Title: A Dark Matter

Author: Peter Straub

Genre: Horror, Literary Fiction

Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Date: February 2010
Hardcover: 416 Pages

The charismatic and cunning Spenser Mallon is a campus guru in the 1960s, attracting the devotion and demanding sexual favors of his young acolytes. After he invites his most fervent followers to attend a secret ritual in a local meadow, the only thing that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body—and the shattered souls of all who were present.

Years later, one man attempts to understand what happened to his wife and to his friends by writing a book about this horrible night, and it’s through this process that they begin to examine the unspeakable events that have bound them in ways they cannot fathom, but that have haunted every one of them through their lives. As each of the old friends tries to come to grips with the darkness of the past, they find themselves face-to-face with the evil triggered so many years earlier. Unfolding through the individual stories of the fated group’s members, A Dark Matter is an electric, chilling, and unpredictable novel that will satisfy Peter Straub’s many ardent fans, and win him legions more.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel

How did I get this book: Review Copy from the publisher

Why did I read this book: I am a huge of Peter Straub’s, and have been since I first read Ghost Story as a teen. So, when we were offered the opportunity to read and review A Dark Matter – and to interview Peter Straub himself! – I was ecstatic.

Review:

On an evening pregnant with violence and possibility in 1966, a group of eight young men and women trek out to a meadow and perform an ancient ritual, following the charismatic spiritual guru, Spencer Mallon. At the end of the evening, only six emerge from the meadow – one boy disappears completely, another’s mangled, shredded corpse lies dead in the grass. Even those lucky enough to emerge with their lives, however, are forever changed by the event. Lee Harwell, best friends with four of those who went to the meadow, has always felt on the periphery of this extraordinary event. Unwilling to buy into Spencer Mallon’s teachings and affected persona, Lee refused to join his friends that evening, and only decades later decides to seriously piece together the mystery of what happened that evening. Now a famous author, Lee finally pursues answers: from “Dilly” Olson, the handsome young man that followed Mallon for years before landing in prison; from “Boats” Boatman, a kleptomaniac that has lost his defining edge; from Meredith Bright, the impossibly beautiful and coldly inhuman senator’s wife; from “Hootie” Bly, the innocent boy that went mad after that evening, and who can only speak in quotations from books; and from “the Eel,” Lee Truax, Lee Harwell’s beautiful wife that gradually lost her sight after that evening in the meadow.

Though billed as something of a supernatural horror novel, A Dark Matter is much more of a psychological book. It’s a subdued novel in the fashion of Rashomon or Lost, using different character perspectives to gradually build a complete picture of events. But it’s also more than just a book about solving the mystery of “What Happened That Fated Eve!” It’s also an exploration of relationships and characters as they have changed over the years. All this, of course, filtered through the outside perspective of a narrator that has no knowledge of the event, but has seen how his friends have been affected by that remarkable, supernatural experience. As Lee Harwell explores the memories of the past, he collects and records each character’s story – in terms of writing, this translates to a bizarre, yet satisfying, format for the novel. A Dark Matter is essentially a collection of shorter stories, connected by Lee’s narrative and his own piecemeal understanding of events. What should be an awkward, disjointed read is instead a rewarding, quirky one that simply works. I loved the metafiction aspect of the book (i.e. readers know Lee is writing these stories for a book, just as Lee is conscious to the fact he is writing a story). It simply worked.

As for the characters themselves, those entities behind the recollections, they are a strange, motley crew. Lee Harwell, our hero, isn’t really a hero. Of all his high school friends, Lee was the only one smart enough (or is it stubborn?) not to buy into Spencer Mallon’s B.S. peddling. And yet, the whole driving force behind the book is Lee’s inherent outside-ness, his position on the periphery of a life-changing event that cast a shadow on the lives of all his closest and most loved friends. It’s an intriguing juxtaposition – though Lee reiterates numerous times that he’s glad he didn’t meed Spencer Mallon in 1966 and that he’s happy he did not go to the meadow, the reader can’t help but feel he regrets this, deeply. As a narrator and protagonist, Lee Harwell is a very human, frail dude. Susceptible to human failings and emotions, Lee’s one well rounded voice. The other characters, however, lack the same rounded development. For one thing, it’s a little pet peeve of mine when everyone in a book is ridiculously good looking – Mallon is likened to a young Harrison Ford (circa Raiders of the Lost Ark), Dilly incredibly handsome, Boats only slightly less handsome, the Eel completely, heartstoppingly, breathtakingly beautiful. In fact, it’s the Eel that I wish had more of a character, as she’s always on the periphery and on a pedestal that her husband has (sub?)consciously elevated her to at every turn of the page.

The best characters were, without a doubt, Meredith Bright and Hootie Bly. The scene when Lee finally meets the beautiful Meredith is chilling and made of awesome – Meredith’s beautify is the grade of perfection you see with plastic surgery on cougar trophy wives, vampiric politician spouses, the Nicole Kidmans of the world. Her ruthlessness and narcissism is simply dumbfounding. Hootie, however, is the character that steals your heart. After going mad, losing himself to a prison of words after the Meadow, Hootie is committed to a mental institution – where he has remained for decades, until Lee and Dilly come calling. Hootie, a boy with a photographic memory, speaks only in quotations – his favorite being Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. He is the unmarred innocent, the idiot savant that comes to life in a way that is unique and memorable, quite literally stealing the show from the other members of the group.

While I loved some of the characters and the actual structure of the book, my main problem with A Dark Matter was in how loose and amorphous the story was. Firstly, all of the kids from the meadow never blame Mallon for what has happened to them – which I admit is kinda cool (besides the fact that Mallon gives me the willies). It seems a little weird that these generally smart, impossibly beautiful people were so easily taken in by a dime-a-dozen, pseudo-spiritualist moocher – and that years later, after going blind/mad/to prison/etc, they still all love Spencer Mallon.

Also, A Dark Matter is built up around this mystery of what each character saw in the Meadow, and ultimately the vision is different for each character and there are no concrete answers – even the Eel’s final revelation is a little underwhelming. But, as I finished the book and thought about it for a while, I came to my own Lee Harwell type of discovery. A Dark Matter is not so much about the what as it is the how. It’s a defining, and as Lee says, a liberating experience. The supernatural elements of the book (which aren’t very prominent) are nothing compared to the psychological development of the story – it’s about the hold this event has put on all the characters’ lives, inflicted on them by themselves.

Ultimately, I enjoyed A Dark Matter, as a work of literary fiction. Absolutely recommended to fans not only of Mr. Straub’s horror, but of a well-written, thought-provoking, and ultimately emotionally liberating story.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

A Few Years Back, Late Spring

The great revelations of my adult life began with the shouts of a lost soul in my neighborhood breakfast joint. I was standing in line at the Corner Bakery on State and Cedar, half a block down the street from my pretty brick townhouse, waiting to order a Swiss Oatmeal (muesli) or a Berry Parfait (granola), anyhow something modest. The loudest noises in the place were the tapping of laptop keys and the rustle of someone turning newspaper pages. Abruptly, with a manic indignation that seemed to come from nowhere, the man at the head of the line started uttering the word obstreperous. He started out at a level just above ordinary conversation. By the time he found his rhythm, he was about twice that volume and getting louder as he rolled along. If you had to settle on one word to yell over and over in public, wouldn’t you pick something less cumbersome? Yet he kept at it, spinning those four lumpy syllables every possible way, as if trying them on for size. His motive, for nothing actually comes from nowhere, soon became obvious.

Obstreperous? ObSTREPerous? OBSTREPEROUS? Ob-strep?-ER-ous? OBstreperous?

Lady, you think I’m obstreperous now? This is what he was saying. Give me another thirty seconds, you’ll learn all about obstreperous.

With each repetition, his question grew more heated. The momentarily dumbfounded young woman at the order counter had offended him, he wished her to know how greatly. The guy also thought he was making himself look smart, even witty, but to everyone else in the shop he had uncorked raving lunacy.

His variations were becoming more imaginative.

Obstreeperous? Obstraperous? ObstrapOROUS?

To inspect this dude, I tilted sideways and looked down the good-sized line. I almost wished I hadn’t.

Right away, it was obvious that the guy was not simply playing around. The next man in line was giving him six feet of empty ?oor space. Under the best of circumstances, people were going to keep their distance from this character. Eight or nine inches of white-gray hair surged out in stiff waves around his head. He was wearing a torn, slept-in checked suit that might have been ripped off a corn?eld scarecrow. Through a latticework of scabs, smears, and bruises, his swollen feet shone a glaring, bloodless white. Like me, he had papers under his elbow, but the wad of newsprint he was clamping to his side appeared to have lasted him at least four or ?ve days. The puffed-up bare feet, scuffed and abraded like shoes, were the worst part.

“Sir?” said the woman at the order counter. “Sir, you need to leave my store. Step away from the counter, sir, please. You need to step away.”

You can read all of chapter 1 and chapter 2 online at the book’s official facebook page, HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Check out the pretty effective book trailer below:

Also, make sure to check out our very own Q&A with the master of horror himself, Peter Straub HERE.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

Reading Next: Except the Queen by Jane Yolen & Midori Snyder

On this edition of “Chat With An Author” we bring you the ineffable Peter Straub – horror author, poet, and occasional guest star on soap opera One Life to Live. It’s no secret we’re fans of Mr. Straub’s work (so far, Thea has talked two unsuspecting readers into writing reviews of his work), so when we were presented with the once in a lifetime opportunity to interview this prolific author, we jumped at the opportunity!

Here to talk about his new novel, A Dark Matter, ladies and gents please give it up for Peter Straub!

The Book Smugglers: First and foremost, thanks for taking the time to “chat” with us! A Dark Matter is your newest horror novel, about a group of teen friends in the 1960s who follow a charismatic college campus guru and unleash a cataclysmic evil that forever changes them. What was the creative impetus behind writing A Dark Matter? What inspired this book?

Peter: The book began when I started to remember some strange, fraudulent but charismatic men who wandered through Madison, WI, in the mid-sixties. They had mysterious, prophetic things to say; they had studied mystic texts and traveled through exotic lands; it was their self-imposed task to impart their wisdom to younger minds. It was their unacknowledged task to live for free at their acolytes’ expense, to stay in their apartments, drink their liquor, appropriate their clothes and their girlfriends, and to take drugs.

The Book Smugglers: A Dark Matter seems to flow organically from your past work, incorporating elements from your earlier novels and building upon them. In particular, A Dark Matter uses the same varied character perspectives and metafiction-style devices that you’ve used in your Blue Rose Trilogy (Koko, Mystery, The Throat). You’re a writer that doesn’t seem to be afraid to experiment and push the narrative/structural envelope. Do you ever fear that readers (or those gorgon-esque reviewers) may not “get” your writing?

Peter: Some don’t, of course. For two decades anyhow, a certain class of reader has been complaining that my books are too slow, that the payoff isn’t instant, and that too much is going on. Who needs all this stuff, they say, and what good is it in the first place? I can’t worry about these people; they already have plenty of writers who give them exactly what they want. What I want to do is to reach the readers who have not as yet given me a try, and to give the readers I already have, whom I love beyond measure, work that is as good as they deserve it to be.

The Book Smugglers: On that note, the actual structure of A Dark Matter is pretty unconventional – the book unfolds through stories and collected memories. Many early reviews liken A Dark Matter to Akira Kurosawa’s classic mystery film Rashomon, and for good reason. Why did you experiment with this new eccentric structure in this book? Did any other films or books like Rashomon influence A Dark Matter?

Peter: To tell you the truth, I never thought of the Kurosawa film. Nor was it influenced by any other film, actually. It just came to me, after years of wondering where this ship was headed, that it was going to move from one version of the event in October, 1966, to another, maybe three in all, and that these different versions would reflect the characters and ambitions of the people who delivered them. So, it seemed to me though I had never planned to do this, that the book would have three endings, one after the other, with the last being the best, truest, and most comprehensive. It is a very odd structure, I know – in fact the structure is like this: a summarized introduction; an interpolated short story; some left-field speculations about evil; and three endings. This is perfectly nuts, it shouldn’t work; but it seemed to work anyhow. I liked it, I thought it read in a very satisfactory and involving manner.

The Book Smugglers: Your books, A Dark Matter included, explore horror of a psychological and supernatural nature, and also manage to traverse the Never Never Land between “genre” and “literary” fiction – a gap that has claimed many an author in its unfathomable depths. How do your books appeal to both genre fiction fans and the literary types?

Peter: We shall see. It seldom seems to me that I actually have made the wonderful genre crossover that I felt was the actual heart of the particular novel I was writing—or, more accurately, that hardly anyone noticed what I was at least trying to bring off. Reviewers all described my books as works of horror, and that was that.

The Book Smugglers: Many of your novels (particularly those books in your Blue Rose Trilogy) use unreliable narrators – a favorite technique that we love reading here at The Book Smugglers. Why do you use this type of narrator in your writing? Do you have any particular favorite unreliable narrators in fiction?

Peter: Well, in actual life, every single narrator you meet, including you and me, is as unreliable as can be. Everybody shapes and shaves experience while describing it, everybody frames himself or herself in a better, stronger role and in a more flattering light than may truly have been the case. We can’t help doing this, it’s how we are built. So the unreliable narrator is no more than an aspect of psychological realism. It is extremely interesting, however, to come across narrators who do not understand that they are telling very partial or inaccurate “truths,” also narrators who tell deliberate untruths because lying to the reader and the other characters in the best way to get what they want.

My favorites would be the narrator of The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford, and The Sacred Fount, Henry James.

The Book Smugglers: You’re most well known for your work in the horror genre (with five Bram Stoker awards under your belt), but you’re also a poet with several published collections. You’ve also written and edited collections of short stories, won the prestigious World and British Fantasy Awards, and have had a recurring guest role on a soap opera. Basically, you do it all. Do you have a favorite genre or medium to write or create in?

Peter: I’m in love with the novel, and have been since my teens. And because I love genre work but think it need have none of the limitations generally associated with it, it is very gratifying to me that so many younger writers have moved right into the gap you mention above, and without worrying at all about it, mix horror/fantasy and general literature into one wonderful thing: Kelly Link, Michael Chabon, Graham Joyce, Kevin Brockmeier, Dan Chaon, Brian Evenson. They’re great.

The Book Smugglers: Who are some of your favorite and/or most influential authors?

Peter: Apart from those I just named, I could list James, Hawthorn, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark, Donald Harington, Raymond Chandler, Dennis Lehane, Philip Roth, David Plante, Bradford Morrow, John Ashbery, Fernando Pessoa, Stephen King, Roberto Bolano, Rodrigo Fresan, John Langan, Sarah Langan, John Crowley, and a lot of others.

The Book Smugglers: You’ve collaborated with Stephen King in the truly excellent books The Talisman and Black House. [An aside: When you and Stephen King start tossing ideas around, we imagine its something like the proton-pack streams being crossed in Ghostbusters (i.e. unfathomably beautiful and universe-ending dangerous).] How does the two-author collaborative book writing process compare to writing a book on your own?

Peter: With Steve King, the difference is liked being carried along in a big, perfectly-tuned Italian sports car capable of hitting 150 without getting the shakes and humping along on a touchy old motorcycle that slams into every bump and hole and conks out every ten miles or so. That’s the difference, pretty much. I’m the old motorcycle.

The Book Smugglers: The Talisman has recently been released in comic book format – do you read comics? Did you have a say in the art direction or publication process of the comic book adaptation?

Peter: I read graphic novels, a lot of them, and got into them through Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books. With my dear “One Life to Live“ friend, Michael Easton, I wrote a long, hairy graphic novel called The Green Woman, which was illustrated by John Bolton and will come out from DC/Vertigo later this year. Michael and I are very proud of this book.

With The Talisman comic, Steve and I were consulted at every step in the pricess, and continue to be so.

The Book Smugglers: We hear rumors that a third book in The Talisman arc is in the works – is this true? What other writing projects do you have simmering?

Peter: At some point in the next year or so, Steve King and I will begin pondering the third and last Jack Sawyer story. Nothing else is simmering, except for the vague outlines of a story set in Victorian England and the present day.

The Book Smugglers: The zombies are coming! The zombies are coming! You only have time to save ONE book, ONE movie, and ONE TV show. QUICK! What are they?

Peter: Oh, grump, I hate zombie, but here goes, anyhow: The Ambassadors, Franny and Alexander, and The Wire.

The Book Smugglers: We Book Smugglers are faced with constant threats and criticisms from our significant others concerning the sheer volume of books we purchase and read – hence, we have resorted to ’smuggling books’ home to escape scrutinizing eyes. Have you ever had to smuggle books?

Peter: No, I long ago gave up having to smuggle books into my house, and now they pour in through the doors every day. I just completely gave up guilt for buying books and music.

Peter Straub is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels. Two of his most recent, Lost Boy Lost Girl and In the Night Room, are winners of the Bram Stoker Award, as is his recent collection, 5 Stories. Straub was the editor of the two-volume Library of America anthology The American Fantastic Tale. He lives in New York City.

We’d like to extend a huge THANK YOU to Peter Straub for taking the time to “chat” with us! For more information about Peter Straub, make sure to visit his website, www.peterstraub.net. And make sure to stick around as later today we review his newest novel, A Dark Matter.

Title: Mr. Shivers

Author: Robert Jackson Bennett

Genre: Horror, Historical Fiction

Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: January 2010
Hardcover: 336 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel

How did I get this book: Review Copy from the publisher

Why did I read this book: Ever since I saw the mockup of the haunting cover and read the synopsis from Orbit, I was instantly hooked. Billed as an apocalyptic-style horror novel set during the American Great Depression (one of my favorite periods of study as a history major), I could not resist.

Summary: (from Amazon.com)
It is the time of the Great Depression. The dustbowl has turned the western skies red and thousands leave their homes seeking a better life. Marcus Connelly seeks not a new life, but a death – a death for the mysterious scarred man who murdered his daughter. And soon he learns that he is not alone. Countless others have lost someone to the scarred man. They band together to track him, but as they get closer, Connelly begins to suspect that the man they are hunting is more than human. As the pursuit becomes increasingly desperate, Connelly must decide just how much he is willing to sacrifice to get his revenge.

Review:

Mr. Shivers was easily one of the most highly anticipated novels of early 2010 for me – the blend of horror, gritty realism, and the bleakness of the Great Depression setting instantly appealed to me, and I was ecstatic when I received an ARC for the title. Add to that the overwhelmingly positive reviews from the heavy-hitters like Publisher’s Weekly, the Guardian, and Library Journal, and I was one very excited girl.

Unfortunately, Mr. Shivers simply could not deliver. All sound and fury, but ultimately with little to say, I found myself hollowly disengaged and sadly disappointed with this debut novel from Mr. Robert Jackson Bennett.

Marcus Connelly (simply referred to throughout the book as Connelly) is a man that has lost everything. His young daughter has been killed by a mysterious, legend of a man whose face is marred by three long scars. Unable to move on with his life, Connelly’s marriage deteriorates, and he decides to leave to find – and exact revenge – on the gray man that murdered his daughter, the man that the hobos riding the rails call “the Shiver Man.” All Connelly knows is that he must travel west and he makes his way across an arid, devastated American landscape, from Tennessee to Oklahoma, hitching rides and stowing away on trains with other men in search of a better future. Along the way, Connelly learns that he is not alone in his quest as he comes across another trio of men out for blood, payment for the wake of death and destruction left in the scarred man’s path. As the group closes in their pursuit, hot on the Shiver Man’s trail, they gradually begin to realize he may not be any mere man – and Connelly learns, all but too late, that all revenge comes at an unimaginable cost.

Mr. Shivers is the debut novel from Robert Jackson Bennett, and it has a wicked good premise – at its onset, Mr. Shivers is a strong, attention-grabbing novel. The initial descriptions of the Depression-ravaged landscape, complete with Hoovervilles, dust storms, and the constant presence of the railroad are evocative and well-painted, as is the desolate, gray mood of the novel. Indeed, Mr. Shivers begins with a bang, banking on the strength of its morose setting. The historical perspective feels a little shaky at times (with regard to slang/colloquialisms and geography), but Mr. Bennett’s atmosphere in the novel is undeniably compelling. However, as the story unfolds, it’s very easy to see where it is going to end up. There’s a good deal of predictability here, which is unfortunate for so strong a start and premise (barely within the book’s first act, the old adage about those seeking monsters becoming them immediately comes to mind). This isn’t a particularly bad thing, provided that the characters and level of writing are strong. Unfortunately, they weren’t.

As a protagonist, Connelly is simply drawn. He’s a very tall & broad, intimidating, bearded man that does not like to speak. In many ways, he’s empty; a husk following the death of his daughter. This characterization is actually quite effective, at least in the beginning, but Connelly never manifests any semblance of a personality or tone as a character, nor do any of the other secondary cast members in the book (who read like flat stereotypes: an ex-priest, a Jew, a brash young man). There’s absolutely nothing in the way of character development here, which, unfortunately is another point against Mr. Shivers. This, however, would have been forgivable had the writing been impeccable…but once again, I found myself disappointed.

Mr. Bennett’s writing style, unfortunately, comes across as self-indulgent. Every conversation Connelly has in this book (or rather, that he listens to, as he does not speak much), every extended section of descriptive prose feels so melodramatically self-important as to seem…well, silly and derivative. For example,

He looked up at the stars again and considered this spot on the land, this tree he sat under. These empty square feet of land had always been here, would always be here. To this place he was no more than a dream. And he wondered about those who had come before, wandering over the plains, treading this spot. People that came before nature. Animals that came before sunlight. Perhaps it had been so. He touched the coarse earth. Once something had died here. It was a fact of chance. Some animal had dragged itself to this spot or many had fallen, limbs askew, its lifeblood leaking onto the earth. And then perhaps it had lifted its thoughtless eyes to the infinity above, looked at the endless, bejeweled dark, just as Connelly was now, and made some sound, some mewling cry. Asking a question. Begging for a few seconds more. And then expired, maybe leaving its questions behind.

This is perhaps a matter of personal taste, but the constant presence of these sorts of passages throughout the book were grating and felt amateur, the work of an author trying very hard to sound poetic and significant but failing, at least to me as a reader. I also found myself uncomfortable with some of the more religious and patriotic undertones to the novel, but this is, again, a matter of personal taste.

Mr. Shivers is also distinctly reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (Connelly is a character very similar to Shadow, and the traveling story and American backdrop is also very familiar), as it is of early Stephen King (in particular, The Gunslinger with Roland’s ages-old pursuit of The Man in Black versus Conelly’s Man in Gray). Unfortunately, Mr. Shivers lacks the resonance or skill of these two master storytellers, and the end result is something more derivative and bland. There are good ideas in this book, but Mr. Bennett stumbles, lacking in the execution of these ideas. The plot is cumbersome and the writing overwrought. I finished Mr. Shivers with an overall feeling of disappointment.

All these criticisms said, Mr. Bennett clearly does have promise as an author. This is only his debut novel (which probably accounts for the feeling that he’s trying too hard in this book), and there is potential here. Ultimately, Mr. Shivers isn’t a great book, but it’s not a terrible one either.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

By the time the number nineteen crossed the Missouri state line the sun had crawled low in the sky and afternoon was fading into evening. The train had built up a wild head of steam over the last few miles. As Tennessee fell behind it began picking up speed, the wheels chanting and chuckling, the ?elds blurring into jaundice- yellow streaks by the track. A fresh gout of black smoke unfurled from the train’s crown and folded back to clutch the cars like a great black cloak.

Connelly shut his eyes as the wave of smoke ?ew toward him and held on tighter to the side of the cattle car. He wasn’t sure how long he had been hanging there. Maybe a half hour. Maybe more. The crook of his arm was curled around one splintered slat of wood and he had wedged his boots into the cracks below. Every joint in his body ached.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Mr. Shivers has a pretty cool interactive website, which is definitely worth checking out. Also worth taking a look at is the haunting book trailer:

Verdict: Though I was eagerly anticipating this novel, Mr. Shivers failed to live up to the hype. Not without its merits, this is the type of book that may sing to some readers, but, unfortunately, I am not one of them. A plodding, predictable plot, flat characters, and overly-dramatic writing made this a forgettable read for me – though I will give Mr. Bennett’s future endeavors a try.

Rating: 5 – Meh

Reading Next: Need by Carrie Jones

Title: Going Bovine

Author: Libba Bray

Genre: Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Literature, Young Adult

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: September 2009
Hardcover: 496 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel

How did we get this book: Bought

Why did we read this book: We have heard nothing but rave reviews for Libba Bray’s newest novel. And, as Thea was a fan of A Great and Terrible Beauty (and will seriously, honest to god finish reading and reviewing the Gemma Doyle books soon), and Ana was excited to try Ms. Bray’s writing, we eagerly plunged into Going Bovine.

Summary: (from amazon.com)
Can Cameron find what he’s looking for?

All 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school—and life in general—with a minimum of effort. It’s not a lot to ask. But that’s before he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die. Which totally sucks. Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel/possible hallucination with a bad sugar habit. She tells Cam there is a cure—if he’s willing to go in search of it. With the help of a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf and a yard gnome, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America into the heart of what matters most.

REVIEW:

First Impressions:

Thea: As we’ve said above, both Ana and I were *extremely* excited for Going Bovine – it came highly recommended by bloggers, official critics and friends alike. In fact, both Ana and I were SO stoked for Going Bovine that we both began the book with expectations that it would crack our top 10 of 2009 lists! And though this novel didn’t quite make my top reads list, it comes pretty gorram close. I loved Going Bovine – there’s no other way to say it.

Ana: From the get go, I thought the book had Ana-Crack (thanks, Thea) written all over it: unreliable narrator + humour = win. The idea of this book was so promising, I had an allocated slot for it in my top 10 of 2009. Although, just like with Thea, it didn’t quite make it, I still loved it to bits. And I am completely infatuated with Libba Bray’s writing right now.

On the Plot:

Meet Cameron.

He’s an apathetic, modern day impersonation of Holden Caufield. Privileged, intelligent enough, solidly middle class, son of two professor parents and twin brother to a popular cheerleader sister who can do no wrong. Cam really doesn’t care about…well, anything. He goes to classes and does the bare minimum to pass, and smokes a lot of weed. But soon, Cam’s aimless existence takes new direction when he learns that he is sick. Terminally sick. Dying in a couple of weeks sick. Cam has an extremely rare neurological disease – the equivalent of mad cow for humans – which causes heaving spasms, hallucinations, and has him bedridden in the hospital in the very, very faint hope that experimental treatment may cure him.

But then, Cam gets a visit from a strange, beautiful angel with spray painted wings and hot pink hair – Dulcie’s her name. And Dulcie offers Cam the chance of his lifetime: help her and the folks upstairs by finding a dimension hopping physicist named Doctor X and stop the end of the world (which he has unwittingly unleashed via his wormhole-traveling hijinks) – and Dr. X will be able to cure him. Faced with certain death on one hand, and a dim hope for life on the other, Cam agrees and sets off on a cross country mission with a hypochondriac dwarf named Gonzo, encountering cultists, physicists, Norse Gods, and Fire Demons…and finally experiencing life.

Thea: From a plotting standpoint, Going Bovine is a schizophrenic, surrealist comic tragedy – and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s an adventure, a road story across an America that is both familiar and alien, blending everything from bowling, smoothie happiness loonies to theories of relativistic physics. And Disneyworld. And Norse mythology. So, it’s fair to say that Going Bovine covers a whole lot of ground. Some readers might get a little frazzled or bored with the jumping, episodic nature of Cam & Gonzo’s adventures, but for me? Well, I loved it. It’s quirky, weird, and completely winsome. Yes, there were some extraneous encounters on Cam’s long road, and yes, there were some passages that felt as though they were unnecessary and written for the sole purpose of being quirky – but like all road stories, the destination isn’t the important part; the journey is. And Cam (& Gonzo)’s journey was completely worth it.

From a writing standpoint, Going Bovine is an incredibly smart book. I loved how the entire novel is open to interpretation – is Cam simply hallucinating the whole thing in his hospital bed? Or is it something more? For my take, I loved how the whole book was essentially a giant Schroedinger’s Cat – both realities, where Cam is in his hospital bed near death & on the road in an old busted up caddy fighting off an evil snow globe corporation, coexist (just as Schroedinger’s cat is both alive and dead within the box before it is opened). I loved the Don Quixote parallels/inversions too. Very cool stuff, Ms. Bray. Very cool stuff indeed.

Ana: I agree with Thea – if there is one word that captures the feel of this book, “cool” it is. But the very best type of “cool” : the bold, cheeky, smart, quirky, type of cool. The type that combines several ideas – for there is Philosophy, Mythology and Physics , for example, in the book – with a bit of heart and soul (literally and metaphorically) added to it. Plot-wise the novel is surreal and completely trippy and one does need to have an open mind to read this book. I love this passage here – it encapsulates the feel of the book perfectly:

“As a kid, I imagined lots of different scenarios for my life. I would be an astronaut. Maybe a cartoonist. A famous explorer or a rock star. Never once did I see myself standing under the window of a house belonging to some druggie named Carbine, waiting for his yard gnome to steal his stash so I could get a cab back to a cheap motel where my friend, a neurotic, death-obsessed dwarf, was waiting for me so we could get on the road to an undefined place and a mysterious Dr X, who would cure me from mad cow disease and stop a band of dark energy from destroying the universe”.

Thea aptly refers to the Schroedinger’s Cat experiment to describe the book and I think her insight is genius, for the story is exactly like this: both realities may be happening at the same time, it doesn’t have to be one OR the other. But regardless of how cool the idea or the execution are, the book would mean nothing to me, if there wasn’t heart and soul added to this recipe. And those come partly from the lovely writing, partly from the relationships that Cameron starts during his journey. I got a quote that is another perfect embodiment of what exactly I am talking about:

“Cameron, look at me” she whispers.
I Do. I see her. Really see her. And in that moment, I know she sees me.
She smiles, and in her smile is everything I could ever want. Her face looms closer, closing the impossible distance. Her lips are near mine.
And when it comes, her kiss is like something not so much felt as found.”

I get goose-bumps every time I read this sentence. And as much as this book is funny (out-loud funny even) , it is also very sad and I did find myself bawling a couple of times.

I do have to mention something else that really bothered me though (although I am sure, this will not bother 99% of the people that read this book) : Cameron’s favourite musician is a Portuguese guy called the Great Tremolo (quite possibly, worst made-up Portuguese name ever) for his cheesy songs and lyrics. A couple of times, some of his lines are reproduced in the book. Like this one, for example:

“Para Mí He Visto Angeles”

I hate to be the one to break this to you but THIS IS SPANISH AND NOT PORTUGUESE. This was enough to put me off reading the book for a couple of hours. For example this other sentence here:

“Eu considerei a sua cara e sabia a felicidade”.

Which is supposed to mean “ I looked upon your face and knew happiness” but doesn’t really mean anything. The Portuguese line is all wonky and plain wrong – it doesn’t make sense.

Being Brazilian (and Portuguese being my mother tongue) this frustrates me to no end. It is obvious that a lot of effort was put into creating this book: the cover art is amazing, this is a hardcover plus there are beta readers, editors etc who must have read the book, so it sort of infuriates that no one thought of spending half an hour to check that the language is correct and no, online translation softwares or BabelFish are NOT the way to go – as evidenced by the above line – a prime example of a translation gone wrong.

But yeah, a minor quibble for an otherwise great book.

On the Characters:

Thea: This is where things get REALLY interesting. See, Cam is a character that I began the book not liking. Check that, I began the book DESPISING Cam. He’s everything I hate in a character – he’s whiny and apathetic, he’s disinterested and has no reason to be such a…wanker. He’s a modern day Holden Caufield, in other words – and I loathe Holden Caufield. But rather than being some crackshot Catcher in the Rye, male angst rehash, Ms. Bray does the incredible with Going Bovine…she makes me CARE for the characters. This book is the equivalent of what would happen if you took an apathetic asshat like Holden and made him CARE about something – forcing him to live his life. And ultimately, that’s what makes Cam such an endearing character – the fact that he finally, at the end of the day when faced with certain death and hope, he chooses hope. I finished the book loving Cam for all his imperfections, for his bravery and his – if you’ll pardon the pun – ability to seize life by the horns.

The secondary characters are also fantastic – I loved Dulcie, the hot-punk-goth angel with a sense of humor and an appreciation for the small things in life (like microwaveable popcorn). I loved Gonzo, the Eddie Kaspbrak of Going Bovine – a little person with an overbearing mother and a severe case of hypochondria. I loved Balder, the garden gnome that insists he’s the entrapped visage of the Norse God, tricked into gnome form by Loki. I loved them all.

Ana: I too, started the book disliking Cameron and his Holden persona intensely. But at some point in this journey my opinion changed as the story and the character’s arc progressed and I ended up caring for Cameron very much. For all that the book has this extreme cooky story with exaggerated plot points ( like for example their visit to CESSNAB – the Church of Everlasting Satisfaction and Snack ‘N’ Bowl); There were quite a few, quiet moments that were extremely poignant and important like Cameron holding his mother’s hand or talking to his father on the phone.

I did wonder about something: if taking the Holden archetype and adding an external influence to it, by making the character realise he needed to change but only because he was at the brink of death, wasn’t a little problematic and perhaps not really organic. But then it hit me: as much as sometimes we would like to see a story explained, compartmentalised, defined, real life is not really any of these things is it? It is chaos and tragedy and that is even truer when the unthinkable happens – when a 16 year old boy is faced with death when he hasn’t had the chance to yet live – he never even got the change to grow beyond his Holden persona on his own time.

This is the beauty of Going Bovine: that it takes chaos and tragedy and makes them more bearable, meaningful and perhaps even a bit amazing.

As for the other characters, I loved all of them from Gonzo and Balder to Dulcie and even the The Wizard of Reckoning – that was a surprise I did not see coming.

Final Thoughts, Observations & Rating:

Thea: What more is there for me to say? I loved Going Bovine. I wholeheartedly recommend it to EVERYONE – especially to reluctant dude readers, or literary snobs who think male ennui is the magnificent apex of character development. [snorts]

Ana: Going Bovine was a wonderful , cool reading experience to me: it made me laugh uncontrollably many times and it made me sob quietly when the right time came. I loved it.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From the First Chapter:

CHAPTER ONE
In Which I Introduce Myself

The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World.

I’m sixteen now, so you can imagine that’s left me with quite a few days of major suckage.

Like Career Day? Really? Do we need to devote an entire six hours out of the high school year to having “life counselors” tell you all the jobs you could potentially blow at? Is there a reason for dodgeball? Pep rallies? Rad soda commercials featuring Parker Day’s smug, fake-tanned face? I ask you.

But back to the best day of my life, Disney, and my near-death experience.

I know what you’re thinking: WTF? Who dies at Disney World? It’s full of spinning teacups and magical princesses and big-assed chipmunks walking around waving like it’s absolutely normal for jumbo-sized stuffed animals to come to life and pose for photo ops. Like, seriously.

I don’t remember a whole lot about it. Like I said, I was five. I do remember that it was hot. Surreal hot. The kind of hot that makes people shell out their life savings for a bottle of water without even bitching about it. Even the stuffed animals started looking less like smiling, playful woodland creatures and more like furry POWs on a forced march through Toonland. That’s how we ended up on the subterranean It’s a Small World ride and how I nearly bit it at the place where America goes for fun.

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced the Small World ride. If so, you can skip this next part. Honestly, you won’t hurt my feelings, and I won’t tell the other people reading this what an asshole you are the minute you go into the other room.

Where was I?

Oh, right—so much we share, time aware, small world. After all.

So. Small World ride, brief sum-up: Long-ass wait in incredibly slow-moving line. Then you’re put into this floating barge and set adrift on a river that winds through a smiling underworld of animatronic kids from every country on the planet singing along in their various native tongues to the extremely catchy, upbeat song.

Did I mention it’s about a ten-minute ride?

Of the same song?

In English, Spanish, Swahili, and Japanese?

I’m not going to lie to you; I loved it. Dude, I said to myself, this is the shit. Or something like that in five-year-old speak. I want to live in this new Utopia of singing children of all nations. With luck, the Mexican kids will let me wear their que festivo sombreros. And the smiling Swedes will welcome me into their happy Nordic hoedown. Välkommen, y’all. I will ride the pink fuzzy camel in some vaguely defined Middle Eastern country (but the one with pink fuzzy camels) and shake a leg with the can-can dancers in Gay Paree.

Bonjour.

Bienvenido.

Guten Tag.

Jambo.

I was with the three people who were my world—Mom, Dad, my twin sister, Jenna—and for one crazy moment, we were all laughing and smiling and sharing the same experience, and it was good. Maybe it was too good. Because I started to get scared.

I don’t know exactly how I made the connection, but right around Iceland, apparently, I got the idea that this was the after?life. Sure, I had heatstroke and had eaten enough sugar to induce coma, but really, it makes sense in a weird way. It’s dark. It’s creepy. And suddenly, everybody’s getting along a little too well, singing the same song. Or maybe it had to do with my mom. She used to teach English classics, heavy on the mythology, at the university B.C. (Before Children) and liked to pepper her bedtime stories with occasional bits about Valhalla or Ovid or the River Styx leading to the underworld and other cheery sweet-dreams matter. We’re a fun crew. You should see us on holidays.

Whatever it was, I was convinced that this ride was where you went to die. I would be separated from my family forever and end up in some part of the underworld where smiling kid robots in boater hats sang nonstop in Portuguese. I had to keep that from happening. And then—O Happy Day! Salvation! Right behind the Eskimo igloo (this was before they were the more politically correct but slightly naughty-sounding Inuits), I saw this little door.

“Mommy, where does that door go to?” I asked.

“I don’t know, honey.”

We were headed for certain death on the River Styx. But somehow I knew that if I could just get to that little door, everything would be okay. I could stop the ride and save us all. That was pretty much it for me. My five-year-old freak-out meter totally tripped. I slipped free of the seat and splashed into the fishy-smelling water, away from the doe-eyed, pinafored girl puppet singing, “En värld full av skratt, en värld av tårar” (Swedish, I’m told, for “It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears”).

The thing is, I didn’t know how to swim yet. But apparently, I was pretty good at sinking. You know that warning about how kids can drown in very little water? Quite true if the kid panics and forgets to close his mouth. You can imagine my surprise when the water hit my lungs and I did not immediately start singing, “There’s so much that we share.”

The last thing I remember before I started to lose consciousness was my mom screaming to stop the ride while crushing Jenna to her chest in case she got the urge to jump too. Above me, lights and sound blended into a wavy distortion, everything muted like a carnival heard from a mile away. And then I had the weirdest thought: They’re stopping the ride. I got them to stop the ride.

You can read the full excerpt, and more, HERE.

Rating:

Thea: 9 – Damn Near Perfection

Ana: 8 – Excellent

Reading Next: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Title: Never Let Me Go

Author: Kazuo Ishiguro

Genre: Speculative Fiction, Literary Fiction

Publisher: Faber and Faber (UK) / Vintage (US)
Publication Date: March 2005 (UK) / March 2006 (US)
Paperback: 304 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel.

How did I get this book: Bought.

Why did I read this book: I’ve read Mr. Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day and loved it, but since have not returned to his literary pasture. I picked up Never Let Me Go on a whim in the bookstore, craving a meaty, substantive, speculative fiction read, and I hoped that this book would deliver. Plus, I’m shallow in that I saw the cover and the catchy title, and was instantly intrigued.

Summary: (from amazon.com)
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss. As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.

Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.

Review:

Kathy H. is a thirty-year old carer and a graduate from a secluded, elite academy called Hailsham. In an alternate 1990s England, Kathy prepares herself for the next stage of her life as a donor and reminisces about her past as a student and her childhood friends Ruth and Tommy. Written in a deceptively direct and uncomplicated narrative, Mr. Ishiguro writes a haunting, elegiac tale about the meaning and mystery of life. The subject matter of the novel and plot is straightforward, as bluntly simply as Kathy’s narration: three young friends grow up in an idyllic school in the English countryside, where they are encouraged to create works of art while they learn about the world and their place in it. The book is split into three different parts, each representing a stage in Kathy’s life. Part one begins with her time as a student at Hailsham, where she befriends Ruth and Tommy, and part two follows these three friends as they graduate and move to The Cottages to live with other alumni from similar academies across the country. In part three, Kathy has become a carer, and she, Ruth and Tommy cross paths once more. All this reminiscing leads up to an ultimate, haunting fourth act (Kathy’s transition from a carer to a donor), but it is one that we do not read on the page. As Kathy’s memories and the truth about her childhood coalesce into a larger, sharper picture, Never Let Me Go becomes a heartbreaking fictional memoir that asks resounding questions about the nature of humanity, and the depths of the human soul.

The only other book I have read by Mr. Ishiguro is his Booker Prize winning novel The Remains of the Day, in which a butler named Stevens blindly and proudly absorbs himself in his profession, to the extent that he alienates the woman he loves, his father, and is blind even to the tendencies of his Nazi sympathizing employer. In Mr. Ishiguro’s sixth novel, Never Let Me Go, he explores similar territory with his characters that are so consumed by the subtext and minutia of their cliques and daily lives that they never notice the larger picture – but the readers do. And what an ominous picture it is.

Never Let Me Go is a book about characters, but it also treads into the realm of dystopian speculative/science fiction. I won’t spoil exactly HOW this novel falls under the SFF umbrella (even though it becomes suspect from even a few chapters in); suffice to say that it does, and Never Let Me Go does it in the tradition of Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy – but sans any literary pretentiousness. And, like the best works of the dystopian cannon, the strength of the novel lies not just in some catchy premise or flashy plot techniques, but rather in the strength of its characters. This isn’t M. Night Shyamalan, where the impact of the story relies on one huge twist; rather, the beauty of Mr. Ishiguro’s work is in quiet revelation and thought-provoking subtext.

As such, Never Let Me Go is a character driven novel. Built entirely on the first person narrated memories of Kathy, this is a book that is breathtaking in its subtlety. Each of the three friends are gorgeously drawn in Kathy’s memories and Mr. Ishiguro’s direct prose. Ruth, the forceful, outgoing ringleader of the girls at Hailsham becomes Kathy’s best friend, and their relationship is stretched and tested as they grow up. Tommy is an outsider at the academy with his fiery temper and unpredictable tantrums, but he too becomes Kathy’s good friend and confidante, as she reaches out to him. Kathy herself is revealed to be the quiet member of the group, not as strangely angry as Tommy nor a leader like Ruth, but keenly observant. Kathy’s entire narrative is constantly preoccupied with the small subtleties of her friendship with the domineering Ruth, her social standing at Hailsham, and her initial worry for Tommy. At first, it seems that this novel is much ado about nothing, taking place entirely in Kathy’s mind with her myriad perceptions of the nuanced power politics of female cliques. But as Kathy’s narrative progresses and the characters gain more color and the backdrop of Kathy’s world comes into focus, significant, impossible to ignore questions about the nature of the human soul are raised. Are Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy’s interactions “normal”? Why wouldn’t anyone in their situation simply try to run away – or is it simply human nature to accept what limitations and rules you are taught from birth? There are many interpretations possible with this novel, which is part of its beauty. Add to this the sparse, forthright and unconsciously gorgeous writing of Kazuo Ishiguro, and it’s easy to see why this novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Never Let Me Go is easily one of the finest novels I’ve read this year, of any genre. Even better, in my opinion, than The Remains of the Day. This is what reading is all about.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but actually they want me to go on for another eight months, until the end of this year. That’ll make it almost exactly twelve years. Now I know my being a carer so long isn’t necessarily because they think I’m fantastic at what I do. There are some really good carers who’ve been told to stop after just two or three years. And I can think of one carer at least who went on for all of fourteen years despite being a complete waste of space. So I’m not trying to boast. But then I do know for a fact they’ve been pleased with my work, and by and large, I have too. My donors have always tended to do much better than expected. Their recovery times have been impressive, and hardly any of them have been classified as “agitated,” even before fourth donation. Okay, maybe I am boasting now. But it means a lot to me, being able to do my work well, especially that bit about my donors staying “calm.” I’ve developed a kind of instinct around donors. I know when to hang around and comfort them, when to leave them to themselves; when to listen to everything they have to say, and when just to shrug and tell them to snap out of it.

Anyway, I’m not making any big claims for myself. I know carers, working now, who are just as good and don’t get half the credit. If you’re one of them, I can understand how you might get resentful—about my bedsit, my car, above all, the way I get to pick and choose who I look after. And I’m a Hailsham student—which is enough by itself sometimes to get people’s backs up. Kathy H., they say, she gets to pick and choose, and she always chooses her own kind: people from Hailsham, or one of the other privileged estates. No wonder she has a great record. I’ve heard it said enough, so I’m sure you’ve heard it plenty more, and maybe there’s something in it. But I’m not the first to be allowed to pick and choose, and I doubt if I’ll be the last. And anyway, I’ve done my share of looking after donors brought up in every kind of place. By the time I finish, remember, I’ll have done twelve years of this, and it’s only for the last six they’ve let me choose.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Never Let Me Go is currently being adapted to film. And, since it’s a bigger UK movie, it’s predictably starring Keira Knightly as Ruth *gags* In the protagonist role of Kathy is Carey Mulligan, from Public Enemies, and Tommy is portrayed by Andrew Garfield, from Lions From Lambs. Alex Garland, whose resume includes The Beach, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and the upcoming movie adaptation of Halo, pens the screenplay. And, at the helm as director is Mark Romaneck, whose work mostly comprises music videos and the sole movie One Hour Photo…

The movie has already begun filming, with a release date of 2010. I’m more than a little iffy about the whole thing. Alex Garland’s screenplays – while good, action-packed fun – lack the subtlety and emotional gravitas that makes Never Let Me Go such a beautiful book, and while One Hour Photo was a decent film, it doesn’t quite convince me of Mark Romaneck’s directorial skills.

I strongly urge everyone to read the book, PLEASE, before seeing the movie.

Verdict: I loved Never Let Me Go. It’s a book that resonates long after you finish it, and makes you remember why you fell in love with reading in the first place. Absolutely recommended.

Rating: 10 – Perfection

Reading Next: On the Edge by Ilona Andrews

A while back – last Christmas, to be exact – I got my buddy Kyle a book.

Actually, let me backtrack.

Kyle is a burgeoning reader; when I first met him, he’d just started to read the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer (in fact, he now has my old copies of the books). And since then, he’s been on the lookout for reading recommendations, mostly of the young adult persuasion. So, after lending him a few of my favorite titles (Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer, Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw – which I still think he has…Kyle??) I decided a great Christmas present would be The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It’s a young adult novel, but off the beaten path of YA paranormals. In turn Kyle offered to review the book for us here, as an honorary Smuggler – of course Ana and I were thrilled at the prospect! But, as the year carried on, we all kind of forgot about it. Then, a couple of weeks back, Kyle told me he had finished the book and LOVED it. So, naturally, we were back on.

Without further ado, ladies and gents, please give it up for Mr. Kyle Quon and his guest review of The Book Thief!!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Publisher: Alfred Knopf / Random House, 2005
Length: 552 Illustrious pages

Summary: Liesel Meminger is The Book Thief; a 9 year old girl growing up in 1930’s Nazi Germany. Through her stealing of books, she helps support her family and friends, and in the process of doing so discovers the horrors and beauty of human nature.

Review:

To be honest, I’ve been putting off reading this book for months. I really have no excuse especially with how much I enjoyed reading this book.

Before I can begin even reviewing the content of the book, I need to place into perspective. The Book Thief is told from the first person narrative of Death. Yes, the Grim Reaper. I must also mention that the book has a very unorthodox style of categorization. On the very first page and throughout, there are facts, reactions, announcements and general clarification by the narrator in bold type on the page. **HERE IS A FACT: ZUSAK IS A CRAFTSMAN OF A WRITER** More than just a literary novel, this is the composition of a story- similar to how a parent tells a personal story to their child. Death as a narrator treats the reader to the story of a girl that touched his very existence, so much that an average way of telling her life would be just that: average. Perhaps the most surprising and non disturbing in the least is that our narrator has a conscience, however apathetic it may be.

Death literally takes us by the hand and drops the reader off at the beginning scene of the book; a snowy railroad track. Liesel standing by her mother who has her dead younger brother in her arms and has died from the bitter cold. The train guards bring the family back onto the train once they decide that the dead body is none of their responsibility, and force them off the train at the next stop to have the Memingers figure out what to do with the body. A small yet central theme of The Book Thief is the consequences of responsibility or lack thereof. What we eventually learn is that some of the characters in the book live and die because of what they should or should not have been doing. At the cemetery where they bury her brother’s cold and lifeless body is where The Book Thief gains her namesake. As one of the grave diggers begins to bury the body, a small black book falls out of the digger’s pocket. Haunted by the image of her dead brother, she clings for any material thing to hold onto him by and seizes her first book: The Grave Diggers Handbook.

We learn the reason for their train ride was that Liesel’s mother was on her way to placing her and her brother into a foster home. After Liesel is pulled from her mother, she is taken to a small town called Molching, an small rural town. She is taken to the home of Hans and Rosa Hubermann, a set of experienced foster parents with their own set of issues, not the least of which is that they are somewhat poor. Rosa is an abrasive, cussing, “squat” figure. Hans, a warm hearted, quiet, nurturing father. Thanks to The Book Thief, I can now swear with aplomb with words like “arschloch” (exactly what it sounds like- asshole. ) and “Saumensch” (female pig), common words out of Rosa Hubermann’s mouth. As you might imagine by their character traits, Liesel immediately takes to her father and is put to work by her stern mother, helping with washing clothes for others in the town. After Hans discovers Liesel’s treasured book, but that she does not know how to read, he begins to teach her through the use of painting (his profession) letters and the corresponding objects that start with the letter.

The Book Thief’s world begins to evolve from a forlorn child into some realm of normalcy. She becomes friends with her neighbor Rudy Steiner; a child much as your typical kid next door. As her life develops within her home, school and circle of friends; the one thing she has for herself are books. Her father trades cigarettes for books as her christmas gift, and she begins to get better at reading- going through her books sometimes dozens of times.

When all seems to be going normally for Liesel and the Hubermanns (well, as normal as a country gearing up for war can be), an old favor is redeemed. In the first world war, Hans was selected to help his Captain write a few letters while the rest of his company went to battle- of which none returned. His best friend in the army was Erik Vandenburg, who like Hans was more into cigarettes and cards than war and guns. Erik taught Hans to play the accordion, and when he returned from war, met with Erik’s widow and his infant son, Max. Hans promises that should they ever need something, he would help to the best of his ablilty. Now as the second world war is looming, Max has grown up (a Jew) and while others are being sent to concentration camps, Max tries to flee. With nowhere to go, he asks Hans Hubermann to hide him in his basement. It is this part of the story where we learn the human faces of Nazi Germany: Max- one of sadness yet hope; and that of the Fuhrer (German for leader / Hitler)- one of hate and anger. It seems that Liesel and the Hubermanns are of the few in their town that see past simple looks and do not hate the Jews.

Rather than give away the whole book, i’d like to focus on 2 things in particular that I was particularly touched by. The first is that this unconventionally written book also has pictures. Much as I previously mentioned, this is a story. For her twelfth birthday, her parents give her a book. It is at this point in The Book Thief that Max and Liesel begin to become very close. He has nothing to give her, though he promises himself to give her something for her birthday. He rips pages out of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and paints over them to form blank pages. From these, he fashions his first gift to her- a book called The Standover Man. Essentially a story within a story, The Standover Man incorporates pictures along with a short story that Max writes for Liesel about his own life. The crux of his story is that he has always had men standing over him. First his father when he is born, then when he is growing up the children that would beat him up in the schoolyard fights. The “Standover Men” continually change to his friend who hides him in his basement from the Nazi’s, and then the most important “Standover Man” of all is actually a female; Liesel. She who stood over and watched him when he was sick and on the verge of dying after catching a severe cold. After reading this part of the story, I literally turned the pages back and reread it a few times. Zusak’s integration of drawings add another level of realism and depth to The Book Thief. This is precisely the type of imagery that make this book amazing.

As you may imagine, books are a large symbol in The Book Thief. More so than simply things that she steals, books represent a much broader ideal for Liesel Meminger and for the reader. Books are nothing except for a collection of words. It is the choice of words, the placement and formulation of words that do so many things: express feelings, remind us of the past, and explain our lives. It is words that brought Germany to arms, and eventually to its knees. Words of hate and intolerance, words that placed a race of people in the scope of another and made our narrator, Death, carry away millions of souls. Words can hurt, and conversely as we find out from The Book Thief; they have the capacity to heal and give way to hope.

I would highly recommend The Book Thief, if not for its entertaining twists; for the depth in which its ideas are presented. The Book Thief is complex in its intertwining of symbols, thoughts and messages it offers. My only caution would be that it begins fairly slowly- I had to tread through about 60 pages before I was pulled in. Also getting used to the voice and candor of Death, the narrator took some getting used to. However by the end of the story the narration spoiled me. It made me wish that all books I read had a voice, one that reasoned and revealed. There is even a discussion prompt in the back, apparently they market the book to even younger readers. Regardless of its intentions, this was a story that anyone can get something out of. The Book Thief goes past a simple “feel good reading” and illustrates the bleak and beautiful things we each are capable of.

Thank you Kyle for the wonderful, thorough review! Hopefully we’ll see more of Kyle around these parts in the future…

Title: The Angel’s Game

Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Genre: Literary Fiction (Mystery)

UK cover
US cover

Publisher:Weidenfeld & Nicolson (UK) / Doubleday (US)
Publishing Date: 28 May 2009/ June 16 2009
Hardcover: 448 pages/ 544 pages

Stand Alone/ Series: Can be read as a stand alone but has connections with another book by the author: The Shadow of the Wind

Summary:In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martín, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books, and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city’s underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner.

Like a slow poison, the history of the place seeps into his bones as he struggles with an impossible love. Close to despair, David receives a letter from a reclusive French editor, Andreas Corelli, who makes him the offer of a lifetime. He is to write a book unlike anything that has existed – a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realises that there is a connection between this haunting book and the shadows that surround his home.

Why did I read the book: The Shadow of the Wind by this same author is simply one of my top 5 favorite books of all time. So yeah. I HAD to read this one which is described as a prequel (of sorts).

Review:

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon is one of my top 5 favourite books of all time. The book was an immense success worldwide and it was no surprise when I heard that the author was going to go back to the same world and write a prequel. I was overwhelmed with jubilation and…..fear. Could another book set in the same world live up to the Great Expectations that would inevitably be attached to it?

The Angel’s Game was released with grand fanfare in Spain and in a matter of days, became the most successful book to ever be published over there. The English translation has just been released here in the UK and in the US and the reviews so far have been extremely positive.

I finally picked up to read it last weekend and was done in a matter of hours. The start of the novel, the first few chapters were everything I could have hoped for: the beautiful, evocative writing (a tremendous translation work by Julia Graves) was there as was that atmospheric feel and gothic quality with a mystery in the works.

The protagonist David Martin, narrates his own story. From his childhood spent in poverty, with a father who was an alcoholic and an absent mother who left them both. The description of the earlier years is brief and yet, effective: the impression of a complicated relationship with the father, the lasting feeling of rejection caused by the mother and the passion for books and reading are all stepping stones to David’s psyche . The hero’s childhood has a Dickensian quality to it, a fact that is not lost to him: Great Expectations is his favorite book and to be a writer like Mr Dickens becomes David’s aspiration.

After the tragic death of his father, David is left all alone in the world until he is sort of adopted by the local newspaper. His mentor and friend, the rich Pedro Vidal is a writer himself and helps David to become a writer of penny dreadful stories. His immediate commercial success does not endear him to his colleagues and David is basically a loner. Then, he gets fired and is hired by another publisher to write gothic novels. His writing becomes his life and he is consumed by it: living to write, not writing to live. He rents an old abandoned tower house and the times go by.

All through this, his success is followed by a mysterious Paris’ publisher, Andreas Corelli who eventually, when David reaches a crossroad from which there is no return, tempts him with an offer he can’t refuse. A Faustian pact in which David has one year to write a book for Andreas. A book that will create a new religion. (yeah. seriously).

But soon enough, his entanglement with the mysterious publisher, the mystery that surrounds his own house and its previous mad owner plus his doomed love affair with a woman named Christina may prove too much for David.

It certainly proved to be too much for the book and the second part of The Angel’s Game ends up being a total and complete mess that never lives up to the excellent build-up of the first few chapters. I mentioned that initially, the writing and the plotting were really good, but even then the characterisations were a letdown. I kept hoping that there would be a moment when a balance between all elements (writing, plot, characterisation) would be achieved but it never happens.

David is not a sympathetic character. He is, for most of the book, oddly detached and there is the recurring thought that David is a spectator of his own life. From the benefactors that help him to survive and who guide and help him to offers he can’t refuse, it seems that David is never an active character of his own story. Weird, strange things happen to him all the time, and he hardly even blinks, never investigates nor does he actively seeks an answer until very late in the book.

He is also a very inconsistent character as at times he is consumed with obsessions and has a dark, brooding, stance and then the next minute he is engaging in witty banter with his assistant, Isabela.

There is a lack of feeling when it comes to David. I believe the readers are supposed to think that David LOVES reading and writing and yet…..he never is shown doing any reading and the writing he does is oddly devoid of passion. It is more like a compulsion. We are told over and over that he loves Christina (a wallpaper character if ever there was one) but the feeling never leaps from the page and quite frankly, I never understood why he loved her or as for that matter, why she loved him back.

Until that is, I found out that there was indeed a game being played – by Zafon and that the joke was on ME. That there may be a reason behind the lack of reaction from David. But when these suspicions appeared that David is not all that of a reliable narrator, it was too late and I didn’t care enough to be bothered. It was too little too late. Add that to the mess of the second half, with the growing mystery and madness and the open-for-interpretation clumsy ending with many of the mysteries of the book never addressed again, I ended up with the feeling that I was reading a beautiful yet empty package.

But it makes me wonder. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe these Great Expectations are a hard and ugly thing to live up to. I can’t help but to think that The Angel’s Game is not the book that Zafon wanted to write. I wonder if these opening words that David utters are coming directly from Zafon’s soul:

“A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood, and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price”

Maybe I am going too far when I compare the author with his own character. But given that both Zafon’s own passion for Barcelona and his passion for books are acknowledged aspects of his stories why not this as well? The fact that publishers in the book are described as almost devil-like creatures, ever present and looming over David like harpies, how much of the author is in these pages and how much of this story is his way of exorcising the pressure for a second hit?

This is even clearer to me, by the fact the story seems to be set at a time that would provide connections to Shadow of the Wind and yet it could have been set at any other time. The (loose) connection with the previous book comes from having David visiting the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and being friends with old Sempere of Sempere and Son, the bookshop that is central to that one story.

Did the book crumble under the weight of my own Great Expectations? Maybe. But The Angel’s Game to me, pales in comparison to The Shadow of the Wind simply because it lacks Larger than Life characters to deeply care for and villains to completely abhor. The beautiful writing does not save the emptiness left by the poor characterisations and the confusing plot.

Simple as that. 4 days after reading it and it is already forgotten.

Notable Quotes/ Parts:

An example of the beautiful writing. Vidal on love and other things:

(…) you may not fall in love, you may not be able to or you may not wish to give your whole life to anyone and, like me, you may turn forty-five one day and realise that you’re no longer young and you have never found a choir of cupids with lyres, or a bed of white roses leading towards the altar. The only revenge left for you then will be to steal from life the pleasure of firm and passionate flesh – a pleasure that evaporates faster than good intentions and is the nearest thing to heaven you will find in this stinking world, where everything decays, beginning with beauty and ending with memory.

Verdict: The first half is almost everything I hoped for: amazing writing and atmosphere and a gripping mystery even if the characters are wallpapery. Unfortunately, the second half is a wreck. In one word: disappointing.

Rating: 5 . Meh

Reading Next: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

“Inspirations and Influences” is a new series of articles in which we invite authors to write guest posts talking about their…well, Inspirations and Influences. The cool thing is that the writers are given free reign so they can go wild and write about anything they want. It can be about their new book, series or about their career as a whole.

Today our guest author is none other than historical fiction writer extraordinaire, Susan Holloway Scott. Susan is the author behind the novels of King Charles II, spanning four books and four different leading ladies. We first heard about Susan through the Godfather (Godmother?) of historical romance, Loretta Chase, who is a huge fan of Susan’s historical fiction. After reading and loving The King’s Favorite and interviewing Susan, we of course had to read her newest novel, The French Mistress, and – wouldn’t you know it? – loved it as well. We are thrilled to have Susan over for a guest post, discussing her writing inspirations and influences.

Without further ado, we give you Susan Holloway Scott!

Asking writers to describe their influences is like falling down a well: where’s the bottom? For most writers, everything is inspiration. The way the raindrops are splatting on the driveway, or the neighbor’s dog is barking, or a guidebook about New York consulted for a long-ago vacation: it’s all fodder, even though sometimes a particular detail isn’t called up from the memory-bank for years. So to limit things a bit, I’m going to talk only about a few of the influences for my new historical novel, The French Mistress, and spare you my neighbor’s barking dog.

The French Mistress is based on the life of Louise de Keroualle, a 17th century French lady who was sent by Louis XIV as a “gift” and a spy to his cousin, the English King Charles II. In time Louise became Charles’s most enduring mistress, and the last great love of his life, loving him far more faithfully than she did her homeland. Understandably, French Louise was not popular in England, and was regarded suspiciously as having an unnatural hold over the king.

As I tried to discover Louise’s character, I had three quotes by her contemporaries as inspiration. The first is from the somewhat prudish diarist John Evelyn, who described Louise (“a Miss, as they call these unhappy creatures”) at a country house party soon after she’d become Charles’s lover: “She was for the most part in her undress all day, and there was much fondness & toying with the young wanton. “

Then there’s this more cynical quote from Bishop Gilbert Burnet: “She studied to please and observe the King in everything, so that he passed away the rest of his life in a great fondness for her. He kept her at a vast charge; and she . . . gained of him everything she desired.”

And here’s my third, from Charles II himself on his death-bed, a circumstance that tends to make people speak the truth: “I have always loved [Louise], and I die loving her.”

Whoa. How did Louise go from a nameless “young wanton” to the great love singled out in a royal deathbed declaration? That’s the kind of thing that sends my imagination into overdrive, an influence if ever there was one.

I’m a visual writer, meaning that I really do believe a picture is worth a thousand words. With The French Mistress, I’m fortunate that my main characters were painted repeatedly during their lifetimes. Here’s one of the first portraits of Louise after she arrived in London in 1670 (and the one that’s on the cover of my book.) Contemporaries described her beauty as both “babyish” and “cunning”, yet when I look at this portrait, she seems neither to me. I think she looks knowing, bemused, seductive…and inspiring.

There’s lots more tenuous influences behind this book, too. One long-ago summer while I was still in middle school, I stumbled across a dog-eared copy of Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor in my local library. This now-legendary-but-one-time scandalous book (so infamous in 1944 that it really was banned in Boston!) was an eye-opener for me in many ways, but it was also my first introduction to the Restoration and to Charles II, who takes the fictional Amber St. Clare as one of his mistresses. Soon after I saw the 1947 movie version on TV. This starred Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde and wasn’t nearly as inspiring, and dangerously close to cheesy. But the dry, droll, drawling depiction of Charles by George Saunders did stick with me, and I have to admit I still hear his voice as Charles’s.

Joining Amber in my impressionable summer reading was her French counterpart, her heroine of the thirteen Angelique books by Serge and Anne Golon, set in Louis XIV’s France –– a France Louise would have recognized, too. Later came the more serious and well-researched novels of Jean Plaidy –– though you’d never know it from the covers of the old paperback editions I had. From her books I learned that telling a good story didn’t mean you had to skip over the history.

But I’ve saved the best for last: Johnny Depp as John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in the recent movie The Libertine. Yes, the earl is a character in The French Mistress. Yes, Johnny bears zero resemblance to the real earl’s portraits, and yes, by the end he was really chewing the scenery, but who cares? The Libertine did a fantastic job of showing the murky side of Restoration England, and no one –– no one –– works a wig better than Johnny Depp. How exactly did he influence me? Ahh, for that you’ll have to read The French Mistress, and decide for yourself!

And many thanks to Thea and Ana for having me back here at The Book Smugglers. You guys rock!
—————
Susan Holloway Scott is the author of over forty historical novels and novellas. Writing under her own name as well as Miranda Jarrett, her bestselling books have received numerous awards and honors. With more than three million copies of her books in print, she has been published in nineteen foreign countries around the world. Her most recent historical novels have been set in 17th century England, in the decadent, politically-charged royal court of King Charles II.

You can read more about Susan on her website HERE or her blog From the Notebook and on Word Wenches.

Thank you, Susan!

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

We have TWO copies of The French Mistress to give away! The contest is open to EVERYONE and will run until Sunday, July 12 at midnight (PST). To enter, leave a comment here. We will randomly select two winners and will announce them on Sunday in our weekly Smugglers Stash. Good luck!

Title: The French Mistress: A Novel of the Duchess of Portsmouth and King Charles II

Author: Susan Holloway Scott

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: NAL Trade
Publication Date: July 2009
Trade Paperback: 400 pages

Stand Alone or Series: Can be read as a stand alone novel, but is the fourth in a series of books following the different women in the court of Charles II.

Why did I read this book: Last year, I read and loved The King’s Favorite, Susan Holloway Scott’s previous novel. So this year, when Susan offered up an ARC of The French Mistress it was a no brainer!

Summary: (from SusanHollowayScott.com)
The acclaimed author of The King’s Favorite returns to the decadent court of King Charles II to follow the dazzling life of Louise de Keroualle, a shy maid of honor who would rise to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful women of her time.

Alone in a foreign land with few friends, many rivals, and ever-shifting loyalties, Louise soon learns the perils of her new role. Yet she is too clever—and too ambitious—to be merely a pawn in the intrigues of others. With the promise of riches, power, and even the love of a king, Louise dares to create her own destiny in a dangerous dance of intrigue between two kings—and two countries.

Review:

As Louise de Keroualle bids her family farewell and travels to Paris to become a maid of honor, she never suspects her pivotal role in the courts of kings. Louise’s mission is to secure a husband to bolster her family’s standing and dwindling fortune, but she finds herself and her particular brand of innocent beauty out of fashion in the jaded court of Louis XIV – and unwilling to participate in games and affairs of the nobility, Louise is overlooked. Because of her innocence and fresh-faced honesty, however, Louise quickly becomes Madame’s – Henriette-Anne, Duchess of d’Orleans and sister of King Charles II of England – closest and most trusted maid, friend, and confidante. Madame yearns for her brother and for her homeland, and works tirelessly at bringing France and England together despite the cruelty and disdain of her husband, King Louis’s brother. When Madame finally is granted her dearest wish to visit England with King Louis’s blessing, her first in ten years, the dependable Louise is by her Madame’s side. Almost instantly, King Charles is taken with Louise, as much for her beauty and innocence as for his sister’s high esteem. As for Louise, she had already slowly idealized Charles from her Lady’s stories and letters, and the infatuation quickly progresses to love in Charles’s dashing presence. Though Charles attempts to keep Louise for his own, Madame intervenes and refuses to leave her friend in England, for the good of Louise and for her brother. However, after the sudden death of Madame upon their return to Paris, Louise has a singular opportunity offered to her by King Louis: return to England as Charles’s mistress with the best interests of France in mind, assuming the late Henriette’s role as liaison between the two countries. And Louise, already in love and yearning for a future of her own, accepts and becomes Charles’s French mistress, rising above the cruelty of the English court and becoming one of the most powerful and rich women in the nation.

I have to admit that I started Louise’s story with strong bias – I had fallen in love with the witty Nell Gwyn from The King’s Favorite, Louise’s bitter rival. As such, when I began The French Mistress I found myself criticizing Louise with Nell’s mocking voice in my head. However, once I forced myself to give Louise a fair shot and to relinquish my scorn, I found her story captivating, and her narration (though not nearly so fun and sparkling as Nelly’s) strong in its own right. The French Mistress is Ms. Scott’s gift to the memory of Louise de Keroualle; a chance for the French mistress of the English King to tell her story, against the malicious rumors and prejudice against her and which indeed remain in historical memory. And though Nell will always be my favorite, Louise holds her own.

The French Mistress paints Louise de Keroualle in a sympathetic light; and her aloofness at court and unpopularity are explained by her natural shyness, her different upbringing as a virgin and innocent out of place with the bawdy humor of the English court, and her background as a devout Catholic in a country loathsome of “popish” tendencies. For all Nell’s wit and charm, Louise is of noble blood and birth, and unlike Nell achieves the rank of Duchess despite her unpopularity and the barbs directed at her from Nell and others (such as Nell’s good friend and major character in the previous book, the Earl of Rochester).

As with her prior book, Ms. Scott excels in creating a distinct voice for Louise, allowing readers a glimpse of who the woman the Duchess of Portsmouth may have been, weaving a believable and engrossing story from historical fact. One thing I took away from The French Mistress in particular was the sense of deep-seated loneliness Louise felt – in Paris, and even more pronounced in London. And, though Charles Stuart will never rank highly on my list of admirable heroes, in this respect he and Louise were perfectly matched – both lonely souls finding solace and companionship in each other. Without friends such as Nell had, or means of amusing herself as on the stage which Nell did, Louise’s book is more introspective, and against my will I felt for her – such is Ms. Scott’s gift for characterization. The other character I felt deeply for in this novel was “Minette,” Louise’s Madame. The early chapters following Louise’s first months in Paris are among my favorites in the novel, and the budding friendship between these two women is truly touching. The abuse the princess suffers at the hands of her cold husband, Minette’s dreams of returning to England and most of all Louise’s devotion and friendship to Madame are all poignant and well-written.

For the history itself, I confess I am no expert at all when it comes to Restoration era England – but Ms. Scott writes incorporating dates, places, treaties attempted and lost, wars, political climate and carries out a convincing, passionate, and eminently readable story. The landscapes of both France and England are brought to life in this novel, with more detail of the workings of the court than in the preceding book. Though I will say I missed the rowdiness of Covent Garden and the theater, Louise’s more somber world is enlightening in its own manner.

The French Mistress is a different story than Nell’s, more quiet, more lonely, but every bit as engrossing. Ultimately, I highly enjoyed The French Mistress, and certainly recommend it to fans of not only historical fiction, but a well-written and beautifully crafted story.

Notable Quotes/Parts: I loved seeing exchanges between Louise and Nell, but this time from Louise’s perspective. For example,

But as we neared the door, the impudent small actress popped up before us like a child’s jumping jack. I suppose she felt she still merited more of Charles’s attention for her vulgar dancing, yet this was astonishingly forward even in the English Court.

What came next, however, was far, far worse.

Tipping her head at a sharp angle, the actress cocked one hand over her head and the other at her waist, an exaggerated mockery of the sarabande’s elegant postures, and, of course, of me.

“Parley-voo-hoo-hoo, mon’sir?” she asked in a low English parody of French. “Dance-say a la frog, mon’sir, o-wee, o-wee?”

Others around her laughed and sniggered at her foolishness, but the king did not.

For myself, I was simply too shocked to respond.

“There now, Nelly, enough,” Charles warned with more mildness than I thought she deserved. “We’ve no need of that.”

But she wasn’t done. Still holding true to her mockery of the sarabande, she took several purposefully clumsy steps, ending so she was facing me. Then she screwed up her face into a terrible grimace, making her eyes into the narrowest of slits.

I gasped as if I’d been struck a blow. In a way, I suppose I had. A with many people, my sight was weak at a distance, and without thinking, I sometimes would squint by way of compensation. Though I’d not been aware of it this evening, I must have done so when surveying the company, long enough for this dreadful woman to have seized upon it as a flaw, and turned it now against me.

Nell’s antics, hilarious in her novel (and still colorful in this accounting, earning a snigger or two from me, I will confess) are hurtful in Louise’s tale, offering a valuable sense of perspective. Ms. Scott takes on a brave task by writing each book in this series from the perspectives of different women, each rivals for Charles’s affections, but somehow she manages to humanize each of them. Absolutely brilliant.

Additional Thoughts: Tomorrow, Susan Holloway Scott will be over talking about her inspirations and influences for The French Mistress and her other work. We will also be giving away TWO copies of The French Mistress, so make sure to stop by!

Verdict: Though Nell remains my favorite of Charles’s mistresses, Louise’s story is evocative and well-written. Highly recommended for those looking for an engaging novel set against a sweeping historical landscape.

Rating: 7 Very Good

Reading Next: Apocalypse 2012 by Gary Jennings

Title: The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns

Author: Elizabeth Leiknes

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Bancroft Press
Publishing Date: June 15, 2009
Hardcover: 167 pages

Stand Alone or series: Stand Alone

Why did I read the book: The publisher contacted us with a review request. The thing is: his email was SO clever and it was so attentive to WHO we are, it meant that clearly he went to great lengths to find out about our blog ( the subject line of the email read: A Fix for the Book-Addicted Smugglers) that even though general fiction is not something I usually ready, I decided to give it a go. And I am SO glad I did.

Summary: Lucy Burns wants a normal life: friends, love, and a family of her own. And she could have it all if only she could break free from the job she hates.

That job? Facilitator to hell.

And her boss is a real devil.

Review:

It is not always that I find myself without words – like I am now. I had no expectations about The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns and I am happy to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how good it is and how much I enjoyed reading it.

The story is basically a tale about a Faustian bargain between an unsuspecting 11 year old and the devil. As any good old tale, it comes without specifics of how exactly the bargain works but that is ok. To question the specifics of a tale such as this, is akin to wonder about how exactly the witch in Hansel and Gretel built a house made of gingerbread – you just accept the rules and hope for the story to work. And The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns works – at all levels.
When Lucy Burns was 11 years old, her sister Ellen got hit by a truck and went into a coma with little hope to survive. A desperate Lucy then promptly wrote a letter to “To Whom it May Concern” saying that if Ellen woke up she will be forever in debt and posted it in the “magical” mailbox that the kids had (where letters to Santa Claus were posted) . Ellen wakes up and Lucy finds a letter that says “It’s a Deal”. And so it is.

20 years later, Lucy is a Facilitator to Hell. She dispatches souls (chosen by the devil and listed by her Supervisor) through a gate in her basement with the help of her Dog/Hound, Pluto. What really strikes as a pretty nasty job is the fact that every person she has to take down the basement, comes to her door not knowing what is going to happen and she needs to work some mojo to make them go.
The job comes with its perks though: some powers, immortality and on her birthday, she gets to make a wish. From being gorgeous, to being able to eat as much chocolate as she wants without putting on weight, she has it all. The only thing she can’t ask for and isn’t allowed to have is a romantic relationship because…that complicates things. She is allowed to have as much sex as she wants, but only once with each partner. As soon as she gets in the sack with someone, she feels the urge to vomit which prevents her for seeing someone ever again. She had to break off with her family (how ironic and so freaking sad – that she got into this life to protect her sister but she can’t never see her again ) and she is very lonely indeed except for her friendly neighbour and her son.

Although some of the people are pretty nasty and well, deserve to go to hell (like the neighbour who is a baby killer) , some of them don’t even come close in the level evilness – some, not at all. Lucy goes through the motions of her role, without seemingly being bothered by it. Does she not rebel? Does she not struggle? Yes and no. As with any bargain with the Devil there is no easy way out, and for Lucy there is even something else that allows her to go along – and it has something to do with a Black Envelope. It doesn’t mean though that she doesn’t feel – she does, and sometimes she needs thorough cleaning – provided by the Snow White Car Wash.

But I am way ahead of the story and ahead of myself. For her latest birthday, Lucy asks to be reacquainted with an old friend – and she gets back her old albums by artist Teddy Nightingale – famous singer-song writer- whom she grew up listening to and whose words spoke deeply to her own soul. Her friend buys her tickets to see Teddy on a revival show and it is Teddy who is the “shadow of hope” of this tale as he tells her that there is a way out ( I am not telling you how he knows that), a loophole and that she must finish three tasks in order to do so. Two things then propel Lucy to get out even as she wonders if there is salvation for her: the prospect of having a relationship with Luke Marshall and the intel she comes by when she finally gets to read a series of unopened letters from her sister.

Look at me, it seems I finally found the words and they keep coming to me. Luke Marshall is a wonderful character – a blind, creative writing teacher who is struggling to finish his own book. Luke is a secondary character that doesn’t have a point of view and who is not in many pages and it is a clear sign of talent that the writer manages to make him such a rich, full of life character. Although he is perfect for Lucy , he is also a complex, flawed character. He walks around with his pretty and rugged face (in an anti-Ken doll kind of way, according to Lucy) and his candy-cane with red-and-white stripes and you would never guess what is behind the façade. Thankfully for us, Lucy is the sort of woman that crosses the line so very often (hey, she works for the devil!) and steals a disk with his manuscript :

“The vast majority of Teddy Nightingale’s songs are about love. And that fact justified stealing Luke’s manuscript.
Yeah, I took it.
For love.”

Because when she does so, it opens up a door to some quality, meaningful writing:

“I’d been scared I wouldn’t like his work, but I did. I wondered if he liked lots of personal space the same way he liked lots of white space on the page, or if I should move in closer”

And to a profoundly disturbing and yet, amazingly insightful look into Luke’s psyche. It is by looking into one folder inside the disk – a folder which I call The Shinning Folder – that we and Lucy discover more of him and that happens with the clever use of…. Fonts. Nothing is said in a straightforward manner but these fonts, they are there and they mean a lot. I love Luke (and dear lord, the scene with the guitar is pure cuteness) but above all I loved Lucy and I loved the clever writing.

The most impressive thing is how at only 167 pages, the book is so full of nuances and depth. There are no wasted words, no info dump and the author cleverly relies on the reader to catch the deep and hidden meanings of her work. It is one of those books that require attention and a certain rapport between the reader and the book –if there is detachment, there will be no enjoyment and for you to truly, really enjoy this story, there’s gotta be a certain degree of involvement. Mine occurred in those moments when I read about her relationship with her sister (which happen in short flashbacks that permeate the story) – my sister is the person I love most in the world but also the person I “hated” the most when I was a child and I completely related to Lucy through every step of her way.

The thing is: the more you give the more you will take from this book. This is a story that is not for everybody as even though this is a tale about Heaven and Hell the lines of Good x Evil are not as clear as many, I am sure, would like. You will not finish reading the book with a final “and the moral of the story is” nor will the climax be full of the answers you might need, but you may well finish it like I did: with a huge smile on my face and tears falling from my eyes.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: Oh, the moment she opens and reads the letter in the Black Envelope. It was so horrific and yet so sad. I understood EVERYTHING then. Also, Luke and his choices of restaurant; a woman called Venice (HA! That was so funny!); Finn and Teddy; The Gay Parade. So so many things.

Additional Thoughts: I guess the best possible compliment I could give to this book is the fact that as I read it, I kept thinking of the wonderful and weird stories in Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors. Since he is my favourite author, that says a lot.

Verdict: It made me laugh and it made me cry. The writing is clever and I can’t wait to read more from this author.

Rating: 8 Excellent

Reading Next: Don’t Tempt Me by Loretta Chase