Month: March 2011

Spooky Little Girl

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

The last thing Lucy needed was to make friends with the bus. Because seriously? Coming back from an awful vacation to find all her possessions on the front lawn, her job gone and her fiance hiding in the house with her beloved dog and having to try and rebuild her life from scratch was bad enough. But getting squished by a bus just might top that in the suck sweepstakes.

So what happens after you make friends with the downtown bus? You end up in ghost school’s Sudden Demise class, learning about the afterlife. And try to figure out why no one but your sister and nephew cared enough to come to your funeral. And get sent back to the land of the living to complete an “assignment” to earn your place in the most awesome part of the afterlife….The State of Elated Bliss.

So Lucy’s back on the lumpy burlap couch in her old house to the delight of her dog Tulip and piecing together what went wrong. Because SOMETHING had to go spectacularly tits up. With the help of her beloved Naunie and her Sudden Demise instructor, Lucy has to manage to avoid the light (apparently the cries of the departed when they see the light? Pain. The light is worse than being trapped on the couch watching a Big Bang Theory or Two and Half Men marathon.)

Spooky Little Girl is a new step for Laurie Notaro. It’s doesn’t have the missing volume of memoirs feel that There’s a (Slight) Chance I Might Being Going to Hell has. Lucy had the usual Notaro qualities of party girl, crazy friends but she’s evolved (Blacklight: “Ummm…Gwen isn’t the Lucy girl dead or something? Can’t evolve if you’re dead!”). You know in your heart of hearts that everything is going to be so much better for Lucy at the end of the novel ten pages in. The only thing I thought would happen didn’t (unless I totally missed something). Spooky Little Girl is Starbucks Mint Brownie or an entire bag of Easter Reeses mini peanut butter cups (ZOMG that sounds so good…scampers off to add mini peanut butter cups to Target shopping list).

But that’s just fine. Sometimes you need a cozy, girlie read that’s like hanging out with your buddies without the gorging on take out Imperial Buffet while you debate whether the Muppets are a) aweome (them) or b) creepy as all crap (me) and then fight over who gets Clive Owen and Alan Rickman as if they’re going to appear in Ames living room right that second. (Answer: me because am the youngest and have the biggest bewbs!).  If I want intellectual things to make me ponder my place in the universe I’ll going to toddle into Blacklight’s lair and yank down one of his Brian Green or M. Kaku books. So if you’re not in the mood for The Theory Of Everything, give Spooky Little Girl a try. Because revenge is much more fun than stupid ole Stephen Hawking any day (cue Blacklight doing the big NOOOOOOOO!!!! in the middle of the pouring rain in the park…)

There’s A (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going To Hell

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This novel is made of win on the title alone. Even after Blacklight peered at book while I was having some Couch Time and asked “Slight? Who are you kidding?”. Now add the subtitle “a novel of sewer pipes, pageant queens and big trouble” and you know I’m going to snatch it up and heaven help Blacklight if he comes out of his lair during Reading Time.

If you’re fan of Laurie (The Idiots Girls ‘ Action-Adventure Club) Notaro, the start of There’s a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell sounds a bit familiar. Quirky Phoenix resident with the cutest ever reclaimed HUD house is packing her things for the Great Northwest because her academic husband has a job. Laurie Maye’s Phoenix is hot, sketchy and surreal. My neighborhood (cue Blacklight snickering at the hood part) isn’t Expensive Acres but I have yet to see a drag queen in full battle gear grilling a huge slab o’bacon at the picnic tables while I’m heading out for work. You can’t exactly blame Maye for being excited and nervous.

Maye and Charlie’s new town Spaulding, Washington is lush, green, quaint and full of do-good typers with Causes. Charlie glides easily into the Spaulding lifestyle but Maye and their dog Mickey seem to run into trouble without even having to leave their yard. Note: the creature racing through the yard ISN’T a certain unverified North American primate but the Bad Man Who Brings Bills aka Mail Man. Also be very careful about the spelling of the book your book club is reading.

Basically Maye in Spaulding society turns out exactly how you’d expect it to. Disaster. If things went easily there wouldn’t be a book right? But there maybe hope. Spaulding has an annual Sewer Pipe Queen contest. But Maye needs a sponsor and an act. And what better sponsor than THE ultimate Sewer Pipe Queen Ruby Spicer?

Will Maye become the Sewer Pipe Queen? Or at least make a friend? Or evade the anti-meat crunchies? Or resist the allure of a fresh box of Hoo Doo donuts?

For Notaro fans There’s a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell takes a little adjustment. You’ll want to call Maye Laurie and Mickey Maeby. And then you’ll start to wonder just how much of Maye’s experiences are ripped from true life. Because read enough Laurie Notaro and Maye’s encounter with the Gothic book club doesn’t seem too odd or random.

But worry not. You don’t have to a card carrying member of the Laurie-verse to enjoy There’s a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell. It does help to be a bit nerdy. And quirky. If you like Pamela Ribon’s books, then head to the N’s in the fiction section. But do give There’s a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell a try. At least give the first 50 pages a try and see if you’re not hooked.

Assassination Vacation

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Like history? NPR nerd? (HEY! How did Blacklight get control of the blog? heeheehee). March right to your local bookstore or library and scoop up some Sarah Vowell. Even if you’re like me and can’t keep the darn presidents straight, history degree be damned. I’d rather have Sarah Vowell riding shotgun giving me random facts as we look for a little remembered historical site than take a Disney cruise any day.

Maybe it’s growing up in New England were you couldn’t drive through the local towns and not come across a “on this spot sign”. Heck, my middle school school was named after the Comte de Rochambeau. And I personally think Houlton, Maine needs a sign stating “this is where John Steinbeck started his epic journey in Travels With Charley“.

So any surprise Assassination Vacation is right up my alley? Part of me really envies Sarah’s twin sister Amy and her nephew Owen for getting to go on some of the adventures with her. And being the child loving but childless nerd I am, how cool is it to hear about a toddler who wants to see “Aunt Sarah’s castle” and “stones” versus being whacked with a Barbie? Because I HAVE been whacked with a Barbie Fairytopia doll (note: six years olds do NOT like it when you refer to that as Drag Queen Barbie) and man that HURTS! So smart three year olds rule. Go Owen Go!

With a rotating group of family and friends, Vowell visits different assassination related sites. Sometimes it means a trip to something grand, like the island fort where Dr Samuel Mudd was held. Other times it’s literally just a sign bolted to a rock or a plaque in a foyer. Along the way, you learn more about Vowell’s family, friends and the impact of the assassinations. And sometimes the briefest fact brings you to the edge of tears. When Blacklight found me on the couch reading with tears in my eyes he muttered something about “hormones” “that time of the month” and “miss moody pants”. But really?

Try learning that the people of Long Branch pushed the wounded President’s Garfield’s train car by hand just to get their beloved president to his cottage. You can’t even get your neighbor to jump your car these days or hold the door for you when you’re more package laden than a Sherpa going to Mount Everest. That’s the kind of tidbit and writing that makes Sarah Vowell a must read.

So even if you’re not an NPR nerd or a historical buff, give Assassination Vacation a read. You’ll never look at a statute in the park or one of those “On this spot” signs the same way again.

Blast From The Past: Personal Effects

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Yup another lovely, trashy novel from my youth. And come to think of it…Personal Effects might have been a Cosmo magazine novel excerpt just like the laughable Palm Beach. But Personal Effects would have been a sure read for my teen self with or without the Helen Gurley Brown seal of approval.

Because Rex Reed writing a Hollywood novel is dynamite. Yes, THAT Rex Reed. The twinkling, boyish handsome critic who starred in Myra Breckinridge.

Now don’t get too excited. Personal Effects follows the tried and true formula of four friends (The Four Fans) who meet at school and their lives intertwine forever and a day. Only the twist is one of the friends is…a boy…and they’re united by not only school but the glamorous red-haired film star Gilda Greenway. Gilda’s a film star who reminds you of turns of Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Linda Darnell and Ginger Rogers. Her trademark is a string of pearls. The Four Fans (chubby neglected May, sexpot Inez, waif Devon and sexy King) become her “children”.

But not to worry, Personal Effects isn’t a ode to maternity. It’s the story of Gilda’s rise from little girl from Back Water to international film star with lovers, drink and scandals aplenty. It’s the Inez/King/Devon triangle (will King give up the oozing sex from every pore Inez for his soul mate Devon?). It’s May managing to push aside her privileged but neglected background to become a top Hollywood agent with a young devoted lover.

And there’s the movies. Oh golly is there the movies. All Rex Reed’s years in the film business have gone into the page. There is the realness that the outsider can’t replicate. So even though at times you roll your eyes over the over the top Inez, want to shake Devon until her teeth rattle and smack King and May upside their heads, Personal Effects is a great read for a snowed in night.

Blast from the Past: The Westing Game

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There are some books as a kid you have as assigned reading. Then there’s the books that everyone seems to be reading. Back in the ancient times when Duran Duran was just trying to break the American market, Ronald Reagan was our lord and master and Dallas ruled the airwaves (aka the early 1980s or Damn I’m Getting OLD) the book jammed in the backpacks of the Thornapple Elementary School fifth grader was Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game.

Sixteen people, all living in or having connections to the luxury Sunset Towers on the shores of Lake Michigan, find out they are heirs to the fabulous Westing Paper Products fortune. But there’s a twist. The sixteen heirs are split up into eight teams each trying to solve the puzzle of who killed the late Sam Westing. Winner gets the $200 million Westing fortune.  Each team has four clues written on pieces of Westing paper towels.

Right away the adventure starts. The teams seem to be made up of people who have little in common with each other. Only one team was sensible enough to take notes about the will. The other seven teams want those notes. And a peek at the other clues. But as the teams try to puzzle out the clues, Sunset Towers becomes rocked by a blizzard that leaves the residents snowbound. And to make matters worse, there is a thief AND a bomber prowling around.

For the youngster (and the adult) Raksin’s sharp writing keeps you on your toes. (One character gives her position/profession as none but another heir thinks she wrote down nun). Things aren’t all Mary Sue and sweet. Heck (SPOILER ALERT!!! ALARM ALARM ALARM SPOILER ALERT) Angela being the bomber comes as a shock even when re-reading The Westing Game as an adult. Another writer would have made the bomber more obvious. The Angela that emerges at the end of The Westing Game has a lot more in common with a Fay Weldon character than your typical children’s book.

Back in my day (cue wavery old lady voice with the implied “Git Off Mah Lawn You Rowdy Youngins’!”) The Westing Game wasn’t required reading. Now it’s bound to be on your average elementary/middle school summer reading list. But remember just because a book is required reading doesn’t mean it isn’t a gem!

 

Blast From The Past: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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Admit it…every time you open a candy bar you’re half hoping you’re going to see a shimmer of gold. Okay that might not be true for my Baby Boomer dad who honestly just wants the chocolate but for Generation X and younger I bet it’s true.

Even “I read Spiderman and sci/fi ONLY when I was little” superior snowflake Blacklight peeks for a Golden Ticket when he unwraps one of my Hershey’s bars he’s “liberated” from the freezer. Because a Golden Ticket is a passport to adventure, wonder and CHOCOLATE…ALL THE CHOCOLATE. Cue my dad perking up and holding his hand out for a chocolate bar.

So any wonder that while curled up sick on Mr Couch recently I shoved aside the stack of trashy classics featuring impossibly beautiful women and their amazing adventures in favor of something different? That’s where Charlie and the Chocolate Factory comes in.

You’re bundled up on Mr Couch, wind whipping fiercely outside and seeping into your apartment because your apartment has the suckiest windows EVER and there’s ANOTHER delay holding up the building wide window replacement and Blacklight is making you chicken soup and asking if you’re EVER going back to work…in a way, you feel a bit of kinship with young Charlie Bucket, living in a tiny two room house riddled with cracks and grandparents and nothing to eat but soup, soup and more soup.

Even though you have almost an entire bag of Hershey’s Kisses in the freezer and more chocolate chip cookies than working brain cells at the moment, you can totally understand the way Charlie savors his yearly chocolate bar. Why can’t a nice boy like Charlie get a Golden Ticket unlike those evil little brats who win? Because really? Veruca Salt needs a Golden Ticket? On what frosted pop tart planet?

So you snuffle and reach for the Klennex when Charlie gets his Golden Ticket thanks to a dollar he found in the street. And when Willy Wonka gives Charlie and Grandpa Joe their own huge silver mugs of fresh waterfall mixed chocolate from the river because Wonka realizes that something isn’t right in their world.

And giggle evilly when Violet swells ups like a balloon. And outright cackle when Veruca meets Willy Wonka’s squirrels (any chance I can borrowify some of them there squirrels for the children next door?).

Thank goodness colds go away. And thanks heavens for Roald Dahl setting down a charming tale that even childhood flashbacks of Gene Wilder singing can’t ruin!

The Bulgari Connection

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Jump in the Way Back machine to 2000/2001. There’s a new Fay Weldon novel out. But instead of the Book World going “ooooo new shiny book good” there’s “whiskey tango sellout”. Why? It’s a classic Weldon tale of husbands and wives with a touch of the different. Grace McNab Salt is out of prison (trying to run down her husband’s mistress) and starting her new life as a single woman. But fate or something else has other ideas. All trails lead to a portrait of Grace’s friend Lady Juliet in a lovely white gown wearing her cherished Egyptian Bulgari necklace….

And there’s the problem. Well to the Book World as least. In exchange for a reported 18,000 pounds, Weldon agreed to mention Bulgari at least twelve times. Thus the sellout allegations. With a lesser author (coughcoughdeankoontzstephenkingpatboothcoughcough) I would run the frosted pop tart the other way.

But Weldon? Interesting…and worth a read. The two Bulgari necklaces, Lady Juliet’s Egyptian masterpiece and Doris’ Roman coins, are compelling. The eternal Egyptian, sought after and cherished. The Roman coins, an empire won and lost. Now add intrigue, new loves, shady business connections and you have a winner.

The Bulgari Connection isn’t the perfect Weldon novel (my vote goes to The Life and Loves of a She-Devil) but it’s good Weldon, something you can re-read and enjoy. Try to get to the last few pages and not be flipping back to reference a comment in the earliest chapters. And as for the reported 18,000 pounds…good on you Fay Weldon git paid girl you git yours!

The Life and Loves of a She-Devil

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There are two types of people when it comes to Fay Weldon. Those who love her and those who hate her for “selling out” with The Bulgari Connection.

I’d rather read a carefully plotted novel of revenge and rebirth with the odd mention of a certain posh jeweler than read the celebrity sponsored Twitter feeds of…ohhhh…Charlie Sheen, Kim K, Lindsey Lohan and the rest of them bishes. Fay Weldon is GOD…okay maybe a better term is….She-Devil!

For those of you old enough to remember the late 1980s, you might remember an awful film starring one Miss Rosanne Barr and a slumming Meryl Streep. Plot? Ugly wife has cute accountant hubby stolen by a famous romance writer. Ugly wife vows vengeance and the cheating hubby and his amour get theirs while our ugly heroine builds a better life. Roseanne had a honking mole on her face.

That piece of tripe with a cutesy Hollywood ending was based an stellar novel by one Fay Weldon.

Now Fay Weldon is a master of the social novel. Her writing is razor sharp and captures the struggle between the sexes. Females aren’t always sisters in the Great War. Men can be used and lead astray.

And there is always that special something to elevate one of her novels beyond the norm. You can pick up a Weldon novel decades after it was first published and it still feels fresh and ground breaking.

The titular she-devil of Weldon’s novel is the plain, six foot two Ruth, mother of Nicola and Andy, wife to handsome accountant Bobbo. Yes, there is a grown-ass man called Bobbo. But it’s England. Here in the USA we have dudes called Bubba. Ruth has always considered herself a good wife.

However Bobbo isn’t the ideal husband (because if he was this wouldn’t be a Fay Weldon novel) leaving Ruth for the dainty, blonde romance writer Mary Fisher and a new life at Mary’s cliffside seaside estate. Ruth has the fate of taking the children, moving to  a council flat and quietly struggling as a single mother looming in her near future.

But Bobbo and Mary’s perfect new life together crumbles. The happy couple is burdened with Nicola and Andy and then Mary’s elderly mother.  Bobbo’s business comes crashing down thanks to a fraud investigation. Mary’s books lose their glitter and her sales plummet. Bobbo goes to jail and Mary Fisher goes from a glamorous blond sprite to an ordinary woman worried by the house, bills and losing her man.

And what’s the force behind all the misfortune? Ruth, spiritually re-born as a She-Devil, who in a series of carefully planned and cunning (am I the only one who heard “cunning” in Blackadder’s voice? Okay…just me then…) moves destroys Bobbo and Mary as she changes her life to suit her new nature.

With each new identity (Vesta Rose, Polly Patch, Molly Wishant, Marlene Hunter) Ruth sheds more of her old self and body until she achieves her ultimate goal: to have everything belonging to Mary Fisher’s right down to her house, lovers, career and very body.

How many Danielle Steel heroines are willing to commit arson, fraud, tax evasion, money laundering and endure medical techniques that have the cutting edge of just in the range of the possible to achieve their ends?

Definitely snap up The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil. And if you ever run across the 1986 BBC adaption with Patricia Hodge and Julie T. Wallace…you are in for a treat!

A Dark-Adapted Eye

~ Wendy-Marie ~ 1 Comment

My mad love of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys aside, I’ve never been a huge mystery fan. However there are exceptions. And I have the BBC to thank for opening my eyes to Barbara Vine. All right, I’ve known who Barbara Vine is for the longest time thanks to years of combing racks at the library and book stores. But getting the book from the shelf to my hand? That’s the hard part. But when you stumble across a BBC production of A Dark-Adapted Eye featuring Helena Bonham Carter how can you not a) plonk yourself on the bed to watch until the bitter end and then b) hunt down the book the show is based on?

Like other Ruth Rendell Barbara Vine penned novels, A Dark-Adapted Eye is a maze of twists that draws you right into the action. You can be on Mr Couch, stuffing your face with Hershey’s Kisses and reading and then you’re deep in the world of 1930s/1940s middle class England. In real life your aunts are on Facebook or watching Nascar but in book land you’re the young Faith, attracted yet repelled by her Aunt Vera and Aunt Eden as unstoppable events lead to tragedy.

The core of book are Vera and Eden. Although she’s married with a child of her own, Vera has devoted her life and time to her younger sister Eden. Eden, who in my head looks like a cross between a 1930s film star and a Mitford sister, seems to be a total Mary Sue. Eden is lovely, tidy, good, loving and caring. What could possibly make her devoted sister Vera stab her to death years later?

One word: Jamie. Each sister claims Jamie, a beautiful little boy, as her own. But is Jamie Vera’s son or Eden’s? There are compelling arguments for both. But the true answer dies with the sister’s. Eden dead on the nursery floor and Vera hung as Eden’s murderer.

Most writers would just consider the Vera/Eden/Jamie story enough. But a Barbara Vine novel is never that simple. Eden is a cipher. Is she the Mary Sue or the schemer? And what of Vera? Is she a pawn in her sister’s game? A unfaithful wife? Has she draw blood before that dark day when her beloved sister lay dead at her feet? What really happened to Vera’s babysitting charge Kathleen Marsh?

Every time I re-read A Dark-Adapted Eye the answers change. Sometimes I put the book down convinced Eden is Jamie’s mother. Other times I’m convinced Vera killed little Kathleen. And every time I’m sure that Vera is really Eden’s mother even though Barbara Vine never brings up that possibility. (It’s a combination of one too many viewings off I  Didn’t I Was Pregnant and the timing of Vera’s major illness with Eden’s birth and Kathleen’s death). An author and a book that makes you think beyond what’s on the page and references true crime in a non-sensational way is a keeper indeed.