her a debt of gratitude.

Fortunately for all of us, however, Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and Craig Claiborne’s The New York Times Cookbook would be published a year later and we would thankfully move on to better recipes.

Reviewer Penny Pleasance studied cooking under Henri Lévi at his New York cooking school, La Cuisine Sans Peur and has also studied cooking in Brussels and Tuscany. She has lived or worked in New York, London, Brussels, and Strasbourg, France, and has been a cooking enthusiast since she picked up her mother’s copy of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1978.

Emilio Pucci by Armando Chitolina, Vanessa Friedman, and Alessandra Arezzi Boza

2010-07-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

(Taschen America, July 26, 2010)

Emilio Pucci is not only a limited edition book, but also a comprehensive study of one of the world’s greatest, yet under-appreciated, international designers of the 20th century.

This exquisite volume traces the history, both personal and professional, of this iconoclastic Italian designer who broke the barriers of fashion as well as those of his regal lineage. In a 400-page paean to Emilio Pucci, even the most seasoned fashionista will learn that Marquis Pucci was ahead of his time when it comes to many of the unimaginable trends that would materialize during the last part of the 20th century and into the 21st.

The genius of this designer is described via quotes of his clients, family, fellow designers, and some of the most influential fashion editors of our times. One cannot overlook comparisons to the well-known greats such as St. Laurent, nor can one ignore the brilliance that might have influenced a young Philip Treacy or possibly even Giorgio Sant’Angelo.

The Marquis was prolific and saw the future of sportswear long before we did in the USA. His sense of color was unparalleled, and yet there is no red in the kaleidoscopic vocabulary of Pucci. He saw silhouettes, fabrications, accessories, and manipulations that would not gain popularity for many years to come. There were “coolie hats,” capri pants, wrap waists, spandex, caftans, harem pants, technologies, body suits, scarf print shirts, embroideries—and most of all his prints. It would be difficult to pinpoint any one designer who might have been “the originator” of so many trends that would come and go during the 60 years that followed the start of the Emilio Pucci design philosophy.

Polly Mellon said, “Because of the focus on the sun and the sea and your skin, it had this incredible magnetism. Men went crazy over those clothes on a woman. The way those clothes draped on the body and clung to you!”

Peter Dundas (the current designer for the brand) states: “There is no question travel and foreign countries are key components in Pucci’s DNA, past and present. The brand has always been about easy, travel friendly products both visually and technically; I think people who wear monochromatic clothes for everyday free their spirit when travelling. I think the brand should symbolize a freedom, which is expressed in its international appeal.”

Keep in mind that Emilio Pucci explored every aspect of fashion and was a pioneer in the brand-extension empires that came later during the second half of the 20th century. He had handbags and jewelry and hats, ski wear, intimate apparel, home fashions and fabrics, and even uniforms. And keep in mind that his notoriety has lasted for over 60 years with no sign of abatement—a legacy that few can boast of in the annals of fashion history.

Rarely can one recommend ownership of such an exquisite volume, but in this instance there is beauty here for anyone who might have the slightest interest in fashion as well as for the most devoted fashionista or fashion historian.

Reviewer Jeffrey Felner is a columnist in Woman 2 Woman Magazine: Fashion by the Rules, and continues a long and successful career in jewelry and fashion design and merchandising.

Lingering Spirit by Marilyn Meredith

2010-07-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

(Oak Tree Press, May 17, 2010)

Marilyn Meredith captures the essence of an untimely death in her paranormal romance, Lingering Spirit. Police officer Steve Ainsworth is gunned down during a routine traffic stop. His 28-year-old widow, Nicole, is left alone with their two daughters, first grader Kimberly and four-year-old Sarah. However, hearing the doorbell ring at 3:00 A.M. wasn’t entirely unexpected.  

Four months earlier, Steve had experienced a premonition. He foresaw his death on the job. To escape this fate, he moved the family from the heavily populated city of Channel Harbor to the secluded wilderness of Quail Meadow. But he never anticipated that the violence he envisioned would become his destiny regardless of location.  

Meredith does an excellent job depicting the series of events that family members endure immediately following the loss of a loved one. Co-workers and neighbors filling the house. The funeral home negotiations. The lack of sleep. The mental fog. The arrival of out-of-town relatives. The bending to the point of breaking. Yet Nicole’s grief isn’t limited to burial preparations and the acceptance of condolences. She is visited by Steve from beyond the grave.

Nicole experiences moments with Steve that are similar to those of Sandra Bullock’s character in the movie, Premonition:

Finally, she drifted off into a troubled sleep. “Nicky.” Steve nuzzled her neck. Good. He was home. She turned over and he kissed her, his lips warm and sweet - the kiss a promise of lovemaking to come. “Mmmm, Steve.” She held out her arms to him, but nothing was there. And then she remembered, Steve was dead. But it had seemed so real. She heard his voice, felt him touch her, kiss her. But it wasn’t possible.

The incidents increase in frequency. Dresser drawers open and close. Books fall to the floor. Lights are turned off and on. While in their beds, the children see their father bend down and kiss them. After Nicole shares what is going on with her father, they both witness an armchair move. Her father goes on to say, “Unless he’s trying to tell you something, trying to get you to do something. Maybe he just can’t leave until he can make you understand what it is he wants you to do.” This explanation is similar to the one in the cult classic, Ghost, starring Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze.  

Nicole decides to move back to Channel Harbor.

Though she didn’t know what it meant, the rappings, bangings, and furniture moving ceased. She no longer felt as though someone followed her. Hopefully, whatever had been holding Steve back had released him. But she couldn’t help wondering if the feverish energy she expended in the packing had driven him away. Maybe he was upset with her decision.

Purchasing an older home, she slowly tries to rebuild her life for the sake of her children. However, things don’t go smoothly.

Longing for Steve had become a part of her existence. Neither time nor activity lessened the ache. She heard a bang, and raised up her elbow. Frowning she listened intently. It happened again, a noise she recognized. Staring into the shadowed corner of the room, she watched as the big highboy that had once been Steve’s but now held her sweaters, T-shirts, and jeans, rocked violently back and forth. That hadn’t happened since she’d moved back to Channel Harbor.

This would definitely be a case for Jason and Grant of the SyFy Channel’s “Ghost Hunters.  ”

Nicole’s father offers an alternate possibility. “Because you haven’t experienced any of these goings on since moving here, perhaps it’s another ghost making itself known . . . a ghost of someone who used to live in this house.” But Nicole disagrees with his assessment: “Because, I’m not frightened. If it was a ghost I didn’t know, surely I’d get some bad vibes . . . but I didn’t. It was just like all the times things happened in Quail Meadow.” Yet her father persists, saying, “But it isn’t natural for a spirit to hang around this world for such a long time.” Nicole counters, “I don’t know. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Maybe eventually he’ll do something that will help me understand.”  

Steve is trying to tell Nicole something. This final message upends the life she thought she would lead after his death. A connection is established to someone who has recently entered her life—a person who will reshape the outlook of her future in a way she never imagined.  

Meredith is a master of characterization. She fully rounds out the facets of her protagonists’ personalities and richly develops the details of the supporting cast. She does not hit any false notes with her dialogue and builds strong relationships among her characters. She realistically describes what a young widow would go through following the tragic death of her husband.  

Overall, uncovering why this spirit lingers is an incredibly moving experience.

Reviewer Nicole Langan owns the independent publishing house, Tribute Books.

Book of Shadows by Alexandra Sokoloff

2010-07-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

(St. Martin’s Press, June 8, 2010)

Book of Shadows, the fourth novel by award-winning author Alexandra Sokoloff, straddles the blood-red line between supernatural horror stories and ubiquitous serial killer thrillers. It’s a clever, ambiguous way to cross genres and entice more readers from both camps.

The opening scene of the story is a well-researched and believable police procedural. Boston homicide detectives Adam Garrett and Carl Landauer are investigating a decapitated, handless body of a young woman found at the dump. A mysterious symbol carved into her body suggests to them that the murder may have occult motivations. And what do you know—the dead girl turns out to be a member of one of Boston’s wealthiest families.

If that sounds like too many books you have already read and too many movies you have already seen, Sokoloff has a few surprises ahead. Not until a few chapters later does anything remotely supernatural occur in the book, which gives the author a chance to weave together both a realistic police investigation and some not so realistic horror.

Garrett is a hardass cop who tends to fall into bed with women he works with. Garrett doesn’t believe in the supernatural at all—he’s seen too many acts of horror committed by run-of-the-mill bad guys. Predictably, his partner, Landauer, starts being nudged out of the story as soon as an enticing new female character appears.

Tanith Cabarrus is a self-professed witch who tantalizes Garrett with her Stevie Nicks fashion sense and her self-possessed charm. Against his own better judgment, Garrett starts working with her to find out whether the crazed, Goth kid they charged with the girl’s murder is in fact the killer, or whether this case is all part of a series of murders that are being committed by forces of darkness.

In spite of the best intentions of the book to establish credibility for the way the case is being investigated, the first half of the book plods along with minimal action or drama, and only tantalizes the reader with the promise of more to follow. This is mainly because the story is told in a linear fashion almost entirely from Garrett’s point of view. Like Garrett, we’re forced to wait impatiently for the layers to peel and the plot to unfold.

In spite of the ambiguity in the plot between the realistic and the paranormal, the author clearly wants us to believe in Tanith and the supernatural; but Tanith borders on one-dimensional—she is always virtuous, always noble and long-suffering, and always unfairly accused by others. Even when Garrett finds out some unsavory details about her past, it’s hard not to sympathize with her . . . but it feels a little manipulative, too.

That said, Sokoloff’s focus on these two pivotal characters allowed them to be developed well enough that fans of the novel may hope the author will bring them back again for another installment.

Reviewer Garth Von Buchholz is an author of dark fiction, poetry, drama and nonfiction. He is also the editor of Dark Eye Glances, a poetry journal. His new book of poetry, Mad Shadows, was published in June this year.

And One Last Thing by Molly Harper

2010-07-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

(Gallery Books, July 23, 2010)

There is nothing more frightening than a woman scorned, especially if said woman also has access to the Internet and boasts a very colorful vocabulary to boot.

In Molly Harper’s latest work, And One Last Thing, Lacey Terwilliger is that woman. She is not only scorned but also betrayed and humiliated by the man she trusted most in the entire world. Lacey’s husband Mike has been cheating on her with his slutty, buxom, tanning-bed addicted administrative assistant, Beebee, and apparently everyone in town knew, everyone except his wife. Needless to say, Beebee has been assisting in matters beyond the reception desk.

After witnessing evidence of the affair first-hand, Lacey finds her revenge in sending out the seasonal company newsletter—only instead of accounting updates and quirky facts about the business, she details the sordid affair in graphic detail for all to read.

And One Last Thing is a book about the satisfaction of getting the ultimate revenge by getting the last word. But what if the last word isn’t what’s important.? What if that last word comes back to bite you?

Exploring the idea of whether revenge is sweet or bittersweet when a woman takes back her life after a terrible betrayal, Harper has created a book that is impossible to put down. Filled with laugh-out-loud situations, an unforgettably feisty protagonist, and the author’s signature sarcastic dialogue, the book begs to be read by every woman who has ever considered revenge on a partner.

With a cast of characters that are impossible not to fall in love with, and a male love interest built like a super hero, And One Last Thing has everything you need for a terrific read that satisfies all a woman might dream of while executing the ultimate revenge—with a few life lessons tossed in the mix.

In her first work beyond her Nice Girls series, Harper has truly hit a home run with her first foray into fiction without fangs. This reader’s last word would have to be: Bravo!

Reviewer Courtney Webb is a former librarian and reviewer for Charlotte Mecklenburg County Public Library Reader’s Club and Book Hive: A Guide to Children’s Literature and Books.

The Shadows (The Books of Elsewhere, Vol. 1) by Jacqueline West

2010-07-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

(Dial, June 30, 2010) 

What do you find when you place a curious girl in a house full of secrets? Olive Dunwoody is an awkward and clumsy eleven-year-old girl who moves into a ghostly old mansion with her parents, who are more absorbed in their own mathematical lives than with Olive, leaving her frequently alone. The house was once owned by a Ms. McMartin who has recently died, leaving behind her many secrets—secrets that Olive is determined to uncover.

The McMartins’ outcast family had lived in the house for years, their goings-on hidden from the neighbors. The Dunwoodys have bought the house for a good price, making it their first real home, as they have always lived in apartments. When moving in, the Dunwoodys keep the dead woman’s belongings in the house, removing nothing, mixing it up with a few of their own belongings. This allows bored Olive to do some exploring while learning about the history of the McMartins. She cannot believe what she discovers.

There is no mistake that something peculiar is going on when Olive meets three talking cats who are protecting her from an unknown evil that wants the house back—and is willing to do anything to get it. Among Olive’s discoveries are a pair of glasses that were once Ms. McMartin’s. When Olive puts on the glasses she discovers another world. The glasses manage to bring many things to life—especially antique paintings, which talk and move. The glasses also allow Olive to travel back and forth into the twenty-plus paintings that are secured so tightly to the walls as to be irremovable parts of the creepy house.

Despite the cats’ warnings, Olive becomes careless. On one wandering trip Olive meets an annoying boy named Morton who is trapped in the painting world and cannot get out. Olive is determined to know why. She also wants to find out who wants the house back and is willing to destroy her and her family to get it. The answer is in the evil shadows that lurk in the dark and in the paintings. What Olive finds will not only test her resolve, but will also uncover a family’s lost history—a history better left undiscovered.

The Shadows is a well-written debut book by Jacqueline West that offers many fantasy elements to intrigue the reader. The storyline is similar to the 100 Cupboards because of the paintings that lead to other places, and the Spiderwick Chronicles because of the glasses that can make things come to life. Ms. West has a wonderful and funny writing style that will delight the target audience.

The story does start off slowly, not sucking the reader into it until past chapter five where it begins to exhibit more action. Once the action really takes off—closer to the middle of the book—it is hard to put down. Because of the fantasy elements, the story does become dark. It also mentions witches—a subject that some parents may not approve of their children reading about. Yet the less puritan will enjoy the magical elements in the story.

Overall, this 256-page book for middle-school readers between the ages of 9–12 was a good read. The few illustrations helped the reader visualize what Olive was seeing or going through. The glasses were the only jarring anachronism. An older woman’s ancient glasses should not fit Olive’s face so perfectly nor seem so modern and fashionable, considering that the shenanigans of the old paintings have been occurring for over a hundred years.

Reviewer Renee Hand is the award-winning author of The Crypto-Capers series for children. Look for her new release, The Adventures of Joe-Joe Nut and Biscuit Bill, The Great Pie Catastrophe.

Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery by Stephen J. Pyne

2010-07-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

(Viking, July 22, 2010)

This is a book that aims to set the West’s exploration of the Solar System in its historical context. Pyne, a historian at Arizona State University, has an “organizing conceit” for looking at this context based around three broad ages of discovery.

The first began with the great voyages of discovery by Renaissance explorers of the fifteenth century and was led off by Portugal. The second began in the Enlightenment, when mid-eighteenth century Britain and France led the way with scientific expeditions to measure the transit of Venus and measure an arc of the meridian. The third Great Age kicked off in the mid-twentieth century, tackling the exploration of the last great wildernesses of Earth—the Antarctic and the oceans—and space. Driven at first by the cold war, the great voyages that mark this new age of discovery are marked by technological sophistication to the point where the explorers themselves are often robots.

Whether we accept Pyne’s categories or not does not matter much. The framework provides the author with a means to explore many parallels and similarities he finds between the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Modern worlds and the West’s attitudes toward the three great motives for pursuing these difficult, dangerous, and expensive voyages: discovery for its own sake, the ability to do science that you can’t do at home, and finding new worlds for people to colonize or exploit.

What results is a broad and sweeping investigation of the very nature of exploration, with the larger-than-life adventure of the two Voyager spacecraft’s “grand tour” of the Solar System to give it all shape and direction.

After the introductory chapters, which do an excellent job of setting the ground for the three Great Ages and the Voyagers’ role in the present Great Age, Pyne follows the journey of the two robot explorers from their launches in 1977 to the present day and beyond. The only way it was possible to slingshot these spacecraft to the outer reaches of the Solar System, through the heliopause and out into interstellar space, was to take advantage of a once in 176-year alignment of the outer planets.

That the science and technology, as well as the political and social climates were just right at just this moment made this amazing, 33-year (and counting) voyage perhaps the defining journey of exploration of our age. Long years of cruising between planets, punctuated by brief and frantic encounters as each ship swings around a planet and moves on, gives the book its structure and its style, activity and reflection, leading us step by step into the future. As Pyne puts it, the book is “an interpretive history whose internal rhythms mimic those that led to Voyager’s launch and journey.”

We meet a number of characters along the way, not just the key figures in the Voyager mission, including a succession of project leaders and technical specialists, and key figures like Michael Minovitch, Gary Landro, and Carl Sagan, but also the explorers of previous Great Ages: Magellan, da Gama, Columbus, Cooke, Lewis and Clarke, Shackleton, and many others.

But the people are essentially incidental to the story. This is a history book and rarely dwells on individual stories. Institutions and nations also appear. Portugal’s struggle with Morocco, the USA’s struggle with the Soviet Union, JPL’s struggle with NASA, the Royal Society’s competition with the Paris Academy of Science—all provide the impetus to the great waves of exploration, discovery and, sometimes, colonization.

It is a book that leaves no stone unturned as Pyne’s focus moves from one aspect of exploration to another—the naming of newly-discovered places, the treatment of space exploration (and especially the fantasy of colonization) in science fiction, the legal treatment of new worlds, the people who speak out for and against exploration.

Sometimes the comparisons between the Voyager mission and earlier explorations are interesting and instructive. Pyne’s discussions of the political and social, even the psychological bases for exploration are often fascinating. Sometimes they verge on the bizarre, as when he compares the physical dimensions of the Voyager craft with those of Lewis and Clarke’s nineteenth century keelboat, and Columbus’s caravel Niña.

While the writing is generally precise and very nicely done, Pyne has a small tendency to sound overblown and somewhat poetical (e.g., “[Voyager’s] trajectory has the arc of a hero’s quest.”) In his defense, he has taken on a huge and quite magnificent subject, and a little exuberance in the writing should probably be forgiven. Even when he swings the other way, rattling off transmission bit-rates, speeds, distances, and broadcast signal strengths, he uses technical terms with complete confidence and clearly understands the engineering, the communications jargon, and the celestial mechanics he is talking about.

Yet there is only so much that can be done with words. As Pyne himself says, “The Voyagers spoke to the public primarily through images, for which words served more as captions than as stand-alone texts.” So it is extremely odd that the book contains not one single image from among all the thousands that the Voyagers sent back to Earth. All we get are a few (simply drawn) diagrams and graphs in an appendix. It is true that many of the Voyager images Pyne talks about are so well known that anyone who has been watching the news for the past 30 years will recognize many of them. Yet the lack of images is a striking and unfortunate omission.

Voyager is a thoughtful and reflective book in which Pyne brings a wide and frequently detailed knowledge to bear on one of our more interesting human traits: the urge to explore. It is not the book to look in for the human faces of the people who discovered and dissected new worlds. It is a book that considers the broader sweep of history in counterpoint to the detailed technical, scientific, social, and political minutiae of this one, exceptional voyage.

Reviewer Graham Storrs is a former research scientist and software designer who now writes science fiction. He is the author of TimeSplash, a near-future sci-fi thriller, available from Lyrical Press.

The Philosophy of Horror, Edited by Thomas Fahy

2010-07-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

(The University Press of Kentucky, April 30, 2010)

If you’re a horror enthusiast and have often wondered what makes horror so popular and what compels people to watch it or read it in spite of the fear it creates, then you’ll enjoy this collection of original essays edited by Thomas Fahy.

In his introduction, Fahy quotes Stephen King: “The worst has been faced and it wasn’t so bad after all.” This feeling is often experienced by horror fans. When you watch a horror film, you might feel fear, anxiety, threat, and even repulsion, but these are replaced by a feeling of relief when the film is finished and you walk out of the cinema into the “safety” of broad daylight. Fahy compares this sensation to the thrill of a roller coaster ride. Such is the seductive power that horror holds for some people.

The Philosophy of Horror explores film, literature, and television and tries to answer complex questions such as: What is horror? What is good about it? Is it morally right to enjoy a horror film that depicts sadism, torture, and murder? Can torture ever be justified, and can the audience’s enjoyment of torture ever be justified? Why are horror films usually so graphic? Is it only because of their shock value?

The answers presented by the various writers are fascinating, revealing and insightful. The reader will be glad to find out that enjoying a horror film doesn’t necessarily mean condoning the violence, and as Jeremy Morris suggests in one of the essays, the audience’s response is merely an acknowledgment “that an empathetic person can share in the pleasure of both moral and immoral acts.”

The book explores old classic movies like Psycho and The Birds, recent torture films such as Saw, Hostel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Devil’s Rejects, as well as reality television shows, among others. In doing so, some of the horror plots are examined in relation to other topics such as terrorism, retribution, justice, the concept of the family unit, and Kantian philosophy.

In his essay, “Through a Mirror Darkly,” Phillip Tallon argues that the value of horror is in “how well it can inform and enlighten our vision of the world by reminding us of our inner moral frailty and by forcing us to take seriously the moral reality of evil.” He also suggests that part of the enjoyment of horror is that it is a communal experience. Often horror movies are watched by a group of friends and/or in the collective setting of a movie theater. When an unexpected scary part arrives, everybody jumps in their seats and gasps at the same time.

Frankenstein, vampires, and zombies are also discussed, though this reviewer did not find the essays relating to them as engrossing as the first ones dealing with the topics mentioned above.

The Philosophy of Horror is an intelligently written, perceptive, engrossing work that attempts to answer many disturbing questions. The arguments are presented in a clear manner and are supported by appropriate examples. The writers include summaries of the various movies mentioned for those readers who aren’t familiar with them. There are a few black and white photos as well, though not many.

The Philosophy of Horror is recommended not only for enthusiasts of the genre, but also for anyone who has ever wondered why some people enjoy horror films. The book raises some questions about our own psyche worth pondering about.

Reviewer Mayra Calvani writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. Her nonfiction work, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, was a ForeWord Best Book of the Year Award winner. She’s had over 300 stories, articles, interviews, and reviews published.

The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction by Dean Young

2010-07-20T00:01:00.001-07:00

(Graywolf Press, July 20, 2010)

This is indeed a subversive book. In it Dean Young pushes the point that poetry is not a craft or a discipline or even a job: poetry is a compulsion. While there is crafting to be done once the dust settles, poetry comes from deep within; it is a visceral reaction to the world. For Young, poetry is the need to impose one’s self upon the world, to assert in the strongest possible terms what it means to be and to feel and to know.

Dean Young is a well-regarded poet in his own right. He has written nine collections of poetry including Primitive Memoir, Embryoyo, and Elegy on Toy Piano, which was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. He has been awarded the Colorado Prize for Poetry for Strike Anywhere, and has received a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. Young lists his occupation as poet, though in 2008 he became the William Livingston Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin.

The core of Young’s argument is that to deliberately set out to fulfill certain poetic or literary outcomes is to deny the inherent creativity of poetry. As suggested in the title, poetry for Dean Young is the intentional revelation of the unintended, the brave and reckless exposition of that which resides within us. He asserts that creativity is not a planned activity. The poet must always be ready to go where poem takes them: “At every moment the poet must be ready to abandon any prior intention in welcome expectation of what the poem is beginning to signal.” That is the essence of Young’s recklessness, to go where the path leads rather than planning the path to a specific destination.

Young has a number of literary references for his argument, including Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Whitman, Pound, and Eliot. He liberally accesses the perspective of the Dada and Surrealist movements, whose resistance to, or subversion of, accepted forms and subjects lend themselves to his theories. An example used in the text is Marcel Duchamp’s Trap. This is a four hooked coat rack which, despite its intended purpose, Duchamp has nailed to the floor. He explains as follows:

“A real coat hanger that I wanted sometime to put on the wall and hang my things on but I never did come to that—so it was on the floor and I would kick it every minute, every time I went out—I got crazy about it and I said the Hell with it, if it wants to stay there and bore me, I’ll nail it down. . . .”

Not only does it now not serve the purpose it was designed for, the rack has become another thing altogether, a trap for the unwary. In this Young sees the metamorphosis of the ordinary, the planned, into the artistic and creative through hazard and happenstance. It is recklessness, just as we, people, are creations of chance, a genetic lottery, no matter how planned our birth.

The language and style used by Dean Young in this book is another area that will divide opinion. At times the text is very nearly impenetrable. Some readers will see this as evidence of the elitism of poetry, and in some respects they are correct. Rather than elitist though, poetry is personal. It is the public expression of private matters and as such uses a personal language and mode of expression. The Art of Recklessness is written by a poet and clearly expresses his personal views on the art. The way Young writes is an essential feature of the book and goes towards the core of his argument, what is inside is what must come out. This is not a mathematics textbook, nor is it a book of facts. It is a personal expression of opinion. In this context, the way the book is written is perfectly appropriate for its intended audience.

The Art of Recklessness will delight some and be deplored by others. Those that see poetry as a craft and a labor will not subscribe to Dean Young’s theories. However, those that embrace the spontaneity of creative force will find, in this book, a great deal that will encourage them. Young’s advice is to write and then write some more. It is to let what is in there out before deciding upon the shape of it.

This is a book by a poet for poets.

Reviewer Phil Constable is a technical writer, document designer, and editor who has written on such authors as John Fowles, Graham Swift, William Golding, Graham Greene, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

Knife Music by David Carnoy

2010-07-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

(The Overlook Press, May 10, 2010)

A flow chart is a requirement if one wants to maintain the connections in this old-fashioned plot about the innocent who must prove their innocence. In his mystery novel, Carnoy hammers his reader in the first few chapters with over twenty-five characters, leaving one to wonder who is important and who is not. Unfortunately, most of them do not contribute to the development of the plot.

The reader is introduced to Detective Hank Madden as he watches his kid pitch. We are told the detective has a bad foot, and it’s taken him fourteen years to make detective grade. The relationship between the father and the son, the bad foot and his job, are not developed as plot elements. The bad foot issue pops up again later but not as a hindrance to working the case. It and the boy simply exist. Neither lend themselves to the development of Madden’s character, which should be crucial to the story line.

Madden, we are told, has a negative bias toward doctors because one sexually molested him when he was a child. “No, raped,” as Madden puts it. It becomes his underlying impetus for pursuing Dr. Ted Cogan.
Dr. Cogan is introduced as he prepares to perform life-saving surgery on sixteen-year-old Kristen Kroiter whom he is, six months later, accused of raping. This twist in events comes about when Kristen’s mother finds a diary in which Kristen claims she had consensual sex with Dr. Cogan. After an explosive argument with her parents, Kristin commits suicide. Consensual or not, she was underage.

However, an astute reader will know by page 160 if the doctor is guilty. It’s all down hill from there.
Pages are devoted to chats with nurses, other doctors, tennis partners—all of which appear to be an effort to develop the character of Dr. Ted Cogan. And they do in an off-handed sort of way. He is portrayed as a good-looking, charming womanizer. Yet we don’t see that in action so much as in description.

Excerpts from Kristen’s diary are interjected as dated entries in one chapter. In the middle of these we find a lawyer interviewing a person to gather information in the defense of Dr. Cogan. It left this reader to wonder about the shift in point of view.

The author loses the opportunity to build tension between Madden and Cogan, which would have gone far in developing the conflict and building suspense in the story line, which lacks luster. At times the author seems possessed with pouring in technical medical detail in an effort to authenticate his main character.

The last third of the book almost moves into the realm of high mystery. It’s fast paced, and teases the reader into to speculating that perhaps an earlier guess could be wrong.

Overall, it takes the author too long to get his story moving. Knife Music smacks of potential talent, and one hopes Mr. Carnoy’s next novel will demonstrate his growth as a writer. The talent is there; it simply needs to be honed.

Reviewer Norman W. Wilson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus Polk State College, has taught an array of subjects, including literature and art and music criticism, and has published several college textbooks.

The Simpering, North Dakota Literary Society by G. F. Skipworth

2010-07-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

(Rosslare Press, March 24, 2010)

What is G. F. Skipworth’s The Simpering, North Dakota Literary Society? Its founder is Farika Zingarella, a nun who was kicked out of the convent for the hefty sum she won in a 1862 poker game since “a deck of cards was a Stradivarius in her hands.”  

She didn’t just invest her winnings, she amassed the wealth of a small nation. In order to manage the funds, a “literary society” (a name that does not give off “the odor of greed and ungodliness”) was formed in the tiny community of Simpering, North Dakota.  Its female stockholders are known as “The Mighty Five.” They are brazen enough to hold a world economic summit in North Dakota (without inviting the United States) and travel the globe in order to further pad their portfolios.

They are:  

1. Edielou Zingarella: Think Katherine Hepburn. Daughter of Farika. Leader of the pack. Too rational for romance. Supreme organizer whose main goal is to continually increase the society‘s net worth. Doggedly pursued by the romantic sensibilities of a passionate Italian financier, who yearns to protect her. The subject of Lady Astor’s cruise ship entertainment. Targeted by the evil machinations of Fascists determined to prevent her from buying what remains of post-WWI Europe through a kidnapping plot, gunfire, car chases, etc.  

2. Mary Beth Tomes: Think Harry Potter’s Mrs. Weasley. A simple housewife with a heart of gold. A devoted schoolteacher. Takes Europe by storm with her recipe for cherry pie. Missing a toe on her left foot. Full of good, old-country sense. Goes toe-to-toe with the sophisticated verbal repartée of a corrupt French official. Teams up with her rifle-toting, frontiersman husband to rescue Edielou from imminent danger.  

3. Priscilla Thistlewaite: Picture a more eccentric version of actress Emma Thompson. A complete Anglophile. Enamored with the British theatre. Would love to inhabit the life of a fictional character rather than her own. Referred to as “Her Ladyship.” Saved a child in Simpering from a runaway carnival bear. An upturned nose is her most distinguishing feature. Known for her self-produced monologues.  

4. Gillian Bolzner: Think Marilyn Monroe. The daughter of a world-famous variety act. A beauty queen. The object of men’s desires. A soldier‘s pin-up girl. A blond songstress whose theme is “Sunny Is As Sunny Does.” Loved by all. Knows nothing but show business. Wishes to leave the limelight behind. Attracted to a man who has no idea who she is.  

5. Ida Bolzner: Picture an older version of Wednesday Addams. The twin sister of Gillian, but her polar opposite. Gothic, dark, gloomy, brooding. A feared seer—her second sight is always on target, when she chooses to divulge what she knows. Loves rainy days. Favors Transylvania and the remote parts of Russia during her European tour. Jealous of Gillian. Meets her soul mate along the way.

Skipworth’s writing style reads like a script taken from the annals of the Ziegfeld Follies or a current broadcast of “A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor.” The narrator is present in the story making comments and offering advice. At times, the sidenotes veer off the course of the narrative, for example the background on Simpering’s oldest soldier, but overall the one can imagine the narrator laughing along with the reader at the characters’ antics.  

Overall, a fictional feminine undercurrent is added to the power structure of U.S. history.

Reviewer Nicole Langan owns the independent publishing house, Tribute Books.

Homesick by Eshkol Nevo, Translated by Sondra Silverston

2010-07-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

(Dalkey Archive, April 13, 2010)

Homesick is a warm, embracing novel that captures how, lacking clear boundaries, Israeli neighbors observe one another’s private lives close up. The reader quickly becomes just such an observer and feels like a part of a close-knit, extended family whose members are not necessarily related. In this and other respects, Eshkol Nevo’s first novel reminds this reader of the novels of his literary fathers, Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua.

The novel’s narrative alternates between the voices of several characters who speak naturally (one of whom writes letters from overseas) and an omniscient narrator who speaks in rhyming prose—a middle-eastern literary form known in Arabic and Hebrew as maqama—all conveyed skillfully by the translator, Sondra Silverston. In less skillful hands maqama rhymes can become as predictable and forgettable as mediocre rap lyrics, but Silverston does not follow the form slavishly and will forgo a rhyme rather than fall into that trap. In one place, for example, where the obvious rhyme to a preceding sentence ending in “had” would be “dad” she instead uses “father.” American readers will have no difficulty with her British English as long as they know that draughts is the British word for the game we Americans know as checkers, and aubergine is the vegetable we know as eggplant.

The book is divided into five sections separated by song lyrics by a fictional Israeli rock band; each of the five sections is further divided into one- to three-page sub-chapters separated by asterisks (which makes for good subway or suburban commuter rail reading, though this reader found it difficult to put down despite the asterisks), and it can take half a paragraph into each sub-chapter before the reader identifies the speaker from context, or in the case of the maqama, sub-chapters from the rhymes. Some readers might find this initially off-putting, but this reviewer urges them to persevere while the book picks up its rhythm.

The central characters are an unmarried undergraduate couple in their early to mid-twenties (Israelis don’t begin their university educations until they complete their army service), who decide to live together in 1995, shortly before the Rabin assassination.

Amir, the author’s alter ego, is a psychology major studying at Tel Aviv University. Noa is a photography major studying at the Bezalel Art College in Jerusalem. They agree to find a place half way between the two cities, but Noa steers them to Maoz Ziyon, a working class suburb just west of Jerusalem and just south of the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem highway, across the highway from the upper-middle class suburb Mivaseret Ziyon. Before 1948 Maoz Ziyon was El-Castel, an Arab village whose inhabitants fled the IDF and in subsequent years were replaced by Jewish immigrants from Kurdistan.

Amir and Noa rent a tiny apartment from the couple next door, Moshe and Sima Zakian. The apartment has a kitchen the size of a small bathroom, a living room the size of a small kitchen, a bedroom the size of a walk-in closet, and a hot water heater located in Moshe and Sima’s apartment next door which Amir and Noa turn on by uncovering a hole in the paper-thin wall that separates the apartments, reaching in, and flicking a switch. Sima uses the same hole in the wall to deliver her tenants’ mail, to invite Noa over for coffee, and to eavesdrop. When Amir and Noa at various points complain to each other that one doesn’t give the other enough mental and emotional space, it occurs to this reader that their domicile lacks sufficient physical space for two people.

The book’s Hebrew title literally means Four Houses and Longing, and each of its characters expresses his or her own longing. Amir and Noa each long for the other’s passionate, enthusiastic side that has dissipated since they moved in together and became domesticated.

Moshe, a bus driver, and Sima, a stay at home mom only a year older than her tenants, are parents to Liron, a five year-old boy, and Lilach, an infant girl. They live downstairs from Moshe’s parents, Avram and Gina. Sima rebelled against religious parents but nonetheless deferred college to marry Moshe and raise their children. Despite his wife’s secularism, Moshe is strongly influenced by his brother Menachem, an Orthodox rabbi. Sima longs for the higher education and cultural sophistication that eluded her and that her husband, who never completed his high school matriculation exams, lacks, especially compared to Amir. For his part Moshe longs for his brother’s approval and envies his religiosity.

When they first arrive in Maoz Ziyon, Amir and Noa mistake the home of Reuven and Nechama, whose house is across an empty lot from the Zakians, for their intended destination, and inadvertently pay a shiva call on the couple whose older son Gidi has just been killed as a soldier serving in Lebanon. The couple’s younger son Yotam later seeks out and befriends Amir. Yotam longs not only for his older brother, but also for his parents’ intimacy and emotional health before they were overcome by grief.

Down the street from the Zakians is a construction site where Saddiq, a Palestinian worker whom Nevo portrays sympathetically (the book has been translated into and published in Arabic), recognizes Avram and Gina’s house as the one he and his family fled from when he was an eight year-old, and becomes pre-occupied with his own longing for his lost childhood home. In a moment of delirium Avram mistakes Saddiq for Nissan, his and Gina’s oldest son who died at age two shortly after they moved in to the house, and is filled with longing for the child they lost.

And if all the above mentioned longing were not enough, Amir corresponds with a childhood friend and army buddy who is trekking across South and Central America and whose accounts of various adventures are tinged with homesickness. But despite all these longings, and the historical backdrop of Rabin’s assassination, and the subsequent suicide bombings, this book is not depressing. On the contrary its empathic tone has a sweetness that reminds this reader of some of the films of François Truffaut and of Mike Leigh’s film Life Is Sweet.

There are a couple of somewhat contrived plot devises that move the dramatic action forward, but by the time they appear Nevo has already won us over, and this reviewer was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. If you enjoy Homesick as much as this reviewer did you’ll want to pass it on to someone you’re fond of as soon as you finish reading it.

Reviewer David Cooper is the author of two poetry ebooks, Glued to the Sky and JFK: Lines of Fire (PulpBits, 2003), and the translator of Little Promises by Rachel Eshed (Mayapple Press, 2006). He also covers the New York Jewish culture beat for examiner.com.

Film Noir: The Encyclopedia, Edited by Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward, James Ursini, and Robert Porfirio

2010-07-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

(Overlook/Duckworth, May 15, 2010)

Film Noir: The Encyclopedia is a joy for noir enthusiasts—a must-have for scholars, students, filmmakers, and fans. Even jaded enthusiasts who complain of its flaws, omissions, and inconsistencies will love this magnificent volume.

Edited by scholars Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward, James Ursini, and Robert Porfirio, this encyclopedia is the first completely new and updated edition of the 1979 bible of film noir, then titled Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style.

In the preface, Silver explains the new two-part structure. Part One, “The Classic Period,” provides 400 entries, from The Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) to The Naked Kiss (1964). Each entry begins with production information (such as director, producer, editor, cast, studio, date released) followed by a plot summary including any surprises as well as the ending. (You might not want to read an entry before viewing a film.) Then the individual contributor of that entry (there are nearly 50 including the main editors) presents any combination of analysis, facts, or a review.

Part Two is “Neo-Noir.” Entries number 150 for these films, ones that emerged some years after the original noir cycle ended. Most are new to The Encyclopedia. In addition, informative sidebars discuss topics such as “Proto-noir,” “Fatal Men,” and “Retro-noir.”

Silver’s “Introduction: The Classic Period,” a dense academic essay, traces, defines, describes, and analyzes film noir from its roots through its classic period. This essay is a difficult yet worthwhile read. It would be easy to criticize a piece so intellectual and, at points, so difficult to untangle. But the essay is perfect for teaching about film noir. As Silver explains, film noir “resists facile explanation.” Is it a genre—most definitely not. But why not? A style? A vision? An ethos? A movement? (All are words used in the essay or elsewhere in the book.)

Silver’s definitive (or closest to definitive) term is the “noir cycle”— classic noir films produced from shortly before World War II to the years after the Korean conflict, bounded by The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Touch of Evil (1958).

To Silver, these films present a vision of wartime and post-war America—paranoia, guilt, and gut-level unease, a “blank slate” where the culture could display its ills and “produce a catharsis to help relieve them.” Silver describes the years after the war as the “most visually homogeneous of the noir cycle.” And through these films he gives his view on the identifying characteristics of film noir.

Protagonists and visual style are two major elements of film noir. The protagonist, says Silver, is most often a person with a normal life “assailed by twists of fate in an irrational universe.” The “key character motifs” are alienation, or feeling dead inside; and obsession, such as idealizing a femme fatale without realizing the danger involved.

Regarding noir’s visual style, some might disagree with Silver—a disagreement that can fuel useful debate. The style of film noir has a vast body of conventions, Silver states, that have come to create meaning for the noir viewer. Obsession for example, can be shown by a point-of-view shot that focuses on one lone woman in a crowd. Furthermore: “Early in the cycle the audience came to understand that the dark streets were emblems of alienation . . . the unrelenting gaze was obsessive . . . a visual environment full of shafts of light, deterministic, hostile, and chaotic.”

One might argue instead that these conventions were so powerful that they simply worked successfully to convey alienation, obsession, and chaos, thus evoking the “common ethos” Silver speaks about of the American public at that time:

“[Films of the noir cycle] consistently evoke the dark side of the American persona. The central figures . . . caught in their double binds, filled with existential bitterness, drowning outside the social mainstream, are America’s stylized version of itself, a mirror of the mental dysfunction of a nation in uncertain transition and a distillation of an American style.”

Following are some small examples of the wealth of information and analysis in individual entries in Part One:

D.O.A. (1950)
“ . . . may not be a perfect film noir, yet it typifies the hopeless plight of people manipulated by forces they are unable to control or comprehend; and it is through this existential outlook that D.O.A. contributes to the noir canon.”

Double Indemnity (1944)
“ . . . for many the quintessential film noir. . . . The black widow played by Stanwyck is the classic period archetype. In fact, Double Indemnity has a panoply of prototypes beyond a perfect plan that goes awry and a femme fatale.”

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
“ . . . the strongest paranoid fifties film . . . utilizes the familiar noir fear of an unseen menace prowling nighttime streets.”

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
“Its reputation tends to make one forget that it is more like a caricature than a motion picture, because its characters are so one-dimensional that they are scarcely characters at all.”

Sunset Boulevard (1950)
“One can only imagine the effects of the film’s original opening, which was shot but discarded: It featured the dead Joe Gillis sitting up on his slab in the morgue and telling his story to a captive audience of corpses.”

Silver’s next essay introduces the Neo-Noir section of The Encyclopedia. By this point, Silver seems unconcerned whether critics term film noir “series, style, genre, movement, cycle, or all of the above.” He now terms it “an observable phenomenon.” Understanding this phenomenon, he asserts, comes from looking at the films themselves, films that create a coherent body of work through similarities in tone and mood.

Filmmakers of the neo-noir era recognized the heritage of film noir—this body of work—and attempted to create their own interpretations. As Silver states,

“Echoes of the classic period from its undercurrent of despair to its dark visual style continue to manifest themselves in other types of films, in corruption exposes—whether retro [recreating the classic noir time period] (True Confessions, L.A. Confidential) or contemporary (The Border, Witness)—in the surreal Fight Club or Mulholland Drive, the quasi-docudramas Rush or Murder in the First, or the big-budget comic book series about Batman seeking revenge or Spiderman’s existential anguish.”

The 150 entries that follow range from The Money Trap (1965), Harper (1966), and Point Blank (1967), to Dark Country (2009), and include just about any dark, moody noir film the reader can think of since those earliest entries, with analysis, facts, and reviews equally as instructive and interesting as those for the classic noir films.

Following Part Two is a bibliography that can have any film noir enthusiast reading for the rest of his or her life.

Just a note regarding the physical book: The book is a dark and hefty tome—a noirish object itself. On the front of the dust jacket is an unlabeled still of a man in a suit and fedora emerging from darkness toward a mysterious light. Open the book and the paper is a rough stock. All the striking stills and posters are presented in black and white on that same rough paper—no glossy bookplates. Even the appearance of the book resoundingly shouts “noir!”

The Encyclopedia is an instructive, analytical, intellectual approach to film noir. There are certainly books on film noir that might display more engaging prose, be more accessible to the casual fan, or just out-and-out be more noirish and sexy. And to learn about any film noir that is not American, the reader will have to go elsewhere. (Even The Third Man, a British production, is excluded.)

No book can provide everything a reader desires, but The Encyclopedia certainly sends the reader into a labyrinth on an existential journey through dark streets and alleys, only to emerge knowing a hell of a lot more about film noir—and possibly even about the black depths of the human soul.

Reviewer Michael Lipkin is a Senior Editor for a major publishing house and the writer and editor for Noir Journal.