What’s this? Both Frank Bascombe and Adam Balm on one day? It’s almost like I believe books are important and undervalued and we should be paying more attention to them.
Silly, silly me.
Bascombe’s been doing this for a while for us, and I love the way he digs up titles I’ve never heard of and might never check out otherwise. Pay attention, kids. There’s a reason we keep this guy around:
Summer should bring us some goodies from the book world. I’m plowing through a few books right now; and the jury is still out. I just haven’t found something really incredible to read since ‘Then We Came To The End’, or ‘The Road’. I’m flooded with books each month and a large percentage of them are just “ok”, once in a while something hits big with me and I try to pass it along to you. But if I read something that’s just so-so then I’ll tell you. And remember...
It’s Not A Secret Unless I Tell Someone...
A Spy By Nature by Charles Cumming
St. Martins Press
As far as spy novelists go there are a few writers who are without peer, John le Carré, Graham Greene just to name a couple. Since they had both worked in the spy business themselves at one point or another in their lives it leaves no question as to why they’re so good at writing the genre. Charles Cumming makes a great point in his review of Stella Rimington’s novel, ‘At Risk’, that to write a spy novel, it helps to know something about being a spy. Mr. Cumming was a one point recruited to work for the SIS in London and eventually decided that writing a novel about the experience would be a better career path. We’re fortunate to have this novel published here in America and if this novel is a sign of things to come then you’re in for a treat as he’s written several other books including a sequel to ‘A Spy By Nature’ entitled ‘The Spanish Game’.
It’s been a while since a book from the spy genre has grabbed me so quickly and managed to get my attention night after night. I read in bits and pieces: I have a job, a family, a commute, you know, so it’s hard to get time to read. This book is so smooth, so readable; you’ll be devouring it in 50 to 60 pages chunks. Reason being? Alec Milius is such a likeable character; identifiable to anyone who’s suffered through their 20’s and 30’s looking for the meaning of life.
You always wonder how a man can be recruited to work as a spy. Who does he know? Where do you go to apply? What do you need to know to be a spy? Alec doesn’t know anyone, his mother has a friend who recognizes something in him and before we know it he’s neck deep in the application process for SIS. I found this part of the book to be absolutely fascinating, riveting, and almost exhaustingly real. Alec finds that he can’t keep up, starts to lie, and even begins to think he’s going to get away with lying about his past. Foolishly enough he accepts another job offer with his mother’s friend shortly after SIS rejects him. The only other business that’s as murky as the spy game is the oil business. I was worried Cumming would bog the story down with heavy technical data and slow the process down to a dribble, but this is where the novel takes flight and I’m hard pressed to find another story like it, anywhere.
Alec is offered a job working for Abnex Oil, a company that’s researching oil drilling in risky parts of Central Europe, they have a competitor aptly called Andromeda which is run by a couple of shifty Americans (for some reason the name of the company reminded me of the Crichton novel). His job as it’s laid out to him is to give these Americans secret information, and to perform a little industrial espionage at the interests of the British government. He’s promised a job for another branch of the British Secret Service if he can complete this task successfully. So he takes the job with Abnex Oil, gets introduced to the Americans, a nice couple about his age who appear to be married. All is going well, he’s dropping off information, getting paid, and not a soul at Abnex knows what he’s up to. The story toggles back and forth between Alec’s own personal tug of war with doing the right thing, Queen and Country and all that, with hopes of bedding the American woman he’s selling secrets to. All the while a girl from his past haunts his dreams and he can’t seem to shake his guilt over breaking up with her years ago.
I couldn’t help by recognize the agony that Alec feels for himself as he realized he was just a pawn for the British government, that his time on the planet was being wasted as he slogged forward into nothing. Finding the right career, a place to hang your hat everyday isn’t what it used to be, it’s a revolving door of sorts and we’re raised to believe that we’ll all be bright shinning stars, when in fact the reality is much more banal and mundane and the hopes of success recognition and fame are slowly carved out of you as you endure the painful reality that surrounds you; work, sleep…and someday…death. Alec has developed incredible skills at realizing his own grave misfortune, that is, his inherent laziness combined with the off chance at a neat job with sexy underpinnings, a job he coveted, is nothing more than a golden noose which he willing puts around his own neck.
Eventually Alec has a bad case of the willies and his conscious keeps him from carrying on with the fiction that defines his life. Finally the level of secrecy that he’s expected to maintain makes it impossible for him to carry on, but it’s worthy of the tension it creates for the reader. I’m actually shocked to have only just discovered this great writer, but I’m happy to report he’s written several other books. He’s a hit in England; let’s hope people catch on to him here.
Average American Male by Chad Kultgen
Harper Collins
I can’t see a woman reading this book with a straight face. I can’t see anyone reading this and not mistaken it for misogynistic and objectifying of women. That would be a mistake. This is a visceral look into the mind of the modern man. Really, it is. I’ll go so far to say that men, at least the men I know, think much, much worse things about women either in our lives or the women we run into on the street, passerby’s or co-workers, what ever. It’s a driving force, a way to pass the time, how we are wired, whatever you want to call it.
How a mainstream publisher ever had the nerve to publish this book is beyond me. Basically three things happen in this story; the nameless narrator has graphic sex with his girlfriend, thinks about sex with his girlfriend or masturbates to porn. Two hundred and forty some odd pages of this and you think you’d be tired of it. This isn’t Penthouse Letters; it’s more along the lines of a peek into a man’s mind, the examination of the frontal lobe. What’s really great is a mainstream publisher had the sack to publish this very brash, wildly entertaining and highly readable piece of fiction. I can imagine the agent pitching this to Harper Collins. “Um…I have this book, its all blow-jobs and jerking off, plus a lot of sex, graphic, and well, very frank in nature. You want an excerpt?” It would have to be like that, or why else would a literary agent represent it? How often do you get to call a place like Harper Collins and pitch a book like that?
From the start we realize that the narrator is interested in getting laid, it’s all he thinks about, and every woman who crosses his path, he thinks about having sex with them. I know men who think the same way, it’s really very common. He meets a woman on a plane and fantasies about her endlessly, then he runs into her at a record store in Los Angeles, from there it’s only a matter of time before he works his way into her life. Meanwhile he has a girlfriend that doesn’t like sex outside the traditional missionary position and is only thinking of him as a future husband. She tricks him into getting engaged, it’s actually a very funny conversation because he’s trying so hard to push this girl aside and only keeps her around for sex and he just agrees to a marriage just to get her to shut up. This girl, Casey, is over the moon, she has her mother come out and start to plan a wedding. The three of them eventually go lunch and he finally tells her that he’s not interested in marriage, which is an atom bomb in the middle of the story. Quickly and without any pause we’re thrown back into the world of the girl he saw on the plane, a record store clerk and college student. In a matter of pages he’s got her undressed and in bed. This girl likes all the things Casey doesn’t; she loves video games and anal sex. It’s a whirlwind tour of pleasures from this point forward, including a fake pregnancy and XXX descriptions way beyond what I’m used to as a reader. The great thing about this book is it’s not making an apology for all the base behavior, the thoughtless and callous treatment of other people (basically anyone who crosses his path); women, ethnic groups, gay men, Casey’s mother and father, the record store owner, you name it, this guy tells everyone how he feels. There’s a great moment, actually several, where the girl in his life drops a bomb, “I want to talk to you about something”, or the dreaded, “we have to talk”, and our hero instantly imagines the worst, “she’s going to tell me she’s HIV positive, or she was a guy, or she has a dick” which are worst case scenario responses that all guys think when they hear those things from their significant others. I guess what’s so refreshing about this story is it’s told without any guilt, he doesn’t think about who he’s offending, he just says what’s on his mind. Apparently there was a big internet marketing campaign for this book, but I didn’t hear about it until after it was published, which is too bad, as I would have been happy to tell you about this prior to its release. But don’t worry, it’s a trade paper. Go out and buy it, you won’t be sorry.
The King of Methlehem by Mark Lindquist
Simon & Schuster
Normally I wouldn’t read a book about the drug culture in America. But the S&S rep handed me a galley and I thought what the hell? The cover of the ARC is blindingly dull and has a green glass beaker broken on a yellow tile floor, the cover screams DON’T PICK ME UP, as it seems like it would be something forgettable (sales prevention in action). I’ve never read the author so I’m plowing into new territory and I’m happy to report that this book is pretty damn good. Call me a square or a buttoned-up literary snob, but I rarely read books like this. I guess that’s my problem not yours. Mark Lindquist is a damn fine writer and I’m glad I had the chance to read this gritty little drug procedural.
Toss a culturally savvy detective Wyatt; who is only described as resembling Peter Fonda in his early years and a smart as a whip lawyer along with a disgustingly foul drug dealer and you’ve got ‘The King of Methlehem’, (the main character, the dealer, the bad guy, is the self proclaimed king of methamphetamine, hence the title.) This book roars along from the opening page and slips through your fingers like silk, magically, before you know it the story is ripping its way to a close and you’ve barely had time to catch your breath. The King, his real name is never used, he likes to go by Howard A. Shultz, Lars Ulrich, you get the idea. He’s a name dropper. Howard is the name he ends up going by most days, and when the cops are close to catching him and he slips away, miraculously a Starbucks cup somehow ends up in his wake, a nice touch. Lindquist is a trickster when it comes to placing his characters in the moment, he references the television show Lost, Haruki Murakami’s novel’s, and has his characters toss movie quotes around in place of procedural vernacular that is common in other detective stories. Wyatt is running close on Howard’s tail as the two men do a death dance that can be seen from a mile away. The center of the methamphetamine world is Tacoma, Washington, a short drive from the cultural epicenter of Seattle as far as Washington State is concerned. Wyatt is obsessed with catching his prey and Howard is obsessed with staying the King of the methamphetamine world. He employs a repulsive team of drug addicts who work for drugs not money. Kids are exploited, and you’re left with the feeling that because of Howard’s addiction, his crime and his nasty habits of treating people like shit, that he’s not long for this world. There is a punishment for those who deserve it and those who don’t. Lindquist is making an overt point about the idea of legalizing drugs. Take the criminal element out of it and you’ve got no reason for the criminal ingredient, just go down to your drug store and buy a blister pack of your drug of choice. But then… what would the police do all day? The author spent years as trial team chief of the drug unit for the prosecuting attorney in Pierce County, Washington where some of this story takes place. He’s seen this addiction up close and has transferred his experience to the page with a striking clarity that’s hard to watch or look away from.
Got something you want me to read?
