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Finally! Last night I finished reading Stephen King's Lisey's Story. Now "finally" doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. On the contrary there were many aspects about it I truly admired. Lisey, the POV character, was married to a writer of horror books who escaped into another place which was beautiful but, except for one area surrounding a pond, lethally dangerous after dark. Scott, the writer, visited this place during his abusive childhood and, even as an adult, finds himself there. Not a bad story premise at all. Lots of things happen to Lisey in her own life—both its past and its present—and when she visits Scott's place. So why "finally"? Truthfully, Stephen King's books are simply too long for me now. I was a huge fan when his career began. The first I read was 'Salem's Lot. I was hooked and remained so for several years. My enthusiasm faded with the Dark Tower series, and I remember having trouble with the length of a book called It—I think that was its title. It (It?) had scary clowns and a phrase ("You can't be careful on a skateboard," perhaps) that was clever at first but way too overused by the end. I ploughed through another long one that had an evil antique dealer and quit after 100 pages or so one where some characters had balloons floating above their heads. Now after 653 pages of Lisey's Story, I'm swearing off King again. Oh, I may reread 'Salem's Lot and read any book he writes that's under 400 pages and not linked to the Dark Tower, but that makes me sad. His early books gave me lots of pleasure and his love of writing jumps off the now-all-too-many pages, but the truth is there are too many books I want to read to spend over a week with a single Stephen King novel.

So read faster, you might suggest. But with King I can't—and that leads into the other thing in Lisey's Story that blew me away. The man's use of words amazes me. Oh, Pat Conroy has him beat for description, but King can hang an idea on some set of words—even parts of words—like no other writer I've read. Hell. If he wrote poetry, I'd probably read it. And I'm far from a poetry fan. Some examples:*

1) Dialogue. "I would't've." (page 10) Yep, it's what we say—even if Word just underlined it in red—but King is the first writer I've noticed spelling it that way. How observant of him.

2) Scott is to speak at a ceremony marking the start of a library being built. One of the people who invited him says nothing is planned, Scott will have to play it by ear. King remarks, "For Scott Landon, ear was a way of life." (page 40) And how much those six words convey about Scott Landon and, I bet, Stephen King. IMHO.

3) In a hospital's emergency room, a teenage girl enters and announces "that her stepmom was gonna murdalize her." (page 127) Wow! Though King is probably totally unaware of murdalize's effects, to me the word summons up teenage lingo, step relationships and even the laxity of our current education. It's also an example of why I can't/won't slow down with King.

4) "She awoke in the deepest ditch of the night, when the moon is down and the hour is none." (page 135) Nights can have ditches? There's a none o'clock? Why not? If only I had such an imagination.

5) He attributes "Never-NeverLand" to a character because we all know it's really NeverLand—even if some of us only found that out a couple years ago.

6) The delivery of a new sofa surprises Lisey. Scott says they discussed it. Lisey thinks, "She was sure he'd discussed it with her in his head; he just sometimes forgot to vocalize those discussions." (page 190) OMG! I do that. Someone please tell me you do, too.

7) Did any of you know lave was a word? "…lave her face…" (page 439) I didn't—until 3 seconds ago. How 'bout larruping? (page 463)

8) And I've saved the best, IMHO, for last. "It was suddenly half past August." (page 600) And why not? There's half past two. "Half past August" is so much more imaginative than, say, midway through August.

Oh, Mr. King, I don't know if I can give you up.



*of King at his phrasing best, not of poetry that turns me off.

Some authors can make history or political writing come alive, jump off the pages—so to speak. Judging by Friendly Facism, Bertram Gross is not one of those writers.

I was turned off first when I noted that the copyright date of Friendly Fascism was 1980. 1980? Dang, George W. wasn't even on the scene yet. How fascist could things be? Still, dutiful reader that I am, I started the introduction. It had lots of stuff on Reagan that was pretty cool. So I ploughed on into the book, which in the first chapter provided many details about how fascism began in Germany, Italy and Japan. Yawn! But I did notice something that gave me hope. Some previous reader had highlighted passages in green, and another had underlined. I saw an easy way out. I'd read the marked passages and, at least, grasp the major points in the book. Sadly enough, the last green section appeared on page 52, the last underlining on page 72. I figured that was where the previous readers had given up, so I did, too.

this month's book club selection was Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith (Gorky Park), "an Arkady Renko Novel". Renko is a detective who is nominally investigating the mysterious appearance of Stalin in the Moscow subway.

During the course of the investigation he encounters several conspiracies, romances, gets shot in the head, and other "complications."

I am not a big fan of mystery novels, but despite all the Russian names which took a while to track in my mind, it is a readable story. Some of the events were just a bit much to digest, but in all anyone who enjoys the genre will probably like the book.

Martha would not have read even 50 pages of Nevada Barr's "Winter Study." I'm wondering why I did.

O.K. I have reasons. Nevada Barr writes informative books about National Parks.

I was off to a rocky start when I realized that this was a revisit to Isle Royale. Her very first novel had IRNP as its setting.

The foreward of the book is by a very real person, Rolf Peterson, who I believe takes part is a study of wolf patterns. Since Isle Royale is an island, the wolf population was started by a single pair of wolves who crossed an ice bridge when the lake to shore used to freeze over. This hasn't happened in many years so the study of the wolf packs on the island is a closed study.

I who like descriptive passages couldn't take the amount of descriptive passages in this book, yet out of loyalty to the author I trudged on until the last hundred pages. Even the puzzle by then wasn't a great enough pull to draw me to the end. I gave up and read the last chapter which wrapped up everything nice enough for me.

I'll hope my National Park author gets back into her stride and delivers another good book in the future. This one goes to the book sale at Charlotte Drive Library.

Respectfully,

Kathy Albers

I think Russian novels should be required to have a Cast of Characters page--like plays do.

It scares me that I've given up on two books in a row, but that's what has happened. I can't remember where I first heard of Neil Jordan's Shade, but it and I didn't come close to meshing. Now the beginning is great. A woman who is being murdered becomes the narrator of the story. Cool. Then there's a flashback, and it appears the book will cover from when the murderer and murderee first meet to the time of the murder. Maybe that happens, maybe not. I'll never know 'cause I found Jordan's style to be horrendous. Perhaps I should adopt a guideline: If the word "lyrical" appears anywhere is a book's review or description, walk away (so to speak). Immediately. Do not pass go, etc.

At least I'm feeling save about the one I started this morning. It includes the winners in the 2007 Writer's Digest competition. Some of the essays, short stories and selections from plays and YA novels probably won't appeal that much, but—mercifully—they'll all be short.

Been reading a lot of short stuff lately and been tied up with my local theatre volunteer stuff—after August I won't have do to it anymore!—so let's play catch-up reviews.

This year's Writer's Digest Writing Competition Collection was better than expected. Not once did I scream, "OMG, I write better that that!" But I came close. A personal, inspiration essay bothered me because it was so much what TABS (temporally able-bodied people) want to believe about being handicapped. (Come on, Martha. Write what makes people feel good. You still haven't learned that?) Anyway, the screenplay sample was downright good. And I came in 20th in the stage play competition. Doesn't sound all that great, but 100 honorable-mentions are listed, and I have no idea how many entries there were. Besides, I was always a B student. Like Avis, we B's try harder.

I enjoyed August Wilson's Fences. I've seen it once at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and this was at least my second reading. Wilson is the black playwright who has a series of plays, each set in a decade from 1920, I think, through the 90s. Fences is his 1950's entry,. A local theatre group is doing it next year. I'm timid; I'd be leery of the frequent use of the n-word. Sure Wilson is black, but the director is white and, sadly, the vast majority of our local actors and audience members are also. I'll be curious to see what happens.

A thank-you to the person who recommended When the Church Bell Rang Racist by Donald E. Collins. The book describes the Methodist Church's attempt to integrate in the 1950s and 1960s. It centers on events in Alabama and Florida, but my guess is similar problems occurred in other parts of the country—although they were probably not as blatant. The scariest sentence in the book IMHO was "the church officials assigned men to stand guard at the church each Sunday to make certain that no black could enter." (page 104) Won’t it be justice if those officials and guards arrive at the gates of heaven only to find their entrance blocked by people of color? I sure hope that god, whoever he/she may be, has a sense of irony.

Martha - if you ever get a chance to see it, you might be interested in a documentary called "A Time for Burning."

Wiki describes it as

I've seen it, and would like to see it again. The minister in this case was a good guy, but he was up against his congregation.


I finished a novel over the weekend that was not particularly light reading, but I really got involved with the main character from the beginning. Animal's People, by Indra Sinha, is set in a fictional version of Bhopal, 20 years after the chemical spill. 'Animal' is a young man whose spine was bent by the chemical exposure; he goes about on all fours, and claims to be animal rather than human.

The story is not particularly cheerful - although it's funny in spots and certainly has its uplifting scenes - and it's not particularly a page-turner, but I got very involved with the characters - the protesters, the volunteer doctor, the renowned singer whose breath was silenced by the chemicals, who now sings to frogs and birds - all of the characters are damaged in some way by the "Kompani" and the "Amrikans" who owned it, but they all preserve a kind of quiet dignity that I really liked.

It took me a while to get through the book - I was always able to put it down for awhile, but something (probably Animal himself) always drew me back to it.

(Sorry, I made a hash of that. The book was a finalist for the Mann Booker prize. You might check out the reviews on Amazon; for some reason I'm having a hard time describing this book.)

I'm less than 40 pages from the end of Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood Station and I'm stopping. There. What a relief. It has to have been at least 100 pages since I gave a damn about any of the characters or what they were doing.

I had read some Wampaugh decades ago, and this one was blurbed to be a "blisteringly funny police pocedral." So I read it. Now remember that I have police procedral expertise, having during the past 2 years read my way through the 50 plus 87th precinct novels. Surely that's enough background for me to say--loudly and clearly--"Joseph Wampaugh, you may wander about in the arena of police prodedure, but, truth be known, you are no Ed McBain."

So Martha, I can with your permission take out of my "wish list" the book "Hollywood Crows" by Wambaugh?

There is something wrong with the fact that my days on earth are getting shorter and my list of books to read is getting longer. I have to be more discriminating.

Kathy