Tag: Fiction

The Fathers: Rambling Review

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A coincidence is all that’s necessary to set into motion matters of fortune and fate. What joys and tragedies are stirred as a consequence of experience? Two families each welcome their own baby boy, both born on the same day…and while meandering around the hospital, their fathers meet by chance. Friendships form, but not here…Dan and Jada couldn’t be more different, but when Dan’s world collapses, Jada becomes something of an enabler, and from there things spiral out of control in a pure ‘John Niven fashion’ that dropped my jaw more than thrice. ‘The Fathers’ is a top shelf addition to Niven’s body of work. 

This book had me laughing out loud multiple times, tear up on a few occasions, and with one moment I set the book to the floor and wept. I hadn’t been hit this hard since ‘The Blood of the Lamb’ by Peter de Vris. It’s a strange and liberating thing when art elicits an emotion you weren’t anticipating. I expect Niven will get me to laugh, think, and potentially cause me to shed a tear or two, but this was full-blown uncontrollable quiet weeping in the night. John is the kind of writer who conveys the human experience with such grace and grit, his work is nothing but the highest quality, and ‘The Fathers’ is his finest piece of fiction yet. 

My only criticism is that it had to end. This was such a pleasing read. From the heights to the lows beneath whatever you’d call ‘rock bottom’ of parenting, to a world of crime that ranges from petty to ultra violent, to the critique and commentary on class pitfalls and privileges, ‘The Fathers’ contains a range that keeps pages turning. The tone pivots from sentimental to wretched as quickly as one could read, and those moments are laid out in such a way…never thought I’d find myself laughing so hard at the description of a McDonald’s apple pie. 

      To break my heart with fiction is possible, but this book destroyed me. The obsessive ‘what-if’ moments that followed the tragedy is something that will trouble those knee-deep in grief. 

In another book that broke my heart, ‘Grief is the Thing with Feathers,’ a crow describes grief as an essential part of life, but to beware one’s dealings with grief do not dissolve into despair. Dan went beyond despair…finding a tunnel beneath his own rock bottom, and his character development surprised me. His mindset is as captivating as it is tragic. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Fathers’ by John Niven. I needed every bit of this book. 

The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons:Rambling Review

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    The Millennium Series has reached book seven with The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons. A new author has taken the reigns, and Karin Smirnoff has gone beyond my expectations with her first contribution.

            Stieg Larsson’s initial vision for the series ran the course of ten novels, for which he had outlined. He turned in the initial trilogy to the publisher and died shortly thereafter. David Lagercrantz took up the series and ran a trilogy of his own, contributing more quality work that veered away from Larsson’s outlines. Karin Smirnoff offers a fresh take that maintains the quality storytelling while exploring critical analysis of characters that has resulted in growth. Lisbeth Salander has been seemed so human on the page, as Larsson and Lagercrantz sought to make her more of an enigma. Smirnoff’s interpretation of Salander has graced her with a personality (especially in her dialog, both internal and with other people) that had been lacking in previous novels for the sake of maintaining a persona shrouded in mystery.

            There are bits of humor where I hadn’t noticed any in previous novels. Smirnoff uses her narrative voice to amplify the internal dialog of whoever is on the page in a given moment/scene. When an unruly man presents violent intent, Lisbeth intervenes to protect a friend and makes an observation…SIDE NOTE-I’m sitting in my living room…end of the night…knee deep in reading this book. I’m wearing the singular pair of sweatpants I own…the only pair I’ve ever owned-a gift I’ve had for less than a month…when I come across this line, “thank you God for making sweatpants the uniform of men with defective genes” (178). These thoughts are peppered throughout the novel and add to the narrative quality that brings these characters to life.

            This more expressive Salander may be the result of a familial relationship where her bloodline isn’t out to kill her. Svala is a thirteen year old on the edge of being submitted to the foster care system in Sweden. Lisbeth is contacted and tasked with caring for the girl temporarily while the situation gets sorted out. It become clear Svala is in danger, and they’ve more in common than Lisbeth initially wants to admit. Lisbeth acknowledges that the relationship has upended her situation. “Before, she only had herself. Having another person in your life pushes other things to one side” (172).

            Another relationship that gets a closer examination than before is that of Mikael Blomkvist and his daughter, Pernilla. Blomkvist has always been a distant lackluster father. His excuse is the same as it was for all the women in his life-that his work as a journalist was blatantly more important. He’s a grandfather now, and his publication is no longer in print…this identity crisis allows him to make room in his life for other people, but it seems a little late to mend these bridges, as Pernilla struggles to accommodate an absent father who suddenly cares…if only a little bit more than before. Old hurt is made new once the action of the story puts stress on these characters, and I’m here for it.

    The quality of the narrative voice is what makes this novel. While analyzing the motives of a would-be volunteered killer the narrative voice reflects a self-awareness that still chooses to do wrong, as Peder Sandberg considers that, “An individual always has choices. The destructive ones present themselves most readily because they do not require mutual understanding…whereas unconditional love, altruism and general compassion are acquired, and also take more energy” (324). Another favorite observation focuses on a vulnerable moment with Svala. It’s shown to a voyeuristic audience the way she cries, “In silence so nobody can hear. A valve that opens, lets the excess pressure hiss out and then closes again” (124). These excursions through the thoughts other people can’t quite express is a highlight of this book. A cleaner tasked with killing for hire, has a crisis of conscience as he, “pours himself another drop of whisky and gathers his words. He has never said them out loud. But they have always been playing, like a record that never ends” (279). Whether it’s a matter of choice, sorrow, or selective words, there’s a performative aspect to the things people can’t do in front of others that is shown in a way that reveals the humanity of everyone who is subject of this narrative voice.

            I fell in love with the characters and story world. It’s kept me coming back, and I tend to prefer standalone novels. I’ll occasionally check out a sequel or series, but this is the only series of this length I’ve read, and will continue to read…especially if Smirnoff continues to be at the helm. This is a fun read, full of quality.

The Last Tycoon:Fitzgerald, Nostalgia, and Writing

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The prose of F. Scott Fitzgerald is intoxicating. It’s been a decade since I studied The Great Gatsby at Ohio State, and for the time being I’ve decided to put off rereading that novel until the 100-year anniversary of its initial publication. The Last Tycoon appeals due to the lure of a final novel, one last attempt to satisfy an itch with something new. The unfortunate truth is that the unfinished novel reads like a draft. It jumps on a dime between first and third person, and seems so rough in the early pages that I contemplated whether or not to finish it.

            Monroe Stahr is an elite Hollywood producer who meets Kathleen Moore about halfway through the novel. The trademarked romance of Fitzgerald’s style captivates from that point onward, in spite of the questionable motives that attracts Stahr to Moore in the first place (her looks remind him of his deceased wife). Though the romance fizzles out as Kathleen is to marry another, Monroe carries on and the novel ends rather suddenly due to the death of the author and editorial overreach to reel in the narrative while maintaining a sense of conclusion while there is still quality material.

            Stahr carries the weight of terminal illness, and pushes himself to keep working at the pace he maintained while healthy. It reminds me of a hyper-masculine work culture that romanticizes burnout and exhaustion over questioning why one lives in such a way. “Fatigue was a drug as well as a poison and Stahr apparently derived some rare almost physical pleasure from working lightheaded with weariness…a perversion of the life force he had seen before but he had almost stopped trying to interfere with it…a hollow triumph of killing and preserving the shell,” (110) seems all too commonplace in modern workplace culture. It isn’t ‘rare’ at all in the sense that keeping oneself preoccupied prevents them from critically looking inward. And yet, it’s romantic escapism that reminds one that they are alive…as, “the little trip they made was one of the best times he had ever had in life. It was certainly one of the times when, if he knew he was going to die, it was not tonight.” (112)

            The theme of nostalgia runs through the work of Fitzgerald in such a way as to indulge in the waters in which one will inevitably sink, and reveal it for the comforting lies it tends to offer. The notion that one could have, “passionate loyalty to an imaginary past.” (119) defines Fitzgerald’s work and life. Reconstructing the past seems to be the only future a great many of us can imagine. How good was it really…? And yet…

            One thing literature does is serve as a reminder how much or little things change over time. The tension between Hollywood producers and writers has brought on two writers’ strikes in the twenty-first century. All the conflict about living wages and being able to simply make ends meet while the profits of their labor makes others rich seems to be as old as the establishment of film making as big business. A line from The Last Tycoon shows how much the same it was then, “Writers…they’re the farmers of this business…They grow the grain but they’re not in at the feast. Their feeling toward the producer is like the farmers’ resentment of the city fellow.” (121)

            Again, The Last Tycoon felt like a draft and not a complete novel, but it still managed to contain traces of magic that made it worth the read. I would’ve preferred a world where Fitzgerald lived long enough to finish this one to his standards, but I’m grateful for this glimpse into his process, as it reminds me of Trimalchio.

My Visit with the Goon Squad:Book Review

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In 2014 I was assigned the first five short stories (chapters) from Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. Having been involved with music, I found one instance in the text that I didn’t think was historically accurate, finished my studies, and moved on. It wasn’t until I had started playing with a band on campus that a peer redirected me toward Egan’s novel that I opted to give it another chance…and by another chance I mean I bought a copy and let it reside in my bookcase for a few years. I’ve since moved, got married, had a child, and have read quite a few other books. In 2021 I’ve started thinking about music again, and as I consider my options I decided it was time to give Egan’s Pulitzer Prize winner the chance it deserves.

On one hand, I wish I hadn’t waited so long. On the other hand, I needed this read now. It’s a moving book that captures the human element in a way that tends to be background noise in stories in orbit around the music business. A lineal narrative is withheld for time jumping aesthetics. Each short story is centered on a specific character during a particular moment in history. Some of these characters are vessels for highlighting someone else’s trajectory, and aren’t referenced again, but it’s through the glimpse each story offers that provides this point of contact that makes the world so real. Music producers and A&R people are more than two-dimensional figures for satirical abuse. Hopes and fears are presented through the veil of toxic personalities, and I find myself relating to these characters because of it. They’re imperfect people who ache with want, and I see myself in them. Between each fragmented chapter, I found myself taking a breather. I’d put the book down, sigh, and think, ‘damn…that’s good literature.’ I don’t feel that way with every book, so forgive my abuse of the five star system(it just so happens that I enjoy reading)…this novel is nothing short of absolutely fantastic.

With this read, I’m breaking the ice on a project that I’ve been considering for quite some time. This research is a starting point from which I hope to craft a novel, or possibly a series if I can make that much happen. It feels good to be inspired…that’s how good Egan’s novel is. I’m looking forward to her followup, scheduled for release in April, 2022, The Candy House.

The Little Demons Inside: A Book Review

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In a story that follows multiple people, I found myself knee deep in personal reflection. The Little Demons Inside by Micah Chaim Thomas supplied me with a full range of emotion through clear, thoughtful prose. He’s created a story world that is all too real. It’s not a place I want to live, but I’m afraid we may occupy a version of it. 

The book opens with fire and action, we’re given chemistry that lingers and becomes romance, and the horrors of corrupt people with power threaten us from all angles. The writing is strong, transitions are fluid, and the characters are fleshed out people who have brought me to care. 

Various characters, coupled with the narrator offer personal insight that critiques human nature with modern technology. As we’re still breaking the ice, I caught a line that seems a familiar thought to me. While describing smartphones, “You see, these narcissism toys, they keep us looking at the surface, they keep us from searching inward” (72). What we find by the end of the novel is that internal vision…and it’s bleak. The constant cultural conditioning to be the best little cog you can be is only overshadowed by a dream where your digitized narcissism is harvested for profit, leaving the subject apathetic or depressed. As with social media, you are the product. The algorithm figures you out, and your own tendencies become the fruit for an advertising campaign. The story doesn’t beat you over the head with this, but it’s where I found myself.

Though the darkness of the philosophy wants to exist in a vacuum, Thomas offers various insights to humor and humility that shines through. We’re left with a quality novel that fulfilled my expectations in that I was both made to think, and entertained. 

Book Review: The Fuck-It List

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Some people read for the purposes of escapism. The Fuck-It List by John Niven will not provide you with that, as his scathing brand of satire is all too realistic. It’s not a casual read that’ll take you out of the discomfort of our moment in history. The year is 2026, the troubles that burden America have only gotten worse, and Frank Brill has terminal cancer. The diagnosis doesn’t come as a surprise, and allows Frank to give himself permission to go on a murder spree. Does this sound similar to Breaking Bad without the crystal meth? Sure. But the unique perspective that Niven offers maintains my investment in the protagonist.

My favorite thing about Niven is his ability to stir empathy by creating flawed characters that are all too relatable.  Frank Brill is at the end of his life and decides to carry through as much of a hit list as he can manage. It sounds like a violent romp for the sake of it and I’d be a liar to claim it’s not, but the motives, sense of loss, and weight of the past that Frank reflects upon creates a believable portrait who gains my support. That probably says more about me than anything else.

I’ll admit, this book isn’t for everyone, but if you want an all too real satirical reflection of America in the filthiest mirror one could find, The Fuck-It List delivers. It kept me turning pages. The stakes get higher with each name Frank Brill stalks down. I enjoyed this immensely, as I do anytime Niven puts out a novel.

Fuck It List

Beatrix and the Wooden Dagger: What’s Up With the Prop?

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What’s the deal with the wooden dagger? It doesn’t appear anywhere in the text, so why is it in the title? What does it have to do with the story? The answer has to do with medieval theatre and use of props in character development. Characters in the medieval morality plays were often named for traits they were meant to embody. The vice figure was one of comic relief, meant to tempt and bring folly towards characters of virtue or other such positive traits. The vice often turns to the audience, and delivers lines by breaking the fourth wall. This brings about an inclusion so that the audience is in on the misdeeds.

They would carry a wooden dagger on stage. This prop was meant as a direct gesture to inform the audience, ‘Hey! I’m the villain.’ By the Renaissance, Shakespeare had dropped the prop, but perfected the role of vice in Richard III and Iago of Othello. These characters turned to the audience, told them of the intent, and then turned back to the story world with their malice in practice. A contemporary version of this that has resonated with audiences would be comic book antihero Deadpool, or average politician Frank Underwood in House of Cards.

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That’s my aim with Beatrix. She’s an antihero of sorts, who wants to fill you in on her thoughts and intent as she does whatever her wretched heart desires. The book consists of five stories that span over the course of her life, and plays with time. It’s framed with bits of the thriller, cultural satire, and dysfunctional family drama.

That’s the deal with the wooden dagger. I framed this character after the many vices I’ve come across, and hope to turn you off to humanity with her antics. If you’re still with me, give it a shot! 

As always, thank you for your time.

Frankenstein in Baghdad: Book Review

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I came across this novel while browsing in a bookstore, without any real intent to make a purchase. When I came across Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, I was unfamiliar. The title was enough, and I read the synopsis. Then I bought it.

In 2004 a junk dealer collects body parts he finds in the street. War has decimated the community, and often people are destroyed by means of explosive violence. Our junk dealer, Hadi, creates a full corpse of miscellaneous body parts as a symbolic offering to no one in particular. The body becomes animated by supernatural means, and is burdened by the need to seek revenge on each ‘criminal’ responsible for each individual body part that makes up the monster. The premise is morbid, but powerful and thought provoking.

Saadawi offers a vivid community composed of those burdened by the war, and those taking advantage of it. There’s a full page that lists the cast of characters at the start of the narrative. An elderly woman of Christian faith believes the monster to be her son, having finally returned home after leaving for war twenty years prior. The junk dealer is an alcoholic storyteller, so the detailed confessions to his audience are received with entertained dismissal. A real estate agent takes advantage of people abandoning their properties, as the chaos of war makes it easy to claim their assets. There’s a full society in the cast, showing the beautiful and wretched range of human dynamics, burdened by the anxieties of war. He writes a universal truth with lines like, “the tragedies we’re seeing stem from one thing-fear” (123).

The monster is complex, and changes over time. It speaks well, and in tones that change. In the beginning the monster believes in a purpose, for, “He was a composite of victims seeking to avenge their deaths so they could rest in peace. He was created to obtain revenge on their behalf” (130). The monster states that, “there is a moral and humanitarian obligation… to bring about justice in this world, which has been totally ravaged by greed, ambition, megalomania, and insatiable bloodlust” (143). As the monster attains justice, or exacts revenge, the body part that corresponds with the deed decays at an accelerated rate. In order to maintain the self and momentum, the monster replenishes the body parts with other body parts, placing itself into a violent loop. The monster becomes conflicted, and is concerned about each new part; are they innocent enough to merit revenge? The answer doesn’t matter, as the monster continues to do what it does.

The monster is deemed a criminal, and all sides vilify the other as the source. Authorities make chase, but even with mystical astrologists, the monster remains elusive. The chase is compromised from the start, as the cost of ego cheapens life.

I enjoyed this book. Dark themes, and social commentary on a place that is not my home offers insight to the plight of others, set to a backdrop of the wretched and fantastic. Frankenstein in Baghdad is worth the read, if you can stomach it.

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Book Review: A Glitch in the World

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I read ‘A Glitch in the World’ on a whim. Alex Drozd offers questions regarding the human condition through the scope of science fiction, and on the surface his vision of the future feels incredibly real.

Debate is used in ways that reflect upon contemporary issues with a futuristic spin. One of my favorites centered on the topic of music production. Computers and AI produce music, as there’s no human element in the popular songwriting process. One character prefers this, while another expresses a nostalgic longing for the days when people made music on computers. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my father when I was a child where he described the virtue of music produced without computers, whereas I have a taste for music made on computers.

Another question the book proposes revolves around the worth of an individual. Motorized vehicles are 100% automated and with AI responsible for driving, the value of a person is brought into the equation when it comes to the occasional accident. People are quantified based on a number of variables, and the computer does everything possible to spare the more valuable entity, even if it includes killing the lesser person. I feel the value of a person could be considered controversial if corrupt powers have any sort of influence, but Drozd did not venture there.

What we get is a story about a teenager full of angst, and the complications that arise after a friend commits suicide. There are beings from a parallel universe that only appear to our protagonist, and my only gripe is that their motives seem bigger than the end result. Even still, the ending offers a twist of sorts that is great fun.

The book was well edited in terms of proper grammar, but I feel some of the phrasing throughout could’ve used a little more tweaking. Drozd offers readers a fantastic effort in his debut.

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The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: Book Review

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A few years back I watched a video where black children were presented with baby dolls. One doll had a black skin tone, and the other white. The children were then asked questions that sought to have them pass judgment as it appealed to their preferences. Across the board, when they were asked which was the ‘good’ or ‘pretty’ doll, their answers indicated the white doll met that criterion. When asked which doll was ‘bad’ or ‘ugly’ the black children consistently decided upon the black doll.

I’m white, and that video was painful to watch. Their answers suggested a deep-rooted self-loathing/hatred that’s socially programmed at an age too early to repair. My heart sank with their honest opinion based answers.

When I came upon The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, I was somewhat familiar with the premise; the story of a black girl named Pecola Breedlove who abhors her blackness, and desires the white traits of what she believes constitutes beauty. She covets the likeness of Shirley Temple, damaging any hope of finding self-love in her blackness. But what complicates Pecola is not grounded in isolation. There’s a passage that reminded me of the video on doll preference. When a few black boys begin to bully Pecola, Morrison’s narrator observes,

“It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth. They seemed to have taken all of their smoothly cultivated ignorance, their exquisitely learned self-hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a fiery cone of scorn that had burned for ages in the hollows of their minds-cooled-and spilled over lips of outrage,” (65)

What makes Morrison’s work so intriguing (aside from a style of prose that hooks) is her ability to create backstories for a larger community. Morrison creates a bigger picture, before zeroing in on her focus. She’ll use entire chapters to establish other characters, bringing their obscure silhouettes to the forefront. Pauline Breedlove is the mother of Pecola, and as her past is brought up to speed we’re left to reflect, “So she became, and her process of becoming was like most of ours: she developed a hatred for things that mystified or obstructed her; acquired virtues that were easy to maintain; assigned herself a role in the scheme of things; and harked back to simpler times for gratification” (126).

The Bluest Eye examines race, gender, and class with tragic elements in such a masterful way as to stimulate empathy and arouse social questions. Why do we permit such injustice? Why do we hurt ourselves and/or the ones we’re supposed to love? The prose is an examination of trauma and living in its aftermath. I will be reading more of Toni Morrison, as her literary quality is top shelf material.

Bluest Eye