The Injustice System, by Clive Stafford Smith

So a businessman and his son go into a downtown Miami hotel suite to meet with a potential client who might help boost their meager income. Instead, a man with whom they have a dispute steps out, shoots the father in the knee, drags the son up some stairs, then shoots him execution-style. The father escapes, gets out the door, and bangs on the door across the hall, leaving blood in the hall, but the import-export businessman in that room doesn’t hear a thing, including the shots that then kill the father. Neville Butler, who has been held hostage in the room since before the father and son arrived, is then released.

Following Butler’s call to the police, British businessman Krishna Maharaj is detained. After waiving his Miranda rights, he makes inconsistent statements to the investigators, who hold him long enough to discover that his fingerprints are in the hotel room, and Maharaj is arrested and charged with first-degree murder for the executions of Dwight and Duane Moo Young, former associates and now rivals for Maharaj’s Caribbean newspaper. The case goes to trial. Maharaj, a flamboyant millionaire, hires the lowest bidder, Mark Hendon, as his attorney. The trial proceeds in a swift and orderly manner, except that the presiding judge is replaced after three days of testimony. Based on fingerprint evidence, a ballistics expert’s identification of Maharaj’s gun, and Neville Butler’s testimony, Maharaj is given life in prison for Dwight’s murder, and the death sentence for Duane’s.

After several years, the case comes to the attention of Clive Stafford Smith, an attorney specializing in capital cases. On his own, taking time away from his fledgling non-profit practice focusing on Louisiana death penalty cases, Smith begins reviewing the case, and this open-and-shut case turns out to have been far more complex than the trial transcript would indicate. His early investigation turns up boxes of evidence and interview materials that hadn’t been made available to the defense, prosecutors’ notes indicating that they instructed the detectives and their chief witness how to perjure themselves, and witnesses that prove that Maharaj wasn’t even in Miami at the time of the killings. Some of his basic rights—over and above their violation of his Miranda rights—were not explained to him or put into practice. Forensic evidence was questionable, but Maharaj’s trial attorney didn’t cross-examine, and even rested without calling a single witness. Confident that the reams of documentary evidence show that Maharaj did not receive a fair trial and that his counsel was (to put it mildly) incompetent, Smith heads into the appeals process.

But door after legal door is slammed in Maharaj’s face. The appeals courts won’t consider new evidence—it wasn’t presented in a timely manner and appellate courts don’t try the facts of the case. Each attempt to reopen the case takes months, if not years, to litigate, partially because a prosecutor won’t accept plentiful evidence that her colleagues convicted an innocent man. When he’s finally granted a new trial, Smith can’t introduce all the new evidence and Maharaj is again found guilty. But because the jury doesn’t prescribe the death penalty, Maharaj’s future opportunities for appeal are severely limited—capital cases usually get at least a cursory glance. Based on all the trials and appeals that go before, Maharaj’s last chance—a reprieve from Florida Governor Charlie Crist—is denied.

Unfortunately, as Smith details, Maharaj’s case is only one example of the miscarriage of justice that capital crimes nearly always involve. From personal experience and well-documented cases, Smith demonstrates that each individual misstep in the justice system that Maharaj experienced is echoed across the country, even in non-capital cases. Part of it is the culture, and he shows that from the patrol officer to the US Supreme Court, the fundamental conservatism of the law is geared towards convictions, not justice or even truth. The real poverty of this view is that convicting the innocent allows the guilty to go unpunished.

Smith’s writing is urgent, and his construction of the story maximizes both the drama and the documentation of his fundamental thesis. As he breaks the case down, the depth of the law enforcement and judicial errors becomes appallingly clear. The parallels he establishes between Maharaj’s case and convictions across the country point to the idea that the American justice system has reversed its supposed ideal. At the same time, his admiration for Maharaj (which is echoed by everyone from business associates to prison guards) as a man shines through. Even after being in prison since 1987—including 10 years on Death Row—Maharaj remains kind, gentle, and positive.

This is a timely book. States have begun to revisit their commitments to the death penalty after subsequent investigations and trials have freed other innocent people from Death Row. It is increasingly likely that people known to be innocent were executed anyway. If someone heeds Clive Stafford Smith’s plea to come forward and exonerate Krishna Maharaj, it would be a miracle; if others use his case to strengthen their calls for an end to the death penalty, it would be a huge step to ending the gaping flaws in our (in)justice system.

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The Good House, by Ann Leary

Of all the villains in modern literature, Daisy Buchanan has always been one I love to hate. As F. Scott Fitzgerald describes her, she’s so insulated from the world and from the consequences of her actions that she has no sense of right and wrong, and there’s no one willing to hold her to account. And that’s when she was surrounded by her social peers. Imagine if she lived in an ordinary place with ordinary people.

Hildy Good is (or was) the top-selling real estate broker in her seaside town. The town has been discovered by Boston’s wealthy, land and house prices have skyrocketed, and the quirky old-time residents are trying to hang on in the face of the invasion. The McAllisters, one of the newcomer families, have profited enormously by Brian’s management of a hedge fund (and other money-making silent partnerships), but they’re regular folks and Hildy is glad to sell them a property and introduce them around the town. She and Rebecca are on their way to becoming friends, sharing the occasional glass of wine and conversation. Rebecca even takes Hildy into her confidence on private family matters.

Problem is, Hildy has recently done a stint in rehab for her drinking, and while the old townies pretend not to know, Hildy doesn’t imbibe in front of them. They remember, even if she doesn’t, the conviviality that turned sour, the caution they used when she got in the car, the reason her valued associate departed for a competitor brokerage. But, while she’s on her best behavior in public, that case of wine in her trunk calls to her every night and she’s answering.

Hildy tries to do the right thing—or at least avoid causing herself trouble, which for some people amounts to the same thing.  She’s also on the lookout for the main chance, the big, profitable sale that’s going to put her brokerage back on top. As she travels through the town and interacts with the residents, she provides us with commentary on their quirks and problems in an acerbic and darkly comic voice. But the booze affects her judgment, and we begin to wonder how much of her commentary could be called accurate, and how much is self-protection.

One of her targets is next-door neighbor Frankie Getchell, a one-time boyfriend, and owner of a large and desirable property that Hildy keeps pressing him to sell. Frankie wants to hold on to it, mostly to store the variety of junk equipment he uses in his various jack-of-all-trades businesses.  A convenient man to know, Frankie’s the guy to go to if you need your trash picked up, driveway plowed, house painted or remodeled,or stuff delivered. He isn’t socially acceptable, but under the influence of a couple of stiff drinks, Hildy decides he’s just enough to sleep with.

The story keeps coming back to Rebecca, though, and the influence she begins to have on Hildy and on other people in the town.  Far from the vulnerable lonely woman she presents to the rest of the town, Rebecca has a cold core that gradually shows through in her treatment of others. Oddly enough, Frank is the first to spot it, but no one, including Hildy, will listen to him.  By the time Hildy recognizes the trouble Rebecca’s causing, she’s embroiled in a crisis of her own.

I can imagine comparisons to Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, but The Good House also reminded me of another book I recently read—Tiffany Baker’s The Gilly Salt Sisters. Also set in a New England town, also dealing with the poisonous power of money, the manipulation of others, and long-held secrets coming to the fore, The Gilly Salt Sisters has a small taste of magic not found in The Good House, but I think the two might interest the same readers.

Check the WRL catalog for The Good House

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The Confidant, by Hélène Grémillon

For a country that won their most recent war, France in the 1920s and ’30s was in bad shape, not least because they were facing an existential crisis. 1.4 million of their men had been killed in World War I, and according to contemporaneous demographers, 1.4 million babies that should have been born weren’t. Pumping up the birth rate to replace those 2.8 million souls became a matter of national security, and it suddenly became every woman’s patriotic duty to have children. In Hélène Grémillon’s debut novel, that history creates a tragic, even ominous, setting against which the lives of the four principal characters will play out.

The story actually begins in 1975, when Camille Werner opens what she believes to be a condolence letter in the wake of her mother’s death. Written in the first person by a man named Louis, it introduces her to Annie and to their childhood friendship in an unnamed town in rural France. As subsequent letters arrive, the story of their lives, and of Annie’s relationship with the childless mistress of the local chateau, unfolds. When Annie agrees to have a baby for the couple to raise, the story deepens into a web of betrayal and misunderstanding.

Camille, an editor, is at first convinced that the letters are part of a writer’s scheme to catch her attention. With each letter, though, she becomes increasingly aware that there is another motive, until a final revelation shows her that everything she thinks she knows is a lie. But the letter writer also discovers that he doesn’t know the full story, and sends Camille one last missive. In a long and detailed confession, the childless woman reveals an alternate picture, one which recasts the first story into a dark and possibly murderous plot.

The immediate drama culminates in spring 1940 as the German blitzkrieg overwhelms France. In the chaos that follows, communications go astray, people appear and disappear, unimaginable compromises must be made, and the dangers of occupation swamp all other considerations. The problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. But those problems don’t go away, even with the passage of time, and in 1975 they come home.

The Confidant is shot through with lies, misdirection, concealment, and misunderstanding. Grémillon details those in nuanced, sensuous, and beautifully evocative language, and creates a historical novel without requiring readers to understand the history. Readers will want to savor this, and to watch for subtle clues about the ripple effect these betrayals have.

Check the WRL catalog for The Confidant.  We’ll be adding it as a Gab Bag soon.

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Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

I was surprised to find that no one here at Blogging for a Good Book had written about Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn’s runaway bestseller. After all, a tight suspenseful mystery surrounding a ripped-from-the-headlines event should have caught our attention.

Well, I finally got my copy, and in trying to write about it without giving the whole thing away I’ve learned why no one else touched it. After all, it’s a runaway bestseller about a ripped-from-the-headlines event reconstructed as a tight suspenseful mystery, which means plot twists and surprises, and if you read any further you might just find out why, and then Gillian Flynn and Crown Publishers will be mad at me for spoiling the book, but I’m on the hook because I’ve already written this much. So, there’s this guy and this girl, and she’s gone.  Stop here if you don’t want me to give anything away.

Actually, the guy is Nick, and the girl is his wife, Amy. Nick is storybook handsome, with enough boyish charm to attract plenty of women. Amy is “Amazing Amy,” the inspiration for a long-running and successful series of children’s books that made her parents a fortune, gave her a huge trust fund, and got her lots of attention everywhere she went. Their meet-cute storybook romance and wedding have given way to the realities and compromises of marriage, but Amy is determined to press forward and recapture the excitement and intimacy of their early days together. At least, that’s according to her diary. Seriously, don’t read any further.

Nick, on the other hand, is a passive, self-centered guy whose failures in New York gave him an excuse to drag the cosmopolitan Amy to his Missouri hometown. His saintly mom is dying of cancer, his nasty father has Alzheimer’s, and his beloved twin sister has retreated home from her own losses. Their hometown is quickly dying in the turbulence of the Great Recession and the signs of collapse are all around.  Then comes the fateful day, which is detailed through Nick’s eyes.  I’m warning you—don’t go on!

On their fifth anniversary, Amy disappears, leaving behind signs of a struggle. The initial investigation and all-out search proceeds as if she’s been kidnapped, but the deeper the investigation gets, the more Nick tells us that he’s lying to the police. He has no alibi for the time surrounding her loss, he misleads them about the nature of his and Amy’s relationship, and he can’t explain why the evidence of a struggle appears to have been manufactured. And the culture of infamy begins. Unfortunate photographs,  inconsistencies in his story, and the natural inclination to look to the remaining spouse as the likely guilty party trigger the interest of a scandal-mongering true-crime TV show. Shocking revelations trickle out at the worst possible times, and Nick’s efforts to steer his public image are doomed in the face of the unrelenting spotlight. OK, you’ve made your choice—let the consequences be on your head.

By this time, the reader is lost in a maze of mirrors. Do we believe the writings of the best wife a man can want, or the admissions of the worst kind of husband a woman can have? Do we trust his self-confessed failings, or his efforts to find out if someone from Amy’s past has surfaced to harm her? Does he deserve the belief that his family (and Amy’s) have in him, or are the police right to focus on him? Flynn constructs these uncertainties in a way that continually pulls the readers’ feet off what little firm ground they have to stand on.  Spoiler alert!

Keep in mind that this all happens in the first third of the book. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

By deconstructing Amy and Nick’s marriage (with Amy’s disappearance looming in the background), Flynn also asks readers to examine the fool’s paradise that most of us construct when we try to deceive others. (And it was Sir Walter Scott, not Shakespeare, who famously reminds us of that.) There are some, though, who can construct elaborate structures to hang their lies on, and who can manipulate others by observing and anticipating normal behavior. When the lie is big enough, its sheer improbability gives it credence—who could go to such lengths to create a falsehood? Flynn finds a way to show us, even as she gradually introduces the idea that their victims sometimes can’t find a way to escape the destruction.

Neil’s comprehensive list of 2012′s Best Books shows that Gone Girl was the best reviewed mystery of the year. Based on all the stuff I can’t or won’t tell you, I have to agree with the reviewers.

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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews

I haven’t read a lot in Young Adult Fiction, mostly because I’m overwhelmed with selections in the so-called Adult Fiction category. Along with most other readers (and editors and publishers and reviewers and booksellers and librarians), I can’t draw a bright line between what is YA and what isn’t. I just know I don’t get over to browse our “official” YA collection. So I count myself lucky that I was able to steal this from someone else’s stack of books and drop into Greg Gaines’ world.

Greg has survived until his senior year of high school by being on the fringes of everything and the center of nothing. He hides his love of film (especially the work of Werner Herzog) behind a studied indifference which also conceals his near-constant and brutal self-criticism. (He’s got some points—serious social errors, like flat out complimenting a girl for having two boobs, are enough to make anyone want to tear his own tongue in half.) His parents love him with that bumbling uncritical affection that every teen hates and he has… Earl.

Earl has shared Greg’s love of Herzog since fourth grade, when the two boys tried to film their own version of Aguirre: Wrath Of God, the masterpiece shot on location in the Amazon—kinda tough to do in the local park. Their collaboration extends to their own films: Earl: Wrath of God II, Ran II, Apocalypse Later, and still others featuring Greg’s cat. The thing is, Earl couldn’t be more different than Greg: he’s an inner-city Pittsburgh kid, bright but lost at school, surrounded by unfocused, violent, drug-dealing brothers and a mother lost in alcohol and online chat rooms. Greg’s stable home is a respite for Earl, and Earl is the only person Greg can be himself around.

And then there’s the dying girl. Greg knew Rachel Kushner in Hebrew school, with all its attendant early teen drama, but they haven’t had much to do with each other since. When Rachel is diagnosed with leukemia, Greg’s mom decides it will be a mitzvah, or good deed, for Greg to spend time with her. Awkward, right? But he does, and brings Earl along in his wake. Earl lets slip the secret of their filmmaking and next thing you know Rachel is watching their movies. Even more awkward. Suddenly Greg is open to all kinds of emotional blackmail and everyone around him takes full advantage of it. Even Greg admits that it sounds like an afterschool special—treat the different kid well and you’ll rack up points, feel good about yourself, and Learn A Lesson. But real life is messy, and even Herzog’s art can’t touch it.

Jesse Andrews gives the story a sense of immediacy despite its looking back at events. Internal monologue, conversations role-played as scripts, jump cuts to real life, and Greg’s direct addresses to an unknown audience give the book the feel of documentary, but one that allows raw and sometimes hilarious access to the filmmaker’s mind. That also means Greg’s and Earl’s casual use of insult and obscenity to each other might make the language a little rough for some readers, so be warned on that front.

And in case the idea of two kids making a film in homage to one they love is farfetched, check out this story, which is told in detail in the book Raiders! by Alan Eisenstock.

Check the WRL catalog for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

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The Odds, by Stewart O’Nan

What are the odds that one author could capture two important elements of American life in two books, each of which is under two hundred pages? If you’re Stewart O’Nan, they are 1 in 1.  The first is Last Night at the Lobster (blogged here by Connie), a 147-page story of a restaurant manager whose life and identity are invested in his job, despite the way he’s casually dismissed by both customers and corporate hatchetmen. The second is 2012′s The Odds, in which a long-married couple makes a last-gasp getaway before divorcing and declaring bankruptcy. Its 179 pages encompass the silent recriminations, miscommunications, deceptions, and uncomfortable blend of inside jokes and familiarity-bred contempt of a man and woman who may have been mismatched from the start.

Marion and Art Fowler are retracing their honeymoon on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, but this time packing thousands of dollars in a canvas bag. Right from the start we know that they are going to be divorced when this weekend is over, but Art thinks it’s only a maneuver to protect their few remaining assets.  He is full of other schemes to minimize the damage from their certain bankruptcy: planning to default on the credit card bill for their extravagant weekend, buying Marion jewelry that is just under the asset level for seizure, and above all, using a solid system to beat the roulette wheel in the hotel casino then smuggle his cash winnings back into the US.

What he doesn’t know is that Marion intends their divorce to be more than a legal fiction. As Art has struggled with their finances, Marion has found a life of her own.  She’s impatient with his neediness, practices maneuvers to deflect his affections, and withholds an enormous secret from him. That’s not to say Art is a saint—he can be indecisive, a poor planner (who doesn’t think a Valentine’s Day weekend in Niagara Falls would be crowded?), blind to her tastes, and overly optimistic about the risky venture they’re on.

For all the lows that are finally weighing their marriage down, there are some bright points, especially centered on their children as they begin to make lives of their own. There are moments of intimacy springing from thirty years of living together, familiar rhythms and mutual memories that knit them together and that will never fray. Those moments, small as they sometimes are, lend the story a sweetness that offsets the soured relationship and the desperation of their finances.  Like the Ripley’s 3-D movie Art and Marion see, O’Nan puts his readers in a barrel, has them pass jagged rocks and beautiful scenery on their inexorable way to the fall—but he ends the story just as the barrel launches into the mist, leaving us to create our own landing.

(And, ahem, Pulitzer people:  you may not be able to make a decision, but I hope dismissing O’Nan’s polished works as novellas isn’t in your catalogue of other sins.)

Check the WRL catalogue for The Odds

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The Judas Field, by Howard Bahr

Shell shock. Battle fatigue.  Soldier’s heart.  As early at the 1600′s it was known as Swiss Disease.  In the 1860′s some even called it “nostalgia,” thinking that simple homesickness could account for the disorientation, straggling, malingering, alcoholism, “cowardice,” and desertion that plagued the Union and Confederate armies.  In Howard Bahr’s novel of the Civil War, the debilitation follows a small group of comrades back to their Mississippi hometown, where they continue to relive their war experiences.  Those experiences gradually center on the heartbreak of the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee.

Cass Wakefield and Roger Lewellyn enlisted in the rebel army in those heady days when it appeared that the war would be over by the end of the summer of 1861.  Serving in the Army of Tennessee, they fought at Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga, and the Atlanta Campaign, along with the dozens of smaller actions and skirmishes throughout those years.  They saw men die in every conceivable way, from the gruesome to the mundane, losing comrades at each step of the long march that brought them to Franklin.  They also picked up a boy, a toughened orphan named Lucifer, who they promptly renamed Lucius.  On his own, Lucius would adopt the name Wakefield and become mascot, comrade, and fellow sufferer in the line of battle.

Now, twenty years after the war, Lucius is addicted to laudanum, Roger carries the deep psychic wounds of an artist confronted with butchery, and Cass uses alcohol to numb his pain.  All three, and most of the men of their town, wander the streets in the middle of the night like ghosts in search of a place to haunt.  But when Alison Sansing, daughter of their regimental commander and sister of the dashing Perry, asks Cass to help her recover the bodies of her beloved father and brother, he agrees to accompany her to Franklin.

What Alison, one of Cass’s oldest friends, doesn’t tell him is that she is dying of cancer and this trip is the final obligation of a life filled with her own pain and heartbreak.  As their train rolls through the Southern countryside, she begins to see the landscape through which the men of her acquaintance marched and fought.  And Cass begins to recall and relive both painful and humorous episodes from his soldiering life.  It isn’t until they reach Franklin that they discover that both Lucian and Roger have followed them, and their emotional journey becomes a volatile one.

Howard Bahr is a rare combination of historian and author, skilled at gently and gradually exposing details of the soldier’s life and their direct battle experiences at places like Franklin while exploring the deeper battles hidden in human memory.  His writing is both insightful and evocative, with a perfect balance between description and psychological depth, while his characters are fully realized in all their glory and agony.  It’s not for nothing that his novels have been named Notable Books by the New York Times.  (Hey, Pulitzer people: were you asleep?)

For a historical account of the Union’s commander at Franklin and Nashville, check out Benson Bobrick’s Master of War.  Robert Hicks’s Widow of the South is a fictional account which details the life of Carrie McGavock, whose house was a Confederate hospital and who almost singlehandedly dug up and reburied Confederate dead on her own land.

Check the WRL catalog for The Judas Field

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The Last Good Kiss, by James Crumley

What is it about California that makes it so attractive to writers of hardboiled fiction?  Is it the tension between the gorgeous weather and the darkness of the human soul?  Is it the quintessential Land of Opportunity trashed by intimidation and competition?  Just as the fertile coast is divided from the desert interior, California divides the survivors from the victims and it takes a brutally clear voice to describe that social Darwinism.  James Crumley was such a voice.

That’s not to say that The Last Good Kiss is strictly a California book, because it covers a good bit of the West, carrying the reader on a booze- and speed-filled journey with stops in Sonoma, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, Elko, Montana, Washington, and Oregon.  In fact, so much time takes place in cars that the two main characters— investigator C. W. Sughrue and his quarry-cum-road partner Abraham Trahearne—come to that place of friendship and hatred that can only be created on road trips through desolate country.

After finding Trahearne on behalf of Trahearne’s wealthy ex-wife, Sughrue accepts a quixotic assignment to find the daughter of the owner of the bar where they meet.  For $87, Sughrue agrees to look for Betty Sue Flowers, who disappeared in San Francisco ten years before. Betty Sue is a legend to all who knew her, exuding a premature sexuality that haunted the men and alienated her from the women around her.  The trail has all but disappeared, but Sughrue, accompanied by Trahearne, still gives it his best shot and turns up some inconsistencies.

But his first client demands the return of her ex-husband to the compound where she lives with Trahearne, his second wife, and his domineering mother.  Back to Montana they go, and Sughrue steps into a snakepit of relationships and barely stifled violence.  The ex-wife is sexy, the second wife is interesting, and the booze is free, so Sughrue sticks around until his conscience puts him back on Betty Sue’s trail.  And that trail leads to death and destruction for many—some who deserve it and some who don’t.

Like all good hardboiled heroes, C. W. Sughrue is a philosopher (with a Master’s in English Lit) hidden behind a scarred body and bashed-in face, with an incredible tolerance for booze and a certain (though ill-defined) quality that draws beautiful women.  He retreats to his Montana home from the ugliness he has seen in his life, but doesn’t hesitate to go out and confront more ugliness.  And while he isn’t a romantic, he is just idealistic enough to believe that he can make a difference, even when we, the readers, know he’s heading for another fall.

Check the WRL catalog for The Last Good Kiss

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The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, 183rd Imperial Edition

It’s about time.  The world has long awaited the 183rd Imperial Edition of the 27-volume magnum opus of knowledge known to mankind.  Generously sponsored by the Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel Center for Knowledge Studies (coming soon to a town near you!), the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on subject experts have come to fruition in this classically bound beautiful work of reference that is far too difficult for the likes of you, even in this abridged one-volume form.  The fact that its introduction was written by T. Herman Zweibel from the iron lung that has kept him alive since 1868 is enough to demonstrate its worth.  That he transmitted it from his spaceship should be proof that this superior product ought not be used by mere mortals.

Therefore, I, as one of the uniquely qualified superhumans capable of synthesizing the pangorgian content, will give some clues as to the knowledge to be found in this book in order to encourage you to strive to meet this task:

• What is the most dangerous object known to man?  (Essential information if you are to survive as long as the Great Man himself, which is unlikely)
• Why Franklin Pierce is the most important and precedent-setting President of the United States (is the proximity of his death to the birth of T. Herman Zweibel coincidental?  The editors don’t say, but I have my suspicions)
• Which aspect of human life peaks at birth and steadily declines thereafter (except in T. Herman Zweibel’s case)
• Who Hop Sing was, and when he bought it (T. Herman Zweibel has an alibi: he was unconscious due to a near-overdose of Crawford’s Soothing Syrup given to him by his robot butler)

What makes the 183rd Imperial Edition stand out is the extreme care with which the editors have precisely defined each entry’s numerical value to the eighth significant digit to ensure absolute accuracy in ordering.  That care has been extended to the calculation of page enumeration, which is guided by a rigorous mathematical formula necessary for lesser users to comprehend their exact location in the tome.  Between the two, the user is precisely guided directly to the entries of interest, which will then fill a gap in his or her pathetic life.

Unfortunately, those lesser users will have a price to pay to obtain this known knowledge, and not only in dedicating their lives to the study of language, medicine, theology, marketing, and the laws concerning statutory rape.  While the Zweibel Center has underwritten the research costs, the actual production of the book carries additional burdens which the reader rightfully, according to the immutable laws of capitalism, ought to bear himself.  If not, taxpayer-sponsored law enforcement will be used to collect it. To streamline the process, I am personally collecting the required 15,664.43  Seychellois rupees ($1,200.00) per copy, and forwarding the amount due to the Zweibel Center.

LATE BREAKING UPDATE: I have just been informed that despite my formidabulary achievements, the Zweibel Center has withdrawn my eligibility to own this piece of junk due to my Irish heritage.  Hey Zweibel: I hope you run out of Crawford’s Soothing Syrup before you reach Mars!

In spite of everything, you can check the WRL catalog for The Onion Book of Known Knowledge 

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Pillars of the Almighty, by f-stop Fitzgerald

OK, so here it is.  In my post for Pillars of the Earth I mentioned that an illustrated source would add to the impact of Ken Follett’s prose.  With  photographer f-stop Fitzgerald’s beautiful work, such a source is available.

We’ve become jaded to the visual elements of the cathedral in our day.  At best, most of us who go to them will take a tour with a guide who repeats the same text 20 times a day; at worst, we will look at, but not see what the average 12th century person would see.  What we see is a big building filled with bits of this and pictures of that.  What even the illiterate masses would see was their own Bible, with clear lessons about sin and salvation, the examples of saints, martyrs, and evangelists, and the everlasting punishments awaiting the damned.  But the technological innovations of the Gothic cathedral would be the psychological setup for congregants to strive for a heaven shown in soaring ceilings, intricate carvings incorporated into the structure, and light pouring through unimaginably large and stained glass windows.

Working with text from Pillars of the Earth (which sadly doesn’t align with the photos), Fitzgerald gives us unique and intimate views of elements that might prove overwhelming or inaccessible to a modern visitor.  The profligate details in medieval churches overwhelm the modern viewer, and are inaccessible both from a physical standpoint and from an iconographic standpoint.  Some of his portraits are black-and-white images that appear to be reproduced as negatives against silver backgrounds.  Others are full-color illustrations drenched with the hues of sunrise and sunset, taking advantage of the east-west alignment required of an cathedral.  And still others are black-and-white closeups of carved figures, including the grotesque gargoyles and monsters that reminded viewers of the imps of hell awaiting sinners.

Fitzgerald doesn’t limit his subject to ancient cathedrals or images—he incorporates a few pieces that have the same feel but an unmistakably modern sensibility.  They show that the fascination and need to build these immense and awe-inspiring buildings was not limited to pre-Reformation communities.  The introduction by sculptor Simon Verity is a reminder that artists are still working in stone to capture visceral religious emotions.

Williamsburg Regional Library has decided to catalog and shelve this kind of book with the original source so that readers will hopefully find them when looking for the original fiction.  (Other authors we’ve done this with include Patrick O’Brian and J.R.R. Tolkien.) Hopefully books like Pillars of the Almighty will drive readers’ imagination and understanding of the story.

Search for Pillars of the Almighty in the WRL Catalog.

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Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett

The building of cathedrals in Europe was often a multi-generational task, a labor of love and worship that illustrates the tenor of those times.  Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth is its own labor of love and worship, although in a different way.  As he explains in his introduction, the book was a huge departure for him.  Known as an author of thriller— including Eye of the Needle, one of my favorites —Follett took a risk writing this book, but based on the way readers have embraced it, his risk paid off.

Pillars is the story of one cathedral and the events of the nearly forty years it took to build.  It centers around five people: a cleric, two artisans, and two from the ranks of the nobility.  (An additional character from the peasantry probably would have made the plot unwieldy, but Follett deals with that problem early on.)  During the period he writes about—1123 to 1174—there was an international struggle to determine whether kings ruled with the blessing of the church, or whether the church existed under the protection of the kings.  That struggle trickled down to the local level, where philosophy yields to the daily fight for land and money.  At the same time, guilds were exercising their economic power by restricting membership, enforcing apprenticeships, and setting fees for specific jobs.  Both church and nobility feared the repercussions of a wealthy educated class, but the guilds were also limited by the need for armed protection and desire for religious approval.  At various times power shifted among the three, but no single one emerged victorious.  But struggles were not limited to the competing factions:  clergy maneuvered amongst themselves for power and income, nobles conspired against each other to increase their holdings, and the guilds evolved through trial and error that produced losers and winners.

Follett’s span of the 12th century begins with the tribulations of Tom Builder, a mason whose job is unexpectedly terminated, forcing him to take to the roads with his family, searching for work.  Like the peasants of his time, he is helpless in the face of lawlessness and misfortune, until every day becomes a quest for survival against the slow starvation overtaking his family.  After his wife dies in childbirth, Tom becomes involved with Ellen, a mysterious woman who lives in the forest with her son Jack.  When Tom’s path crosses that of the newly-elected Prior Philip of the Kingsbridge monastery, both their fortunes begin to rise.

Philip is a motivated, intelligent, and inspired man whose dedication to the church manifests itself in his desire to revive the fallen fortunes of the monastery with a plan to eventually build a cathedral.  But the opportunity presents itself sooner rather than later, and the project is underway. Philip is an innocent in many ways, but no more so than in his belief that his sincere efforts on God’s behalf are respected and shared by other clergy, including the driven and ambitious Waleran Bigod, who is destined to become his bishop.  However, he becomes adept at his own kind of politicking and makes several enemies along the way.

One of them is William Hamleigh, the would-be Earl of Shiring, which encompasses Bishop Bigod’s diocese and Prior Philip’s growing town.  Hamleigh’s family rose to the earldom during the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud.  William is a brute who does not hesitate to use force and treachery, even cold-blooded murder, to achieve his aims.  But his inability to think beyond the short term hampers him, and he is easily manipulated by the bishop for his own ends.  He’s not a subtle character, but William also serves a valuable role in the story, demonstrating the effort and expense it took to maintain the military force that an earl was required to bring to the king.

When the story begins, William’s anticipated marriage to the Lady Aliena, daughter of the current Earl, is broken off.  Her father did not want to force her into a political marriage, and the humiliation leads the Hamleighs to denounce the Earl and seize his holdings. When William gains the upper hand, he rapes Aliena, kills her protector, and scars her younger brother.  But Aliena will not accept that as the last word, and her determination, cleverness, and willingness to take risks give her opportunities to rise above the merely social standing she would have had as a noblewoman.  Her success also illustrates the power that the trade associations— both among merchants and among skilled craftsmen—could wield.

Finally, there’s Jack, the unusual son of the outlaw woman Ellen, adopted by Tom Builder and put to work on the cathedral site.  His intelligence and insight not only make him a valued craftsman, but allow him to develop a friendship with Aliena.  They also bring him to the attention of Prior Philip, who is determined to bring Jack into the monastery, but at a high cost to Jack.  Jack is also a vehicle for Follett to explore Continental culture from pilgrimages to Moorish influence in Spain to the revolutionary design of French cathedrals.  The vision he brings back puts the crowning touch on what ends as a glorious building.

Follett’s description of the various styles and the engineering feats it took to build these enormous buildings is done lovingly and with a real sense of awe. It makes the reader long to turn to an illustrated source that captures in images what Follett has described for us.  And my next entry will talk about that very thing.

Check the WRL catalog for Pillars of the Earth in regular print, as well as audio, a television mini-series, and e-book.

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Still Midnight, by Denise Mina

Tartan Noir.  That’s probably the greatest name for a body of crime fiction set in one location.  In this case it’s Scotland, where it seems the rain and clouds obscure more than the sky.  With the exception of Alexander McCall Smith, I can’t think of a single Scottish crime writer who couldn’t raise goosebumps on a tropical beach.

Denise Mina is a principal member of the clan, with her Garnethill Trilogy, the first three of her books featuring young journalist Paddy Meehan, and now her Alex Morrow stories, of which Still Midnight is the first.  All feature damaged but strong women struggling in a world where men have an explicit hold on the power to control their lives.

Alex Morrow is immersed in perhaps the single most male-dominated profession—the police department.  Worse still, she’s from the lower classes.  Worst of all, she’s hiding her family background: Alex’s dad was a major player in Glasgow’s underworld, and now her half-brother Danny has inherited his position.  Alex is able to conceal her connections, but her accent and attitude can’t be hidden.

Alex is called to the scene of a home invasion that ended with the wounding of a teenaged girl and the kidnapping of her father.  Although the father keeps a hole-in-the-wall shop, the kidnappers demand ₤2 million—an impossible and suspicious ransom.  Plus, there’s a ticklish angle:  the family is Muslim, and the first thought of the investigators is that the money may be connected to extremists.  Politics rears its ugly head when Alex’s co-worker and competitor is catapulted past her to lead the high-profile case.  Despite that, Alex works the overlooked angles, and her basic police procedure starts turning up loose threads.

Morrow’s investigation is punctuated by two other stories.  The first, which opens the book, is told from the viewpoint of Pat, the hapless gunman.  Although he and his partner Eddy have been hard guys in the past, the home invasion is a far cry from their other crimes.  Pat even fancies himself in love with the girl and has visions of meeting and courting her.  At the same time, he fears that Eddy’s pent-up rage over the loss of his family will make him commit further violence.  The second story is that of Aamir, the kidnapped shopkeeper.  A survivor who escaped Idi Amin’s Uganda, Aamir has plenty of time to remember those brutal days, the effort of integrating himself into Scottish society, of raising two boys and a willful girl.  He too fears the potential of Eddy’s violence and the reader senses that he is close to resigning himself to die.

Family dominates Still Midnight.  Besides Alex’s birth family, a strained relationship with her husband keeps her away from their home.  Aamir has withheld the story of his life from his wife and children, but they are keeping secrets from the old man.  One is even keeping a secret with Aamir’s help.  Pat’s family is deeply involved with the kidnapping, and of course Eddy’s family looms in the background.  Alex’s co-worker is well-connected through his father’s own police career, making him a golden boy in the department.  The way Mina weaves these family stories together creates the foundation of the mystery, but also deepens the connections between the characters.

Glasgow is also a major character in this story, much as Edinburgh is in Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus stories.  The dirty little convenience store, the shooting galleries for heroin addicts, the abandoned industrial buildings, and the natural elements where all of these are haphazardly scattered make an appropriate setting for the story.  Mina also indulges herself in creating an almost ludicrous hideaway where Eddy and Pat stash Aamir.  The place offers a level of comic relief from the rest of the story, while still ringing true.  (Trust me, I’ve been in places like the one she describes.)  Alex Morrow is like a hardy plant in this atmosphere— deeply rooted but surviving and even thriving.  She makes me look forward to reading The End of Wasp Season, the second Alex Morrow mystery.

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Faith, by Jennifer Haigh

Two years ago, all my siblings were gathered together for the first time since 1989.  Those old easy ways quickly fell into place and we were soon laughing and arguing about who was going to do the dishes.  We also reminisced about past gatherings, trips, and our frequent knock-down-drag-out fights over the TV program we were going to watch. Then other memories started cropping up. A conversation with the daughter of slaves during a trip to Colorado. The road trip when the youngest got left behind and we didn’t discover it until we were 90 minutes away. The ski trip to West Virginia where one brother slipped and knocked down Gerald Ford.  In other words, the stuff that never happened. At least, I know they never happened, though some of my siblings swear that they did.  It just goes to show that no two people grow up in the same family.

That’s the way it is with Sheila McGann.  Her brother Arthur Breen (their mother’s first child) is several years older but she and Father Art, a Catholic priest in Boston, talk frequently and know each other’s secrets.  Her younger brother Mike never really knew Art, but he and Sheila are close enough that they can still finish each other’s sentences.  Art grew up in a single-parent urban household, Sheila and Mike in a working-class suburban home ruled by their devout mother and alcoholic father.  Art was a devout boy who left for seminary when Sheila was still very young;  Mike and Sheila did the Catholic school thing, but she’s now agnostic and he’s not a particularly observant churchgoer.

Then a seismic shift tests the bonds between them.  Art is accused of molesting Aidan Conlon, the son of a recovering addict he’s been helping.  Caught in the midst of the rising tide of priest-abuse accusations and lawsuits, he is summarily removed from his parish (on Good Friday, no less).   He is exiled to a generic apartment complex, and blocked from contact with his friends.  He can’t even speak with Church officials to defend himself against the charges.  His parish is divided between those loyal to him and those who retroactively remember something odd about him.  All Father Art has left is his family.

Sheila flies to Art’s defense, returning to Boston from her Philadelphia home.  But she finds that Art’s last refuge is compromised. His mother is ashamed of the accusations and deals with it by withdrawing.  His stepfather, memory stripped by his alcoholism, is no help.  And Mike immediately accepts the truth of the accusation, egged on by his wife.

As the story progresses, though, the characters slowly begin to shift places.  The more Sheila learns the more doubt she begins to feel.  And Mike, driven by a need for a definitive answer, begins insinuating himself into Aidan’s mother Kath’s life.  He succeeds in coaxing Kath to tell the story of her relationship with Art, but at high cost to himself.  And when he knows the truth, his faith in Art is complete.

Sheila is looking back as the sequence of events unfolds, foreshadowing, guessing, stitching together the facts she knows and filling in the blank spaces to recount this story.  In doing so, she keeps the child abuse scandal in the background and focuses on the McGanns as they try to come to grips with—or avoid—dealing with the enormity of the situation.  She also keeps the reader wondering whether or not to sympathize with Art as Sheila releases details through the narrative the family is constructing even as events transpire.  This is not, however, a story that will be shared over the dinner table.  It’s more likely that it will join the deeply hidden secrets that have governed this family from the first.

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The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers

Iraq War veteran and Virginia native Powers has transformed his experiences in Mosul and Tal Afar into a story that captures both the intimacy of comradeship and the larger impact of the war on soldiers’ lives.  And while many of the situations are brutal, Powers’s beautiful language redeems this story of combat and survival.

Privates Bartle and Murphy are a team, though hardly of equals.  At times, it seems as though the eighteen-year old Murphy could hardly have passed the minimum intelligence level to even join the Army, but Bartle takes very seriously the role of protector assigned to him by their sergeant and by Murphy’s mother.  In training, in garrison, and in combat, Bartle watches over Murphy, but there’s one place he can’t protect his buddy:  Murphy’s own mind.

While Bartle and Murphy’s relationship is the center of the story, there is a third man who looms over them.  Sergeant Sterling is their team leader, a career soldier who earned the Silver Star during his first rotation, and who has no illusions about what they are going back to.  He shifts from moderate affection to fierce protection to anger at the hapless soldiers he can’t keep from harm.  But Sterling has a dark side as well, with self-preservation trumping all other emotions.

Bartle narrates the story in multiple timelines, but each seems immediate rather than recalled from experience.  As he shifts settings, the reader comes to learn more about his transition from civilian to warrior, and from warrior to guilty survivor.  He holds back the worst of his experiences until he can no longer hide them from himself or from those who turn to him to understand what happened in Iraq.  It often escapes the reader that Bartle is only in his early twenties—it seems as though the trauma he has experienced has aged him out of his youth.

While this is not an emotionally easy read, there is pleasure to be had in Powers’s manipulation of language, setting, and character.  His skill at these belies his own youth, and we can only hope this first novel will be followed by many more.

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The Voting Wars, by Richard L. Hasen

We Americans have always prided ourselves on our democracy, our opportunity to go into a private place and select the people who most closely represent the policies we want to see.  And yet… in Virginia’s 2009 election cycle, which included a gubernatorial race, fewer than half of registered voters cast a ballot.  Even in Presidential election years, only around three-quarters of registered voters go to the polls.  And those who actually voted are about one-third the number of people who are eligible to vote.  Obviously, participation in our democracy is less than optimal.  What happens, though, when those who want to cast a ballot don’t trust the system as it stands?  That’s what worries Richard L. Hasen, creator of the Election Law Journal, which examines the cultures and technicalities of the voting process.

Hasen looks at the entire process and the potential points of conflict in our election system, which suffers from the fractured nature of county-based administration overseen by partisan state officials and guided by nearly incomprehensible law.  He surveys the charges and counter-charges of both Democrats and Republicans in the way voters are registered and identified at the polls, and the way votes are counted, or not, after they are cast.  He also envisions an election where the chaos of the Florida 2000 election looks tame by comparison.

Hasen identifies the two sides of the battle in terms of goals.  One side, usually Democratic, wants to include everyone who wants to vote, accepting that a marginal amount of fraud is possible.  The other, usually Republican, wants a strict process that eliminates any hint of fraud, even if it leads to the disenfranchisement of tens or hundreds of thousands of voters.  Of the two, Hasen identifies a real and organized threat on one side, and debunks claims against another threat.  He examines other issues that he believes to be more important to the integrity of the electoral process and ends with a pessimistic view of a future without reform.

If you tune into Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, or read the myriad of conservative newspapers and magazines, you’d inevitably hear from those Hasen identifies as “the Fraudulent Fraud Squad.”  With credibility established by their national careers, people like Karl Rove and Hans von Spakovsky are able to present their unchallenged narrative and build support for voter ID laws.   They also extend their power into the polling booths through an organization calling itself “True the Vote,” which trains volunteers to work as aggressive purgers of voter rolls and as observers primed to overwhelm poll workers and voters with challenges.

On the other hand, voter *registration* fraud, which is usefully conflated with voter fraud by ID proponents, brings up the specter of ACORN organizing waves of illegal voters.  Those accusations, which discredited the advocacy organization, made it possible for subsequent false allegations to break its back and shut it down.  When closely examined, though, it turns out that one ACORN employee violated the law in Nevada by using incentives on his workers, and that ACORN itself was defrauded by temporary workers who were later convicted.  But none of those fraudulent voters ever turned up at the polls.

Moving up the chain, Hasen discussed the problems of partisan election officials.  He’s quick to point out that both sides are guilty of manipulating their positions to take advantage of unclear vote-counting procedures, especially in recounts.  Both sides are also closely studying election laws and regulations, which may lead to a tidal wave of litigation for contested results.  That will put election outcomes in the hands of judges, who may themselves be partisan.  That kind of scenario is discouraging to both new voters and people who believe that participation in democracy is the highest form of citizenship.

He also examines and dismisses the “fringe left” theory that voting machines are subject to hacking, which probably requires a perfect storm of opportunities.  However, he is troubled by the secrecy involved in creating the machines and software, and in the unreliability of electronic machines that don’t produce a paper trail for audits.  (I would be interested in his take on the slot machine/voting equipment comparison, but he only links to it on his blog without comment.)   The good news is that problems have decreased; the bad news is that they aren’t resolved, especially for military and overseas voters.

So where does this leave us?  Hasen is glum about the likelihood of top-to-bottom reform which would standardize registration and elections, put them in the hands of competent nonpartisan professionals, and make them transparent to anyone interested in auditing results.  He’s also glum (even frightened?) by the possibility that social media has further polarized partisans and made the likelihood of finding a compromise more difficult.  My own concern is that the invective of anonymity on the Internet will boil over into public turmoil that will make the “Brooks Brothers Riot” of 2000 look like nuns playing touch football.  In any case, Hasen’s book is essential reading for anyone interested in how democracy in the United States moves forward.

PS: I wrote this post on October 26, and on the 27th, the Washington Post ran this story.  Just goes to show that we have a lot of work to do to get from here to some semblance of a national election that represents the popular will.

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The Watch, by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

It seems as though it took years for fiction writers to process the impact of the Vietnam War in a meaningful way.  It also seems as though the fiction emerging from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is more immediate, rawer, and as significant as any that came out of Vietnam.  I don’t know why the two wars differ in that respect, nor which of the newer novels will survive, but in terms of sheer impact, The Watch has a good chance of being that book.

The story: at a remote outpost guarding access to the mountains of Kandahar, American soldiers maintain a vigilant watch against Taliban fighters.  After a brutal night attack which leaves the Americans on edge, a legless young woman arrives on the plain outside the base.  She has wheeled herself on a cart through the tortuous landscape to retrieve the body of her brother for proper burial.  Suspicious of her motives, afraid of a suicide bombing attempt, and unable to communicate with her, the Americans order her first to leave, then to stay outside the perimeter.  Negotiations, if her stubborn refusal to leave and their refusal to release the body, can be called negotiations, proceed very slowly, until an uneasy truce is achieved.  While the events are slowly unfolding, we see through the eyes of the various characters that this culture clash is both unavoidable and irreconcilable.

The moral heart of the story is occupied by Nizam, the Pashtun woman, and by Americans Lieutenant Nick Frobenius and First Sergeant Marcus Whalen.  Frobenius brings the benefit of his classical Dartmouth education to the reader, recognizing Nizam’s stand as parallel to that of Antigone in Sophocles’ play.  He also represents the disillusionment of men who joined the military from patriotic motives only to discover that they were being used as pawns in a game of chess with ill-defined goals, as well as one whose relationship has suffered during his deployment.   Whalen is the competent career man, the bridge between the officers and the lower ranks whose sense of duty keeps him going despite his exhaustion.  And Nizam is the person who has right on her side but no power to claim it.  Now her family’s sole survivor, she wants to fulfill the final rite of a courageous warrior.  It is impossible for her to envision anything outside her traditional role in Pashtun society, but she brings the dignity and strength of a person secure in her identity to the battle of wills. Other chapters are narrated by different characters, but their stories revolve around their interactions with these three, and around the questions raised by the force of their characters.

Roy-Bhattacharya uses the atmosphere of the war zone effectively.  The Americans are running on uppers in the wake of the night attack, drowsing on their feet and experiencing vivid and all-too-short dreams of home.  Isolation and vulnerability,  and the harsh conditions—dust storms, freezing nights, hot days—reinforce to them that they are aliens.  Their base is cramped and smelly, but the expansive plains and looming mountains outside the walls may conceal threats.  And the close quarters can make them hate the comrades they must depend on.

Who should give way when an individual with right on her side meets powerful people with might and a strict code of conduct?  That question has been explored in literature and art, and lived out by individuals determined to change their world.  That question isn’t on Nizam’s mind, but the reader can’t help but confront it.  This is a tragic tale, told with power and precision by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya.

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100 One-Night Reads, by David C. Major and John S. Major

Really, it isn’t cheating to write about a book about books on a blog about books.  Especially about a book that helps readers find books about…just about anything.

One Hundred One-Night Reads, by brothers John and David Major, is a collaboration between two widely read and dedicated readers.  They came by it naturally, raised by a mother who sent them to books when they were bored.  Both followed their passions outside literature into notable careers – John as an expert on Asia and David as an expert on climate science and environmental management.  John also worked with Clifton Fadiman to update Fadiman’s New Lifetime Reading Plan.

The Majors stress that this is not a Harold Bloom/Great Books self-education plan, but an introduction to short books for people who complain that they have no time to read.  That approach allows them to delve into their personal reading experiences to promote both classic literary authors and writers that snootier critics deliberately overlook.  (See the excerpt of Stephen King’s scathing takedown of such critics in his National Book Award acceptance speech at the end of this blogpost.)

So, from E.F. Benson (Queen Lucia) to P.G. Wodehouse (Something Fresh) and from Chandler’s The Big Sleep to Charlotte’s Web, the Majors stroll with readers through relevant biographical details of the author, a short introduction to the plot, some sense of why they’ve included it, even suggestions about further reading.  It’s like having your own personal readers’ advisor with an encyclopedic knowledge of good books.

If I had one quarrel with the book, it’s that most of the ones I’ve looked at aren’t really “one-night reads” – unless you don’t have to do the dishes, put the kids to bed, and walk the dog.  Nonetheless, the stories they’ve selected pack a lot of punch in a few pages, and if the dedicated reader started at lunch and read through past bedtime (and ignored the kids, dishes, and dog), they’ll remember these stories and authors.  What else are you going to do – watch TV?

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Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie

Confession time?  I never read anything by Salman Rushdie until I picked up Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002.  I found his essays on everything from “Being Photographed” to “Going to Electoral College” to be funny, pointed, and written in approachable, engaging language.  So what was holding me back?  Perhaps it was that intimidating glare, which makes him look as if you’re going to disappoint him no matter how hard you try.  (Of course, looking for the picture I was thinking of yielded only photos of a smiling, avuncular wiseman.  Strange.)

On a whim, I picked up Haroun and the Sea of Stories and began reading it aloud to my wife.  It quickly became a standing date–9pm each night we’d sit down and I’d dive into The Sea.  Rushdie’s enchanting story drew us along right to the wonderfully satisfying end.  It practically defines what I love to see in totally escapist reading, but with a punch that few writers can pull off.

Haroun is the son of Rashid, a famous storyteller who lives in his own imagination and sometimes visits the “real” world to perform the pieces he finds in his fancy.  Haroun’s mother Soraya sometimes frets over money, but is largely happy until a nasty neighbor poisons her image of Rashid, and the two run off together.  Haroun rejects his father’s fantastic view of the world, and Rashid loses his storytelling facility.

Unfortunately, it’s election time in the country Alifbay, where Rashid has been hired to enchant voters so the politicians can tell equally large whoppers to earn votes.  Without his skill Rashid cannot perform, and only professional pride makes him go to his last gig in the isolated Valley of K to entertain provincial voters.  Haroun talks them onto a wild bus ride with a driver named Butt, who delivers them to their putative employer Snooty Buttoo and his fantastic houseboat.  But aboard the houseboat, Haroun finds himself flown away to an invisible moon that houses the Sea of Stories.  An immense ocean whose currents of standard storylines flow together to create new tales, the Sea is also being poisoned by “popular romances” which have turned into “long lists of shopping expeditions, and “talking helicopter anecdotes” that are spoiling the rich imaginative source that has nourished both tellers and listeners for all of human history.  The poison leads back to the enemy of storytelling, “Prince of Silence and the Foe of Speech” Khattam-Shud, whose name means “The End.”

With Haroun’s assistance, the good Guppees, the Plentimaw fish, and the people of P2C2E (Processes Too Complicated to Explain) defeat Khattam-Shud and his Chupwalas, and balance returns to the moon.  With the Sea of Stories saved, the world undergoes a transformation that ensures the defeat of the colorless and the victory of the whimsical.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is called a children’s story, but it would be an exceptional child (indeed an exceptional reader of any age) to catch all the puns, literary allusions, political caricature, and meaningful verbal tics Rushdie gives his magical characters.  Haroun is a marvelous stand-in for readers living in the dull world.  His sudden gift of a wildly psychedelic experience reminds of what we set aside as we “grow up.”  It must have been a Chupwala who decided it belonged outside the realm of those who need it most.

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