I love researching. But it is also the cause of many of my worst nightmares. Why, you might ask?

My researching process is not simple, but it is archaic. I still use the technique I learned in high school, when I wrote a paper on Stonehenge. I use 3x5 notecards, and I go through hundreds of them for each book (no, I am not even close to kidding). When I’m done researching, these notecards are all carefully filed by subject in a vast old wooden card catalog cabinet I purchased from the University of Washington when they changed over to a computerized catalog. I have figured out that I probably have at least 30,000 notecards in my office. With no backup. Which means that if there’s a fire, twenty years or so of research goes up in smoke.

In an attempt to somehow figure out how to save myself from impending disaster (the way my mind works, disaster is ALWAYS impending), I have been thinking lately of various ways to enter all these cards into the computer, and to somehow change my ways so that I’m protecting all future research. I’ve thought of scanning the cards (MY GOD! That would take FOREVER! And my children are no longer mindless enough to do it without complaining). I’ve thought of hiring someone to create a database for me (but who? And how much would THAT cost?). It’s all so exhausting to contemplate that in the end, I’ve done exactly nothing to protect all the work that already exists. But I have done something to protect my future work.

Last year, for my birthday, my husband bought me a LiveScribe Smart Pen. I haven’t had the chance to really put it to the test until now, because I was writing a book. But now I have. Essentially what this pen does is digitize everything you write, and then you upload it into the computer. There are huge problems with this process for me–it requires special paper, and each page is 8.5 by 11, and the pen reads each page as a separate image file. This means I’m going to have to print each page and cut and paste the notes onto notecards, which I believe is going to be a huge pain. I’ve thought about purchasing a program that translates handwriting into text so that I can manipulate the text to print directly on notecards, but I haven’t tried that yet. And please don’t suggest that I try another system than notecards. It works, and I like the way it works, and after years of perfecting it, I have no interest in changing it. I keep writing to Livescribe to suggest that they make that special paper as notecards, but thus far they have ignored me.

The other problem is that I am simply too stupid to live sometimes, and I researched two books–a couple hundred notecards worth of notes–without remembering to TURN ON THE PEN. This is a much harder problem to solve, because being too stupid to live necessarily means you don’t realize you’re too stupid to live. I am very good with habit and routine however, and so I’m currently trying to retrain myself to actually THINK when I pick up the pen. It may take me some time to imprint.

But I am elated that, when I remember to turn it on, I am actually putting these notes into a safe place–so regardless of how the information is organized, it’s there. Which means now I can have nightmares about normal things. Like being washed away by a massive tsunami or having my brain eaten by zombies. Much more reassuring.

    One of the best things about being a writer is the dress code–or rather, the fact that there isn't one. For years, I duly woke each morning and dressed professionally and hied myself off to an office. I have suits, and pumps, and silk shirts and pantyhose. And the best thing about having them is the fact that they sit in my closet and gather dust.
    What do I wear to work each morning? Usually it's a pair of black stretch yoga pants with a roll-top waist–which are actually more comfortable than sweats–and whatever shirt the weather decrees. Sweatshirt, t-shirt, tank top. Slippers or sandals. For many years, I would change into jeans to run whatever errands were necessary. Now, I can't even be bothered to do that. The habit of dressing for comfort is too well ingrained. My daughters have been threatening to send my name in to "What Not to Wear," for years. Once, when I emerged from my bedroom, dressed and ready to meet the day, my oldest daughter took one look at me and said, "How old is that t-shirt, Mom?" I had to admit that I'd had it since I was 18. Which only goes to show that I was a slob back then too. And I do have faint memories of wearing shirts with holes in them, along with a string of safety pins (about 50, I recall)–my only jewelry besides a pair of small silver hoops–and rust colored corduroys with a big slit up the side that I'd repaired with a piece of tan corduroy fabric.
    Fortunately, my father had excellent taste, and he provided many of the suits and shoes I own. Luckily, I am also married to a man with excellent taste–if you ever see me at a signing or a conference, you can rest assured that it was he–not me–who bought the clothes I'm wearing. And with two budding fashionistas in my household, my public persona is well vetted.
    But the rest of the time, I am truly the slob of all slobs. I can absolutely relate to those poor women on "What Not to Wear" when they whine: "But I just want to be comfortable." Hear, hear, sisters!

Now Halloween is over, and November is here. My backyard is covered with leaves from the enormous maple that shades my office (and I mean covered. Literally, about an inch thick all over), and I've put the extra blanket on the bed. The class I'm teaching on structuring the novel is halfway done, as is most of the reading I must do for it. So now, after a month's hiatus, it's time to turn my focus to my favorite thing: reading.

Of course, there's a lot of nonfiction that must be read because I'm researching my next novel, but fiction is what I love, and I tend to get bitchy if I go too long without it. This fall is full of new works by old favorites, and I can hardly wait to get started. Some of the books on my TBR pile?

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory (autographed--I saw her when she made a rare tour stop near my hometown); The Coral Thief by Rebecca Stott ( I loved Ghostwalk--one of my favorites of last year); Going Bovine By Libba Bray; Fire by Kristin Cashore (the last two are two YA authors I love); Stone's Fall by Iain Pears (his An Instance of the Fingerpost  was phenomenal); The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti; The Piano Teacher by Janice Yee; Dreamhunter by my favorite Elizabeth Knox; and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, a book that's getting a lot of good press. I'm also hoping to throw some Colette and D.H. Lawrence into the mix. All in all, it looks to be a stellar next couple of months!

What's on your TBR pile?

     This afternoon, I am taking my children shopping for Halloween costumes. This is something I dread every year–oh, not just the shopping, but all of it–the whole Halloween kit and caboodle. Because–dare I say it–I don't like Halloween. The candy's okay, of course, though as an adult, having bucketfuls of candy hanging around screaming, "Eat me! Eat me!" is its own nightmare. But what I really dislike about Halloween is the fact that it's co-opted the month of October, a perfectly good month in all other aspects. In fact, I might go so far as to say that, if it wasn't for Halloween, October might just be my favorite month of the year.
    Because autumn is my favorite season, and what's more quintessentially autumn than October, with its falling leaves and changing colors, and crisp air and deep blue skies and the smell of apples? Far too good a month to be spoiled, though, in my opinion, that's just what Halloween has done. Because I'm a wimp. I hate haunted houses and scary movies and things that go bump in the night. My own imagination is quite frightening enough, thank you, without Halloween adding its horrors to it. I have nightmares at the slightest suggestion of Jack the Ripper. I once watched the opening shots of "Halloween," (which, as I recall, was only a shot of a suburban neighborhood), and I STILL have nightmares about it. The Saturday Night Live parody of "The Exorcist" scared the hell out of me. I am an inveterate channel flipper, and to me October feels like one long game of Russian roulette–will I stumble upon a horror movie or not? I close my eyes and hum during horror film trailers. I've never got more than 20 pages into "In Cold Blood," and though I love "Frankenstein," I can't even get past the first page of "Dracula." Even "Blackula," as campy as it is, scares me.
    And, despite a few years of harboring the delusion that a masquerade wedding on Halloween (with the Bridal procession replaced by the Ramones "I Wanna Be Sedated") would be fun, the truth is that I despise dressing in costume, and I always have. I don't like being required to be clever; I'm too self-conscious to enjoy playing out my fantasies in costume, and I don't have time to sit around deliberating over what I should be. Halloween has taken on the import of a major holiday, and the pressure is simply too annoying. I remember once insisting on going to school on Halloween without a costume, and when I got there and realized EVERY OTHER KID was wearing one, I went home at lunch, and my mother threw together a go-go girl costume for me, complete with a paper dress and one of her long "falls" (a partial wig). The year of my Star Wars obsession, I went all out and made a Luke Skywalker costume, complete with blond wig and mummy wrappings around my lower legs to simulate the look of his boots. I was too old to trick or treat that year, but I walked my younger sister through the neighborhood in that get up. But really, that's about the most effort I've ever wanted to make on a costume. My husband loves to walk around the neighborhood on Halloween wearing this godawful, gross, scary mask that never fails to elicit comment, and for the sake of our children, I've gone with him in costume (an elven dress I made–how's that for geek?), but mostly I think it's a pain in the ass, and I dislike being out on a dark and cold night where the sole purpose is to be frightened. I'd rather be at home, eating soup and handing out candy.
    And as far as pumpkin carving goes ... well, let's just say it's just one more mess I must clean up.
    Call me a kill-joy, if you like. I can take it. As far as I'm concerned, the ONLY thing to like about Halloween is the fact that they make $100 Grand Bars in a mini size–perfect for hiding away and savoring for as long as they can stay hidden from the rest of my family.

    Recently, I was asked at a writers conference what was my favorite part of writing. There's something to be said for every step of the process. I love researching, where all the  possibilities lay themselves out before you, that constant inner dialogue: that is cool, and that, and, oh, what I could do with that. I love brainstorming, where those thats get mauled about and changed and discarded and picked up again until they turn themselves into a story, and one you suddenly realize scares you to death; that familiar vibrating excitement interspersed with dear God, what the hell have I got myself into? I'll never be able to pull this off, not in a hundred years. I love those first pages, where the characters start to make themselves known to you, because it doesn't matter how many character biographies or synopses you've written, the fact remains that when those people begin to talk, your subconscious pipes up with oh, by the way, I hope you don't mind that I've decided to add this to the equation, and those people somehow become something you didn't expect. I love revising, where you and your editor work together to hone and refine and find your theme and knead and mold the whole book into something more real, something truer, something that resonates. And I love when the production department gets hold of it and comes up with a kick-ass cover and design that somehow brings everything you've imagined to life.
    But what do I love most about writing? The truth is that although I love something about almost every part of the process, I don't even have to think about my answer. My favorite part of writing is that moment about two thirds of the way through a manuscript, when you write the scene or sentence or line of dialogue that you didn't realize you were waiting for, and suddenly all the disparate threads come together; all these decisions you've made, and all the characters' ploys, and the theme that's only been hovering in the back of your subconscious like a ghost come forward and weave together into a cohesive whole, and you suddenly realize: of course, this is what I've meant to say. I cannot even begin to describe the exhilaration of that moment, or how it informs the entire book, or how it carries me for a day, a week, or how it makes all the moodiness and depression and frustration of writing worth it. When what I mean to say becomes what I am saying. That's the drug I need to feed my addiction. And every book becomes about making that moment happen again. It's the reason I write, and the reason I could never stop. Funny, isn't it? A single moment. But the truth is that I rather live for those moments, and I don't want to think about what I would be without them.

I’ve been busy getting ready for a six-week class I’m teaching on structuring the novel, getting the website updated (Thank God THAT’S done!) and reading the second pass page proofs for “Prima Donna,” but I have managed to get some reading done in spite of all that, and I’ve read some really cool things. 

I’ve been a fan of Sarah Waters since “Affinity,” and I bought “The Little Stranger” as soon as it hit the shelves and saved it up for my vacation, where I melted into it like a Popsicle in a hot tub. The book is set in England after the war, in house owned by once wealthy aristocracy, and in this, it reminded me of Ian McEwan’s “Atonement,” which was another book I really liked (not so much the movie, though). “The Little Friend”  also has a beautiful and subtle tension, and leaves it to the reader to decide what is true and false, and I really, really liked it. The characterizations are first rate. 

Another book with great characterization is Louis Bayard’s “The Black Tower,” which introduces us to a (real life) French detective and revolves around the mystery of the princes in the tower. Bayard has a real gift for characterization, and I love to read him for that alone. “The Black Tower” doesn’t disappoint. 

I also read “Catching Fire,” which is the sequel to Suzanne Collins’ “Hunger Games.” The second in a young-adult trilogy, “Catching Fire,” starts out a little slow, but then picks up and never lets go, racing towards a conclusion that has me already breathless for the third. Usually I make it a rule never to read series until all the books are published, because I hate waiting. I’m not sure what made me break the rule for this one, but I am heartily regretting that I did. Collins leaves us with a cliffhanger, and a year seems impossible to wait for the conclusion. 

I’m rather obsessive when it comes to the romantic poets. I’ve read so many novels and biographies of Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, etc., (and for the record, I’m obsessed with Mary Shelley and Frankenstein as well) that I don’t think there’s much I don’t know about them. So it was inevitable that I pick up “A Quiet Adjustment,” by Benjamin Markovits, which is about the love triangle between Byron, his half sister, and his wife. Written from the point of view of Annabella (Byron’s wife), the book is tender and lovely, not so much a page turner as it is reflective and emotional. I enjoyed it very much. 

And lastly, I read “Little, Big,” by John Crowley. I first ran into Crowley when I read his “Lord Byron’s Novel” (naturally), a book that I loved. “Little, Big” is very different, a classic fantasy novel that put me in mind of “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell,” or even “Alice in Wonderland,” though it’s very grown-up, dark and light at the same time, thought-provoking and dense. A singular reading experience that is at the same time impossible to describe. It is going to take me a long time to forget “Little, Big.”

I also checked out the Metropolitan Opera’s Live broadcast of “Tosca,” which is a new production that I understand was booed on its opening night (not for the performances). As I’ve only ever listened to “Tosca” and never seen it, I had no preconceived notions, and I have to say I loved it. Tosca’s aria “Vissi d’arte” literally brought tears to my eyes, and I thought all three leads were glorious. If you like opera and you get a chance to see it, do!

That’s it for now—I’m off to start researching my next manuscript, which means a lot of non-fiction gets interspersed into the fiction. But as “Lost” and “The Tudors” won’t be starting up again until the spring, I’ve plenty of time.

I am no stranger to comic books. When I was young, I had a subscription to “The Fantastic Four” and to “Josie and the Pussycats.” I own two books that are compilations of the comic strip “Prince Valiant,” and one (strangely disappeared) that was a compilation of “Batman” after he teamed up with Robin (and Batgirl too). I also had a first edition “Supergirl.” My first meeting with Charlotte Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” was a Classic comic on a rainy camping trip. I remember devouring it several times, alternately fascinated and repulsed by the dysfunctional relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff. I must have been around twelve or thirteen, or perhaps even younger—old enough to be curious  about the dark complexities of those very adult relationships while at the same time being too young to truly understand them, so reading it felt vaguely like I was keeping some dirty secret.

 

But those comics were relegated to the attic, the sweat left on their pages by my fingers irresistible to mice, sodden by leaks in the roof and long since relegated to the trash bin (and yes, I regret that to this day). It’s been a long time since I read a comic book, and I’ve never read a graphic novel except for the occasional manga my boss brought from Japan (which was all in Japanese, of course). Throughout the years, running in geeky crowds as I tend to do, I’ve heard many whisperings about Watchmen, but until the movie came out, I wasn’t paying too much attention. Reading reviews of the film, I found myself newly fascinated. Masked vigilantes who were sick and twisted, a true Superhero-God—I mean, what’s not to be fascinated by? Unfortunately, all my best intentions were subverted; the movie was released when I was in the midst of some manuscript or another and I could not find the afternoon to get away. It remains on my list for DVD watching, but in the meantime, I ordered the graphic novel, because everyone knows that movies are seldom better than their original source material.

 

This summer, I finally decided to give it a try.

( Read more... )

 

 

 

Welcome to my blog, Raid on the Articulate. The title I’ve chosen is taken from T.S. Eliot’s poem, “Four Quarters:”

"Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the things one no longer has to say , or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the articulate…"

The other quote is courtesy of Oscar Wilde. 

Here you’ll find my opinions on writing, movies, books, culture and any other random thought that happens to get caught along the way. My past reviews from the now-defunct website Writersarereaders.com are also archived here. So welcome, and feel free to friend me and let me know your opinions as well.

The Gargoyle, Andrew Davidson

(originally printed at Writersarereaders.com)
 

“All things in a single book bound by love.” That is the tagline on the cover of the advanced reading copy of THE GARGOYLE, by Andrew Davidson, and the tag is appropriate. This story delves into philosophy, history, myth, poetry and art, but mostly it is a story about love, particularly self-love and romantic love.

The book begins with our narrator (whose name I don’t think we ever see) in a car. He is stoned, drunk, and hallucinating, and drives off a cliff. The accident is horrendous; when he wakes up he’s in the burn unit of the hospital, and therein follows some of the most compelling and fascinating stuff in the book: what happens to a severely burned patient during his recovery. He spends his time planning his eventual suicide, but then he begins to be visited by another patient, a woman from the mental ward, Marianne Engel. She is a sculptress of gargoyles who claims that she has thousands of hearts to give away (one of which she gives to each gargoyle she sculpts), and that the last one belongs to our narrator. She claims that the two of them were lovers in medieval times, and that she is over seven-hundred years old. Is she bipolar? Or schizophrenic? Or are her claims true?

Then she begins to tell him stories. First she tells him stories of lovers who may or may not be real people, and then she begins to tell him of their past history together. Despite himself, he begins to listen, and to care for Marianne, and in doing so must ask himself questions about his own life, and what his future will be.

What THE GARGOYLE wants to be is a love story along the lines of Tristan and Isolde, or Romeo and Juliet, where love is star-crossed and permanent, even through tragedy and death. It is not quite that. Too many questions (in terms of its plot, not its philosophy) go unanswered, and it lacks the emotional intensity required for such a tale, and is marred by a tendency toward melodramatic statements that lessen rather than increase the sense of fatefulness and destiny. However, though I felt the love story between Marianne and the narrator, both in the present and the past, lacked intensity and focus, the mythical love stories that she tells are masterful and sincerely moving, and the historical detail of her life in medieval times was fascinating. In essence, while the plot and the relationship doesn’t quite live up to the goal the book sets for itself, nearly everything else is truly captivating.

THE GARGOYLE is a very good story with many compelling aspects, and I would not hesitate to recommend it. Mr. Davidson is a talented author with an intriguing way of thinking, and I look forward to seeing more from him.

The Other Queen, Philippa Gregory

(originally posted at Writersarereaders.com)

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, was captured, imprisoned in England, and held for sixteen years until she was finally executed. The years Mary spent in captivity are at the center of Gregory’s new novel.

Mary, still a queen and one whose future changed moment by moment, depending upon Elizabeth’s state of mind, was kept by George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his self-made wife, Bess, at their home, and never were two people more tried by a house guest. Instructed to keep Mary as befitting a queen, while at the same time holding her prisoner, the Talbots went bankrupt, suffered from suspicion of treason at the Elizabethan court, and were constantly watched and judged by William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth’s advisor, a man whose rapid rise to power threatened the lords (including Shrewsbury) who had traditionally advised their queen. The political machinations of Cecil, the (predominantly) Northern lords, and Mary herself, are very suspensefully rendered. Mary's inability to keep from plotting against the Queen of England, even as Elizabeth and she made an agreement to return her to her throne, ultimately prove her undoing.

A tale of captivity can often be a boring one — how many variations are available to describe the life of a prisoner, after all? — and Gregory relieves that tendency to sameness by writing this story in three first person points of view, those of Shrewsbury, Bess, and Mary herself. While this is very effective at building tension, the sometimes too-quickly revolving viewpoints keep the reader at a distance, especially in the first third of the novel, and a great deal of redundancy tends to slow the pace. However, the quickly growing tension not just of the Shrewsburys’ worsening financial situation and Mary’s plotting, but of the strain on George and Bess’s  marriage as Mary draws George ever closer, lures the reader steadily in.

Though Mary is the center of the story, Bess and George are its heart, and watching their marriage crumble beneath the strain of keeping the beautiful queen prisoner is in fact the most effective and heartbreaking part of the novel. Bess, determined to hold on to the fortune she came to her marriage with, tries desperately to trust her husband even as she watches him tumble into a snare of his own making, and one she is powerless to save him from — one woven of his need to cling to his honor and to fealty sworn to one queen while he falls helplessly in love with the other.

In the end, what Gregory does so effectively is bring historical figures to life, and make them human. Their flaws and their loyalties form the structure of the novel, and are its greatest strength. She shows very well what happens  when fatal flaws lead to tragedy, when loyalties are superseded by lies and suspicion, and the result is that the queens and lords she writes about become not just characters in history, but men and women who suffered and loved as we do. They too were faced with a rapidly changing world; the problems that dogged them were the same problems that dogged mankind before them and that will no doubt continue to dog us in the future:  abuse of power, the pitfalls of giving in to fear, the cost of being loyal to those who do not deserve loyalty, but most of all, the truth that it is not the big revelations which destroy the fragile web of love and respect that bind us to each other, but the smallest of disappointments.

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White,The Birth of the "It" Girl,And the Crime of the Century, Paula Uruburu

(Originally posted at Writersarereaders.com)

While few people today probably know of Evelyn Nesbit, at the turn of the nineteenth century, she was known to millions in America and Europe as the face adorning postcards, illustrations, and advertisements. By the time she was fifteen years old, she was the favorite model of many photographers and artists. She was beautiful and alluring, innocent and sexy, and she had a millionaire patron whose name was synonymous with good taste and style. Stanford White was well-liked, very rich, and the designer of Central Park, Madison Square Garden, and countless other New York City icons. He was also the man who groomed and raped Evelyn Nesbit when she was sixteen years old, and who kept her as a mistress after.

Harry Thaw was a millionaire as well. He was also insane, and he had an obsessive interest in destroying Stanford White for his rumored debauchery of young women. He also groomed and raped Evelyn Nesbit, although he married her after. Then he shot and killed Stanford White in front of hundreds of witnesses at the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden.

What ensued was what Ms. Uruburu refers to as the trial of the century, and it certainly was one of the first trials followed zealously and obsessively by the media and the masses. It was also a cultural touchstone, focused as it was on Evelyn Nesbit’s testimony of what transpired between her and Stanford White during their relationship, in all its salacious and fascinating detail.

AMERICAN EVE covers not just Evelyn Nesbit’s emergence and ascendence, but also offers the cultural context in which to ground it. The story is as compulsively readable as any train-wreck of a life can be, and although much of that has to do with the subject itself, Ms. Uruburu’s writing style often hits just the right melodramatic notes to lead the reader forward, complete with chapter-ending cliff-hangers and rhetoric questions. Although both Evelyn Nesbit and Harry Thaw chronicled the events this book describes in their autobiographies, Ms. Uruburu utilizes these sources and others to offer a fully rounded picture of events, including her own astute assessment of the world in which they happened.

AMERICAN EVE only highlights the fact that truth really is stranger than fiction. As Oscar Wilde once famously said: “The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” Unfortunately for Evelyn Nesbit, her tale was one of real-life, and AMERICAN EVE makes the most of it, allowing the reader to both understand what happened then and to draw parallels to the cult of celebrity that has all but swallowed American culture one hundred years later, destroying the lives of our young women as neatly as it always has.

The Heretic's Daughter, Kathleen Kent

(Originally posted at Writersarereaders.com)

The Salem Witch Trials have been an abiding interest of mine since childhood. I’ve read nearly every book (both fiction and non-fiction) on the subject I could find, and have spent more than my fair share of time poring over Essex County court and arrest transcripts. I had thought there was nothing new to be read about them.

But Kathleen Kent’s THE HERETIC'S DAUGHTER, while not exactly ‘something new,’ is not exactly the same old story either.

First off, she is writing her family history: Kent is a descendent of Martha Carrier, one of the nineteen accused witches hanged in Salem. In this telling, Kent has been constrained by the facts of her ancestor’s life in the way fiction writers always are when dealing with real people, and yet she has also been lucky enough to have as a subject a family fascinating in its own right, even without the witch trials.

The Carriers lived in Andover, a town in Essex County near Salem Village, but not in the thick of the terror until later. This remove may be the book’s greatest strength as well as its greatest weakness–the melodrama of the trials does not enter into the Carrier lives until late in the story, and so instead we are treated to the trials and tribulations of everyday life in 17th Century New England while horror circles the periphery. While this keeps the players distant from the action and thus removes them from the immediacy of it, it also allows the reader to feel the long reach of fate as the accusers begin to widen their circle, and illustrates very well how no one known to the accusers—no matter how peripherally—was safe.

Kent chooses to write the story not through the eyes of Martha Carrier herself, but through those of her ten-year old daughter, and while Sarah’s voice and narrative seem at times a little too mature and knowing, the conceit of the book is that she is relating these events as an adult, with an adult’s understanding. What is not lost, however, is the sense of helplessness and fear a child feels when surrounded by injustice and betrayal and things she can only barely understand as she is swept away in the unrelenting tide of mass hysteria.

The story is a patient one—I was some ways into it before I realized how caught up I was in the characters. And the story is really more about this family and the ties that bind them to each other and to their community than it is about the Witch Trials themselves—which, while all important, also seem oddly incidental. But this is one of the best things about the book: that the accusation of Martha Carrier seems both inevitable and yet escapable shows a real truth—that what makes us heroes is that which is often thrust upon us. 

This is also a coming of age story. Children should not have to experience or understand such horror, but they often do, and a real life has more twists and turns than any fictional one. These slow growths and dawning realizations end up creating a story that builds upon itself beautifully, until the end result is powerful and effective, with a strong sense of time and place. Add to that a compelling family history and dynamic, and you have a truly haunting tale of horror, redemption and human frailty, and the triumph of soul in a world gone mad.

This is a story readers will not quickly forget.

The Sweet Far Thing, Libba Bray

(Originally posted at WritersareReaders.com)

I've been waiting a year and a half for this book, which concludes the trilogy begun with A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY and REBEL ANGELS, and it is a triumph. The story takes place in England in 1896, when girls were brought up in finishing schools and then married off to the highest bidder, with little say in their own lives, their hopes and dreams forfeit to a society that kept them chained. The historical role of women in society is a subject I find fascinating over and over again, and a theme I've explored often myself, so this trilogy has been a delight for me.

In the first two books, Gemma Doyle has come to England from India after her mother's murder. Ensconced safely at Spence's Academy for Young Women, she is expected to learn French, dancing and the art of conversation. But what Gemma learns instead is that her mother belonged to a secret society called the Order, a society of women that ruled the power and magic in another world–the Realms: a land which influences dreams and reality in our world. Gemma discovers that not only has she inherited the power, but that she is the most powerful priestess of all. She is the one prophesied to restore balance to the Realms, which, since the betrayal of one of the Order several years before, is steadily being turned to evil purposes.

But Gemma is only sixteen, with no one to guide her, and she has made a terrible mistake: she has allowed the betrayer back into the Realms. At the end of REBEL ANGELS, Gemma bound the magic to herself for safety, determined to form an alliance with the other creatures of the Realms. Now she must work to keep her promises.

As a young woman in a society where all the power belongs to men, Gemma finds herself giving into the temptation of her power and her wish to change not only her future, but that of her friends: the vibrant, charismatic Felicity, whose fierceness hides a desperate secret; talented, impoverished Ann, who is too ready to martyr herself to the expectations of others; and East Indian Kartik, who must question his own loyalties as destiny binds him ever closer to Gemma. But too much power is never a good thing, and Gemma's indecision and inability to share the magic she has bound to herself, along with her uncertainty over who to trust and her lack of understanding or guidance, creates chaos and danger in the Realms–a danger that will require from her the ultimate sacrifice to set right.

The characters are deeply flawed, and completely real. They make a great many mistakes as they struggle to understand the power they hold–in many ways a metaphor for the decisions they must make as they stand on the cusp of adulthood, where they must determine the course their lives will take, and whether they have the will to break with society and expectation to follow their own paths–and if they do, what that decision will cost them.

Ms. Bray fully captures the confusion, selfishness and wonder of young adulthood, the yearning to break free and create something new even as one longs for the safety of childhood, and the sad realization that one can never go back; one must always move forward. The Victorian London she creates is vibrant and alive. She shows the wonder of newfangled inventions like the bicycle, and contrasts the tightly corseted world of the upper class with the poverty and hopelessness of the vast majority. Her London is peopled with striking workers and suffragettes, and is rich with the sense that not only is the world changing, but that there is a possibility women could be at the forefront of such change if they are willing to make the sacrifices it will require to be so.

Lovely, haunting and bittersweet, THE SWEET FAR THING is bright and beautiful, a story with depth and purpose. It is a book every daughter should read.

Sovay, Celia Rees

(Originally posted at Writersarereaders.com)
Detailed and atmospheric, SOVAY is historical fiction for young adults that is compelling and well-researched without being preachy or the least bit boring.

Sovay Middleton is an independently minded, impetuous girl who first poses as a highwayman in order to prove to herself her fiancé's love for her. It begins as a harmless trick, but inadvertently turns into much, much more. The French Revolution is in full swing, and when Sovay's angry fiancé hints that her father — a reformer and free-thinker sympathetic to Robespierre’’s revolution at a time when a nervous England had no patience for such talk — is about to be arrested for treason, Sovay pulls out her highwayman's disguise again. The man she robs is an official with a wallet full of arrest warrants issued by English spy master Dysart, and one of those warrants is for her father. But this is only the beginning. Sovay's attempts to save her father throw her headlong into intrigue and danger.

Sovay is at times so foolishly impetuous I wanted to wring her neck, especially because she pulls others headlong into danger with her, but she is very much a seventeen-year-old girl in her sense of her own invulnerability, and Rees does a good job of motivating everything she does. Sovay is a strong and admirable heroine in a world ruled by powerful and calculating men who often underestimate her. She is flung deep into the political machinations of England's spies, who work as often for their own cause as for their country, and she is stymied at every turn.

From the first page, the action and peril never let up, flinging Sovay into one dangerous situation after another. She ends up in France during the Reign of Terror, and Rees does not shy away from the horror of the times, nor does she stint on any historical detail, no matter how gruesome or troubling. The end result is that she brings these unstable times to brilliant life, and the Reign of Terror and Robespierre's downfall are described from the point of view of a girl who is not just trying to survive terrible times, but also trying to make a difference in a world where she is expected to be only a spectator and a victim.

SOVAY has everything good historical fiction has: a protagonist up to her neck in the turmoil of her times, great description, and a way of conveying complex events in an understandable and immediate way. Sovay is a heroine young adult readers will find compelling and sympathetic; she is a strong girl in a male-dominated world, and one who thinks and acts for herself.

The James Boys, Richard Liebmann-Smith

(Originally posted at Writersarereaders.com)

I have a particular fondness for all things 19th century, believe that William James was one of the most fascinating men in history, am captivated by the enigma of the talented Henry James, and find myself riveted by the mythology and ethos of the James-Younger gang and the “Wild West.” Yet, for all that, I have to admit I was leery of reading THE JAMES BOYS, a novel about all of the above. Most of my reluctance had to do with the fact that I am not at all fond of nonsensical novels, and the premise of this book — that the criminals Frank and Jesse James were the long lost brothers of the writer Henry James and his artist/scientist/psychologist/philosopher brother William — screamed nonsensical. But I decided to plunge into it anyway, and am very glad I did. I found THE JAMES BOYS absolutely delightful.

Wonderfully erudite and perfectly wry, THE JAMES BOYS is an account of what happens when the train carrying Henry James, on a tour of the American West, is held up by the James-Younger gang. During the robbery, Henry discovers that his long-lost brothers Wilkie and Rob, who disappeared in the chaos of the Civil War, and whom the family assumed were dead, are in fact very much alive — and have become the legendary Frank and Jesse James. When they spirit him off the train and take him into their gang, Henry becomes suddenly an accomplice, with a price on his head and the Pinkertons in hot pursuit.

This robbery sets in motion a maelstrom of events, starting with Henry’s meeting of the lovely Elena “Phoenix,” a woman’s rights lecturer with an illustrious and sullied past, who will become an instrumental player in the lives of every one of the brothers, and inevitably involving William Pinkerton, the detective determined to bring the members of the James-Younger gang to justice, who suddenly finds himself over his head when it comes to the James boys.

From there, the story careens and intertwines and chases itself from the west to the Harvard of William James, and even into the literary salons of 19th century Paris, and yet it always makes an impossible and engaging sense.

Written in a tongue-in-cheek, non-fiction style by an accomplished writer in full command of his research and his story, THE JAMES BOYS was authoritative enough that even I — who have done extensive research on all four of these men at some point or another — found myself losing sight of what was real and what was invented. Mr. Liebmann-Smith snares the imagination and teases the intellect with a novel that is playful, smart and persuasive and above all, highly entertaining.

The Somnambulist, Jonathan Barnes

(Originally posted at Writersarereaders.com)

From the opening pages where the narrator states: “I ought to admit that I shall have reason to tell you more than one direct lie,” THE SOMNAMBULIST screams forward with a surreal and odd story that never misses the chance to bend the genre of nineteenth century “yellow-back” potboilers in weird and fantastical ways.

Set in Victorian London, the story is that of Edward Moon, a conjurer and magician, who has made a career of solving crimes that perplex the police. At the time the story takes place, Moon is no longer in fashion. His stage shows play to dwindling audiences, and since the last case he worked on with police ended in disaster, he is a bit of an embarrassment. But then strange things begin happening in London, including unexplained deaths and a spiritualist medium who predicts the end of London in ten days, and the police come to Moon’s door, begging for his help.

Along with his associate, the giant, mute “Somnambulist,” Moon embarks on an investigation that brings him into contact with freaks, circus performers, members of a special secret force known as The Directorate, and a man who claims to live backwards, and leads him into the very deepest tunnels of the city itself. What the truth is, and what it means seems to change constantly, and Moon, an illusionist, must find a way himself to tell reality from illusion before London falls.

Jonathan Barnes never met a strange character he didn’t like. There were points where I grew weary of the constant parade of larger-than-life depictions, which often seemed fantastical for the sole purpose of being fantastical. Having said that, however, the central premise of the story is fascinating, strange in a clever and thoughtful way, a riff on nineteenth century ideas and culture that is dark and satisfying and witty all at the same time.

Barnes evidences a sure hand with a writing style that seems lifted directly from the pages of a yellow-back novel, with all the tropes and narrative asides that brings to the table. His London is dirty, seedy and atmospheric, presented with style and a certain panache that is great fun to read. Now and then he had me laughing out loud.

For those who enjoy their historical atmosphere with a touch of the macabre and grotesque, and who take pleasure in the farcical and nonsensical, THE SOMNAMBULIST will please. It reminded me very much of an adult Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass, an inventive story that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but has something to say about the nature of mankind just the same.

Yankee Stadium, A Tribute, Les Krantz

(Originally posted at WritersareReaders.com)

Before I begin this review of the informative and nicely designed YANKEE STADIUM, there is something you should know about me: I am only nominally a sports fan. If not for my husband, (a Seattle native so consistently taken for a New Yorker that it’s become a family joke) I would pay almost no attention to sports at all. He is not just a sports fan — he is a Yankee fan, and has been his entire life. Our last trip to New York included a pilgrimage to Yankee Stadium, where we stood outside because we couldn’t get tickets and mingled with fans going to the game. In 1994, I spent the afternoon of the night I won a RITA award watching a game at Yankee Stadium, which went on so long I had to leave before it was over, and even then I almost didn’t make the awards ceremony. And I am (according to my husband) personally responsible for the Yankees losing the World Series to the Diamondbacks, because the game went awry the moment my husband, who was out of town, called me on the phone.

This is all to explain why I was reading the timely YANKEE STADIUM, A TRIBUTE, in the first place — a book that gave me the knowledge required to have what may indeed be the first intelligent and long-lasting conversation I’ve ever had with my husband about the soon-to-be-demolished stadium. I even managed to shock him with a fact I learned from the book that even he didn’t know: Mickey Mantle and long-time Yankee announcer Bob Shephard started with the Yankees on the same day.

As casual a fan as I am, I enjoyed this book a great deal. The historian in me loved the pictures, which really serve to showcase the traditions and mystique of the Yankees and the stadium, and the articles which feature not just the history of the stadium itself, but of the games and events that took place there, as well as the players themselves. It also includes a companion DVD hosted by Reggie Jackson — a nice touch.

The book is laid out chronologically within sections, starting with “Magical Moments,” and “October Classics,” and ending with “Not Just Baseball,” which details events other than baseball that took place at the stadium, such as the Ali-Norton fight and the tribute to victims of 9/11. The design lends itself very well to browsing, as a self-contained essay can be read in only a few minutes, and you can easily skip around. There are quite a few sidebars as well–many consist of lists such as: “Yankee Stadium No-Hitters,” or “Yankee All-Time Save Leaders,” but several feature human interest stories like that of Lou Gehrig (including the full transcription of his famous “The Luckiest Man” speech) and others are a bit more esoteric, such as one about the Reggie Bar — a candy bar created in the 1970s to honor Reggie Jackson.

Sportswriters truly are poets of the modern age, and Mr. Krantz is no exception. The book is easy to read, reverent and informative. I was left feeling that the world will be a smaller and sadder place when the old Yankee Stadium is gone. I hope those Yankee ghosts will cross the street to the new stadium, but even if they don’t, this book is a fine tribute to a tradition of pride and excellence, and to a stadium that has been the symbol of America to many generations.

The Dark Lantern, Gerri Brightwell

(Originally posted at WritersareReaders.com)

I'm a sucker for historical fiction that has morally ambiguous and dark characters. Put those characters in a "real" world setting, where they're trapped in circumstances of their own making, and I'm hooked.

Gerri Brightwell's THE DARK LANTERN has exactly those elements. It is London, in 1893, and Robert Bentley and his wife Mina have just returned from France, where he has been involved in anthropomentry (the science of identifying criminals by their body measurements). They have returned because his mother is dying, but it becomes clear very quickly that Mina had no wish to return to London at all, and has a past she is trying desperately to keep secret.

Into the household enters Jane Wilbred, a new servant who has secrets of her own. The daughter of a convicted murderer, taken from an orphanage and trained to be a useful servant, Jane's own life balances on the edge of a knife–no matter how hard she works or how good she is, the discovery of her birth would be enough to send her into the streets and keep her from getting any other employment. So when another maid discovers her secret and blackmails her, Jane finds herself hopelessly compromised.

The Bentleys are expecting the imminent arrival of Robert's brother, Henry. When Henry is drowned on the passage to England, they are stunned to discover that he had a new wife–a wife he never mentioned. When Victoria Bentley arrives in London, she throws the household into turmoil. Mina doesn't believe the story of her marriage, and compels Jane's aid in discovering the truth. And Robert, who is unaware of the deceptions and secrets in his own house, is wrapped up in the politics over which science should prevail in identifying criminals: anthropomentry or dactylography (fingerprinting). The decision could either make his career, or break him.

THE DARK LANTERN is a suspenseful tale that pulls no punches in its depiction of the resentments and loyalties that make up the complicated relationships between masters and their servants. It is these tensions which move the story forward and held me fascinated. Ms. Brightwell is skilled at depicting the innermost workings of a Victorian household and making the reader feel the uneasiness of a world where a servant can be destroyed by something as small as a too-bold glance, and where servants privy to secrets have no little power of their own.

All in all, THE DARK LANTERN is a fascinating portrayal of a household, and nuanced and well-written historical fiction. An unusual and compelling read.

Generation Loss, Elizabeth Hand

(Originally posted at WritersareReaders.com)

I have been a fan of award-winning author Elizabeth Hand since the 2005 publication of MORTAL LOVE. I was so impressed with it that I went back to read nearly all of her backlist (I loved the strange and fantastic GLIMMERING and fan-favorite WAKING THE MOON). She is a writer of irresistible power; a beautiful wordsmith who is always profoundly unsettling, and reading her work is always an intense experience. So I very much looked forward to her new book, GENERATION LOSS.

Cass Neary arrives in Maine (Hand’s home-state, which she evokes with a barren, icy realism that perfectly sets the scene) to interview famous, reclusive photographer Aphrodite Kamestos. In the 70s, Cass was a photographer herself, and well-known for her disturbing pictures of the punk scene. After a traumatic experience left her emotionally wasted, Cass withdrew. She has spent the years since drinking, doing drugs and destroying one relationship after another. She is well aware that this assignment–one given her by a friend as an act of mercy–may be her last opportunity to redeem herself. Once in Maine, however, Cass finds herself embroiled in a mystery that involves disappearing teenagers, strange and haunting works of art, and the windswept, brutal islands of Maine. Cass is over her head almost immediately, but she plunges into the fray in that clumsy, making-things-worse way only an amateur can–endangering her life and the status quo and making one bad decision after another as she uncovers the truth of a series of murders that go back decades. The connection between art and death–and art and life–is intimately explored here.

At her best, Hand is challenging and uncompromising, and as far as that goes, GENERATION LOSS does not disappoint. In GENERATION LOSS, Hand takes her trademark chances not just with elements of the plot, but with Cass herself, who is a deeply flawed, unrepentant protagonist who is often unpleasant and sometimes unsympathetic, though I always cared deeply what happened to her. But GENERATION LOSS isn’t as deeply layered or complex as many of Hand’s other works–and in the end, it’s a well-written, engaging mystery with many very cool elements that is well worth the read, but not completely satisfying.

The Nature of Monsters, Clare Clark

(Originally posted at WritersareReaders.com)

Clare Clark gained national attention with her first novel, THE GREAT STINK, which was about the rebuilding of London’s sewer system in the mid nineteenth century. This new novel returns to London, though more than a hundred years earlier. At the heart of the story is the common belief (which was prevalent far into the 19th Century) that the experiences a woman undergoes during pregnancy have a profound impact on the fetus she carries.

Set in 1718, THE NATURE OF MONSTERS is the story of sixteen year old Eliza Tally, the daughter of the local midwife, who is pregnant by the son of a nearby, wealthy merchant. She is, of course, too unsuitable for him to wed, and so Eliza is sent to the home of an apothecary in London, where she is to be a servant.

Once there, however, Eliza realizes that not all is what it seems. The apothecary requires that she not look at his face, and wears a veil. He is obsessed with his work, which no one discusses, and she is forbidden from going into his study, where he conducts his "experiments." But as time goes on, it becomes clear to the reader (though not at first to Eliza), that she is his experiment.

Eliza’s realization of this seems slow in coming, but when it does come, her actions are so truly those of a woman of her time that the feeling of claustrophobia and impending tragedy is relentless. THE NATURE OF MONSTERS has one of the most fascinating beginnings I’ve read in a long time, and Clark is excellent at historical detail and atmosphere–London in the eighteenth century springs alive on the page. Eliza is a resourceful protagonist who is not always sympathetic, but who clearly has few other choices. The novel’s topic was intriguingly dark and grotesque, though I couldn’t help wishing for a bit more melodrama–I felt that sense of impending doom ended with a bit of a whimper. Still, THE NATURE OF MONSTERS is a very good historical novel, with an atmosphere as deep and rich as a reader of historical fiction could want, and some fascinating themes that set this one above the usual fare.