Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Y’know, I had the craziest brain fart with Frank Bascombe’s latest column. He sent it, I read it, and then I thought I’d posted it. Nope. I have to remember that you don’t all actually have passwords to check my e-mail at your convenience. So, even though it’s a wee bit tardy, here’s the new one from our man in New York...
I'll try not to harp on it but ever since I heard a group of New York book editors talking about their output that comprises the fall list as being sluggish and lacking that “big book”, I thought it worthwhile to try and dig up a few titles that still have legs. Some of these books are from this past summer with a worthy gem from a few years back tossed in for those on a budget. No sooner is the literary world ready to give up and take it on the chin, (saying that fiction is dead and comparing the novelist to the old BETA format) then the ridiculously overexposed Zadie Smith returns to the scene with a novel that has gained more admirers than the Bible. ‘On Beauty’ is like Ian McEwan’s latest novel, neither one needs my help. In the coming months I'll have Jay McInerney’s new book to chime in on, and my favorite lady writer, A.M. Homes with her new novel, which in five short pages has managed to dazzle. Until then…
…It’s Not a Secret Until I Tell Someone
Incendiary by Chris Cleave
Knopf
I’m not sure what to tell you about this book. Reviewers are in a really unique situation with this novel. It’s only because the subject matter is so relevant and of the moment. My heart goes out to Chris Cleave, who’s authored a very troubling story about a woman who loses her husband and son in a terrorist bombing. The problem? This entire story takes place in London, England. Right now.
Cleave wrote this a while ago; of course, as things happen, on the day of the UK publication there is a terrorist attack in London. That’s right, on July 7th, 2005, this book hit the shelves. What are the odds? Cleave of course could not have predicted world events, he doesn’t have a portal to the future, he had no idea. We’re presented with a heroine whose only purpose in life is to serve her husband, a copper, and her lovely son. At a football game between rivaling teams, their lives are snuffed out by Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. Several suicide bombers make their way to the game, unseen to the reader, and detonate several deadly bombs, blowing up themselves and many more Londoners in the process. The soccer stadium is destroyed, and it’s a truly gruesome turn of events. On this tragic day, our narrator leaves the arms of a well-heeled neighbor who happens to be working for the local newspaper to race to the frontlines of this horrific tragedy. She goes on a hopeless search for her son and husband. What awaits her is nothing I care to describe in this column.
The truly unnerving aspect of this story, what sets it apart from anything you’re likely to read? Besides its brutalism? It’s all composed as a letter to Osama Bin Laden himself. Every so often she explains her exasperation to him in these pages, relaying her grief, describing her sorrow and the results of her tragic loss, to him, the most wanted man in the world. I felt like he might read this book, if he is indeed alive, and perhaps he’d laugh, I hope not, or he might smile, thinking he’s sent people off to their great reward and forever scarred Western culture. What would happen if he read this book? Cleave asks this amazing question over and over by writing this as a letter, from one poor woman to a mass murderer. It’s a brilliant concept. But it’s outdone by the sorrow of the real events. And mostly I’m frightened by what’s happened to London because of this terrorist event - people under curfew at night, and there is a terror scare towards the end that is far too realistic. This book will never stand on its own because of what’s happened in London. But what should be noted is Cleave’s ingenious narrative structure that presents a woman who’s hardly sympathetic in her own personal doings, but trapped in a situation of sorrow and pity. She sleeps with the neighbor, gets involved with his wife, takes their money, and as they offer it she senses a strange pang of guilt. She’s not likeable or interesting, and if she weren’t telling the story I’d would have missed her altogether. What she does portray is an average English citizen of London. If you think I’ve given too much of this story away, I’ve only scratched the surface. If you think Chris Cleave is unlucky, you might be right. But hopefully you’ll take a look at this novel and gain from it an insight about an event that touched countless lives, and for that it will demand your undivided attention.
No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Knopf
The Holy Grail, really, not the one Indy was looking for, but the literary Holy Grail - that’s what this guy is responsible for. Most people will swear there isn’t a better writer walking this earth. Turner of the sentence, capturing vernacular like a spider’s web while inhabiting a place or region as if nothing else is happening in the whole world, you forget where you are most of the time while under this man’s spell. ‘All The Pretty Horses’, ‘The Crossing’ and ‘Cities of the Plain’ are three books that have cemented McCarthy in the stratosphere of American letters. I was once dragged from a very lucrative pool game at the old Chelsea Billiards in Manhattan by a McCarthy crazed psychopath. He wanted to read passages from ‘Blood Meridian’ out loud to me.
And as far as McCarthy? I’ve never met him. Would like to. He won’t be at Book Soup, or B&N, or Powell’s anytime soon, or ever. He doesn’t tour, doesn’t do interviews (okay, Vanity Fair, if you call that an interview). He’s a myth wrapped in a legend. People would circle the globe queuing up for him. Really. A book signed by him, a first edition is probably one of the most sought after literary items known to man.
So now let’s talk about the new book.
This story isn’t for old men, although an AARP member writes it, and you’d only know that if you looked at his picture on the dust jacket. I was very skeptical of this book because ‘All The Pretty Horses’ is so damn hard to read. He never uses quotation marks, his descriptions run right into his dialogue, it’s hard to follow, and once you get the gist of what’s going on you’d better pay close attention because a wandering eye can land you in the ditch. Moss, our clumsy hero, is out hunting one day and stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and several million dollars in cash. Doing the dumb thing, as most people tend to do, he takes the money. While pursuing freedom, he’s chased by a very nasty, yet thoroughly likeable roaring villain of demonic proportions. Moss talks about his young wife and the simple manner in which they met and it leaves me wondering how an author of this caliber can still turn out nice little gems like this without showing much effort in the process. We’re joined in the hunt by a sheriff who is contemplating almost everything in his life from existence to the good and bad in all people. The set pieces for this narrative are strong and sturdy; taking their calling from the rugged Texas landscape that surrounds them. Grimy motels, vacant streets, and dingy police stations all become the stage for life-ending violence. McCarthy is a master storyteller and in this structure, the Wild West updated for the Viagra generation, he’s almost too bright and too focused. Moss does dumb things because he’s an idiot. The Sheriff doesn’t do certain things because he’s lazy. And the Gabriel of the fable is doing things to suit his one desire, money and drugs via the finality of death and the punctuation it leaves on the earth around him.
Eventually these men fulfill their destinies of becoming who they’ve always been, which for the most part is very plain to see. They don’t read good books or watch Oprah. Living off the land, handing out justice in whatever form is available is nothing more than a function of being themselves, and without a hint of sentimentality, even when a woman’s life is on the line. She dies because not killing her would go against everything these men believe in. This is noir from a guy who doesn’t really write that kind of stuff. You’ll find this story easy to get into and very readable, almost mainstream in its ability to please. Of course, no Cormac McCarthy book would be complete without a Chip Kidd cover, and this one doesn’t fail to impress. Hell, even the new Rupert Thompson is brilliant to look at thanks to Kidd, who is making books shine like gold, and what a treasure his work has become.
Revenge by Stephen Fry
Random House Trade Paper
Revenge. It’s something we all love. Enemies, I think everyone should have one. Makes you relish the things you hold dear. Stephen Fry, yes, he’s that Stephen Fry, the one from the movies, an actor and by all accounts one hell of a writer. Or is he? Admittedly he’s copped this story from Alexandre Dumas, or Dumbass as he’s been called (for all you Shawshank fans out there), and The Count of Monte Cristo, one of my all time favorites. I adore this story; I loved the movie, the book, and the idea that a man can exact vengeance on his friends and family when they’ve done him wrong. And have they ever done lovely little Ned Maddstone, the hero of this story, wrong, oh so very wrong.
Fry adopts the entire storyline start to finish from Dumas and his classic (one of the only classics that’s worth reading), so you really do know what’s coming around the next corner, but you’ll find yourself, like I did, waiting with anxious preparation for the story to unfold, even though it’s predictable. Ned is done in by his friends, and done in to the nines. They’ve planted some pot, grass, marijuana, ganja, whatever you call it these days, on the unsuspecting Ned, and just before they did it, he’s secretly passed a dirty list from the IRA. Now Ned’s father is a big wig in England, where this takes place, didn’t I mention that? Oh yes. Brilliant. This book is all things British and Frey gets it so glowingly right that it’s a pleasure to enjoy his descriptions. One of Ned’s friends turns out to be a very closeted lover of porn and another is a lover of drugs, and finally one is a predator of the mighty dollar; this last one hurts because he’s married to Ned’s long lost love, and he’s a real prick. After a horrendous trip to the island of the damned, and his return to England twenty years later, Ned has transformed himself into an Internet guru, multi-millionaire. Wait, there’s one last guy, a British officer whose mother is working for the IRA, and what a wonderful background Frey brings to life in this little set piece. Ned is living in the past, living with the burning desire to get back his twenty years spent on the island, with his love or his life. This story will satisfy you completely, as satisfied as Ned becomes through his vengeance. There is so much beauty in the details of this book that it’s worth reading twice. You should be lucky enough to adore this book as book as much as I did.
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