Book Report: P.S. Your Cat is Dead

P.S. Your Cat is Dead
By James Kirkwood

Found this book in a bookstore that was going out of business. This is an 'advance uncorrected proof', though the book was originally published in 1972. The title, written in black and set against a stark white spine, grabbed my attention.
I can't resist a snappy title.

From the back:
"It's New Year's Eve in New York City. Your best friend died in September, you've been robbed twice, your girlfriend is leaving you, you've just lost your job... and the only one left to talk to is the bisexual burglar you've got tied up in the kitchen."


I quickly debated over this book. 1972 is a long time ago, but the blurb on the back brags about how this story was transformed into a play and preformed 'over 200 times a year in productions around the country.' It's obviously going to be funny, and if it's really been made into a play, it has to be good, right? (AND, while gathering links to this entry, I discover a movie has also been made.)

While slow to get started, this story explodes into action around a quarter of the way in. James Zoole is a down on his luck, out of work actor, who lives in an abandoned apartment building with his cat, Bobby Seale. After much set up and illustration of Jame's back story, we witness a fight (which escalates into a fruit-throwing shouting match) between him and his girlfriend, which of course results in James being left alone in his apartment, angry and hurt. Little did he know, though, that laying in hiding under the bed, was a burglar--and not just any burglar, the same burglar who'd broken in twice before. Jimmy, who's caught up in the heat of the moment, makes a bold decision born of desperation and attacks the stranger, and WINS, then proceeds to tie the man face down to the kitchen island (strategically placed over the sink, just in case).

The rest of the story bears birth to a unique relationship--dare I say friendship--between Loser Gone Crazy and his Captive. Much of the story takes place in the kitchen, much of it dialogue, as the two explore each other through alternating fits of banter and anger. Each has been hurt, each finds a likable commonality with the other. As the night wears on, different people from Jimmy's life intrude:

"I didn't even hear the door open, only heard my name. "Jim...?" We both turned, just in time to see Kate's head peek in the door. She was surprised, too surprised to speak at first, so was I. I had certainly not expected to see her. She'd stepped into the room now and was focusing on the strange tableau we must have presented, to the background music of the Mozart String Quintets: the prone figure of Vito, tied down, bare-assed as a babe, yet cynically wise of face, me standing attendance, inserting the cigarette for him to puff, then taking it away as he exhaled. For what seemed like ages the only sound in the room was the music. The expression on her face was priceless. Her eyes mirrored her speechlessness. Yes, for once Kate was speechless. I glanced down to Vito. His eyes flickered from Kate to me. There was a twinkle, an immediate spark between us."

Needless to say, the ensuing scene between Jimmy, Vito, ex-girlfriend Kate and her new guy Fred is priceless. Jimmy and Vito ad-lib well together, each an actor in their own right, and play up the moment to the maximum--two men coming together just for the sheer joy of revenge against a cheating woman.

This story is truly unique, but there are subtle rises and falls and during the 'down times', I found myself skipping words in an effort to get ahead. The conversations between Jimmy and Vito are the heart of this book, pure character exploration that took quite a deal of talent and imagination from Kirkwood. His humor is dry and witty and he's not afraid to 'go there'... including terrifying his main character with the possibility of rape at this story's height. The dialect is playful and true, and each character is definately his or her own person. This somewhat unbelievable mishap is handled masterfully and vividly, and somehow manages to end with satisfaction.

Four out of Five stars for characterization, humor, dialogue and character growth.

P.S.--The cat really is dead.

Book Report: Burning Eddy

Burning Eddy
By Scot Gardner

This book was a gift from Caroline. She'd noted that she liked it but not as much as Gravity, and I have to agree. While fast moving and thoughtful, Burning Eddy was juvenile and shallow.

From the back:

In the country, where his fifteenth summer has burned the life from the grass, Daniel Fairbrother is searching. Looking for something that will make tomorrow seem worth the effort. Something that will fix the rot in his family tree. Stop it from falling apart under the weight of a thousand secrets. Dan's clues come from the animals. And the Dutch woman. He works in her garden. Eddy's eighty-six. She has a tattoo, a history, and can make music with her farts. She pays in cash and can read Dan's mind. In a shady corner of Eddy's garden, Dan finds something growing... Hope. But something is burning.

With each chapter named for a different Australian animal, Dan frequently encounters wildlife and learns from their individual traits, though some of these are a stretch. Simultaneously, he befriends Eddy and forms a touching, if stereotypical mother-son relationship. While bordering on over-the-top, Eddy is quite amusing and I found myself grinning at her lively, harmless antics.

"She stood up and broke wind loudly. She took my glass and broke wind in time with her steps to the kitchen. I didn't know where to look. When she returned, she was smiling. 'Did you hear that? I played a little tune with my bum! A windie song. Ha ha!'"

Come on, seriously. Who doesn't laugh at farts??

While Eddy and the animals provide a reprieve and an opportunity to grow, Gardner provides the reader with more somber moments, too. He has shaped Dan into a very 'Gilbert Grape' type big brother to young Toby, and the two contemplate their emotionally distant father in search for answers. This is where the book took on a third dimension, was balanced by light and fluffy with poor family dynamics and emotional pain.

"The house was too quiet. I felt uneasy as I walked to the kitchen door. The car had moved. The P76 wasn't where it had been parked this morning. It was closer to the house. I reached for the handle on the flywire door and it burst open in my face. It was Dad. His jaw was covered in grey stubble. His teeth were bared. He shoved me with both hands and I slammed into the car. Fell to my hands and knees. 'What are you doing going through my stuff?' He kicked me in the guts. If I had been a football I would have flown fifty metres. I'm not a football. The air rushed from me in a wheeze. Something from my guts was forced into my mouth. Bitter like vomit."

I think this book ended a little abruptly. It could have been much longer, much more detailed, much more layered. But it's a young adult book, so I can't fault the author and won't. I still enjoyed it, and appreciated this personal look into one boy's fateful summer.

Three out of five stars for characterization, imagery, and ease.

Book Report: The Messenger

(I Am) The Messenger
By Mark Zusak


From the back cover:
Meet Ed Kennedy--cab driving prodigy, pathetic card player and useless at sex. He lives in a suburban shack, shares coffee with his dog, the Doorman, and he's in nervous-love with Audrey. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence--until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery.
That's when the first ace turns up.
That's when Ed becomes the messenger.
Chosen to care, he makes his way through town, helping and hurting (where necessary) until only one question remains. Who's behind Ed's mission?



First paragraph:
The gunman, is useless.
I know it.
He knows it.
The whole bank knows it.
Even my best mate Marvin knows it and he's more useless than the gunman.

I adore this book. I adore Markus Zusak. I adore Caroline for gifting me this book.

In The Messenger, the words flow over the pages with heartbreaking beauty and sharp humor and bits of slowly-unfolding puzzle. After a spur of the moment action turns Ed into a mild, short-lived celebrity, he gets a playing card in the mail, the Ace of Diamonds. On it are three addresses, each with a time. Ed tries to forget about it--the weirdness of it--but eventually finds himself in front of the first address, a house, at midnight. What he witnesses there is brutal and painful, and he wonders if the other two addresses hold the same sort of terrible fate. Days pass and after Ed works through his shock, he goes to the second address.

"I was quite relieved, to tell you the truth, because nothing really happened at all. The only person there was an old woman who has no curtains on her windows. She was in there on her own, making her dinner and sitting there, eating, and drinking tea.
I think she ate a salad and some soup.
And loneliness.
She ate that, too."

After watching the old woman for a few days, Ed decides to make a move. He's not really sure what he's doing, other than it's obvious that this woman is lonely. He buys a cake and just as she's preparing for another solitary dinner, knocks on her door.

"Her footsteps climb to the door. Her feet sound like the tick-tock of a clock. Counting time to this moment.
She stands. She looks up at me, and for a moment, we both get lost in each other. She wonders who I am, but only for a split second. Then, with stunning realization clambering across her face, she smiles at me. She smiles with such incredible warmth and says, "I knew you'd come, Jimmy." She steps towards me and hugs me hard, her soft, wrinkled arms encasing me. "I knew you'd come."

Ed becomes a regular at Milla's place. The tenderness between them squeezed my heart--the first of many times in this story. The third address on the card is a similar case--a young girl who needs confidence, and after much watching and thinking, Ed is able to deliver. Now it's back to the first address, to a problem that will not be resolved with cake or a shoe box. This house requires more assertion, more aggressiveness--this house requires a gun. Ed accepts the challenge because the outcome is worth it; after all, he must protect the Diamonds.

I love the cryptic-ness of the card delivery, and the feel-good moments Ed experiences when he is able to give these random strangers what they need. This story is very much Pay It Forward, except in it's own way, better. Maybe even a pinch of Boondock Saints in here, too.

"He drops his spoon and says, "I have something to tell you, Ed."
I also stop. "Yes, Father?"
"You know, they say that there are countless saints who have nothing to do with church and almost no knowledge of God. But they say God walks with those people without them ever knowing it." His eyes are inside mine now, followed by the words. "You're one of those people, Ed. It's an honor to know you."
I'm stunned. I've been called a lot of things many times--but nobody has ever told me it's an honor to know me. I suddenly remember Sophie asking if I was a saint, and me replying that I'm just another stupid human.
This time, I allow myself to hear it.
"Thanks, Father," I say.
"The pleasure's mine."

Ed's journey is to go from a carefree, future-less cab driver to being something more. With each successful mission, his confidence is boosted and he continues to care about these people, long after they are 'fixed.' He realizes that he wants more from life.

"I go back through town and visit my father's grave and stay there a long time. From the cemetery, I see a small glow that's the fire, and I sit there, looking at the gravestone with my father's name on it. I cried at his funeral. I let the tears trample my face in complete silence, guilty that I couldn't even summon the courage to speak about him. I knew everyone there was only thinking about what a drunk he was, while I was remembering the other things as well.
'He was a gentleman,' I whisper now.
If only I could have said that on the day, I think, because my father never had a bad word for anybody, or a true act of unkindness. Certainly, he never achieved much, and he disappointed my mother with broken promises, but I don't think he deserved not a word from anyone in his family that day.
'I'm sorry,' I tell him now,as I get up to leave. 'I'm so sorry, Dad.'
I walk away, afraid.
Afraid, because I don't want my own funeral to be that forlorn and empty.
I want words at my funeral.
But I guess that means you need life in your life."



"It's impeccable how brutal the truth can be at times. You can only admire it.
Usually, we walk around, constantly believing ourselves. 'I'm okay,' we say. 'I'm alright.' But sometimes the truth arrives on you, and you can't get it off. That's when you realize that sometimes it isn't even an answer--it's a question. Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced."

This is a feel-good book about a normal if not down-trodden character who overcomes his own worst enemy--himself--and emerges on the other side a better person. The emotions are very strong and lingering, very inspiring for one to take a moment's notice of the people around them in their own life and see if you can't make someone else's day just a little better. I'd have preferred this story to end one chapter earlier, for I am not fond of the author being present in their own story, but it does not ruin the overall enjoyment. This is a quick read and I think it's better that way--makes the impact more concentrated and memorable. The imagery is gorgeous, the characters real and unique, the pacing steady. Emotion rules these pages, though, as I doubt anyone could read this and not be warmed.

Five out of Five stars for eliciting strong emotions and casting a stone of hope and initiative to an audience normally too young to care.

Book Report: Bringing Out The Dead

Bringing Out The Dead
By Joe Connelly

From Back Cover:
In a narrative that moves with the furious energy of an ambulance run, we follow Frank Pierce, a paramedic in New York's Hell's Kitchen, through two days and nights: into the excitement and dread of the calls; the mad humor that keeps the medics afloat; the memories, distant and recent, through which Frank reminds himself why he became a medic and tries, in vain, to convince himself to give it up. And we are with him as he faces his newest ghost: the resurrected patient, whose demands to be released into death might be the most sensible thing Frank has heard in months, if only he would listen.

First sentence:
I parked the ambulance in front of Hell's Kitchen walk-up number 414 and Larry and I pulled equipment from the back.


First off, one of the aspects of this book I am going to praise most is the imagery. When I searched amazon.com for a link to this book, I discovered a movie had been made, which floored me because several times while reading, I thought how great of a movie it would be. And, discovering Nicholas Cage plays the leading role floors me even more because there truly is no one more fitted--he matches exactly the image of tortured Frank Pierce I had built in my mind. I am in love with this book and am very curious to see if the movie is comparable.

Let me just say right now, this book has earned five very brightly shining stars out of five. A passage from Frank's POV:

"I was nineteen when I decided to become a medic, drive an ambulance. Perfect. Save lives and see the front lines, help the people who had stuck it out in the city I dreamed about. At the time, I believed the only way to avoid regret was to wrap my life completely in the present, in a succession of quick, kind acts, and no job seemed more suited to the moment than medic. Only much later did I realize I had chosen my parents' careers, a bus-driving nurse and a nursing driver.
"I was good at my job; there were even periods when my hands moved with a speed and skill that were beyond me and my mind worked with a cool authority I had never known. I would scrap with depression, I drank too much, but every once in a while I participated in a miracle, breathing life back into a young asthmatic, holding a tiny just-born jewel in my hands.
"But in the last year I had started to lose that control. I'd always had nightmares, but now the ghosts didn't wait for me to sleep. My wife left. I drank every day. Help others and you help yourself, that was my motto, but I hadn't saved anyone in months. It seemed all my patients were dying, everything I touched turned to shit. I waited, sure the sickness would break, tomorrow night, the next call, feeling the bottom fall away."



Joe Connelly worked as a medic for nine years, and he has played his knowledge perfectly. The movements and procedure are exact and vivid and technical, but also fluid and avoid sounding like a textbook.

"I put the mask over Burke's face and squeezed the bag, though my heart wasn't in it, hadn't been in a long time, and neither was Mr. Burke's, whose EKG rhythm on the monitor was a flat green line. The spirit was gone. Standing by the window. It we did manage to jump-start his heart, there'd be only blood to fill it.
"But my hands took over; they always do: trained on hundreds of cardiac arrests, they're automatic. I pulled out the long steel laryngoscope blade and inserted it into his mouth. Using it like a lever, I lifted the tongue up until I found the white vocal cords, like Roman columns, and I grabbed the thick plastic tube and carefully passed it through those gates, through the dark cartilage of the trachea, into the branched entrance of the lungs. I secured it, hooked the bag up to the tube, and pumped it hard."



The characters in this book are outstanding. Each person, both patient and fellow medic, is unique, and each plays a very different, symbolic role in Frank's life.

"We came to a jawbreaking stop in the middle of Forty-second Street and I jumped out, jumped into traffic just happy to get out, but when I saw our patient I jumped back in. We needed no further information. It was Noel, running toward me, his face soaked with blood.
" "Noel," I yelled, but he kept coming, bent low with his arms spread out like a linebacker. He had sliced up a tire and fastened pieces with string over his shoulders. Tin soup cans circled his wrists and ankles. One hand held a broken forty-ouncer, the other, a stringless violin. "Noel," I cried one last time, and then I locked the door and rolled the window up moments before his face struck it, almost breaking both. "Kill me," he cried. "Kill me, please." Blood clotted in his hair, matting in large clumps to his scalp. Bright-red blood dropped from his ears and ran freely down his neck. He beat the glass, yelling between blows. "You must kill me. No one else will. Please help."

"It was two years since we'd worked together, when he broke all crash records. I remembered sitting in the back of the ambulance treating a very bad asthmatic, Marcus driving us to the hospital. The trip took a very long time, even for Marcus, who always stopped for every red light, and at some point I realized we weren't moving, that in fact we hadn't moved for the equivalent of at least five red lights. I looked out the door, to see Marcus picking up his Chinese food. "The place was closing," he said. "If I don't take care of myself first, how am I gonna take care of anyone else?"


The cast of characters is large but organic and toward the end, their symbolism becomes clear. They each mean something, representing a part of Frank or a part of life itself, and how Frank deals with them reflects his inner arc. There is a smartness to the intricacies that held me captivated and thinking till the very last word.

And speaking of intricacies, Connelly really brought this book to life by using small details:
"I was born in the same hospital I was taking Burke to die in, Our Lady of Mercy, Fifty-sixth Street between Ninth and Tenth, but those who worked there, or were unfortunate enough to be treated there, called it Our Lady of Misery, or simply Misery. My father, who was also born in Misery, never referred to the place as anything except the butcher shop, following an appendectomy in which the surgeon left a sponge under his colon."

"The guard was no more helpful. He had taped a white square around his station and placed a sign on his desk: 'Please Stand Behind the White Line. Thank You.' With his dark glasses on and his arms crossed over the great wall of his chest, the guard ignored everyone outside the line. To those that crossed he growled, 'Don't make me take my glasses off.' He always gave them the option of not making him take his glasses off, for if the shades did have to come down, someone would be bounced, off the floor, the wall, even the street. A good bouncing could keep the crowd quiet up to an hour."

"Bus number eighty-six sat in the far corner, leaning somewhat, as if a great hand had crumpled it and tossed it there, a monument to too many red lights run, too many broadsides and head-ons, too many cracked-up drivers. The sides and front were chewed with dents, and a municipal-brown rust spread like a rash from the hood to the pitted lower panels. The rear bumper lay in a pile of broken parts nearby. Franco, the bus that would not die. In the dark he looked like an abandoned furnace."


This book races and sparkles, going for your throat with the first page and not letting go till the very end. There are just way too many things I love about this book--something on every page. To know this is a first novel is daunting. The pacing is perfect, the material fresh and unique and real. There is humor and sadness and blood and brains but also new life and discovery.

"Tom walked calmly around the front. I locked the door. "Get out," he said. "Get out of the bus."
"I got you good." I imitated the whistle.
"Yeah you got me. You're a psycho. Now come on. One minute I think you're going for suicide, the next it's partnercide. Unfit to command this vehicle."
"But Tom, I'm cured. The fight fixed me. Let's do some jobs."
"You look like someone who just stepped out of a three-day firefight. You ought to look in the mirror, Father Frank."
"Don't call me Father Frank. I've changed. Call me Frank Evil. Heartless Frank."
"You're a bleeding heart, Frank. You can't help it. That's what you are."
"I'm bled out, Tom; can't bleed without blood. And then the heart stops."
"All right, Frank Evil. It's your turn to get the coffee."


"I turned on the overhead flashers and headed for the jumper, 530 West Forty-eighth Street, 16M, Cy Coate's place. Who needed a dispatcher? I knew where I was headed. I rested my head on the back of the seat and let Franco idle forward. Left on Tenth, left again on Fifty-third, then charging down Eleventh at a walking pace. Every day is Judgment Day, I thought, the end is always here. I was starting to sound like Mr. Burke. There is no tomorrow. Tomorrow is right now. How many times have you died, Frank? How many times come back? I turned on the sirens and stopped under another red light.
"We have a call?" Tom asked.
"We're dispatching ourselves," I said. "Jumper, Forty-eighth Street, Ten to Eleven."
Tom, still breathing heavily, was waving his left arm forward, as if that would make me go faster. "Come on. You driving to a jumper down or a garage sale?"
"A jumper sale. A garage down. There's always tomorrow, Tom. You can't go too slow."
"I think you're having a bit of a relapse, Father. Now I gotta go recount the bottles of rubbing alcohol."


Five out of five stars for humor, detail, characterization, imagery, originality, character growth and symbolism, and for the sheer ability to captivate. Joe Connelly, you have a new fan for life.

Book Report: Rule of the Bone

Book report: Rule of the Bone
By Russell Banks

'Flunking out of school and already hooked on drugs, the 14-year-old narrator, secretly molested by his stepfather, emotionally abandoned by his weak mother, leaves his mobile home in the depressed upstate New York community of Au Sable and becomes a homeless mall rat. In a burst of bravado, he acquires a crossed bones tattoo, changes his name from Chappie to Bone, and attempts to find some focus in his dead-end existence. Convinced that he is destined for a criminal career, Bone vents his anger in acts of senseless destruction. His vulnerability and his need for love and direction are fused when he and a seven-year-old waif he has rescued from a pedophile take refuge in an abandoned school bus with an illegal alien from Jamaica called I-Man, whose Rastafarian wisdom and gentle demeanor are fed by liberal consumption of marijuana, which he deals.'
-Publisher's Weekly


First Sentence:
"You'll probably think I'm making a lot of this up just to make me sound better than I really am or smarter or even luckier but I'm not."



This story opens with fourteen year old Chappie alone in his 'family's' trailer, playing hooky from school, watching MTV with the pet cat Willie. Out of boredom, Chappie begins to snoop through their meager possessions, and stumbles across two things of interest in his parent's closet: a high-powered rifle and a suitcase full of rare old coins. He assembles the gun and picks out targets on the street: a small boy, elderly neighbors, even Willie. As Willie stretches out to lick the end of the barrel, Chappie pulls the trigger. The safety is on. Chappie realizes what he is trying to do and becomes upset, feeling guilty and scared. His reaction is what earns him my empathy, and thus the reader/character bond begins.
And there is a long road ahead.
This was a long story. 390 pages of tight font and run-on sentences, heavily submersed in the viewpoint of a male teenager. We follow Chappie's slow destruction as he deals marijuana, shoplifts, gets kicked out of his family's home and moves in with a group of coke-snorting, electronics-stealing bikers. After a freak accident burns down the apartment, Chappie and his slightly older friend Russ hit the streets on their own and eventually wind up at an empty summer house in the mountains. They live there for weeks, eating all the food, burning the furniture for heat, keeping all the windows boarded up and staying inside so as not to give away their presence. When the cramped space drives a wedge between the friends, Russ heads back home to his aunt while Chappie, feeling betrayed and angry, heads out on his own.
Next he meets I-Man, a middle-aged Jamaican man living in a dilapidated school bus, living off the land and praying to spirits Chappie (now called Bone) has never heard of. He stays for months and learns a new, self-reliant way of living, develops a sense of right and wrong, learns generosity and to avoid gluttony. He does chores to earn his keep and has a true interest in learning I-Man's history and inner workings. But then one day I-Man tells Bone that he wants to go back home to Jamaica. Bone is saddened; he doesn't want to stay and live alone, but he doesn't know if he should follow. He decides to wait for a sign from the Jamaican God, and ends up following I-Man from New York to Jamaica.
And this is only the half-way point.



Likes

I liked how this book is the epitome of 'show don't tell'. This story slowly unravels and the reader is given the co-pilot seat, right in the front row as Bone experiences both gains and losses. Bone is one of the best characters I've ever met--he is well balanced and three dimensional and incredibly insightful. At the start, despite the drugs and alcohol and abuse, still possesses an innocence that as the story progresses, he loses. Or maybe not loses, but learns to ignore. In the first quarter of this book, Bone sees a 7 year old in possession of a child molester and tries to intervene, to distract the man and save her, even send her back home to her parents. And at the end of this story, Bone watches as two children suffer silently under their parent's coldness to each other--and he does not act. This is the first book I've read where the character came out (in some ways, at least) worse than when he started. Or has he? Is this not the law of nature and growing up? Do we not ALL lose our innocence?

The ending is sad, almost a tragedy, laced with just the tiniest strand of hope. What an amazing character arc.


Dislikes


It is when Bone follows I-Man to Jamaica that the story loses credibility. Though the drug-permeated Jamaican milieu is portrayed with impressive authenticity, the improbability of Bone's macabre adventures there frays the plot's believability. The novel's strengths are diluted by its excesses: too many descriptions of marijuana highs, too many coincidences. It becomes too grandiose.

The first person narrative, while intimate and necessary, is 90 percent mile-long run-on sentences that would have an English teacher cringing. The Jamaican dialect is strong and I couldn't figure it all out, but I think that might have been the point and I got better the more I read.



Yet one finishes the book with indelible sympathy for tough-guy Bone, touched by his loneliness, fear and desperation, and having absorbed Banks's message: that (as he said recently), society's failure to save its children is "the main unrecognized tragedy of our time."'

Four and a half stars out of Five for unforgettable characters, taking me new places, and giving me plenty to think about. I would read more by Russell Banks.

Book Report: Clay

Book Report: Clay
By David Almond

'Almond revisits the English north country of his youth to spin this metaphysical tale of boys in conflict. Davie and his friend Geordie are altar boys, but are beginning to doubt the value of their long-held religious beliefs. They live in fear of the bullying Mouldy, a hulking, drunken lout from a neighboring village whom they're sure is out to kill them. Enter Stephen, a slightly older boy whose father is dead, whose mother is mad, and who was reputedly kicked out of priestly training for some kind of trouble related to devil worship and performing a Black Mass. A talented sculptor, he proceeds to scare Davie silly with his talk of creating life, of creating, in fact, a monster that will wreak revenge on Mouldy. Davie sees Stephen's clay figures move. Is it hypnotism, faith, or madness?'
-Schools Library Journals


First paragraph:
"He arrived in Felling on a bright and icy February morning. Not so long ago, but I was a different age. I was with Geordie Craggs, like I always was back then. We were swaggering along like always, laughing and joking like always. We passed a Players back and forward between us and blew long strings of smoke into the air. We'd just been on the altar."


Clay caught my attention because the spine reads (from top to bottom) 'almond clay' and I couldn't decide which was the title. The cover intrigued me with the ghostly, featureless face, so I read the back and was rather proud by my find. Plus, it's got a reader's guide in the back so I knew it would be worthy of discussion. The only drawback: Another teen fic. *sigh*

I read Clay in two days. It is rather simple and straightforward, but the issues are deep and thought-provoking. The tone is that of a ghost story--a Catholic ghost story--interwoven with a Secret Life of Boys type theme. Through Davie's well-balanced persona, we are introduced to Stephen, the new boy who seems innocent enough at first but quickly becomes one of the scariest characters I've met. He holds a quiet, haunting malice:

"The moon was huge, right at the middle of my window. It was round as a communion host. I lay there in its light. I stared into its face. I made out its craters, its waterless seas. I heard a voice.
"Davie! Davie!"
Was I hearing things?
"Davie! Davie!"
A rattle at my window like tiny pebbles, grit.
"Davie! Davie! Davie!"
I went to the window and stared out and there he was. Stephen Rose, face like wax, reflecting the moon. He raised his hand. He beckoned me. I shivered. I drew the curtains. I went back to my bed."

But aside from his creepiness, Stephan has a talent. He can, with a magic not of this earth, give life to the lifeless:

"Watch this," he said.
The figure was tiny, delicate, half formed, not like the other formless soulless lumps, but like a baby, half made. He lifted it to his lips.
"Move," he whispered to it. "Move, my little one."
He sighed and smiled.
"There. Did you see, Davie?"
"See what?"
He breathed the words again.
"Move. Live, little one. See?"
I moved closer, gazed down. There was nothing.
Stephen held the child in one hand, and stared at me. He passed his other hand before my eyes once, twice, then again.
"Look again," he whispered. I looked down into his hands, to the baby lying there. "Move," he whispered. "Live!"
He sighed with pleasure.
"Look, Davie," he said. "Look deep. Look with the eyes of the spirit, Davie. When I say you'll see it move, you will see it move."
He lifted the child towards me. He passed his hands before my eyes again.
"Now, Davie," he whispered. "You will see it move."
And I did see, and I nearly cried out with fright, but he stopped it dead. He dropped the child onto the bench, clapped his hand across my mouth.
"You got to tell nobody, Davie," he said. "You got to promise. Promise me now."

One of Davie's biggest sources for character development is the very minor character, Prat, the art teacher. After seeing Stephen's incredibly lifelike and beautiful sculptures, he encourages the class to try their hand at sculpting. Davie perceives Prat as being exactly that, a 'prat'--too grandiose and serious for the children to relate to or even like. But as Davie matures over the course of this story, he talks with Prat in code:

"Last lesson of the day, and Prat's all blather again. Clay and creavitiy and striding about the classroom and closing his eyes and staring at the sky and clay pellets and jelly babies flying about his head...
"You can go too far," I say when he's in midstream.
He blinks and looks at me.
"Sorry, Davie?" he says.
"You can go too far. You can create too much."
He comes to my table, leans over me, delighted.
"For example, Davie?"
"Well..." I look down. I stumble over the thoughts, the words. "Some of the things that we create are..."
"Are?" he prompts me.
"Some of the things that we create are... destructive."
"Exactly!" He punches the air and spins away. "The things that we create--some of them, many of them!--are themselves destructive!"
He looks around the room, scans the faces.
"Such as?" he says.
"Guns," he is told.
"Bullets," he is told.
"Poisons."
"Nerve gas."
"Bombs."
"The nuclear bomb."
"War itself."
"Exactly!" says Prat. "Exactly! Exactly! Exactly!"
He closes his eyes. He taps his forehead. We know he's about to tell us something he thinks is dead profound.
"It is the human paradox," he says. "We are creative beings. But our passion to create goes hand in hand with our passion to destroy." He claps his hands together, makes a double fist. "And the passions are linked as tight as this."

Again, this book it not too hard to figure out or understand the deeper meanings. It is written for teens, and written well. Not too much attention to detail, but the story is soaked with fun to read Irish dialect:

"You know that Stephen Rose, don't you?" she said.
"Aye."
"He went away, didn't he?"
"Aye."
"There's tales about him, aren't there? Are they true?"
"Dunno."
"People are full of blather, aren't they?"
"Aye," I said.
"Is he friendly?"
"No."
"Is he weird?"
"Aye."
"Nice weird or creepy weird?"
I thought about it.
"Both," I said.

Overall, I thought this book was great. Almond totally immerses the reader in the Irish Catholic culture, and Davie is a very level-headed and likable character. His personal growth is profound and complete. The reoccurring Angel motifs won me over, as well as the Irish dialect and the hint of spooky magic that provokes the imagination. While the look of the book is deceptively simple, the weighty content of the plot and its accompanying themes are chilling, indeed.
Five out of five stars

Book Report: It's What He Would Have Wanted

Book Report: It's What He Would Have Wanted
By Sean Hughes

'Shea Hickson's father, a TV weatherman, commits suicide, and when Shea discovers the body along with a series of diaries, his life, for the first time, has direction. He must decipher his father's meteorologically encrypted diaries and unfold the complicated and painful story leading up to his suicide. But this is no ordinary grief observed. Shea confronts every crisis in his life with an unhealthy dose of glib sarcasm, and his discoveries about his father are often as funny as they are tragic (he sleeps with his father's mistress, for instance). Young Hickson also must confront impending fatherhood, following a one-night stand with his hairdresser, and perform one final task for the shady leftist organization for which he has worked for several years.'
-Booklist

First paragraph:
"I wish I'd been born to different parents. They are decent enough folk, but...I guess it was the way they were raised. No, let me go further: I wish I'd been their parents. Let me introduce myself."

This is the story of one man's self-discovery, as he tries to piece together the motives behind his father's suicide. Shea is a slacker without any motivations of his own, and is prone to (especially after his father's death) dark and suicidal thoughts. Frequently, entire days are summed up on one sentence: 'I stayed in bed and slept.'

"Home to my stale life. I open the windows to freshen the air in the flat. If only I could open a window in my heart. I love the sanctuary of home. The chance to be completely at ease, the chance to be a cunt without anyone finding out. Time to have a chat with myself. I'm sure it is a pleasure to come home to loved ones but you can't really be yourself. It intrigues me that we can never fully be ourselves, that chance is lost at birth. There is a split second of realization of pure self but from that moment on we are influenced by others."

I could understand and thought it a realistic (if not tricky) personality trait, but as the story wore on, I couldn't quite be as empathetic as I wanted.

This book starts out grandly enough and within pages we learn that Shea loves blow-jobs. Shallow, but okay, I'll give him that. I just don't care to read paragraphs on the subject, especially when it was never a plot point. But the writing is good, if not long-winded. When Hughes is 'on', he's on, and with impressive perception. Some sentences ring more loudly than others:

"I don't know what she saw in me, a bone-snapping moodist sauntering along in a layabout's body whose social skills amount to being on nodding terms with the rest of the race."

*giggle* How... me. I love it.

The subject matter and banter slowly dried up in this story, and towards the end I was struggling to finish. Shea's 'secret' life eclipsed the hunt for his father's past--although the two did eventually join. But in the meantime, I was bored. I kept hoping for more from the subplot involving Orwell, Shea's little brother. Shea recently lost his lover to Orwell and that is partly why their relationship is dissolving.

"When we split, Orwell tried to comfort the two of us, except he didn't try to fuck me. He had done nothing wrong and yet he had crossed an unmentionable line that only your brother has access to. We've never talked about it. I'll give him that--he understands my pain, even if he did cause it. She seems different when she's with him. She's certainly no one I ever knew. I wish I could be happy for them but I can't. I want to break them up. I want her to have an affair with my father, then the hurt would bring my brother back and I do want him back."

This longing for his brother grabbed my heartstrings. I wanted Shea to try harder, instead of being passive and watching his brother slip away.

Another bit of reflection I appreciated, from that dark, tabooed voice deep inside:

"It was also around this time I promised myself I would visit art galleries and museums and catch the occasional play. It was obviously one of those fragile moments when you pretend to yourself that you're a better person than you really are, to get through a rough time. I went as far as doing all these cultural exercises but found myself bored senseless, which, in turn, made me feel stupid. I then began to question what it was I actually liked about life and couldn't quite but my finger on it, there being no gun handy. I guess in truth my life really just amount to moments of spontaneity but they were happening less frequently now. I rarely left the house. I think I missed my soap opera friends. I wanted to know what they'd been up to. In my heart I know that this is my level of culture."

And another passage I may have taken too personally:

"The lamp that had mellowed the room earlier was now harsh and I knew I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. The only time I'm frightened for no reason is when I wake in the middle of the night. It's total confirmation that you're off kilter with the rest of the race. Just you and the bogeyman for company; you can't think straight because your head's in a vice; the tiredness is given free rein and determined to fuck up the rest of your body, toying with your nervous system; your gaggle of niggling worries transformed into a devouring host. I pray for a companion but know that it would feel alien. I become mistrustful of touch."

Hughes gives Shea a lot of time to reflect, and most of this story is internal and slow. But several times I did find a particularly good point:

"It seems so simple, but the complication comes with the fact that happiness is dependent on other people. This leaves you with no control, knowing that everything can be taken from you at a moment's notice. But then again, aren't all the lonely people either waiting in anticipation of this person coming along or getting over the break-up of that relationship? Aren't all other emotions a pure smokescreen? Without that smokescreen wouldn't we still be sitting in caves picking nits out of each other's hair? Mistrust of the human race had brought about medical breakthroughs and catalogue shopping."

And towards the end, I particularly liked this rant:

"It struck me the amount of time we waste trying to create good impressions for strangers, the mediocrity of wanting all to think you are pleasant enough, this pathetic need to falsely create an affable fellow. That energy could be put to good use elsewhere. Why are people so frightened of not being liked? 'He was liked by everyone' is a slur on a person's character, not a testament."

Seems I've found a lot to quote from a book I was glad to finish. *grin* 'It's What He Would Have Wanted' was a long story with loads of introspection and self-loathing, and a dash of humor. I particularly loved the imagery where Shea finds his father, and some of the random characters he bumps into left me shaking my head at the strangeness of it all. In a good way. I just wish the pace would have been a little faster, the emotional arc a little more complete.

Overall, I give this book two out of five stars for meaningful introspection.