Whose Body? ***

*** Whose Body?, Dorothy Sayers, 1995

[Note: This review was written in 2003.]

When it comes right down to it, the British murder mystery is the staple for a good whodunit read. And of course everyone points to Agatha Christi as the grand dame of the genre. Outside of the realm of mystery fans, few people have heard of Dorothy Sayers. Which is too bad, because she rocks.

Dorothy Sayers was a contemporary of Christi, although less prolific, producing 17 books of detection as opposed to Christi’s 80. The limited catalog only makes the individual books that much more precious due to their scarcity.

The chronicle of Lord Peter Wimsey, the urbane dilettante in detection, begins with Whose Body? and continues through a dozen novels and three short-story collections. Wimsey is an interesting detective, a second son of British royalty with plenty of money, time, manners, insouciance and connections. And he has one last item lacking in many of his peers, brains. Sayers takes this good beginning and mixes it with a nice little puzzle.

Lord Peter is interrupted on his way to an ancient manuscript auction by a call from his mother, asking him to assist an acquaintance with an embarrassing problem: a corpse in the bathtub -- a well-manicured stranger utterly naked with the exception of a pair of gold pince-nez on his nose.

Wimsey dives into this welcome enigma and works his way through a cast of interesting characters on his way to the solution, including Suggs, the predictable bumbling policeman and Parker, a highly competent Scotland Yard detective, a close friend of Wimsey’s who studies theology in his spare time. Wimsey’s mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, a kindly woman with a stream-of-consciousness style of conversation, is also a regular in the Wimsey stories.

Like Christi’s Poirot and Marple, one of the primary attractions of Sayers’ stories is the development of the characters, particularly Wimsey. In each successive story, Wimsey grows from an interesting gentleman detective with expensive hobbies into a much more complex character. Even in this first novel, we get a glimpse of Wimsey’s frailties, as he succumbs to a relapse of WW I shell-shock.

Sayers achieves the delicate blend of manners and murder that characterizes the British murder mystery. It was a time when the quality of a whodunit was measured by the puzzle and the characters, not the degree of perversity and shock-value that seems to form the bulk of more modern mysteries. For those who prefer the PG-rated variety of murder (no sex, no profanity, no graphic violence or gore), the works of this era are perfect and Sayers' are among the best.

Whose Body? is a perfect example of the genre.

While the first Lord Peter mystery is not Sayers at her best, it is still a good read, and the proper starting point for those who like to begin at the beginning. At under 200 pages, it is a quick and entertaining read.

The entire Sayers catalog is required reading for all lovers of good whodunits.

Other works by Dorothy Sayers:

• Clouds Of Witness 1926
• Unnatural Death 1927
• The Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club 1928
• Lord Peter Views The Body 1928
• The Documents In The Case 1930
• Strong Poison 1930
• The Five Red Herrings 1931
• Have His Carcase 1932
• Hangman's Holiday 1933
• Murder Must Advertise 1933
• The Nine Tailors 1934
• Gaudy Night 1936
• Busman's Honeymoon 1937
• In The Teeth Of Evidence 1939
• Striding Folly 1973
• Thrones, Dominations 1998

The Mysterious West ***

*** The Mysterious West, edited by Tony Hillerman, 1995

Note the edited by. Hillerman didn't write this one. But I figure I trust his taste. After the first few, I began to wonder, but then it picked up. There are some first rate stories in here, a few second rate stories and one or two third-rate stories.

The term West is used loosely, as the MidWest gets a few shots in there. I haven't read most of these writers. Just seeing Stuart Kaminsky in the list sealed the deal for me, since he's a great writer. I've never picked up a book of his I regretted reading. I have a few Holmes pastiche books by Carole Nelson Douglas on the TBR shelf. Her selection in here didn't particularly stand out for me, but I'll still give them a whirl sometime this year.

It's a good nightstand book, as you have bite-sized chunks you can read and then crash.

Guys and Dolls: The Short Stories of Damon Runyon ****

**** Guys and Dolls: The Short Stories of Damon Runyon, Damon Runyon, 1992

[Note: This review was written in 2003.]

It is a 9 to 5 shot all week and twice on Sunday that the moniker Damon Runyon escapes your attention all these years. But it is even money that many citizens in this town have seen a show doped up from his stories.

I discovered Runyon as a teenager. (Also Robert Benchley, but that is another story.) It was a rainy afternoon and I was out of reading material. I scavenged through the bookshelves, hoping a treasure would suddenly appear. I didn’t have much hope, as I had combed through these shelves many times before. While my childhood home was not devoid of fiction, it certainly was not stocked with countless tomes awaiting the eager reader. It was quite unlike my own home in later years, where hundreds of novels and short story collections line the walls in practically every genre but romance. (And there are a few of those, but I will deny it and call you a liar if you repeat it to anyone.)

In many previous searches I had passed over The Best of Runyon. It was an old, slim volume from the 40s with yellowed pages in a dark blue binding stuck between an almanac and Hebrew dictionary and didn’t look like it could possibly be interesting. (Yes, yes, I know about the judging a book by its cover rule, but one can’t always follow every rule, can one?)

One day in desperation, all other options exhausted, I pulled it out and gave it a wheeze. And discovered the magical world of Broadway gangsters during Prohibition.

Runyon’s stories are narrated by a character that doesn’t figure much into the action. He’s the guy who is always there to hear or see the story, but is not a player. In his own words “Nobody pays any attention to me, because I am known to one and all as a guy who is just around . . .” (Blood Pressure). His low profile is intentional. “. . . I do not ask any questions, because when a guy goes around asking questions in this town people may get the idea he is such a guy as wishes to find things out.” (The Lily of St. Pierre)

But he is the confidant of many a rough character who figures into the action plenty, and then some. These characters include mob hit men, bootleggers, cardsharps, pool sharps, drama critics, safe crackers, bookies, horse players, touts, crap shooters, drunks, chorus girls, strippers, bubble dancers and Salvation Army officers to name a few. And occasionally he finds himself dragged along into the thick of the action, sometimes to avoid offending a character such as might take offense if he refuses the invitation, sometimes because he has been partaking of a few hot Tom and Jerrys or some needled beer and his curiosity overcomes his better judgment.

It took me a while to get hip to all the slang. A gun can be a heater, a piece, a rod, a Betsy or a John Roscoe. Scalpers sell duckets to the football games. And deciphering the money poses its own challenge. Some things are obvious. Two G’s is $2,000 and 5 C’s is $500. A deuce is $2 and a finnif is $5, but what is a sawbuck? Luckily a clue is buried in Hold ‘Em, Yale! It’s $10. When the narrator and Solly borrow a pound note in All Horse Players Die Broke, using a Betsy as collateral, and are left with a deuce each after spending the odd dollar on breakfast, some math reveals that they borrowed $5. And when he takes his deuce and runs it up to 22 slugs on a 10-to-1 shot, it is easy to see a slug is a dollar.

Which brings us to one of the charms of Runyon’s work, the dialect. As the editor of this book, William Kennedy, notes, “This Runyon merriment was, and is, chiefly an achievement of language – the language of gamblers, hoodlums, chorus girls, and cops, that he acquired by listening, then used in his stories and is therefore credited with inventing. It is a nonesuch argot, and he uses it like no other writer who came before or after him.”

The dialog is priceless; the narratives never drag. It’s a mistake to skip even a single sentence. Even physical descriptions of characters are entertaining. Here are a few examples:

This cat I am going to tell you about is a very small cat, and in fact it is only a few weeks old, consequently it is really nothing but an infant cat. To tell the truth, it is just a kitten. – Johnny One-Eye

He is a very big guy with several chins and very funny feet, which is why he is called Feet. These feet are extra large feet, even for a big guy, and Dave the Dude says Feet wears violin cases for shoes. Of course this is not true, because Feet cannot get either of his feet into a violin case, unless it is a case for a very large violin, such as a cello. – Tight Shoes

Knowing Nicely-Nicely Jones, I am prepared to wager all the money I can possibly raise that he can outeat anything that walks on two legs. In fact, I will take a chance on Nicely-Nicely against anything on four legs, except maybe an elephant, and at that he may give the elephant a photo finish. . . . This Nicely-Nicely Jones is a character who is maybe five feet eight inches tall, and about five feet nine inches wide, and when he is in good shape he will weigh upward of two hundred and eighty pounds. He is a horse player by trade, and eating is really just a hobby, but he is undoubtedly a wonderful eater even when he is not hungry. – A Piece of Pie

There are many collections of Runyon stories, from the original books to latter-day compilations such as Guys and Dolls, not to be confused with the Broadway show and movie of the same name, based on the story The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown. This collection of 30 stories has some of my favorites, including A Piece of Pie and Lonely Hearts, although it does omit others of my favorites, such as The Snatching of Bookie Bob and Tight Shoes. The first paragraph in the introduction describes the selection process for this book:

“There’s really only one question to ask about Damon Runyon: Is he, or isn’t he, back in town? We all know he’s back on Broadway, ever since the spring of 1992, when the remarkable revival of Guys and Dolls opened. But there is also something else going on. I have been approached twice in the past month about writing a movie about his private life, something in which I have a minus-twenty-seven-percent interest; and now here comes Al Silverman (Viking out of Penguin) saying he has snatched up the rights to 125 of Runyon’s short stories that have been lying doggo for a number of years and is looking for somebody to handicap two and a half dozen of them and see if there is enough left in the old guy to justify a wager that he can still wow them not only on Broadway but also in Albany.”

With all the attention The Sopranos is getting, the time is ripe for a Damon Runyon comeback. If you’ve never read Damon Runyon, this book is a good place to start. If you have read Damon Runyon, then you know it’s worth going back and reading the classics in this book.

Some Runyon short story collections:

• Blue Plate Special (1934)
• Money From Home (1935)
• More Than Somewhat (1937)
• Furthermore (1938)
• Take It Easy (1938)

Some movies based on Damon Runyon stories:

• Guys and Dolls (1955): based on the story The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown, with Frank Sinatra and Marlin Brando to name a few.
• A Pocket Full of Miracles (1961): based on the story Madame La Gimp, with Glenn Ford, Bettie Davis, Peter Falk, and Ann Margaret to name a few.
• Little Miss Marker (1980): based on the story Little Miss Marker, with Walter Matthau, Julie Andrews, Tony Curtis, Bob Newhart, and Brian Dennehy to name a few.
• Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989): based on the story The Bloodhounds of Broadway, with Madonna, Matt Dillon, and Randy Quaid, to name a few.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle ****

**** The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski, 2008

First Novel

It seems I'm the go-to guy when somebody can't seem to get going on a book. "Here," The Woman, says, "Read this and tell me if it's worth reading. They say it's good, but I can't get past page 30."

I ask you, how did I get this job? First Pessl and now Wroblewski. Well, at least it's breaking in some new blood and giving me some fodder for my new First Novel series. We'll see how it holds up.

This book is Hamlet meets Peace Like a River. This guy can write. Check out this passage about Ida Paine, "the hawk-nosed, farsighted proprietor of the store" in Popcorn Corners.

The locals were inured to all this, but strangers sometimes lost their wits. "That it?" she would ask when she'd totaled their items, cocking her head and fixing them with a stare. "Anything else?" The veiny digits of her left hand punched the keys of the adding machine and leapt onto the lever. Thump! The thump really startled them. Or maybe it was the head-cock. You could see people stop to think, was that really it? The question began to reverberate in their minds, a metaphysical conundrum. Wasn't there something else? They began to wonder if this could possibly be their Final Purchase: four cans of beans and franks, a bag of Old Dutch potato chips, and half a dozen bobbers. Was that it? Wasn't there anything else they ought to get? And for that matter, had they ever accomplished anything of significance in their entire lives? "No," they'd gulp, peering into Ida's depthless black pupils, "that's all," or sometimes, "Um, pack of Luckies?" This last was issued as a question, as if they had begun to suspect that an incorrect answer would get them flung into a chasm. Cigarettes often came to their minds, partly because Ida herself smoked like a fiend, a white curl aways streaming from her mouth to rise and merge with the great galaxy of smoke wreathing over her head. But mainly, when the uninitiated stood before Ida Paine, they found themselves thinking that the future was preordained. So why not take up cigarettes?

And that's a minor, though pivotal, character who only shows up 2 or 3 times in 562 pages. This is a rich, deep story with rich, deep characters. With an ending that's more Hamlet that Peace. Let's just say it's not a Hollywood ending. I get the feeling the ending is probably typical of an Oprah book, but maybe not.

Let's see. What other Oprah books have I read? The Poisonwood Bible, Cry The Beloved Country, The Sound and the Fury, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I heard White Oleander on tape. A mixed bag, at best, when it comes to endings.

Well, the four stars pretty much say it. Read this one. Your mileage may vary.

Randy Newman - Feels Like Home

If you're from my generation, you probably first heard Randy Newman's work from the hits he wrote for other folks, like I've Never Been to Spain, Mama Told Me Not To Come, I Think It's Going To Rain Today, and You Can Leave Your Hat On. And then for his own hits, Short People and I Love L.A. Younger generations may know him from the soundtrack of Toy Story (You've Got a Friend In Me), James and the Giant Peach, A Bug's Life, Cars, and Monsters, Inc.

Back in the 90s, Newmna wrote a musical adaptation of Faust. Feels Like Home was written for Bonnie Raitt to sing. (Sorry, the only Bonnie version I could find was this General Hospital fan video. But you don't have to watch it. Just listen.) It was also covered by Linda Rhonstadt and Chantal Kreviazuk and appears on the How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days soundtrack.

The female covers are great, but there's something irrevocably poignant in Newman's plaintive, mush-mouth voice expressing such transparent vulnerability.



And, as a bonus, here's a live recording of a lesser known but equally powerful Newman song, I Miss You.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad ***

*** Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert T. Kiyosaki, 1998

On page 132, Kiyosaki says, "I am a terrible writer." And it's true. He is a terrible writer. So why the three stars? The information.

I've heard of this book for ten years, but just got around to reading it. I wish it had been around when I was in high school. Things might have turned out differently. Not that things turned out so bad, but, you know.

The ideas are not new, but are presented in a context that makes them compelling, if somewhat repetitive. Here are a few ideas from the book:

From Buckminster Fuller: Wealth is a person's ability to survive so many number of days forward . . . or if I stopped working today, how long could I survive?

An asset as something that generates income rather then expenses. This is not the typical definition. When you buy a house to live in, you're not buying at asset. It actually generates expenses, not income. When you buy a rent house, you're buying an assett. (Assuming the rent will cover the mortgage and then some.)

You should have a profession and a business, until you can afford to have only a business. By Kiyosaki's definition, your prefession is what you do to make money. Your business is what makes you money without you working for it.

Don't work to earn, work to learn. Get jobs that help you build your business, not your profession.

I recommend you grit your teeth through the writing and give this book a read. It is not overstating to say it could change your life.

Peace Like a River ****

**** Peace Like a River, Leif Enger, 2001

[Note: This review was written in 2003.]

I’ve been pretty busy these days, what with doing the day job, playing gigs 3 nights a month and writing my second novel. But when I called my editor GaryT and told him I was coming to see him, he said I wouldn’t be allowed in the door unless I had read Peace Like a River. So I bopped down to my local Logos Bookstore and grabbed a copy. I read it on the plane from Honolulu to Nashville.

I strongly suspect that GaryT recommended this book to me as a tonic against hubris, a totally unnecessary step, I might add. Regardless of the reason, I’m glad he did. This is one great book. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Time Magazine put it in the top five for the year. The Christian Science Monitor, the Denver Post and the Los Angeles Times all named it the best book of the year. Inside the front cover are accolades from over twenty publications.

So, what’s all the fuss about? A story set in the rural Midwest in the 1960s, narrated by an eleven-year-old boy named Reuben Land. His most constant companion is his spunky eight-year-old sister, Swede, who has been justifiably called the Scout (To Kill a Mockingbird) of this century. His teenage brother Davy is a hunter/woodsman of rare skill, but when violence invades their family, Davy ends up in jail on a double-murder charge. The bulk of the book takes place on the road as the family searches for Davy, who becomes a fugitive from the law.

The father Jeremiah Land is the glue that holds everything together even when it is falling apart. Enger gives us a portrait of something one rarely sees in fiction, or in real life, for that matter – a deeply spiritual Christian without religious pretense, a disciple at any cost. He not only believes, but practices a divine calculus that turns common sense on its head. His own epiphany transforms him from a medical student to a school janitor, to the dismay of his wife, who leaves after it becomes apparent this change is permanent.

While there is much to admire in the story Enger pulls together, in what happens, there is even more to admire in the storytelling itself, in how he says it. He doesn’t pull any punches in vocabulary; he uses the work that fits, be it small or large. His style sometimes borders on the ornate, but far from detracting, it enhances the story as it unfolds.

And, in case you fear, as I did at first, that this book might end up as some cheesy moralistic tale, lay your fears aside. It is all as real and raw as life itself. As Andrew Roe of the San Francisco Chronicle said, “Peace Like a River serves as a reminder of why we read fiction to begin with.”

This, my friends, is a great read.

The Bookwoman's Last Fling ***

*** The Bookwoman's Last Fling, John Dunning, 2006

More back story on Dunning and the Janeway books in my review of The Holland Suggestions. From my experience, the Janeway books are three star books. I almost took this down to two stars because the story drags in a few places, but Dunning's characters always deliver, so three it is.

I read Booked to Die and The Bookman's Wake back in 2000, but didn't realize there were more. I grabbed this one at Half-Priced Books, but now I see there are two others before this one, The Bookman's Promise and The Sign of the Book. Guess I'll drag out the old pocketbook and get them in the queue.

I also reviewed Dunning's Deadline in 2008.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics ***

*** Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl, 2008

First Novel

When I told The Number One Son that I needed some reading for the return flight, having finished The Lincoln Lawyer, he handed me this book, saying, "I finally found a novel that uses more big words per page than yours."

It is true that I don't suffer from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia and I'm not ashamed of my vocabulary, but I'm not particularly given to sesquipedalianism. Actually, it's not hard to find a novel with a richer vocabulary than mine, and very readable ones, such as Peace Like a River.

Blue, the protagonist of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, is apparently a genius, hence her propsensity for the occasional (OK, OK, the frequent) size 15 word. She also has a tendency to provide references for all her allusions, some of which are amusing, others helpful. (Oh, so that's what she meant by that metahor.)

This is a good book. It passed The Ellilptical Test, made easier as it is a large hardback, and therefore easier to keep open while I'm sweating the lbs away. I liked the book and would recommend it, but there were a few . . .

Nit-picky things that bugged me:

p. 28. Howie Easton, who went through girls the way a deer hunter in a single day of shooting could go through hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Anybody who has actually been deer hunting knows you don't go through hundreds of rounds of ammunition. If you don't get it with the first shot, you probably won't get the chance for a second. And if you do shoot off hundreds of rounds, you won't get to shoot anything, because no deer will be within miles of you after the first few rounds.

p. 30. You got to put your goods on display, babe. Otherwise, not only will the boys ignore you but - an' trust me on this, my sister's flat as you - we're talkin' the Great Plains of East Texas - no landmarks - one day you'll look down and have no wares at all. What'll you do then? Don't try to tell Mark Cloud about the "Great Plains of East Texas." Anybody who has been to East Texas knows it's choked with forests. That's why it's called the Big Thicket and the Piney Woods. Head west on I-20 and from Tyler, TX to Columbia, SC it's 1,000+ miles of solid trees. Just a glance at this GoogleMaps satellite view tells the story. Great Plains of East Texas my hind foot!

p. ??. illicit vs elicit. I know how things like this can creep into a book. After Welcome to Fred came out, Ray Blackson pointed out that I had reversed Francis Marion's name, calling him Marion Francis. (Oops!) And Merle Bobzien found several typos, including Monkeys instead of Monkees, and rue instead of roux. (And me a good East Texas boy and all, with a Cajun uncle who made shrimp gumbo for Thanksgiving. I'm ashamed.) Even so, I was a little bugged to see this common switcheroo, especially since the protagonist is such a word braniac.

p. 432. He found him on a fantasy island called Paxos, livin' high off the hog. Although you will find a lot of people saying off, the proper saying is living high on the hog.

• Living high off the hog has the word high describing how you are living. You are living high, and you are doing it off a hog. What the heck does that mean? How does a hog enable you to live high?
• Living high on the hog has the world high describing the location on the hog. Specifically, it describes which cuts of meat you're eating, the more expensive cuts higher up on the flank. You're eating the good stuff, living high on the hog.

Yes, picky stuff, but hey, Blue is presented as an intellectual, borderline if not true genius. I can't cut her as much slack as I would another character.

Still, it's a good book. Give it a shot.

Daniel Lanois - The Maker

First up from the "Songs you won't hear on the radio" files:

The Maker by Daniel Lanois

Lanois has a moody, atmospheric sound. I find this song very moving with its themes of alienation, knowing and being known and allusions to the fall. He's produced Grammy winning albums for U2, Dylan, and Emmylou.

The music video

Emmylou cover

Willie/Emmylou/Daniel cover

Dave Matthews cover

Lyrics

Note on the Emmylou cover: About 25 years ago I jammed with the guitar player, Buddy Miller. Somewhere I have a tape of me and The Woman, Buddy and his wife, Julie, trading songs in his living room. With Daniel (Whittington, not Lanois) talking over one of my songs. He was 3, I think.