Straight Man ***+

***+ Straight Man, Richard Russo, 1997

OK, I know, the plus is cheating, but this is better than three stars, but not quite the stop-everything hold-the-phone level. Pretty close, though.

Russo better watch out or he might replace Robertson Davies as my favorite author, just as Davies shoved Graham Greene to second place back a decade or so ago. Right now Davies maintains the lead because he's a dead white guy. Russo is merely a white guy.

As annoying as it may be to admit it, Snyderman introduced me to Russo. That guy has fairly unerring tastes so far. Like Davies, surely one day he'll fall off the pedestal.

This is the third Russo novel I've read, after Nobody's Fool and The Risk Pool. I haven't read the Pultizer Prize winning Empire Falls, yet, but I watched the Golden Globe winning HBO mini-series with Ed Harris and Helen Hunt, based on the book. I liked them all, but Straight Man is my favorite so far.

The incorrigible smartass William Henry Devereaux, Jr. is both infuriating and irresistable. This novel obliterated the elliptical test. More than once I checked the clock and realized I'd been exercising over an hour. Russo is a master at multi-layered stories buried in character. His recurring theme seems to be conflicted sons of dysfunctional fathers, explored from various angles in various books. He does it well.

Highly recommended.

The Shack *

* The Shack, William P. Young, 2007

It had to happen sometime. Our first one-star review of the year. I knew going in I wouldn't like this book, but I got it as a birthday present with the comment, "I'd like to hear what you think about it." So what choice did I have? I may be a jerk, but I'm not a complete cad. Yet. Give me time. I have a few years left in me. I might make curmudgeon of the year before it's over.

Lots of people love this book. Lots of people read People magazine. I'm not one of them, in either case. I'm not saying there's a correlation, here. Just mentioning some specifics.

Here's my problem with this book. It's a cheesy, schmaltz-laden story wrapped around a lecture on the nature of God.

If I want to read a good story, I want some really good writing. Life is too short to endure mediocre writing. Not everybody is as picky as I am. That's fine. Let them read what they like, and I'll do the same.

If I want to read a book on the nature of God, then I want a book that deals with the subject directly, not a 250-page third-rate parable with an angst-ridden character tossing softball questions to a sagacious character to hit out of the ballpark. Or three sagacious characters, either.

Actually, I got through the Foreword and thought, "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is a good book after all."

The Foreword was the best part.

I didn't subject The Shack to the dreaded elliptical test because I knew it wouldn't stand up and during a workout is no time to be playing around with an unworthy book.

When a book repeatedly refers to The Great Sadness, just like that, in caps and italic, you know you're in trouble. Like caps wasn't enough.

We really want you to get it, reader. It's not a sadness. It's not just the sadness. Or merely the great sadness. It's not even The Great Sadness. Dammit, we're talking about The Great Sadness here! Sit up and pay attention and have a hanky or three handy.

That's not to say that there aren't some good concepts in the book. There are. I truly believe that the world would be a better place if more people embraced the concept of God presented in The Shack. Most of it, anyway. But that's not why I read books.

Your mileage may vary.

Deadline ***

*** Deadline, John Dunning, 1981

The introduction indicates that Dunning wrote this in six weeks and, unlike his other books, sold it immediately without a single rejection. It's not hard to see why. It's a page turner, from start to finish, all 253 pages. Dunning mentions the coincidence of the similarity to the movie Witness, which came out four years later, but it is evidently just that, a coincidence.

Recommended for whodunit fans.

The Elliptical Test

Last year I started reading while working out on a NordicTrack elliptical. Reading while working out really tests the quality of a book. The workout, 40-60 minutes of steady, heart-pumping effort, is unpleasant enough. The book has to engage me to the point that I forget I'm working out. That's a tough standard. I'm not as forgiving of lazy writing when I'm sweating and gasping and looking for something to take me away from it. I keep a stack of books nearby because I am known to toss books that fail the workout test across the room.

Retribution ***

*** Retribution, Stuart Kaminsky, 2002

I twigged to Kaminsky back in the 80s with the Inspector Rostnikov series, the story of a Moscow police inspector who has to tread the delicate dance of Soviet politics to avoid Siberia or worse while solving crimes. Those are three and four star books. I followed the series through the breakup of the USSR and the new politics of mafia and gangs. It's a fascinating, incredibly well-written series, an example of taking the whodunit to the literary level.

So when I saw a Kaminsky novel while digging around through the bargain stacks, I snatched it up. Retribution, the second in the Lew Fonesca series, makes it clear that Kaminsky has not lost his touch.

Last year I started reading while working out on a NordicTrack elliptical. Reading while working out really tests the quality of a book. The workout, 40-60 minutes of steady, heart-pumping effort, is unpleasant enough. The book has to engage me to the point that I forget I'm working out. That's a tough standard. I'm not as forgiving of lazy writing when I'm sweating and gasping and looking for something to take me away from it. I keep a stack of books nearby because I am known to toss books that fail the workout test across the room.

Retribution not only made the workout endurable, it engaged me to the point that I went past the hour without realizing it. Now that's some engaging writing!

Highly recommended.

Embrace Me ***

*** Embrace Me, Lisa Samson, 2008

I always approach a Lisa Samson novel with trepidation. I love so much of her work that with each new book I wonder if she can do it again. How many times can she ring that bell that resonates down to the core? The truth is that no matter how many times a novelist cranks out a sterling piece of work, each new project is a new chance to fail, an opportunity to demonstrate that the well is dry. Staring at the blank first page of a novel is a terrifying prospect, no matter how many you have written or sold.

A while back I listed my top three Lisa Samson picks. Now I must revise my ranking. Embrace Me, the 10th Samson novel I have read, just claimed the top ranking. I'm reluctant to displace The Living End as #1, so perhaps I'll rank Embrace Me as #0.

I won't summarize the plot, as you can find that information anywhere. Instead I'll tell you my impressions.

Lisa never shies from the tough road less taken. She climbs inside the characters and claws her way out to a plot and a theme. Sometimes, as in this case, she climbs inside some bizarre characters, but it just makes the journey that much more interesting.

Lisa's novels are in first person, although sometimes from multiple viewpoints. Heretofore those viewpoints were always female. Embrace Me marks the first foray into a male viewpoint, which she credits Will (her husband) for assisting in refining. I won't say that she totally nails the male perspective, but she's close enough as to make no difference. Mark Andrus may have written in As Good As It Gets that for Jack Nicholson to write women, "I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability." The only fault I'll attribute to Lisa in writing a man is that she may have not gotten shallow enough. Heh.

There are some startling revelations in Embrace Me that, in retrospect, I should have seen coming, but I didn't. This book knocked me out of the saddle more than once. The mercy is that, unlike The Living End, I didn't read it on the bus, so I didn't have to wear cheap sunglasses to preserve my privacy when it moved me.

Recommended reading.

To Say Nothing of the Dog ***

*** To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis, 1997

It's been a long time since I've found myself thinking about the characters in a book when I'm not reading it. That's what happened with this one. This book felt like PG Wodehouse meets Robert Heinlein.

The title is an allusion to a 19th century book, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog). Before I was halfway through, I decided to get a copy of the 1889 book. After I finished, I went to the bookstore but didn't find a copy. However, I bought another book by Connie Willis. That should tell you something about how good she is.

Not surprisingly, To Say Nothing of the Dog was nominated for a Nebula award in 1998 and won the Hugo in 1999. But, before you write this off as a sci-fi time travel novel and give it a miss, which is exactly what I would normally do in that circumstance, let me tell you that it feels nothing like a sci-fi novel, so don't let that scare you off.

Strangely, although it was pretty clear from the cover copy, I somehow failed to realize it was written by a woman until I was 60+ pages in. I was surprised because the voice was remarkably like the dead white guys I'm so fond of reading.

This book has a lot going for it - a great plot, some nice puzzles, a gradual unfolding of the world of the novel and the issues at state, well drawn, memorable characters, and excellent writing. There were a few puzzles the characters seemed a little late to figure out, but even more things I was sure I'd figured out that I turned out to be wrong about.

Highly recommended.

The Best Kind of Books

I am addicted to words. As a kid, I read the dictionary. Seriously. It has shaped my writing and what I love about reading.

I am drawn to writers who are masters at the art of using words. There is nothing quite like a fine bit of writing, that sentence or phrase that seems to express the essence of a thing in a way that is at once fresh and obvious. In a way that makes you wonder why you never thought of it that way, because now that you’ve heard it, you can’t imagine a better way to express it.

Combine that with engaging characters and a nice plot, and you can’t lose.

Most good stories have the four main components of characters, plot, dialog and narrative. All are important, but they occur in varying degrees of presence depending on the type of book. For example, a spy novel might depend more on plot and less on characters. A travel book might rely heavily on narrative and have little or no plot. It may or may not have interesting characters, depending on who’s writing it and why.

Many modern readers are plot junkies. They want to keep the action going and are willing to accept two-dimensional characters that act according to type as long as the plot twists keep coming. A completely unforeseen surprise ending is the acme of this type of book.

For me, a really great book, regardless of type, is built around characters. The plot is simply what they do, the dialog simply what they say, the narrative providing the infrastructure in which they do and say those things.

Do you know any really clever people, fun to be around? It is fascinating how a mundane setting or experience can be transformed by such a person. I find it the same with books. If the characters are riveting, it really doesn’t matter what they do (the plot). If the characters are really well done, it might take you a while to realize there IS no plot! I once read a brilliant paragraph by Nabakov that described a screen door. A screen door, for crying out loud! Which has nothing to do with characters, but I just remembered it so I threw it in.

This is not to say I enjoy reading books about screen doors. I like a good plot as much as the next guy, and clever dialog can be a thing of beauty, even in the presence of formulaic plots, as Damon Runyon and P. G. Wodehouse have demonstrated.

In the end, for me, it comes down to the writing itself. Whisper a well-turned phrase into my ear, and I'll follow you anywhere.

The Holland Suggestions **

** The Holland Suggestions, John Dunning, 1975

It all started when I moved to Denver in 2000. We packed a 26-foot diesel UHaul in Scottsdale and dragged our pitiful car behind it. The one we bought in Phoenix after the previous car died in El Paso on a Sunday evening and we abandoned it and rented a car to get to my new job by Monday morning.

Engaging backstory ensues

On the trip from AZ to CO, we stopped in Winslow, Arizona to take pictures of the statue of Jackson Browne standing on the corner by a mural of a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford. Then, because of my ridiculous insistence on seeing sights from Tony Hillerman novels, we eschewed the easy route across 40 and up 25. Instead, we left 40 at Gallup, slipped over to Window Rock and looked at the window rock and bought some souvenirs, then back over to 491 and up to Shiprock, an amazing sight, over to Four Corners (Stand with each heel and toe in a different state!), and up through Moab to 70.

The hell of this particular route was that instead of a nice easy ride through Albuquerque and Colorado Springs, we drove right through the Rockies, through Vail and Frisco and Silverthorne. With a 26-foot truck that drove like a semi. Pulling a car. It was an education.

The nice part came when H flew in to help me unload the UHaul. We did it in record time, which gave us some time for exploring. H had heard of a place called Edward's Pipe and Tobacco Shop and wanted to check it out. We found it on Broadway and wandered into a time warp. Woodwork everywhere, an excellent bar with stools where a few gents were smoking cigars. H and I bought a few cigars and pulled up a stool to the bar. The owner offered us a free beer. (Couldn't sell them without a liquor license, but it didn't break any laws to give them away.)

Long after the UHaul was unpacked and H had flown away and the house was in working order, I continued to frequent Edward's, especially on Friday afternoons when a BYOB party brought a few dozen aficionados out of the woodwork to sip and smoke and schmooze. Where I met an editor at the Denver Post, who regaled me with many tales of growing up in a Catholic monastery or some such out in the arid high-desert of southwest Colorado.

Somewhere along the way during one of these confabs, I asked the editor if he knew of any authors who write about the Denver area with the same sense of place as Tony Hillerman does about the Four Corners area. He turned me onto Booked to Die and John Dunning. I devoured that novel and the sequel, The Bookman's Wake, and loved every word. They are three star books, at least. And Google informs me that there are other Bookman sequels that I will have to track down. If you are a lover of whodunits, I strongly advise you to check out these books.

Actual book review occurs

However, this review is about The Holland Suggestions, which turns out to be Dunning's first novel. As a first novel, it's a decent bit of work, much better than my early, pre-publication attempts, but far from riveting. As a confirmed reader of dead, white guys, I concede that this novel has much in common with the writings of dead, white guys, only without the good parts. As a bonus (or not) it adds the mid-life crisis introspection, the arm-chair psychoanalysis, and the obligatory casual sex scenes of a 1970s novel.

It seems that after Dunning experienced success with the Bookman series, Pocket Books (Simon and Schuster) republished his earlier stuff, which accounts for the versions of The Holland Suggestions (1975) and Deadline (1981) on my shelf. They include an introduction in which Dunning talks about the circumstances under which the books were written and the writing process, which is very different between the two books. The average reader may find this introduction boring and skip over it, but for me it was the most fascinating part of The Holland Suggestions, and pretty engaging for Deadline, too.

As the rating system indicates, it's not a bad book, but hardly something I would suggest. If you're stranded in a vacation cottage and find it on the shelf, you might give it a whirl. If you like that sort of thing.

Finding Hollywood Nobody ***

*** Finding Hollywood Nobody, Lisa Samson, 2008

Reading a Hollywood Nobody novel is like spending an afternoon with Lisa Samson. That's how it feels.

True confessions time. I've read everything Lisa has published since The Church Ladies (2001), having been turned onto Lisa by Snyderman at our first meeting in a coffee shop in Nashville. Her novels are not exactly what you would expect a reader of dead white guys to be consuming, but I am an eclectic reader, consuming good writing, regardless of the genre, and Lisa is a good writer. So, I find myself reading stuff completely out of my demographic just because. I'm just saying.

I first hooked up with Lisa when we both won the Christy award the same year, me in the First Novel category for Welcome to Fred and her in the Contemporary category for Songbird. (Although The Living End, which came out the same year and was also a finalist, should have won. It is my favorite Lisa novel. The Wunderfool List of top three Lisa novels goes like this: Living End, Straight Up, Club Sandwich. Hollywood Nobody is in a separate category. )

Then a few years back I stopped by Che Samson in Lexington, KY on a winter/spring weekend while on business travel. I spent a pleasant afternoon with Snyderman in Nashville, then drove up to Lexington and got snowed in for two days, hapless guest of the very gracious Samson clan as ice formed on the inside of the windows and Lisa and I sat with our laptops in the warm room and wrote in silence, occasionally exchanging comments as she worked on the beginnings of the Hollywood Nobody project. It was a magical time I will never forget.

So, at this point you're thinking, "This guy, who slept shivering with his clothes on in Gwynnie's princess bed with Little Mermaid purple gauze hanging around because the Boston airport was closed for two days, can't be objective where Lisa's writing is concerned." Wrongo, bucko. I can like the person and not the writing. I do it all the time.

OK, here's the deal: The Hollywood Nobody series is a Young Adult (YA) series. I say, "So what?" It's entertaining stuff. Scotty, the protagonist, is a highly engaging character and once you get her vibe, you're in for the ride and that's it. I devoured the first Hollywood Nobody novel and was highly displeased to have to wait for the second. I pre-ordered it on Amazon, but when it came in my daughter snagged it. I got it back just this week. I read it in two sittings.

The first sitting, I read the first few pages and thought, "Hmm, I'm not getting that Hollywood Nobody vibe. Where's the magic?" The next time I picked it up, I was hooked in a few pages. At 1:30am I thought, "I should go to bed." I actually got to the top of the stairs, turned off the light, and opened the bedroom door to tiptoe into the bedroom to avoid waking The Woman, when I had an epiphany. Or rather, a conversation with Me, Myself and I.

Me: What are you doing?
Myself: Going to bed. It's 1:30 am for crying out loud!
I: Because?
Myself: Well, it's late.
Me: And what's on the schedule tomorrow?
Myself: Uhh. I have to get some work done on the day job.
I: Doing what, exactly?
Myself: Writing a brochure on Fibre Channel over Ethernet.
I: Due when?
Myself: Whenever I decide to finish it.
Me: So, nobody cares if you get up at 8 am or 11 am.
Myself: Well, yeah, pretty much.
I: So, why aren't you finishing that Lisa Samson novel tonight?
Myself: Uhhhhh . . . .
Me: You know you want to.
Myself: Well, duh!

So I went back downstairs and finished the novel around 3 am. When I hit page 152 I freaked out and there was no question of going to bed at that point. I was in for the duration and boy howdie, shoot I reckon! As they say.

Reading a Lisa Samson novel, any of them since 2001, is a treat. (I must confess that, even though in a moment of bonhomie she gave me one, I haven't read the early-days romances and that's probably the best for everyone concerned.) But in the Hollywood Nobody novels I feel that vibe of hanging out with Lisa. And it is a good vibe, folks. I have two actual sisters. They rock each in their own way. But they're not writers. If I had a sister who was a writer, I would want her to be like Lisa. Heck, I'd want her to be Lisa.

I also have a copy of Embrace Me. I haven't started it, and I don't know anything about it. But you'll be hearing about it soon. Heck, I might even start it tonight. It's only 2am. What have I got to do that's so important?