Pretty Things by Virginie Despentes

(pb; 1998, 2018. Translated the French by Emma Ramadan.)

From the back cover

“Stunning Claudine and gloomy Pauline pretend to be one person so that Claudine can be famous, but just as thing take off, Claudine commits suicide. Pauline hatches a new scheme, taking on her dead sister’s identity, inhabiting her apartment, and reading her emails─slowly realizing the costs of femininity is to dazzle on the outside while rotting on the inside.”

Review

Pretty is my favorite book by Despentes thus far. It is a blunt, character-true and entertaining takedown of how society defines (and suppresses) femininity, identity, sexuality, pop culture and other notions of (un)acceptable behavior─nothing is sacred here, even the truest, kindest and ultimately healing aspects of human nature undergo rigorous and often clever examinations. This fast-moving, trance-inducing novel is excellent, memorable and worth owning, perhaps even worth re-reading a few years from now.

The Money Trap by Lionel White

(hb; 1963)

From the inside flap

“Take an honest police detective─devoted both to his job and his wife.

“Take the fact that his wife has money, likes to living up to it─and doesn’t like living on a policeman’s salary.

“Add to the fact that our honest detective, Joe Baron, has a partner with a much more cynical view of life─and the stage is set for trouble.

“Especially when to that setting is added seemingly the best of opportunities─the chance to get a million dollars from a  man who could not admit to its existence.

“Here, then, in Joe Baron’s own words. . . is the suspenseful  tale of how the lure of money became the trap for an honorable man.”

Review

Money is an excellent, waste-no-words pulp novel, with quick-effectively-sketched characters, heart-pounding intensity and equally masterful pacing. If you enjoy pulp stories, chances are you will deem this worthwhile entertainment─worth owning, this.

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The film version was released on February 2, 1966. Burt Kennedy directed the film. Walter Bernstein wrote the screenplay.

Glenn Ford played Joe Baron. Elke Sommer played Lisa Baron. Rita Hayworth played Rosalie Kenny. Joseph Cotten played Dr. Horace Van Tilden. Ricardo Montalban played Pete Delanos.

Tom Reese played Matthews. James Mitchum played Detectice Wolski. 

Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore

(pb; 1994)

From the back cover

“As a boy, he was Samson Hunts Alone─until a deadly misunderstanding with the law forced him to flee the Crow reservation at age fifteen. Today he is Samuel Hunter, a successful Santa Barbara insurance salesman with a Mercedes, a condo, and a hollow, invented life. Then one day, destiny offers him the dangerous gift of love─in the exquisite form of Calliope Kincaid─and a curse in the unheralded appearance of an ancient god by the name of Coyote. Coyote, the trickster, has arrived to reawaken the mystical storyteller within Sam. . . and to seriously screw up his existence in the process.”

Review

Coyote is a laugh-out-loud and fast-moving, with an anything-could-happen urban-fantasy plot and characters worth empathizing with or hissing at. This is an excellent, not-for-children read, worth owning.

Dead Heat with the Reaper by William E. Wallace

(pb; 2015: two-novella pulp collection)

Overall review

Dead Heat is a masterful collection of East Bay, California stories that are structured along the same idea with two different results, both of them equally engaging, straightforward, pulpy and memorable. Both have protagonists who are tough, older guys who─at their cores─have not sacrificed their finer instincts to the cruel idiocies of the world. One of my favorite reads this year, this is a brief collection worth owning, and re-reading at a later date.

Novellas

“Legacy”: Frank Trask, a gruff and well-liked alcoholic, is dying within ninety days. He spends his remaining time righting a neighborhood wrong, revisiting memories related to his murdered sister, and discovering small, pleasant truths about his life. This is a perfect of blend of waste-no-words tough-guy prose and warm humanity.

“The Creep”: Alan Baldocchi is horribly-scarred war vet living in a ghetto apartment, when he and his pretty downstairs neighbor [Susan Carnes] strike up a friendship. A local thug targets Susan, setting off a terrible, sad and violent chain of events. “Creep” is an ideal counterpart work to “Legacy,” for its equally short, sharp and tone-variable take on the tough guy protecting people from thugs theme.

Vic Valentine: Lounge Lizard for Hire by Will Viharo

(pb; 2018: eighth book in the Vic Valentine series)

From the back cover

“My Voodoo Valentine? Vic Valentine has finally retired from the private eye racket. And since his beautiful, new bi-sexual, black belt-burlesque-dancer bride, Ava Margarita Valentina Valdez Valentine, who may also be a witch or a vampire or both, has a mysterious and possibly nefarious source of seemingly endless wealth, he no longer walks dogs for income, either. Vic is finally living the life of his wildest dreams! Until the Universe sucker-punches him yet again, and it suddenly melts into a noir nightmare. . .

“First a Yakuza hitman from Mrs.Valentine’s past shows up in Seattle with a score to settle. She conjures demons from another dimension to not only protect them, but to spice up their sex life (or hers, anyway). The ghost of Vic’s dead friend Doc Schlock still haunts him, literally. His old pal Ivar the sailor statue starts talking, and walking. And then there’s the doppelganger of a young Vic suddenly popping up here and there around town, setting Vic up for a showdown with his younger self.

“But no matter what happens next, the show must go on.”

Review

Fans of David Lynch, werewolves, Mexican wrestling films, vampires, yakuza flicks, actor Christian Slater and hypersexual violence may find themselves reveling in this surrealistic tale, where one reality swirls into another what-the-FRELL alternate reality, sucking readers further into Vic’s headworlds, imagined or real.

This is an excellent, gory, sexually explicit neo-psychedelic pulp novel, much like its predecessor, Vic Valentine: International Man of Misery, although Lounge ups the crazy what-is-real ante to the triple nth degree. While this works as a standalone story, readers familiar with previous Vic Valentine works (starting with Love Stories Are Too Violent For Me) might enjoy Lounge more, as Viharo spin-cycles through a lot of the characters, elements, storylines and themes that formed the first seven books in this series and other books penned by this distinctive, consistently fascinating author. 

Followed by Vic Valentine: Space Cadet.

The Big Blow by Joe R. Lansdale

(hb; 2000: novella)

From the inside flap

“Galveston, 1900.

“Local fighter, future legend, Jack Johnson versus a professional street fighter brough in to put the black upstart in his place.

“Galveston, 1900.

“Whorehouses, gambling, racial tension, the intersection between myth, history, legend and reality.

“Galveston, 1900.

“The hurricane of the century is coming to destroy it all.”

Review

Lansdale’s stripped-to-the-bone, perverse and violent tale is─for this reader, anyway─a perfect read. Lansdale deftly sketches out his characters’ actions and motivations,  and the results when these characters collide. When Mother Nature, in the form of a hurricane, hits the shore, Blow becomes  a darker, headier brew of the aforementioned bluntly stated elements and characterization. This is one of my all-time favorite books, not for those who require pretty, drawn-out and pleasant stories.

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According to a May 31, 2018 deadline.com article, Reinaldo Marcus Green is preparing to direct the forthcoming film, scripted by Oren Moverman. 

White American Youth by Christian Picciolini

(pb; 2017: memoir)

From the inside flap

“As he stumbled through high school, struggling to find a community among other fans of punk rock music, Christian Picciolini was recruited by a now notorious white-power skinhead leader and encouraged to fight with the movement to ‘protect the white race from extinction.’ Soon, he had become an expert in racial philosophies, a terror who roamed the neighborhood, quick to throw fists. When his mentor was arrested and sentenced to eleven years in prison, sixteen-year-old Picciolini took over the man’s role as the leader of an infamous neo-Nazi skinhead group.

“Seduced by the power he accrued through intimidation, andswept up in the rhetoric he had adopted, Picciolini worked to grow an army of extremists. He used music as a recruitment tool, launching his own propaganda band that performed at white-power rallies around the world. But slowly, as he started a family of his own and a job that for the first time brought him face to face with people of walks of life, he began to recognize the cracks in his hateful ideology. Then a shocking loss at the hands of racial violence changed his life. . . and Picciolini realized too late the full extent of the harm he’d caused.”

Review

Picciolini’s chronicled journey from lonely boy to violent racialist leader to reformed, mature man is engaging, tight and hard to set down─even at its darkest, White is a humane, timely and gripping take on the point of view of a (former) white-power agitator, who escaped his almost-certain destruction before it almost engulfed him. This is an excellent memoir, one of my favorite books read this year.

Children of Nazis by Tania Crasnianski

(hb; 2016. Translated from the French by Molly Grogan.)

From the inside flap

“In 1940, the German sons and daughters of great Nazi dignitaries Himmler, Göring, Hess, Frank, Bormann, Höss, Speer, and Mengele were children of privilege at four, five and ten years old, surrounded by affectionate, all-powerful parents. Although innocent and unaware of what was happening at the time, they eventually discovered the extent of their fathers’ occupations: these men─their fathers, who were capable of loving their children and receiving love in return─were leaders of the Third Reich and would later be convicted as monstrous war criminals. For these children, the German defeat was an earth-shattering source of family rupture, the end of opulence, and the jarring discovery of Hitler’s atrocities.

“How did the offspring of leaders deal with the aftermath of the war and the skeletons that would haunt them forever? Some chose to disown their past. Others did not. Some condemned their fathers; others worshipped them unconditionally to the end. In this. . . book, Tania Crasnianski examines the responsibility of eight descendants of Nazi notables, caught somewhere between stigmatization, worship, and amnesia. By tracing the unique experiences of these children, she probes at the relationship between them and their fathers and examines the idea of how responsibility for the fault is continually borne by the descendants.”

Review

Crasnianski’s short-chapter recountings of what happened to the families of key high-level Nazis in post-war years is deft, tightly edited, near-impossible to set down and easily accessible to (even) casual and squeamish readers─Crasnianski provides enough visual details to allow us to picture what she is saying, but she does not dwell on anything long enough to be gratuitous about it. Saying this is a fun read is too much of a stretch, given its subject matter, but it is a fast-burn and relatively painless one. It is also a book I hope to re-read in the near future, and possibly own.

Calypso by David Sedaris

(hb; 2018: nonfiction)

Overall review

This is an excellent, hilarious, heartfelt and family- and relationship-themed collection of twenty-one essays. The humor and truths of his stories sometimes run a little dark and occasionally political, but there is always an undercurrent of warmth to the work. Calypso is a book worth owning.

A sampling of standout essays

1.)  “Company Man”: Hilarious and heartfelt essay about behaving around house guests, people’s quirks and the joys of family.

2.)  “Now We Are Five”: Sedaris recounts his family’s reactions to his sibling’s suicide, the youngest of six children─heartfelt and wry work.

3.)  “A House Divided”: Continuing the thematic and narrative thread of “Company Man” and “Now We Are Five,” Sedaris writes about a post-Tiffany-suicide family vacation. He details his kin’s further reactions to her unexpected death, his vacation house [the Sea Section] and gratitude for  what he and his family have.

4.)  “Perfect Fit” details Sedaris’s shopaholic trips with his sisters [Amy and Gretchen] and his boyfriend [Hugh] in Japan. There is an underlying and funny theme of family and other warm bonds to this, as well as other works in this collection.

5.)  “Leviathan” talks about hanging out with family, and his father’s changing perspective over  the years.

6.)  “Your English is So Good”:  Sedaris takes note of overused and past-their-expiration-date words and phrases for his fictional American English for Business Travelers. Hilarious, spot-on.

7.)  “Calypso” is about feeding wildlife─specifically a snapping turtle─and a minor surgery, as well as what might bring those two experiences together.

Most of the essays that follow these pieces are just as excellent.

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

(pb; 1961)

From the back cover

“Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty?”

Review

Mother is one of my all-time favorite reads. It is a waste-no-words, fast-paced novel: specifically it is a dark, sly, twisty, hilarious and masterful satire about human nature, love, nationalism and war. Reading this in this current political slash global climate gave Mother a special, timely resonance. This is an excellent, blistering book, one worth owning.

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The resulting film was released stateside on November 1, 1996. Keith Gordon directed the film, from Robert B. Weide’s screenplay.

Nick Nolte played Howard Campbell. Brawley Nolte played Young Howard Campbell. Sheryl Lee played Helga and Resi Noth. Kirsten Dunst played Young Resi Noth.

John Goodman played Major John Wirtanen. David Strathairn played Bernard B. O’Hare. Arye Gross played Dr. Abraham Epstein. Anna Berger played Epstein’s Mother. 

Bernard Behrens played Dr. Lionel Jones. Gerard Parkes played Father Keeley. Frankie Faison played The Black Fuehrer. Author Kurt Vonnegut, billed as Kurt Vonnegut Jr., played Sad Man on Street.

A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut

(hb; 2005: nonfiction)

From the inside flap

“In a volume that is penetrating, introspective, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny, one of the great men of letters of this age–or any age–holds forth on life, art, sex, politics, and the state of America’s soul. From his coming of age in America, to his formative war experiences, to his life as an artist, this is Vonnegut doing what he does best: Being himself. Whimsically illustrated by the author, A Man Without a Country is intimate, tender, and brimming with the scope of Kurt Vonnegut’s passions.”

Review

This is an excellent and wise short collection of essays that touches on the subjects of politics, social interactions, relations with women, war and other timely subjects. It sometimes dark but it is also funny, tender, sad and, on occasion, there is a spark of hope, despite Vonnegut’s admission that he has mostly lost faith in humanity. A provocative, short and burn-through read, this: one worth owning and re-reading, on occasion.

The Cats in Krasinski Square by Karen Hesse and Wendy Watson

(hb; 2004: children’s picture book. Illustrated by Wendy Watson.)

From the back cover

“Newbery medalist Karen Hesse tells a harrowing, true story about life in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII.

“When Karen Hesse came upon a short article about cats out-foxing the Gestapo at the train station in Warsaw during WWII, she couldn't get the story out of her mind. The result is this stirring account of a Jewish girl's involvement in the Resistance. At once terrifying and soulful, this fictional account, borne of meticulous research, is a testament to history and to our passionate will to survive.”

Review

This outstanding children’s picture book manages a rare feat: it deals with a dark, yet strangely inspiring historical event and manages to be child-friendly and entertaining at the same time. Its artwork is eloquent and simple, as spare as the emotionally resonant tale it accompanies. This is excellent, and ─ even for this adult ─ worth re-reading on occasion, for its humanity, grace and superb storytelling.

Just Tell Me When to Cry by Richard Fleischer

(hb; 1993: memoir)

From the back cover

“Richard Fleischer has directed almost fifty films. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Vikings, Compulsion, Doctor Dolittle, The Boston Strangler, Tora!Tora! Tora!, and The New Centurions are only a few of his hits. He first went to Hollywood in 1945 and over the years worked with and for John Wayne, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Robert Mitchum, Rex Harrison, James Mason, Kirk Douglas, Darryl Zanuck, Sidney Poitier, Charlton Heston, Jane Russell, Tony Curtis, Laurence Olivier, Akira Kurosawa, and Orson Welles, among others. Richard Fleischer tells of his forty-five plus years in the ego capital of the world by relating a series of the best stories you'll ever hear (and have never heard before) about legendary personalities and how they behaved (and misbehaved) during the course of making a movie.”

Review

Fleischer’s informative account of his filmic dealings in Hollywood and Europe is entertaining, briskly told, hilarious, troubling (e.g., when he dealt with HUAC) and consistently excellent. His writing is reader-friendly with its succinct (line or two) filmmaking explanations, which do not disrupt Cry’s storytelling. This is a great read with a lot of laughs, especially if you are a fan of old-time Hollywood. It is also one of my favorite reads of 2018, one worth owning.

Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham

(hb; 1956: children’s book. Illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham.)

From the back cover

“This lovable white dog with black spots (or black dog with white spots) has charmed children for fifty years, and we are celebrating with an anniversary edition. This childhood favorite is perfect for reading aloud before going to bed or avoiding a bath.”

Review

This delightful picture book is one of my all-time favorite children’s works, a fun tale about a dog who does not want to be bathed and acts to prevent it from happening. The protagonist and artwork are endearing and entertaining, and the ending is satisfying in its mischievious mini-twist, one worth remembering. Followed by three equally-worthwhile sequels, No Roses for Harry! (1958), Harry and the Lady Next Door (1960) and Harry By the Sea (1965).

The Counselor by Cormac McCarthy

(pb; 2013: screenplay)

From the back cover

"In early 2012 it was announced that Cormac McCarthy had written his first original screenplay - news which provoked huge excitement, a swift deal and the appointment of Ridley Scott to direct. But this is no ordinary screenplay. This is a work of extraordinary imagination which draws on many of the themes of McCarthy's work as well as taking it to new dark places. It is also written with great descriptive passages counteracting the dialogue, so the reader is given the full experience of the McCarthy prose. It is the story of a lawyer, the Counselor, a man who is so seduced by the desire to get rich, to impress his fiancée Laura, that he becomes involved in a drug-smuggling venture that quickly takes him way out of his depth. His contacts in this are the mysterious and probably corrupt Reiner and the seductive Malkina, so exotic her pets of choice are two cheetahs. As the action crosses the Mexican border, things become darker, more violent and more sexually disturbing than the Counselor has ever imagined."


Review

McCarthy’s excellent and word-spare screenplay is not for those who like their reading optimistic and warm. Its characters are distinctly McCarthy-esque ─ often cynical and cruel ─  and their dialogue and actions are appropriately bleak, given the harsh, deadly realities that surround them. This is one of my favorite films of 2013, and reading this further confirmed my love of McCarthy’s stark writing and word-lean crime tales. This is one of the best pieces of writing I have read this year.

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The film, later retitled The Counsellor, was released stateside on October 25, 2013. Ridley Scott directed it.

Michael Fassbender played Counselor. Penelope Cruz played Laura. Cameron Diaz played Malkina. Javier Bardem played Reiner. Brad Pitt played Westray.

Rosie Perez played Ruth. Bruno Ganz played Diamond Dealer. Dean Norris played Buyer. Goran Visnjic played Banker. An uncredited John Leguizamo played Coverall Man Randy. Sam Spruell played Wireman.

The Nightly Disease by Max Booth III

(pb; 2016: Darkfuse edition)

From the back cover

"Sleep is just a myth created by mattress salesmen.

"Isaac, a night auditor of a hotel somewhere in the surreal void of Texas, is sick and tired of his guests. When he clocks in at night, he’s hoping for a nice, quiet eight hours of Netflix-bingeing and occasional masturbation. What he doesn’t want to do is fetch anybody extra towels or dive face-first into somebody’s clogged toilet. And he sure as hell doesn’t want to get involved in some trippy owl conspiracy or dispose of any dead bodies. But hey…that’s life in the hotel business.

"Welcome to The Nightly Disease. Please enjoy your stay."

Review

Disease is a headlong-into-an-often-hilarious nightmare of customer service, predatory owls, unsavory characters and gory f**k-ups that straddles horror, speculative fiction, neo-noir, comedy and other genres with distinctive aplomb. Obviously, this is not a book for those seeking a happy-go-lucky read, or those who are easily queasy. Nightly is one of the best books I have read this year.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson

(hb; 2017: science, nonfiction)

From the inside flap

"What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.

"But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.

"While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe."

Review

Astrophysics is an excellent, wonder-minded scientific work that boils down its subject matter in a way that it is easily understood by those of us who are not scientists, those of who have little practical understanding regarding neutrons, stars, planets and other components of the universe. Tyson, through humor, relatable visual examples and everyday, non-science geek language, gives a sometimes mind-blowing overview of how we may have begun, and how our world, as we currently view it, may end (not necessarily a bad thing) ─ unlike some things and institutions, worthwhile scientists understand that expanding one’s knowledge, even as the universe expands around us, is a worthwhile and necessary pursuit.

That said, Astophysics is not a rush-through read. It is worth taking one’s time, a chapter or a few a day, to allow the scientific and often practical implications to fully take root in one’s awareness.

Most books I read are one-time events ─ I rarely re-read books. This is one of the few exceptions to my once-read rule, a book that I hope to pick up again in the near-ish future, to catch what I may have missed the first time around. For this and other reasons, Astrophysics is worth owning.