Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.

Opening sentence to Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I think I can correctly assume that most people know the basic story of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. So instead of doing a more traditional book review, I'm going to talk about a few things that impressed me about the book. If you'd like the basic run-down of the plot go here.

First, I found parts of the book to be genuinely disturbing. There's nothing in it that's outright scary, but there is plenty of narrative tension in Frankenstein and some of the scenes left me unsettled. I didn't expect that to be the case with the novel, which is more more philosophical than any of the movie versions are. Early in his life the creature spends several weeks watching the comings and goings of a poor family. He begins to bond with the family, longing to become a part of it, to end his own isolation. He teaches himself how to speak by observing and mimicking the family. Since the grandfather in the family is blind, the creature first approaches him thinking he, at least, won't run from him on sight. When the father and man of the house returns to find a monster talking to the old man, he attacks the creature immediately. Just when the reader is starting to feel sorry for the creature, he exacts his revenge on the poor family. It's this mixture of emotions that disturbed me.

Frankenstein has something to say to the modern world. Although it's happened to me many times, I'm always surprised when 200-year-old classics hit home. We probably already have the scientific knowledge and technology needed to create a human being. I think it's just a question of when. Mary Shelley's creature is made by man, not by God. The nature of his creation excludes him from human company, forces him into isolation which makes him a monster. If the creature had succeeded in joining the poor family, he would have been happy. But no human family, created by God, will have anything to do with him. Is this a lesson we should learn? Those we exclude from the human family turn into monsters.

The isolation theme runs throughout the lives of the novel's human characters as well. It is, in part, Victor Frankenstein's own social isolation that drives him to create the creature in the first place. The Arctic explorer, whose letters frame the novel, is driven to attempt to reach the north pole again by his own social isolation. He writes to his sister how deeply he longs for a companion to share his enthusiasms, to whom he can unburden his soul. When Victor Frankenstein happens along in a dog sled he thinks his prayers have been answered. Frankenstein, however, is pursuing his creation, and will not remain on the explorers ship longer than it takes to tell his story. Had the two men met before any of this had happened, they may have provided a check on each other's behavior.

Lastly, I was impressed by just how fine a piece of literature Frankenstein is. I expected a mixed bag--some literary aspects in a book valuable for its inventiveness but not exactly first-rate art, something like Bram Stoker's Dracula. Instead, I found a well reasoned, soundly crafted work of late 18th century literature. (Though it was published in 1818, it's really not a 19th century novel.) Mary Shelley's philosophical argument about the nature of man, her understanding about the affects of social isolation, and her way with words make for a book that should get much more respect from academics than it does.

I was impressed.

Happy Halloween!

Dakota's Favorites: The Last Duel

The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jager tells the story of the duel to the death between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris. Le Gris was accused of forcing his way into Carrouges home and raping his wife Marguerite. Carrouges and Marguerite take their search for justice all the way through the medieval legal system until they reach its penultimate level, trial by combat. The mystery around the crime, the legal maneuvering and the duel itself make compelling reading and provide ample opportunity for the author to cover a wide range of medieval history.

There's a lot here to interest history buffs. Eric Jager goes into great detail about how a medieval trial by combat was conducted. It took a long time to end up facing one's accuser in the arena. Le Gris had ample opportunity to walk away a free man. He was officially a clergyman, though also a knight, and could have demanded a trial in the church courts which surely would have vindicated him. However he wanted to prove his innocence to everyone for all to see. Was he innocent? The participants in the trial by combat really believed that God would reveal the truth by granting victory to the innocent party. It's difficult to see why Le Gris would demand trial by combat if he was guilty. Should he lose his reputation would be ruined, he would die of course, and he would be condemned to hell for all eternity. It's equally difficult to see why Carrouges and Marguerite would take their case to trial by combat if there had been no rape. If Carrouges should lose, it would prove that Marguerite had lied which would be punished by immediate burning at the stake. All of this makes for a very suspenseful battle scene at the end of the book.

The pomp and ritual of the trial is also very interesting. Eric Jager explains each step of the process in fascinating detail. The audience for the duel was a large cross section of medieval Parisian society. Everyone wanted to see it since no one could remember the last time a duel had taken place. People lined up to get in well before sunrise. The audience was forbidden to stand once the duel began and forbidden to cheer or speak or make any noise at all. The penalty for standing was the loss of one hand; the penalty for speaking was death. They sat in rapt silence as the duel dragged on throughout the day.

I cannot give any more away without spoiling something so I'll stop there. The Last Duel by Eric Jager has much to offer fans of both history and mystery. It's a 14th century Law and Order that I found harder to put down the more I read. I'm giving it five out of five stars.

Booking Through Book Blurbs.

This week from Booking Through Thursday:

Suggested by Jennysbooks:
Something I’ve been thinking about lately: “What words/phrases in a blurb make a book irresistible? What words/phrases will make you put the book back down immediately?”

I admit that I am under the blurb's spell. I buy at least one book a month; just doing my part to keep my local bookstore in business. I love to browse in bookstores looking at titles and reading blurbs and regularly buy books based on a good blurb. One I recently finished, The Wizard of the Crow, I bought based solely on the blurb. Now that I look at it, it's not that great a blurb:

Commencing in "our times" and set in the fictional "Free Republic of Aburiria," Wizard of the Crow dramatized with corrosive humor and keenness of observation a battle for control of the souls of the Aburirian people. Fashioning the stories of the powerful and the ordinary into a dazzling mosaic, this magnificent novel reveals humanity in all its endlessly surprising complexity.

The blurb also mentions that the author has lived the last twenty years in exile from his native Kenya which grabbed my attention. That may have done it.

One of my all time favorite books is The Theory of War by Joan Brady, which I bought from the remainder table at A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books in San Francisco based entirely on the on the cover flap blurb:

The narrator of this searing novel is the grand-daughter of a slave. Her grandfather, Jonathan Carrick, was a white man. He was sold just after the Civil War to a struggling Kansas tobacco farmer--a common enough practice in those days when black slaves were no longer legal and the children of destitute soldiers were being marketed. You could pick up a white kid cheap, and Jonathan, only four years old, went for fifteen dollars.

To be honest, that blurb shocked me. I had no choice but to buy The Theory of War; I'm glad I did.


Blurbs that turn me away from a book use words and phrases like "empowering," "coming-of-age," "journey of self-discovery," "place in the world," "quirky," "family dynamics." It a blurb makes a book sound like chick-lit or like lad-lit the bookstore loses a sale. If Dave Eggers likes it, forget it. That guy bugs me. If it's all quotes from reviews with no blurb at all, not a chance.

The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

On the evening of the thirteenth of November it was pouring in Stockhom.

Opening sentence of The Laughing Policeman.

Late one rainy night in Stockholm, a gunman boards a double decker bus and kills everyone on board.  He leaves no clues behind.  No hint at his motive or identity.  Just victims.  And questions with no answers.

As soon as Superintendent Martin Beck of the Stockholm Homicide Squad begins his investigation he finds that one of the victims was a member of his own squad.  What was a homicide detective doing on a bus in that neighborhood at that time of night?  Is the murder somehow connected to him?  Was the dead detective, in fact, the killer's target?

The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo is considered a classic of detective fiction, a prime example of the police procedural.  The book's reputation is well deserved.  Sjowall and Wahloo populate their novel with characters that run the gamut of Stockholm society circa 1970.  A multiple murder, the worst on in Stockholm's history, with random victims allows the authors to send their detectives into many  levels of society.  It's surprising who one will find on a bus late at night.  Everyone has a story.

Of course, the investigation eventually takes the reader into Stockholm's underworld.  If you think Scandinavia is a land of clean, well-ordered people, that's not what you'll find in The Laughing Policeman.  The dead detective was using his free time to investigate the murder of a sixteen-year-old Portuguese prostitute.  He hoped to solve this decade old case thereby making is reputation.  Now, his work is the only possible lead Beck has into his own murder.  

The Laughing Policeman satisfies on several levels.  It is expertly plotted.  A crime without any clues is a tough place to start from, but the authors create a plot that remains entirely believable as it becomes more complicated.  The characters are all those one expects to find in a detective novel, but while familiar they are fully fleshed and likable--well, enjoyable if not always likable.  The prose, translated  from the Swedish by Alan Blair is as terse as it should be--to the point, no nonsense, full of dialogue that illustrates the procedure used to solve the crime.  There are no quirky characters in The Laughing Policeman.  If you want a mystery with recipes or funny next door neighbors, look elsewhere.  

The Laughing Policeman gives the reader a glimpse into life in Sweden.  Not the life one will find in a guidebook.  Scandinavia looks like it may soon become the next big thing in literature, detective literature at least.  The other day I saw a counter display of Swedish mysteries at my local bookstore.  I've not read enough of them to say how important The Laughing Policeman is in the world of Scandinavian mystery novels.  I can say that it is an excellent book and a very entertaining read.

Rizzo's War by Lou Manfredo

"The fear enveloped here, and yet, despite it, she found herself oddly detached, being from body, as she ran frantically from the stifling grip of the subway station out into the rainy, darkened street."

Opening to Rizzo's War by Lou Manfredo.

Right from the start I knew Rizzo's War was going to be trouble. "And yet, despite it, she found herslf oddly detached, being from body." Six commas in the first sentence of a detective novel! Six commas and two adverbs! Not a good sign.

Rizzo's War is the story of Joe Rizzo's last year as a detective in Brooklyn, NYC. Along for the ride is up-and-coming Mike McQueen, a young detective favored by the bosses for rescuing the girl in the opening passage. Mike has a lot to learn; Joe has a lot to teach. This is a road fans of detective fiction have been down before, but it's also a road we like traveling. So I was willing to give the book a chance.

Mr. Manfredo takes his time getting things going. Rizzo and McQueen work several small cases before the big one arrives. This does give the reader time to get to know the characters, but it also delays the arrival of the real action. The main case concerns the search for a missing girl, the daughter of a hot-shot district attorney. His daughter is an embarrassment that he'd like kept quiet. He'd also like her safely put in an institution where she can be treated for her bi-polar disorder, but he'd like that kept quite as well. Rizzo and McQueen take the case in spite of their reservations. It's the kind of case that could make McQueen's career if he handles it correctly.

But just what is correctly? Although Rizzo and McQueen are good cops, they skirt the law when they need to. All cops do, according to Rizzo; it can't be helped. His philosophy--"There's no wrong. There's no right. There just is." So a few deals have to be made in order to find the district attorney's daughter. The final report won't mention a few things that it could have mentioned. It's not right. It's not wrong. It just is.

Rizzo's War has more than it's fair share of faults. The veteran cop/new cop character pairing is standard stuff. While Rizzo becomes a fully fledged character, McQueen never does. "There's no right. There's no wrong. There just is," was repeated so often it almost became comical. The supporting cast of characters is right out of central casting: a friendly priest, a manic biker, a tough lady cop. The cases that precede the main one good easily have been cut.

But despite this, oddly enough, maybe even being from body, I enjoyed the book. Once things got going, I became engrossed in the story enough to keep reading. And in the end, I was a satisfied customer. Should Joe Rizzo ever come out of retirement for another detective novel, I might give it a read.

Full disclosure: I received a free advanced reader's copy of Rizzo's War.

Short Story Sunday: "Rapunzel" by Tanith Lee

I've not had much luck with audio-books of late. I subscribed to Audible.com thinking it would give me something to listen to during my commute besides the news. I gave up on The Thirteenth Tale two-thirds of the way through and The Year of the Flood after five hours of listening. Maybe I picked the wrong books; maybe audio books are not for me.

What I do enjoy are podcasts, free, downloadable programs featuring short stories. A podcast episode lasts one or two commutes which is perfect for me. There's a wide range of selections, from NPR's Selected Shorts to stories from The New Yorker, but the most entertaining podcasts I've found feature science fiction and fantasy. Among the best are Escape Pod, Starship Sofa and my favorite Pod Castle.

Earlier this month, Podcastle featured "Rapunzel" by Tanith Lee. I can't say much about the story, without risking a spoiler, but I wanted to feature it here at Short Story Sunday It's a marvelous story.

And I want more people to read it, or to listen to it.

I've mentioned before that I've grown tired of fairy tales retold with a modern twist, but I keep running into wonderful exceptions: last week Angela Carter's "The Company of Wolves"; this week Tanith Lee's "Rapunzel". I don't know if Ms. Lee counts Angela Carter as an influence, but I wouldn't be at all surprised. (Or perhaps Ms. Lee influenced Angela Carter.) Lee's "Rapunzel" is set in a land of princes and kings where people do believe in magic though there is none in the story. Her Rapunzel is a refugee, a survivor of war who bears the scars of that experience. The prince is a soldier, tired of war, who falls in love with a girl he knows his father will never allow him to marry. How he solves this problem is what makes the story so good. I really, really want to tell you, but I can't.

Drat.

You can listen to "Rapunzel" by Tanith Lee over at Podcastle. If you haven't checked out their weekly podcasts already, give them a try. They're always high quality and they're free.


Full disclosure: The photograph of Ms. Lee comes from Craig Laurance Gidney's website.

"What do you think we fought for at Omaha Beach?"

A veteran speaks in favor of marriage equality in Maine.



Vote no on Question 1. You can make a donation here.

Friday Picture Reading #13

Tintype photograph available at J. Cosmas Vintage Photography.

One Question, Mr. Shakespeare....

This week from Booking Through Thursday:

If you could ask your favorite author (alive or dead) one question … who would you ask, and what would the question be?

I shouldn't read other people's responses before writing my own.

Gautami Tripathy asked this question of William Shakepeare:

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets. Some speak of a woman of dark contenance, who was apparantly married and some of the sonnets pertain to a fair young man. I would like to know if they were real individuals and if yes, then who?

I like books with open endings. I like not knowing exactly what is going on or what motivations are. If a book has only one possible interpretation it's not a book I'll enjoy as much as one with some mystery to it. But, I would like to know whom the sonnets were written for. I bet it's a really juicy story. I can't think of a better question. I wish I'd come up with it.

Full disclosure: The picture comes from the LA Times.

Post Secret: Confessions on Life, Death and God by Frank Warren

Is it okay to be a scientist but still have faith?

Opening secret in Post Secret: Confessions on Life, Death and God

I am a big fan of the Post Secret books. That will be my confession, to get that out of the way up front. Several years ago, Frank Warren invited people to create postcard containing a secret they'd like to confess but are afraid to tell anyone about and send them to him. What began as a small art project has grown into a full fledged industry including several books and a website.

I love these books because sometimes a card can tell an entire story in a simple statement. Take for example a card showing a photograph of a young man in a Rolling Stones t-shirt holding up a fish he has caught. A strip of white paper is pasted over the young man's face with these words: "I still wear your shirt." Is this a confession about a lost love, a departed brother, a friendship that ended badly? Whatever the situation, this simple sentence conveys enough emotion to fill a novel.

Or this one-- a collage of three images: an ultra-sound, someone holding up a sign that says "Have Faith" and a faucet knob with the word "fear" on it. The message reads: "I never feared death--until I became a mom." I don't think you have to be a mom to understand this sentiment. John Irving wrote The World According to Garp, a novel many hundreds of page long, in part to explore this very idea. But it's all there in those eight words.

Or this one--a photograph of a bulldog looking up at the camera which is held over his head. The message reads: "I hate my living room couch so I let me dogs pee on it to force my husband into buying a new one." Sounds like a perfect plot for a slightly twisted situation comedy to me.

Or this one--A photograph of a girl sitting on a dock reading a book. Her feet are in the water. What looks like a shark fin is in the water next to her feet. The message reads: "I wish I had been weirder in high school." I hope someday this particular author realized that old age is a second chande to be as weird as you want. As George Burns said about the benefits of growing old, there's no more peer pressure.

Full Disclosure: I received an ARC copy of Post Secret. I'd like to thank the publishers very much and encorage them to send me ARC copies of future Post Secret books.

Mr. Warren was recently on the Today Show talking about his new book. Here's the video.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

Above all mine is a love story.
And like most love stories, this one involves chance, gravity, a dash of head trauma.
It began with a coin toss.

Opening lines to Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin sounds like a great book. The title alone will probably grab more than a few readers--it certainly grabbed me. Naomi loses a coin toss and has to return the prize yearbook staff camera while her friend Will heads home. She falls on the stairs, hits her head, and wakes up with no memory of the past six years. She cannot remember her boyfriend or her first kiss. She cannot remember her parents divorce, her father's fiance or her mother's boyfriend. She doesn't know that she has a younger sister. Her friends strangers; she cannot see what she ever saw in the popular crowd she hangs out with at all. She can't even remember how to drive a car.

All this sounds like a good book.

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac delivers the goods. Naomi is a convincing narrator and a sympathetic character. Reading her story one can't help but wonder what it would be like to be in her shoes. What if you could erase years from your life and start over? Naomi is tempted to create a new persona for herself once she realizes how flawed she used to be. Most young adult novels are at least in part a story of self-discovery, but Naomi's story looks backwards into her past rather than into her future to find herself, which makes for a good read.

There is a new found love interest, a new boy in school who rides with Naomi in the ambulance after her accident and becomes her love interest once she comes back to school and finds her previous boyfriend lacking. The new boy is darkly brooding, has a tragic past, and may appeal to many readers, but I found him tiresome. A girl in Naomi's situation may very likely go after the new "bad boy," but I just wanted to shake her. Honestly. Will, her longtime friend and a terrific guy, is obviously in love with her from the get-go. I cannot say how true-to-life this situation is, but I can say how aggravating I found it. I also felt that by dwelling on this relationship, the book missed it's chance to say something important about identity and how our actions shape who we are.

While Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac never becomes a profound work, it does entertain. If you know a teenage girl who needs an early Christmas present, this book would be a very good choice.

"The Company of Wolves" by Angela Carter -- Short Story Sunday

One Beast and only one howls in the woods by night.

"The Company of Wolves" opening line by Angela Carter.

Long before re-imagining fairy tales became a fantasy sub-genre Angela Carter published her volume of short stories The Bloody Chamber, a collection of fairy tales with her own modern twist. "The Company of Wolves" is Ms. Carter's take on the classic story of Red Riding Hood.

Ms. Carter's stories are not for children. She typically takes the sexuality that is present underneath the children's tale and brings it to the forground where she can fully explore its implications. This is the case with "The Company of Wolves."

The story begins with a collection of wolf lore and anecdotes, presented as true, the sort of thing a disturbed grandmother might tell her granddaughters to keep them on the straight and narrow. In one a jilted witch gets her revenge by turning an entire bridal party into wolves. In another, a woman unwittingly marries a werewolf. This serves to lay the ground for the Red Riding Hood story that follows.

Red Riding Hood is a beautiful girl who has just reached the beginings of her sexuality. Ms. Carter makes it clear what the red cloak represents. The heroine is inexperienced, but she is no innocent. She waits until her father is away before insisting that her mother let her take a basket of food to grandma through a dangerous wood. When she meets a handsome woodsman she only briefly hesitates to take him up on his bet that he can beat her to grandma's house. She then dawdles, determined to lose the bet so she will have to pay the forfiet of a kiss.

In Ms. Carter's version of the story the woodsman is also the wolf, hairy on the inside, so no one will come to the rescue this time. But no one needs to rescue this Red Riding Hood. When confronted with the handsome woodsman/wolf who occupies her grandmother's bed, she does not run. Instead she turns the tables on the wolf by seducing him in order to gain control of him.

Angela Carter's version of Red Riding Hood plays with all of the elements of innocence, sexual desire, and gender that are present in the original tale. She takes them in directions many readers may find uncomfortable, but may also recognize. I'm not sure the result is meant to empower--though this Red Riding Hood is in control of her situation, her situation is still a very dark one. But it is clear that Ms. Carter's herione needs rescuing from nobody.

Dakota's Favorites: Down the Nile--Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney

Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney is an unusual book about an unusual story.

Ms. Mahoney is a dedicated rower, someone who can wax poetic about rowing perhaps a bit too much. She is also a determined dreamer. She dreams of rowing a boat down the Nile river, enchanted by the idea from reading early accounts of trips along the Nile. She is determined enough to fulfill her dream in spite of facing some surprisingly difficult obstacles.

What makes Down the Nile so interesting is that Ms. Mahoney is a clear-eyed observer unafraid to tell it like she sees it. Her portrayal of both the people she meets on her trip and of herself is at times bravely unflattering in it's honesty.
Down the Nile follows the classic formula of an armchair adventure book. It describes in detail the difficult preparations for the trip, it includes detailed summaries of previous travellers who already made the trip--in this case both Florence Nightingale and Gustav Flaubert, and it details the relationships the author forms with the people she meets on her journey. While Down the Nile is formulaic is the strictest sense it is also fascinating, a clear illustration of why the formula works so well. Her accounts of both Nightingale's and Flaubert's trips add interest to her own. What happens to her, while not exactly the stuff of high drama, makes for fascinating reading as well.

The main problem she faces should come as no surprise. She finds it almost impossible for a woman to buy a boat in Egypt and then to row it on her own. This really seems like an obvious truth, but having it explained in detail was a read I found eye-opening. In the end I want to see the Nile both more and less and for this reason I'm giving Down the Nile by Rosemary Mahoney four out of five stars.

This review first ran here in October of 2007. Dakota's favorites is a chance for me to recommend a good read, and to take a day off. If I had a rowboat, I'd be outside rowing right now.

Weeding Books - Booking Through Thursday

This week from Booking Through Thursday:

When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?

Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all? 

And–when you DO weed out books from your collection (assuming that you do) …what do you do with them? Throw them away (gasp)? Donate them to a charity or used bookstore?  SELL them to a used bookstore? Trade them on Paperback Book Swap or some other exchange program?

I used to save all of my books.  Every single one.  Then I moved, and moved, and moved again, and moved again, to a dorm room, to a second dorm room, to a shared flat, to another shared flat, to a third shared flat, to my own apartment, to a shared flat again, in with my boyfriend, into our first house and into our second house.

Now I weed my books regularly.  In fact, I don't keep many books anymore. Lately, I've been taking a stack of books to my book club and passing them along to anyone who's interested.  If I don't get any takers on a particular book, I list it on Paperbackswap.com unless it's an ARC.  I don't sell books anymore.  It's too upsetting, seeing how little they are worth in cold, hard cash.

I only keep a book if it's one that I think I'll use again or read again.  These tend to be how-to books or illustrated books, sometimes a general non-fiction book that I might be able to use in one of my classes.  Out of all the novels I've read this year, I've kept five or six.  I don't collect books anymore.  My shelves are all full.

Last year I weeded out my TBR pile.  It just go so big that I couldn't justify keeping them all around anymore.  Once a book has been in the TBR pile longer than three years, I think one should just admit it's never going to be read and pass it along to someone else.  I made a video about it.  

Full disclosure:  The photograph comes from www.canada.com. 

Interview with Lee Bantle - Author of David Inside Out and Diving for the Moon

Lee Bantle is the author of David Inside Out, reviewed here yesterday, and Diving for the Moon which was reviewed here Monday.

I’d like to start with your first novel Diving for the Moon which is about the friendship between two sixth graders, a boy with HIV and the girl he’s known most of his life. Their families both spend summer vacations at the same lake. Diving for the Moon is about the summer Josh tells Carolina that he is HIV-positive. What drew you to this subject for your first novel? Where did the issue of HIV/AIDS and hemophilia, which is why Josh became HIV-positive, stand in 1995 when Diving for the Moon was published?

I was drawn to write Diving for the Moon because several close friends had died of AIDS and more were struggling with the disease. I wanted to write it to understand my feelings better. Since I was interested in writing for children – not adults – I made the protagonist a 12-year-old hemophiliac rather than a gay man. In 1995, when the book came out, the first medication – AZT – was out and this gave people some hope. But the blood supply was still not safe, so hemophiliacs were at high risk till later in the decade.

There is a gay couple, Bill and Elliot, among the supporting cast of characters in Diving for the Moon which I suspect was pushing the envelope in books for sixth graders in 1995. The first middle school level books I encountered with gay characters were James Howe’s The Misfits and Totally Joe which came out after 2000. Did including Bill and Elliot in Diving for the Moon make finding a publisher more of a challenge in 1995?

Including secondary characters who were gay – Bill and Elliot – did not turn out to be pushing the envelope much. To tell you the truth, no one said a word about it. Not my publisher (Simon & Schuster), not the reviewers, not the children who wrote to me. If there was any novelty, it was that they were secondary rather than main characters. Perhaps having them show up matter-of-factly in the background was a small breakthrough.

Your second novel, David Inside Out is aimed more at high school age readers. (I’m making this judgment based on almost 20 years of buying books for my middle school classroom. I’d love to hear what you think about the intended audience for each.) What brought you to write for an older audience? I imagine there is a different set of challenges and expectations, rules if you will, for each age group.

David Inside Out is intended for sophisticated 13-year-olds (like kids who go to school in Manhattan) and older. The book depicts real, live, honest-to-god sex and raw emotions so it may not be right for younger teens with tender sensibilities.

Writing for teens is much harder than writing for middle schoolers. The emotions are more volatile, getting the language right is more important, and the teen reader brings more skepticism to bear. (I could hear them when I wrote a bad line of dialogue saying: Oh Puh-leeze.)
Although I intended the book for teens, I am finding that grown-ups like it too – especially gay men for whom it’s a “back in the day” experience.

David Inside Out is about a high school junior coming to terms with his sexuality. He begins having sex with Sean, another boy on his track team, early in the novel. I think this is often dangerous ground for authors of Young Adult novels. I know that some libraries and teachers won’t include books that depict sex in their collections at all let alone the very frank depictions of sex that are in David Inside Out. (I was honestly a little surprised by them. It’s been a while since I’ve read a gay themed YA novel that had actual sex in it.) In my opinion the sex in David Inside Out is very true-to-life. I think you’ve pushed the envelope again. Was there ever a question of “not going there” in the writing and editing process of David Inside Out? Did anyone ever say you can’t include that?

The sex in David Inside Out has been a lightning rod – no question. Here, I was pushing the envelope. But to me, it was essential in order to honestly tell the story. I do not know of any other gay-themed YA book that has gone as far in describing the sexual events in a character’s life. But, come on! Teens masturbate and have sex. How do you tell a gay coming out story without saying what gender the boy fantasizes about when he masturbates?

My editor at Henry Holt was great about it. She had no qualms about the sex scenes and thought it was important to the story. In selling the book, Henry Holt lets schools, libraries and bookstores know about the sexual content, but they don’t make a big deal out of it. In making a presentation to a group of booksellers recently I mentioned that the book had sex in it and one woman replied, “Well I hope so!” That’s my favorite reaction so far.

One last question about sex and then I’ll move on. There has been some controversy among book blogs about the scenes between David and Sean in David Inside Out. In one, David takes a drunken Sean home and puts him to bed. Later that night David got into bed next to Sean and “reached down and felt for him, hoping he would respond.” When Sean didn’t, David rolled away, thought about what might have happened and “found relief.” (I admit, this went right by me. I didn’t recognize what “found relief” meant until I read about it online later.) Whether or not this constituted sexual assault was the cause of controversy over at YA Fabulous. You waded into the debate yourself in the comment section a couple of times. Did you hesitate before entering the debate? You mention in one of your comments at YA Fabulous that the controversy had become a subject of conversation at parties you attended. What was that like? Has the controversy changed your mind about the scenes in David Inside Out or about book blogs?

There have been some bloggers who questioned the sex in David Inside Out. A reviewer at YA Fabulous had an intensely negative reaction. I thought that review was unfair so I decided to weigh in. My response really stirred the pot. (I’m planning to use excerpts in my memoirs someday.) I brought the review and my response to the attention of friends and colleagues. This engendered conversations about the different attitudes of gay men and feminist women, about what’s over the line sexually, and about the role of fiction in portraying characters who are less than perfect. It was all fascinating to me, if not always comfortable. The contretemps has not changed my mind about writing (it feeds my soul), bloggers (often thought-provoking) or the sex scenes (hey, it’s real).

In David Inside Out, David and his friend Eddie write fan letters to the authors of romance novels they love. Have you gotten any fan letters? What has the reaction of actual young adults been to David Inside Out? Do you know what your teenage audience is saying about David Inside Out?

I have gotten many responses from readers, teen and older. They come by way of email, my website (www.leebantle.com) and Facebook. No one uses snail mail anymore. The common theme is that the book in some way captured their experience coming to terms with being gay. Some have said that the book helped them push the closet door open. I interviewed lots of people to gather material for the book. Things have changed since my coming out days, and the sense of isolation is not there anymore. But there are still condemnatory messages regularly hurled at teens (for example, Prop 8, the military, the prevalence of “faggot” and “gay” as insults in schools today). Gay teen suicides are still a problem. The journey to self-acceptance can still be a tough one for some teens and I think David Inside Out speaks to those kids.

You day job is pretty impressive. You’re a partner in a law firm dedicated to fighting for civil rights in cases involving gender discrimination, sexual harassment, race discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, age discrimination, defamation, first amendment rights, police brutality and wrongful arrest. Is this one reason why you were so long between novels? Have you been tempted to try your hand at a legal novel like John Grisham? Any of your cases provide you with something you could use in one of your books? What’s next for Lee Bantle the author?

I am a civil rights lawyer by day and writer by night. But that is not why David Inside Out was so long in the making. I gave up on it for years, believing it was fatally flawed and that I was a one-hit wonder. A wonderful friend and author drew me back to the book and acted as script doctor. Now, I am at work on books 3 and 4 and cannot imagine not being a writer.

There is so much good material in my day job – the stories that people come in with, the inherent drama of a trial, the good guys/bad guys dynamic. I have not worked this into a book yet, I guess, because there are always other things that interest me more. Right now, I am finishing The Memoirs of Odell P. Livingston, Grade 6, which is about the search for identity of a biracial boy in the age of Obama.

Because I feature regular posts about the books my dog, a Basset hound named Dakota, eats, I like to end each interview by asking if you’ve ever had a pet with similar appetites. (And I will confess here, that, unfortunately, Dakota did eat David Inside Out. If you’ll look at the sidebar, you’ll see that you are in very good company.)

I am glad that Dakota ate David Inside Out. It would be hurtful if Dakota sniffed it and decided to pass. I am not a dog (or cat) person, but they seem to love me. They lick me when I arrive at the door, sit by my side at parties, climb in bed with me on weekends away, not minding in the least that the love is not mutual. I do, however, adore children of any age. I love talking to them to learn how they see the world. I love writing for them

I'd like to thank Mr. Bantle taking the time to participate in this interview. You can find out more about him and his books at his website http://www.leebantle.com/.

Full Disclosure: Mr. Bantle send me a review copy of David Inside Out. His photograph comes from his website.

David Inside Out by Lee Bantle

Driving along Minnehaha Parkway on my way to see Kick, I felt like Archie going over the Veronica's.

Opening sentence from David Inside Out by Lee Bantle.

The most important person you have to come out to is yourself. Sometimes you are the first person to know; sometimes you are the last.

David Inside Out by Lee Bantle is the story of one boy, David, and the first half of his junior year when he comes to terms with being gay and comes out. But it's also the story of David's long time friend Eddie, who was never really in the closet, and of David's would-be-boyfriend Sean, who cannot come to grips with who he is.

It's not always a pretty story, coming out. There can be unforeseen casualties. Eddie's father will never have the relationship with his son that he wants. Sean's mother may never know how much grief her homophobia she causes her son. (While it's David who calls the 24-hour suicide hot line, it's Sean who really needs to.) When he finally comes out to her, David nearly loses his best friend Kick, the girl who wants more from him than he is able to give.

David takes a long time to come out to himself. He tries not to be gay. Self-administered adversion therapy, a rubber band around his wrist that he can snap whenever he thinks a thought he shouldn't, doesn't work. Forcing himself to become intimate with his girlfriend, Kick, doesn't work either. He has to close his eyes and pretend he's with Sean. Actual intimacy with Sean ought to be all David needs to know that he's gay, but Sean says he's just fooling around, like all guys do. Sean insists he isn't gay. David tries to do the same by rejecting his friend Eddie who is trying to form a gay/straight alliance at their school. Fortunately for David he finds a 24-hour hotline for gay and lesbian youth where a sympathetic counselor tells him about a local gay/lesbian book store. There David finds a world of gay people that he can join.

David Inside Out has been the subject of some controversy. I admit I was a bit shocked by how frank the sex scenes were. While doing research for this post, I stumbled on a discussion over at YA Fabulous that left me wondering if we'd read the same book. It turns out there was at least one sex scene that was so subtly portrayed I missed it altogether. (That happens all too often for me.) There is enough sex in David Inside Out to prevent it becoming a part of a middle school library, but nothing juniors and seniors should be shielded from in my view. I do think the characters portrayed in David Inside Out are realistic and their actions are believable. They do not always do or say what we'd like them to, or what they should, but they are in high school after all. They're not saints. Just a group of teenagers trying to find their way in the world. Sometimes they don't do a very good job.

I don't often find myself wanting a sequel, but I'd like to know what happens to David, Kick and Eddie. I came to like all three of them by the novel's close. I don't think the future holds much promise for Sean, but who knows. Redemption is always a possibility.

And once you've come out, things tend to get easier.

Full disclosure: I received a free copy of David Inside Out from the author whom I will be interviewing here tomorrow. Please stop by again. For a review of Mr. Bantle's earlier novel, Diving for the Moon go here.

Diving for the Moon by Lee Bantle

"I did it," Josh Charkey shouted as his curly, dark hair burst above the waters of Whitefish. "I did eight."

Opening line to Diving for the Moon by Lee Bantle.

One summer at the lake everything changed. For years Carolina Birdsong, known as Bird, has spent her summer vacations at the lake with her family just down the road from her best friend Josh Charkey. The two families spend each summer at  Lake Whitefish; the two friends spend all their time together swimming, fishing, playing practical jokes on their older siblings. An idyllic time, until the summer after sixth grade when Josh tells Carolina that he is HIV positive, the result of contaminated blood products--Josh has hemophilia, a dangerous thing to have in the mid-1990's when the book was published, and before effective blood screening was in place.

AIDS is heavy subject matter for any novel, certainly for one aimed at fifth and sixth grade readers. While events never gets as bleak as they could, Mr. Bantle is not known for shying away from his subject matter. (He is the author of David Inside Out which I'll be reviewing here tomorrow.) Diving for the Moon is a frank depiction of life with HIV; Josh has a very serious bout of ill health during the course of the novel, so serious that it frightens Carolina away from his friendship for a time.

Diving for the Moon is a book with a message, something I normally try to avoid in Young Adult literature. The story of Bird and Josh could have easily become After School Special material. To his credit, Mr. Bantle avoids this fate. There is a little bit of informational lecture aimed at young readers who may not know about disease transmission, but just a little. The social messages are so well worked into the plot that readers who aren't English teachers like I am probably won't notice them at all. Bird's friendship with Josh is more important than any fears she may have about his HIV status or about how other people at school will react when they find out. Bird learns this through the example of her neighbors Bill and Elliot, a gay couple, who've lived together for years and who've known Bird ever since she first started coming to the lake. Bill and Elliot are important minor characters, introduced without fanfare. The fact that they are two men in love is just another bit of information rather than something controversial to worry about. Bird can't understand why anyone would care that they are gay and soon comes to see that that should be her attitude towards Josh's HIV as well.

Tomorrow I will be reviewing Mr. Bantle's new book, David Inside Out. Wednesday will feature an interview with Mr. Bantle. I read Diving for the Moon in preparation for the interview; it's not something I would have picked up otherwise. I'm glad I did. Mr. Bantle would like everyone to know that though Diving for the Moon is ten years old at this point, it is still available on Amazon.com.

Short Story Sunday: "Killer in the Rain" by Raymond Chandler

We were sitting in a room at the Berglund. I was on the side of the bed, and Dravec was in the easy chair. It was my room.

Opening to "Killer in the Rain" by Raymond Chandler.

"Killer in the Rain" by Raymond Chandler was first published in The Black Mask, a pulp magazine featuring detective and crime fiction in 1935. Mr. Chandler has this to say about writing for magazines like The Black Mask:

The emotional basis of the standard detective story was ans had always been that murder will out and justice will be done. Its technical basis was the relative insignificance of everything except the final denouement. What led up to that was more or less passagework. The denouement would justify everything. The technical basis of the Black Mask type of story on the other hand was that the scene outranked the plot, in the sense that a good plot was one which made good scenes. The ideal mystery was one you would read if the end was missing. We who tried to write it had the same point of view as the film makers. When I first went to work in Hollywood a very intelligent producer told me that you couldn't make a successful motion picture from a mystery story, because the whole point was a disclosure that took a few seconds of screen time while the audience was reaching for its hat. He was wrong, but only because he was thinking of the wrong kind of mystery.

From the author's introduction to Trouble is My Business.

Scene over plot. A mystery that you'd read if the ending was missing. Both good ways to look at and judge the stories of Raymond Chandler like "Killer in the Rain."

A down-on-his-luck detective is hired by a wealthy man to get rid of his daughter's boyfriend. A typical job, one the detective could basically phone in. The father is Anton Dravec, former Pittsburgh steelworker who left town, came West and got rich buying up ranch land. The daughter is adopted, sort of. Dravec raised her up and has fallen in love with her. If he can get rid of the boyfriend, maybe he has a chance. The boyfriend is Harold Steiner, small time operator with a penchant for producing dirty pictures. The daughter, Carmen, is what's called man-crazy. She doesn't know it, but she's been the subject of Steiner's photography.

No one in a Raymond Chandler story is a clean as they try to appear. The characters in "Killer in the Rain" start out shady and soon get dirty. As the plot goes from complication to complication the detective is soon in over his head fighting for his own life and reputation. Chandler claims in his introduction that Black Mask stories are not about the denouement, that the reader would enjoy them even if the ending was missing. He's right, but "Killer in the Rain" comes to a conclusion that satisfies none-the-less.

Is it classic Chandler?


There are no "classics" of crime and detection. Not one. Within its frame of reference, which is the only way it should be judged, a classic is a piece of writing which exhausts the possibilities of its form and can hardly be surpassed. No story or novel of mystery has done that yet. Few have come close. Which is one of the principal reasons why otherwise reasonable people continue to assault the citadel.

From the author's introduction, 1950.

Looking backwards from nearly 60 years on, I am going to disagree. "Killer in the Rain" is at least classic Raymond Chandler, if not classic "crime and detection."

If you'd like to participate in Short Story Sunday please feel free to leave a link in a comment below. To see the current state on our on-going project, 1001 Short Stories You Must Read Before You Die go here.

In Memorium

My mother-in-law died last night. C.J. and I were with there along with one of his brothers and his sister. What we thought would be a brief stay in the hospital turned out to be her last one. Things can go that way at age 87. Her death was not unexpected; she'd been declining for several years.

I'll keep two memories of her close to my heart always. She welcomed me into her family's life when I arrived. I wasn't sure how things would go when I moved into the family home 14 years ago. C.J.'s family is a devote Catholic one, unfamiliar territory to this very lapsed Presbyterian with a Baptist background. I sealed the deal the first Christmas I spent with her.

My mother-in-law was a devoted reader of mystery novels. So I bought her six and wrapped each individually. She read only a certain kind of mystery novel: ones with no sex and no swearing, very little violence if any at all, and a devotion to the actual crime rather than to quirky characters. Books like the Jane Austen detective series. (She started to lose her eyesight before the No 1. Ladies books became popular. She loved all six of the books I bought her that Christmas, so much so that I became her book buyer of choice. She trusted me to pick out books even over her own judgement. While I never read that sort of mystery novel, I could always tell by the cover if a book was right for her.

The next year I scoured the local used books stores and gave her a box of 15 mystery novels, each individually wrapped. It became a tradition. One year C.J. and I made the books into a wreath you could hang on the door; one year we built an evidence locker that dispensed one book at a time and that could be refilled when it ran out. Once we moved into our own home we started bringing a book or two over each visit the way other people might bring over a bottle of wine.

The second thing I'll remember is one of the stories she told about her youth. She grew up in Mill Valley, California, back when it was a regular town, not the yuppified place it has become. During World War II she was an ambulance driver. She took the job because she likeed the uniform and new the other girls would be jealous of it. She spent the war delivering flowers to various military functions in the ambulance. Earnest Hemingway she wasn't. But if he'd ever written a decent mystery, she would have read it.



I'll be taking tomorrow's Short Story Sunday off, but I'll be back next week with a couple of book reviews and an interview.

Friday Picture Reading #12

Girl Reading by Oliver Ray.

Night by Elie Wiesel

The called him Moshe the Beadle, as though he had never had a surname in his life.

Opening line to Night by Elie Wiesel

This is not the first time I've read Night. I have two students who are reading it for their book club, one Jewish boy and his best friend. Both are what's known as reluctant readers. They wanted to read Lois Lowry's Number the Stars, which is an excellent book but a little young for two seventh grade boys more interested in girls and World of Warcraft than just about anything else. The Jewish boy read the entirety of Night in two days, which impressed both his mother and his teacher. His best friend has yet to finish the books 108 pages some two weeks later. I read it in one sitting. I don't understand how anyone could put it down.

Night, translated from the French by Stella Rodway, is the true story of Mr. Wiesel's childhood spent under the Nazi occupation and in Auschwitz concentration camp. If this material has become familiar to readers it's largely because of the success of Night. Mr. Wiesel waited over 10 years before writing about his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. His first memoir, And The World Remained Silent, originally a 900 page memoir written in the author's native Yiddish, was published in an abridged form in Buenos Aires as part of a series of memoirs about the war. Mr. Wiesel condensed the longer book into the 127 page La Nuit, published in French after a long search for a publisher. The English translation published in America and did not sell well. It took three years to sell all of the 3,000 copy first printing. Today Mr. Wiesel gets over 100 letters a day, largely from school children, about Night which sells over 300,000 copies annually.

Night documents what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust, but its power comes from the personal story it tells. 15-year-old Eliezar is devoted to his family and to God. Before the war, his life is safe, secure, that of a good-boy who wants to pursue religious studies. His family stays together once the Nazis arrive and turn their community into a ghetto. Above all else, they struggle to remain together, but the men are separated from the women once they arrive at Auchwitz. Eliezar never sees his mother or his younger sister again. (Wiesel's two older sisters survived the war.)

Night becomes the story of father and son each devoted to the other. When Eliezar's father begins a slow deterioration that ends with a reversal of their roles, son must become the provider, a resentful caregiver. As his father's condition worsens and his own life is reduced to the daily struggle for bread, Eliezar begins to lose his faith in God. In this coupling of themes, the loss of faith and the deterioration of the father/son bond, Night becomes much more than a memoir. Many have argued over how to classify Night, as a novel or as an autobiography. Whichever category one finally puts it in, it must be seen as one of the key works of literature from the 20th century. I don't think anyone has told this particular story better than Elie Wiesel has done in Night.

Full disclosure: Information on Elie Wiesel and Night as well as the photo of a young Elie Wiesel come from Wikipedia.org

Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery by Mat Johnson

Between 1889 and 11918, 2522 Negroes were murdered by lunch mobs in America, that we know of.

Opening panel of Incognegro by Mat Johnson

It can be hard to tell who's black in America. This is something our history books tend to downplay when not denying it outright. It's also something that can be used to one's advantagein certain situations.

In the early part of the 20th century, Walter White, the former head of the NAACP went undercover as a white man in the deep south to investigate and report on lynchings. At the risk of his own life, he made multiple trips investigating 41 lynchings and 8 race riots for the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Defender, The Nation and The Crisis. His story is the basis for Mat Johnson's graphic novel Incognegro.

A book like Incognegro serves two purposes. Like all books it can't help escape being an entertainment, but Incognegro is also an education. It certainly works as an entertainmentThe artwork is black and white, film noir style, dramatic and frightful when called for, dry and sophisticated in between times. Mr. Johnson peoples the story with a cast of characters who advance the drama while they illustrate how wide spread and ingrained the problem of lynching was in early 20th century America.

Warren Pleece's artwork calls the concept of race into question as the novel progresses. The hero is a black man who can pass for white. His companion is in the same position. As they appear in the same panel as white characters it soon begins to dawn on the reader just how difficult it is to tell who is black and who is white. Many of the supporting white character at the close of the book look just like the supporting black characters in the opening pages. In the end we can't help but begin to wonder why we are asking who's black and who's white in the first place. What difference should it make? Why does anyone care?

Full disclosure: The photograph of Walter White comes from the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Short Story Sunday: "The Short Happy Life of Francis Mawcomber" by Ernest Hemingway

It was now lunch time and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened.

Opening line from "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"

"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" is considered one of Hemingway's best short stories; it certainly has all of the classic Hemingway elements. The hero, Macomber, is a wealthy American on safari in Africa. He has failed the ultimate test of his own manhood before the story opens by running away from the lion he has wounded and must kill. His guide, Robert Wilson, is a exceptional hunter, a true mans' man who offers Macomber cover by first killing the lion himself and then by giving the wealthy American credit for the kill.

"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" is not just a story about hunting. Macomber has brought his wife along. One gets the sense that Margot and Francis each married the other based on looks. Margot was once a beautiful woman; Francis was probably once a handsome man. Their marriage has not aged well. Margot openly mocks Francis and later slips into bed with their guide Wilson. She is sure Francis will never leave her, he is sure that she will never leave him. Each believes it is too late to find another, so they'll stick things out.

After his humiliation with the lion and after he finds out that his wife has slept with Wilson, Macomber continues to hunt, going through the list of game everyone goes through on safari in East Africa. He regains a sense of worth by a later show of courage and decides that he will leave Margot. She doesn't believe he'll have the strength of character to do it and insists on going hunting with Macomber and Wilson the following day.

Does Francis Macomber die in a hunting accident or is he murdered by his soon-to-be-ex-wife? Can we read this story as an attack on the emptiness of marriage or as an attack on women? Francis Macomber's short happy life is essentially the single day he spends hunting in the knowledge that he'll soon be leaving Margot. Or can we read this story as a defense of a woman taking matters into her own hands to preserve her livelihood and position in the only way possible? Margot has much to lose if the divorce goes through. And where is the author in this story. Is he Macomber? Is he Wilson?

The best of Hemingway's short stories, and this is one of them, deal with the attempt of one man to stay true in the face of compromise. Francis Macomber has been compromised his entire life, so has Margot. It's only after Francis has been exposed as a coward that he can find redemption, find something he can be true to. The price he pays is very high.

If you've read a short story lately and would like to participate in Short Story Sunday please use Mr. Linky or leave a comment below. I'm still working on the list of 1001 Short Stories You Must Read Before You Die. If you'd like to see the list or contribute to it go here.

Full Disclosure: I found the photo of Ernest Hemingway at The B.S. Report.

Dakota's Favorites: The Good Mother

If you haven't read Sue Miller yet, you really should. As contemporary American author's go, she's one of the best. She offers an insight into what it is to be alive at this moment in time that few others can. This review first ran here in 2007.


Sue Miller wrote one of my favorite books from last year's reading, While I Was Gone. I'm also a fan of her novel Lost in the Forest. Sue Miller is simply one of the bravest writers around today, much braver than most men. She is willing to tackle themes most authors would shy away from, and when she does, she doesn't go for easy answers. By making the extraordinary look everyday and by bringing hot button issues that usually have clear cut answers into a gray area, Sue Miller forces the reader to take a good hard look at our common assumptions about the right way to behave in a given situation.

That is definitely the case in The Good Mother. Here Sue Miller tells the story of Anna Dunlap who has left her husband and is raising her young daughter on her own. The Anna is finding herself and her sexuality which is not uncommon in this sort of narrative. However, Sue Miller takes us down a very difficult path, difficult for Anna and for the reader. After some time on her own, Anna finds a new love who opens her world up to the possibilities of profound love and really good sex. The kind of release she never dreamed possible with her husband.

The two of them create an idyllic world, free of the inhibitions of Anna's marriage, new and exciting. Enter the daughter, enter trouble in paradise. Towards the end of a father/daughter weekend Anna gets a call from her ex-husband telling her that her new lover has sexually abused their daughter and that she won't be coming home again. The father is suing for custody.
This reader was not as surprised by this as Anna was. (I'm not sure how the fact that I could see this coming reflects on the overall quality of the novel. I don't think Anna is an entirely reliable narrator.) There is one scene in the book where mom and the boyfriend clearly cross the line, and we hear about a second scene where the boyfriend goes to far, but in each case, I have to admit, it may be that I'm more shocked by the events than the events warrant. Maybe what happened is really okay, innocent like the mother says it was. Maybe these are things that happen much more often that we thought. Maybe they really were just a mistake, not sexual abuse.

That is what makes Sue Miller such a brave writer and books like The Good Mother such compelling reading. There are no easy answers in a Sue Miller novel. We want easy answers in situations like the ones we find in The Good Mother. We want a clear-cut bad guy to focus our anger on. But things are much more complicated than that in The Good Mother, much more complicated, much more troubling and much more interesting as a result.

I found The Good Mother to be compelling reading most of the time, but not all of the time. There are a few sections in the beginning that really go on too long. Therefore, I'm giving The Good Mother by Sue Miller four out of five stars.

Pants on Fire!

Today from Booking Through Thursday:


Two-thirds of Brits have lied about reading books they haven’t. Have you? Why? What book?

In Zelig, Woody Allen's documentary style comedy about a human chameleon, the title character first changes his shape and personalty when he is asked what he thinks of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Zelig has not read Moby Dick but desperately wants to fit in with the group. So he lies, bluffs his way through the conversation, and becomes a human chameleon who changes his appearance to match that of those around him.

Probably the last time I lied about having read a book was in high school. I bluffed my way through Pride and Prejudice with the help of my best friend Brian who let me copy off of his tests. I know. I'm ashamed. In college, my English professors assumed that the students would not read at least one book on the course syllabus so there was no need to lie about it. (Most of my course work was in 19th century literature.....we're talking 800 page novels, 400 pages a week.)

I've been an honest man ever since.

Full Disclosure: I found the still from Zelig at Film Babble Blog.