Literary Mystery

aka J. K. Rowling

Bookstore shelves are overflowing with mysteries – it’s a popular genre not only because of the element of suspense but because most mysteries, and these include espionage thrillers, are plot driven, not a whole lot of descriptive prose or literary technique, thus easy to read and often just plain fun. The proverbial page-turner. I was always a fan of English mysteries like Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie and the great Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and although not well known, W. Somerset Maugham wrote terrific espionage tales, and of course I devoured Nancy Drew as a girl.

In the last twenty years, the selection of mysteries has exploded, thus sometimes difficult to find just the right one, and I tend to favor more literary works – not a snob exactly, just protective of my reading time. Although often disturbing, I admired the “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy,” and I am a fan of Henning Menkell and Elizabeth George, so once I discovered, as we all did recently, that a first mystery novel was in fact the work of JK Rowling, my curiosity was piqued. The critics were right: it’s a very good murder mystery with fully formed and diverse characters and an ending that mostly works, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading her often elegant prose and detailed descriptions of people and place. I also liked the protagonist: Cormoran Strike, a wounded veteran, the bastard child of a celebrity, a man with heart who struggles with his own demons, but not to the detriment of the mystery at hand. Another great touch was the introduction of the fledgling assistant-detective, Robyn, a temp who has always wanted to be a private investigator, and Rowling has successfully set up Strike and Robyn as a continuing tale, so watch for #2 of “The Cuckoo’s Calling” [by Robert Galbraith]. 

I will say that Rowling's inherent optimism operates in these pages, as it did in Harry Potter despite the progressively bleak story lines, so unlike her Swedish counterparts, she will never wear you down and make you want to crawl under the covers and weep for humanity. 

            Just before I read JKR, I read a novel entitled “Don’t I Know You” by Karen Shepard, published some years ago but only recently risen to the top of my pile. Not a traditional whodunnit, rather a literary work with a mystery at its core. The story unfolds via three different characters who all have something to do with the death of one woman. This is solid, often riveting psychological drama that delves deeply into parenting and romantic relationships, and the dark side of mental illness. The book takes place in 1976, well before Internet, emails or cell phones, at a time when communications were more often elusive or contradictory. While I lingered with JRK, enjoying the steady methodical connection of the dots, this novel is a page-turner, you simply have to know who did what to whom and why.

One other mystery crossed my desk recently: a self-published whodunnit that takes place in Laguna Beach. I confess that I did not finish reading “South on Pacific Coast Highway” by Gary Paul Corcoran because I found the language a bit too clichéd, the ghosts of too many gumshoes hovering on every page, but the setting and some of the people will feel extremely familiar to the SoCal reader and it seems a good yarn. Corcoran, who lives in LA now, lived down here for many years, so he knows of what he writes and he writes with ease, so if you are looking for a grittier mystery with a familiar locale, the Kindle edition is available at Amazon for just $3.99 and I’m sure Laguna Beach Books, if they don’t have it, can get it.

Stay posted on all things reading and writing here, on my blog at www.ocinsite.com, and on Twitter: @OCBookBlogger.

New Words

Joan Silber

Recommendations on writers and books enter my radar often and while recorded dutifully in my phone book notes, often go undiscovered for years a trigger, oh yes, I've been wanting to read her. Such is the case for Joan Silber, a writer of great renown, mentored by the great Grace Paley at Sara Lawrence, where Silber teaches, and whose stories I occasionally stumble upon in the New Yorker, and always admire, but had yet to read her novels. She just published a new collection of stories and that reminded me that she is a must read in writers' circles, so I embarked at last on the canon of Joan Silber and have found myself shaking my head in awe as I read, marveling at her insightful commentaries and profound understanding of human nature. Her first novel, Household Words, was published in 1976 to great acclaim, and re-issued in 2005 by Norton, thankfully, and although certainly dated, no less smart, an interesting portrait of a not terribly interesting woman, a not especially likable woman, passive-aggressive and resistant to change, narcissistic and, not surprisingly, lonely and dissatisfied. An ungrateful woman, but not a hateful woman. She sees her life as simply unlucky, perhaps so, and her two daughters struggle with a love-hate relationship with their difficult mother, though they stand their ground more often than not, and frankly, by the end, I was more interested in knowing what happened to them after the ending. Her negligence in many ways allowed them to forge independent futures although with an awful lot of turmoil. Lots of setting detail in this novel, evocative of a woman mired in the trees, no sense of the forest at all, and perhaps emblematic of that period. She was born just after WW I and the story opens when she is pregnant with her first born, in 1940. Despite her high dislikability quotient, we root for her, we want her to see and know what we see, and understand her far better than she understands herself, thanks to this smart smart writer. And no easy contrived tying up of loose ends here, perhaps a moment of clarity, but too little too late. Since I have too many piles of short story collections calling to me, I next read another Silber novel, The Size of the World, and report back.

The Death of Greeting Cards

My younger daughter's birthday today. Such fun to shop for just the right gift but a total frustration to find a good card.

I don't like sappy greeting cards with poetry that sounds like country music. Hyper-sentimental cards offer sad pseudo-Zen platitudes emblematic of a television culture.

I prefer humor, words and images that will make her smile, but oh my - is it no wonder that this too has become an online business? Most of the cards, particularly those at a CVS or similar, where most cards are sold, are just plain awful.

I spent half an hour perusing the so-called humorous birthday cards. My simple sampling technique can be questioned, but I suspect the results are fair:

• At least half have something to do with getting drunk or bellying up to the bar on your birthday. And for those who have dealt with alcoholism, this is so not funny.
• Another ten percent have something to do with farts. I kid you not. 
• Another quarter or more have to do with sex, most often gigantic boobs or stripper-like men with Popeye biceps. 
• The balance, the few left to choose from, have to do with the nightmare of aging and some of these are funny, if you are 70!

I don't send a lot of cards. I hate to waste paper. I'm quick to issue a celebratory email and place a call to those closest to me, so I am rarely confronted with this pathetic selection and was frankly a bit shocked at the demise of the card-culture. To be fair to Hallmark, many of these cards were produced by competitors. And they have the audacity to charge $4 or $5 per card. There was a section of cards for 99 cents and they said nothing, which was almost better by comparison, but so utterly boring, why would anyone buy?

Ok, I rarely use my blog to bitch, but, seriously...? Are we really an alcohol, body smell and body parts obsessed that this is all we have to say when we want to have fun? Oh my.

In the car today, running errands, [my least favorite pastime] the radio plays the Beatles. A 50th anniversary retrospective. I remember their arrival to the US. I ditched school to wait all day at Forest Hills Stadium to buy tickets for their concert, ended up sitting nearly in the last row, but just below a speaker, which saved the music from the screaming crowd.

I was hooked from the first. A Paul girl, as Anna Quinlan would say, although later I became a John girl. A sure sign of personal evolution I thought at the time, and about the same time that I began to more fully appreciate the Rolling Stones.

Twice I linger in the car to listen. One cannot walk away from Blackbird, or even from the strange and wonderful Rocky Raccoon. Errands can wait.

I remember well that we were all captured at first by their kinetic energy, their adorable looks, those pin-ties and black suits, the shaggy hair, but it was the music that kept us to the end. My mother asked me what I saw in those skinny boys from Britain, but she got it, she had an ear for melody. I heard her humming their tunes now and then while cooking.

My mother and I traveled to Europe the summer I was sixteen - a dream for  her that my father was determined to fulfill before she died. London was the first stop. I tracked down the Beatles tailor, whom I had read about somewhere, and had a lovely chat with the son. I felt closer to them forever after, although their music was everywhere, for all of us. 1964. The little girl from the Bronx and her immigrant mother traveling on the iconic $5 a day journey, Beatles music the soundtrack.

So it should be no wonder that every time I hear them, the nostalgia is overwhelming. But today it is more than that. It is the music, simply the music. We forget sometimes how damn good it was. The poignant melodies and eccentric lyrics. The string orchestra in the background that their producer introduced to rock music. The simple starts, the movement to crescendo, the mesmerizing choruses. Unforgettable. Touching, still. Makes me want to cry, and makes me smile. As few can do.

On arrival home, I sit in the garage a few moments, close my eyes, and sing along to Eleanor Rigby. Still wow.

I will dig out all the albums today and listen, one by one, and feel my heart swell with the memory and the joy of that sound. A perfect Sunday afternoon [now that chores are done.]

Aging Part I

Photo lifted from www.improvephotography.com

When I was 50, a precocious boy, son of a friend, pronounced me an old woman. His explanation: simple mathematics. If life expectancy was 72 [which it was at that time] then youth was 0 - 24, middle age 25 - 48, and old age, 49+. Hard to argue with that thinking.

Now, approaching [six months away] my 65th birthday, he might imagine me ancient.

Psychologists tell us that at every age we feel we are younger than we are. With one exception: new parents, whose sleep deprivation and stress make them feel older than they are. I remember that well. Fortunately, it passes, as most things do.

These days, at heart, I feel 40. Certainly no more than the 50 year-old accused of near-senility. This may relate to the current life expectancy of 81 for women, or perhaps to my fortunately good health, and the almost constant presence of the California sun. Perhaps it has something to do with having daughters who enliven my life with their journeys, so that I draw on their energy. Perhaps because I still listen to rock & roll and dance 2 or 3 mornings a week with Jazzercise to loud country and techno music that gets my heart pumping. Perhaps because I still study Spanish, almost daily, challenging my brain. Perhaps because an increasingly Zen view of life keeps me present, without much looking back and only occasionally peeking ahead, because at this age, too much focus on the future can be dreary.

I'd like to believe Shakespeare that the best is yet to come, and there is much to look forward to, but the reality is that much of the best has passed, and that's okay. There are many pleasures to age, not the least of which is a sense of solidarity with one-self.

Each year, at the start of the year, I take a good look at my budget to ensure that I can partake of my passions without compromising my financial future, and this exercise also keeps me young at heart, because I imagine a vista of 25 or 30 years ahead, maybe more, although 90 seems like more than enough living to me, and in so doing, see almost as much adult life ahead as past. Because, in truth, I didn't really grow up until I was in my thirties. Perhaps that's why I still feel so young.

Still, whatever the reasoning, come summer I will be officially a senior, to just about everyone but Social Security, and I look forward to the rewards of that status. I just heard I can take classes at 24-Hour Fitness for free - that alone will keep me young - and there are many financial discounts to enjoy. My now fully silver hair looks good, my energy level is great, the pleasure I find in friendship and travel, arts and literature, never greater.

Some time soon I think I might have a grandchild and that, I know, is a game changer. Definitely a reward, and a joy I look forward to.

I do not deny age. I only wish to continue to appreciate the benefits and avoid, as long as possible, the ravages. Like the surf, there is an ebb and flow to our lives, and, with each season, a bit of sand is washed away, but the beach always looks good at sunset.

Change of Scene

Early Friday morning, a short drive to Orange County airport and park under a lamp, as I was taught long ago to do, march into the terminal, wait patiently in a too-slow security lie, but I am early, as I always am, so no rush, and make my way to Gate 18, which is on the end, but a short walk, board soon after and take-off on time [thank you Southwest]. The plane shoots into the sky in a steep arc [a sound abatement technique, so the pilot calms the anxious] and settles quickly at 40,000 feet which, based on elementary school training, is  5,280 feet per mile [one of those childhood memorizations that never quits] means roughly 8 miles towards the heavens, while I gaze out the window into a piercingly blue sky.

This giant machine, of I don't know how many tons of heavy steel, soars through the blue like a bird, floating above bright white cottony clouds below. I read my Kindle and sip a diet pepsi, chat briefly with my seating companion, who inquires about Kindle, and in just over an hour's flying time, as promised, the pilot gently sets down the giant bird, brakes revving into that wind-tunnel vibration that lasts only seconds as it slows us from a gallop to a crawl. In moments I am awaiting the public bus that for $1 [senior's price - otherwise $2] transports me in 12 minutes to a stop barely two blocks from the boutique Citizen Hotel in downtown Sacramento where moments later my dear friend Chris, of Sonoma County, arrives for our annual "sisters week-end."

Our room for the night, pre-paid and discounted via Expedia, with tall sun-filled windows facing a park, has two lovely beds with white sateen bedding and plump pillows, plenty of plugs for charging, a large screen TV and fresh subway tiles in the spacious bathroom that reminds me of my first apartment in NYC.

The staff calls me by name as we come and go and we are so well situated we walk everywhere. The two days are crisp, cold and sunny, perfect for strolling, and also for cozying up in the fine bistro's and restaurants Chris has scoped out with hearty food and lively ambiance, where we dissect all the matters of the day, personal and universal, taste good wine, and laugh, as good friends do when time permits for such visits.

The Crocker Museum is a treasure trove of fine art with the bonus of a fabulous restored mansion [gorgeous doors and molding, sweeping staircase - shades of Downtown Abbey] and Sac neighborhoods are charming, although this capital city is a small city, definitely not NYC or San Fran. Good for a week-end, yes.

My return flight is delayed, too many hours in the airport, but I am reading a good book and there is a lovely little wine bar with small plates of decent food, so could be worse. 36 hours later I am home again, yet I might have been gone a week for the tonic of a change of scene with a dear friend. Thanks to Southwest miles, Kindle, smart phones and tablets, making life oh so much easier. And thanks to Jess Walter, whose "Financial Lives of the Poets" was great reading, and might account for this slightly off-kilter narrative.

No matter how far we are never far from family or clients, and don't have to break the bank for a respite. Ah yes, the blessings of a modern age. And friendship.

The Music of Community

I attended the holiday concert of Lagunatunes tonight. A friend of mine is a member of the choir and invited me. It was a magical experience, harkening back to Xmas throughout the centuries and throughout the world.

The Episcopal church where the concert was held was standing room only. Mostly friends and family of the singers, but also community members who cherish holiday music. Some of the tunes were familiar, some with updated arrangements, and still others unknown to me, but all sung with the enthusiasm and delight one might expect from a community chorale.

The music of Christmas warms your heart, no matter your religion or disposition. But a holiday choir is more than music, it's community. In that hour, in the midst of song, all politics and heartache are banished, all differences dismissed. We are one. We celebrate the season, we celebrate the music. Few moments bring people together as much as this. And it is in this moment we remember what the year-end season means - neither commerce or even Christ, but that time of year we accept the past and look forward to the future.

Hallelujah.

Short Story as Modern Art

            I love a good short story. I have piles of collections by my bedside, collecting dust but always at hand for late night reading. And, like all book lovers, I just love the piles. When a great new collection comes from a writer I admire, I read start to finish, relishing the buffet of characters and story lines that occasionally blend into each other, but make for a great feast.

            I rarely write short stories. Much as I love them, I’m no good at writing them. I get lost in descriptive prose or want to introduce another character in the mix, or I end up with an essay. Perhaps I read them with extra pleasure because I know how hard they are to write.

Some people wonder what has happened to traditional stories. You know the format: a clearly defined opening, a middle, an end, and in between, a crescendo, the denouement, in which the character(s) faces the conflict, learns what is meant to be learned, or is forever altered. Fables and children’s stories are the best examples. However few short stories are written this way anymore. In the post-modernist world of literature, stories meander. Lessons are learned subtly, if at all. The structure, like modern art, begs for interpretation. We read in thrall of language or characters or a question posed, even if never answered.

The dilemmas of modern story telling do not usually have one solution. In fact, there are no absolute truths in modern short stories. At best, a collection of tales weave a mosaic. Junot Diaz’s This is How you Lose Her is a mélange of sex and love and gender battles related by and about one core character who drifts from lover to lover, escapade to escapade. It is the gestalt that offers significance. Joan Wickersham’s lovely first story collection, The News from Spain: 7 Variations on a Love Story, connected only in essence, as her characters gallop from 18^th century Vienna to modern day in a kaleidoscope of love and loss, all beautifully told, without merely a tiny ribbon on the package.

Alice Munro, queen of the short story in the last century, has a new collection, waiting to be read, and based on previews in The New Yorker, she might be likened to a conceptual artist, inviting the reader to consider the nature of the situation rather than form.

Perhaps the modern short story can be bundled like art movements. Modernism to post-modernism, abstract expressionism to minimalism, surrealism to illusionism. Recent stories might be consider late modernism, where light and space take precedence over imagery? Or is language moving the story towards graphic design – creating a visual image that otherwise has no context? A form of hyper-realism? Post-minimalism?

No matter. Every short story stands on its own and every one has merit. I recently pulled out my well-worn copy of the collected stories of Grace Paley and re-read Mother, among the shortest of short stories, and one that floats, without tether to time or place, rather staccato brush strokes that invoke an abstract image of one life, as well as those left behind. Perhaps a neo-expressionist?

Whatever the form, stories are our verbal canvases and we need them to remind us that in this visual age, while a picture may paint a thousand words, we still need the words.

Two Days in Vancouver, BC

October 2012. Early morning in Vancouver, British Columbia, viewed from my guest bedroom on an upper story of one of the city's many soaring towers. A painting: watercolor, but all shades of silver. Tall metallic and glass skyscrapers whose roofs nearly touch low low-lying clouds, and the clouds layers of silvery gray that mimic the buildings below. Light filters slowly through the density to still waters below. Seagulls call, also shades of silver. Street lamp lights on the bridges, still illuminated, seem nearly gold in contrast.

The only spots of color are the autumn leaves of trees scattered on the landscape like thicker brush strokes. Parks abound, punctuated by the amazing Stanley Park, gigantic and serence [reminds me so much of Central Park.] A siren suddenly pierces the silence and dissipates just as quickly. I watch and listen from above the fray in one of the thousands of apartments that rise form earth to sky in this city of silver. As if dropped into the painting as minor characters.

Down on the ground, in older neighborhoods and near the commercial core, facades are shades of brown and taupe, a neutral palette with a hint of pink, as if reflected in sunset, and pedestrians provide further color, although both seem accent colors, like the trees and the stunning glimpses of mountains to the east, snow-capped just last night. These spots of color seem to have been tossed into the mix as an afterthought, a scene that interior designers or set decorators might want to revise to protect the purity of the scene.

Beyond the three bridges that cross the bay, more affluent suburban neighborhoods abound, so strikingly low in height they seem to belong to another place, surrounded like the city by walking and biking paths, parks and beaches. The lush grounds of the University at the end of a promontory provides a perfect place for intellectual contemplation and discourse [made me want to go back to school, yet again.]

The city built some of its expanding skyline for the 1986 world’s fair, a giant silver globe an iconic image of that turning point, and added to the infrastructure for the 2010 Olympics, whose global village is now a residential community on the waterfront, smaller buildings with a hint of color that reflect its youthful heritage.

Whatever the accent colors and alternating geometric facades, Vancouver is a silver city of the future – tall slender buildings interspersed with low connecting structures to protect the view corridor, a place where each resident adds their own colors. Amazing library, lovely museum, great restaurants, wonderful public transport, and a lovely walking city. An impressive quality of life, and one pays for the privilege. These Western Canadians know how to do it right. 

Thanks to my friend Brian Jackson, the city’s head of planning, for being the world’s best and most gracious tour guide.

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

The arrival of a new novel by Barbara Kingsolver is a happy event. Over the years, she has delighted readers and helped shape modern narrative fiction. “Animal Dreams” is still one of my very favorites and an early version of the multiple narrative technique. “Poisonwood Bible” told by five sisters was a particular accomplishment. For a number of years she focused on non-fiction in a desire to voice her environmental passions concerns and early in her career she wrote wonderful poetry and short stories, in both English and Spanish, as she is bi-cultural and bi-lingual. When “The Lacuna” published a couple of years ago, she returned to her Mexican roots to give us a quiet but powerful story of Frida, Diego and communism. A more sophisticated and subtle piece of writing that I loved.  

Now Kingsolver has written a novel that speaks to ecology and life in Appalachia, where she lives with her family. In some way, this novel is an homage to the people of this rural landscape, warts and all, as well as a profound message about messing with the natural order of things.

The set-up is grand. Kingsolver takes a reality and extends it into parable. In the state of Michoacán, Mexico, destruction of a forest ecosystem left no home for the annual migration of Monarch butterflies. That’s truth. What she imagines is that a gigantic flock of these orange butterflies is thrown out of their flight behavior to a forest far from home, in Appalachia. And that forest has been designated for logging by a family facing harsh economic circumstances.

The heroine, Dellarobia Turnbow, has herself been thrown off course by an adolescent pregnancy and ill-fated marriage. She discovers the flaming orange trees, which at first she perceives to be a forest fire, and sets about to discover the meaning and perhaps alter the outcome. “Unearthly beauty had appeared to her, a vision of glory to stop her in the road… It looked like the inside of joy, if a person could see that. A valley of lights, an ethereal wind. It had to mean something. She could save herself.”

The church believes the phenomenon is a heavenly vision. Scientists descend to study the butterflies. Friends and neighbors are pitted on opposite sides of the logging debate. Winter will come soon and possibly destroy the butterflies at first frost. In the midst of these opposing forces, Dellarobia seeks her true north, and the fate of her children in the human ecosystem. “Her every possession was either unbreakable or broken.”

In a simple narrative with memorable characters, Kingsolver invites us to consider all the choices we make, for ourselves and for the globe. It's a grand read.