The Cue Card

Greetings and happy September! I was away for a while, sailing with my hub on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. We rented a boat and had an enjoyable adventure, sailing during the days and docking overnight at small marinas and islands. I’m still learning quite a bit about sailing, but my husband grew up on it and knows most of the ins and outs. We had some good wind and the area was beautiful and we didn’t have any incidents with the boat or anything so we feel very fortunate that it all worked out quite well.

While onboard I was reading Annie Proulx’s first novel “Postcards” from 1992. It’s not really an easy novel so I’m not sure why I chose it for reading material on the boat, but a friend had given me her copy months ago and told me to read it. So I eventually did, even though I had to push myself a bit in the last 100 pages.

It’s a story that follows the Blood family, who are New England farmers, as they struggle to exist and adapt in the 20th century, from the 1940s through the 1980s. There’s the parents, Jewelle and Mink, the daughter Mernelle, and the sons Dub and Loyal, who turns out to be the main protagonist.

At the beginning, Loyal, the eldest son, is forced to leave the farm when he accidentally kills his lover and hides her within a stone wall. That’s when you get an idea this novel is going to be rather bleak. Loyal doesn’t tell anyone about her death but takes off across the country on a self-imposed exile of solitude and struggle, like he deserved the hardships for his past deed. Over the years, he roves from job to job first in mining, then fossil finding and later trapping, sending back occasional postcards to his family’s farm in Vermont. He’s viewed rather sympathetically in the book despite what he’s done.

Meanwhile, the rest of the family falls in ruins, and eventually loses the farm. The other son Dub and the father spend time in jail for arson, the daughter responds to a lumberman’s ad for a wife, and the mother finds work in a cannery till one day she loses her way driving on a mountain road during a snowstorm.

So all does not go too well for the Bloods. “Postcards” is a different kind of novel, one that follows a family’s struggles during the American 20th century and mixes in postcards at the start of each chapter from the family members to one another and from other characters. The postcards add an interesting dimension to the characters and the times they’re living in. Author Annie Proulx is at her best describing the lives of her gritty characters in farming, mining, hunting, and trapping and the natural world around them. Wow does she seem to know how these people live and breathe. This novel didn’t win the 1993 Pen/Faulkner Award for nothing; she can write.

But the story itself didn’t really consume me, and I didn’t latch on to any of the characters. Towards the end, the book rambles for a while and I had to focus hard to finish it. Proulx seems a brilliant stylist but perhaps her novels such as this one aren’t exactly known for riveting storytelling. They’re known for having quirky, odd characters, yes, in bleak or violent circumstances, but the story not as much. I read her novel “The Shipping News” back in the ‘90s and recall it being filled with quirky characters in dark situations, too.

What do you think? Have you read any of her books before?

It’s good to push oneself reading at times, but now I need something fun and lighter. I’m going to pick up Jonathan Tropper’s novel “This Is Where I Leave You” because the movie is coming out soon and it looks worthy of some laughs. Hopefully the book is good, too. Have you read this one, or do you plan to see the movie?

A lot of people read and raved about Peter Heller’s post-apocalyptic debut novel “The Dog Stars” from 2012. I gave a copy to my Hub who liked it quite a bit. I still plan to read it, but picked up the author’s second novel “The Painter,” wondering if it could be as good.

It’s about a well-known expressionist painter Jim Stegner, 45, who’s trying to piece his life back together after a stint in jail, two divorces and the death of his teenage daughter to a drug dealer. He’s moved from Santa Fe, N.M., to a rural town in Colorado for a fresh start, and appears to be finding solace in the beauty of the wilderness and in fly-fishing. He’s inspired to paint again and finds a model for his art, who’s a fun, smart woman who seems to understand him and get his work. In time, she becomes his girlfriend.

All goes well, until Stegner encounters a man brutally beating a horse. He’s a well-known bad guy who’s a hunting outfitter in the area. Stegner’s violent altercations with him, and then his brother, shatter the peaceful existence of his new-found life. The police are on to Stegner, and so, too, is one of the hunters seeking revenge. Stegner’s on the run, but he’s still painting thought-provoking works fueled by anguish and love. His daughter’s death still hangs over his life. In the end, you’ll be wondering if he’s going to be able to cope without her, and you’ll also wonder if he’ll be arrested for the hunter’s murder, or if he’ll be killed. But you won’t know for sure till the last few pages.

It’s a pretty suspenseful book and I got drawn in by the protagonist’s plight right from the start. He seems a good-hearted, well-intentioned guy who’s made some mistakes and is trying to start anew. Unfortunately he also has some violent tendencies when he runs into bad situations or people, which get him into trouble.

“The Painter’s” plot is compelling and Peter Heller captures the western landscape and fly-fishing beautifully. Painting also plays a big role in the book as Stegner’s mental states take shape on his canvases. For the most part, the depiction of his art throughout it enhances the novel and adds an interesting element. There’s just one point near the end that I felt the painting parts got in the way and were a bit tiresome. It’s when an intense scene with the sheriff confronting Stegner is followed by dozens of pages about Stegner’s next paintings when all you really want to know at that late point is will he be apprehended. It just gets a bit prolonged there.

Otherwise, I really liked Heller’s writing style. “The Painter” has some beautiful descriptions and poignant thoughts on life and love. On top of that it has some intense action scenes, which heighten its suspense. The ending, too, deciding Stegner’s fate, kept me thinking about it for long after. Now I’m really looking forward to reading “The Dog Stars.” After sampling this one, I know it’ll be good. Heller, for sure, is a writer to be watched.

How about you — have you read this novel or author before? And what did you think?

I was at the beach in California for a few days this past week and zoomed through this nonfiction book (pictured below), which proved to be a quick and moving read. “Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival” by Norman Ollestad was published back in 2009, but I didn’t cross paths with it until recently when I saw it on display in a bookstore in Canada. Come on, with a cover like that there was no way I was going to walk away from it, especially since the book has such terrific blurbs about it all over its front and back.

I was ready for an “Into Thin Air”-type of riveting, survival experience, but this is pleasantly something a bit different, a bit more. It’s mainly about a boy, his family, and particularly his father, living on Topanga Beach in California in the 1970s. The father is an adventurous-type of thrill-seeker who pushes his son from the age of three onward into the world of surfing, hockey, and competitive downhill skiing.

The father’s rather crazy thrusting his son into dangerous challenges at such a young age, but he also has a zest for life that’s quite admirable. The son both resents him for involving him in scary activities and looks up to him. But it’s only when a chartered plane they are riding in crashes in the California mountains does the son realize all that his father has taught him. Ultimately it saves the boy’s life, who is just 11 years old at the time of the crash in 1979 and is left to descend the treacherous peak alone after the three others onboard die.

The son (now in his 40s) narrates “Crazy for the Storm,” alternating chapters from what happened in the crash, to his life before that on Topanga Beach with his mom, her boyfriend, and particularly his relationship with his father. In one episode, he and his father take a long road trip, far south into Mexico and get stuck in a remote area. It turns out being both scary after they’re chased by the federales and exhilarating after the son experiences his first ride through the tube of a big wave.

The chapters of the crash itself are mind-blowing that the son got out at all, and sad that the others did not. His escape down a mountain in a blizzard is utterly heroic and the book is hard to put down. Moreover, throughout the memoir you get a feeling for the closeness of the father and son, their complicated relationship and the sports they shared together. It’s so sad that the son is robbed of all this in such a devastating accident at such a young age.

“Crazy for the Storm” captures the exotic life they led in Topanga, the unique bond they shared, and what the author hopes to pass along to his own son from his thrill-seeking father. Both poignant and illuminating, the book is one of the better memoirs that I’ve read in a long while.

What about you — have you read or seen this book? If so, what did you think? Or what memoir has been a favorite of yours?

Who says dogs can’t fly? My yellow Lab, Stella (pictured above), thinks sometimes she can. She likes to get air time when jumping in the water after her ball. While she’s been spending these hot summer days swimming, I’ve been spending them among other things reading “The Silkworm” by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling).

This is my first foray into reading Rowling post-Harry Potter. Instead of her first mystery with private detective Cormoran Strike, “Cuckoo’s Calling,” I went straight to the sequel and wasn’t confused by doing so. “The Silkworm” gives plenty of background on Strike and his handy assistant Robin so I didn’t feel out of the loop without having read “Cuckoo’s Calling,” though I’ll probably go back and read it sometime.

“The Silkworm” lured me, being a murder mystery set within the book publishing industry. Who better than Rowling would have an interesting perspective on that? I was game to see what she had cooked up about it.

The plot’s easy enough to follow. A novelist goes missing who’s just finished his latest manuscript, leading his wife to hire private eye Cormoran Strike to find him. It turns out the manuscript contains poisonous portraits of everyone the novelist (Owen Quine) knows, leading to an array of people who might want want to silence him before it’s to be published. But when Quine is found brutally murdered, the police zero in on his wife, who Strike thinks is innocent. In a race against time, he must find out who really killed him and why.

“The Silkworm” follows a typical murder-mystery arc, but Rowling infuses it with colorful character development. Who can build a cast of characters like she can? Afghanistan war veteran Cormoran Strike makes an intuitive PI, but this time around he’s limping around while trying to solve the case because his knee is injured above his prosthetic leg. His heart and head are a bit of a mess, too, since his longtime girlfriend, Charlotte, is now engaged to somebody else. Meanwhile his assistant Robin is having her own personal problems because her fiance Matthew disapproves of her work with Strike, and yet she wants to become more involved in the investigating and less solely as Strike’s secretary. In the long run both have to overcome their personal dilemmas to make any headway on the case.

The array of suspects in the author’s murder are all pretty slimy. Anyone of them seems like they could have murdered Quine who comes across as an narcissistic jerk. There’s his editor, the alcoholic; his agent, the parasite; his rival (an author who blames him for his wife’s suicide); his mistress who’s an author of fantasy erotica, and a couple of eccentric publishers out only for themselves. Who did it? Well, you won’t know for sure until about the last five pages of the 455-paged book.

“The Silkworm” takes quite a while to get to its conclusion. It’s detailed, lengthy, and not as quick a read as I originally thought it would be. Though Cormoran Strike and Robin are certainly entertaining to follow, I think “The Silkworm” would have been better if it were edited shorter, tauter and even more suspenseful. Moreover the book says Strike’s about 35 years old but to me he came off as older, maybe mid-40s. I also really wanted him to get his bad knee checked because it’s mentioned so many times in the book how he can barely walk that I felt like yelling ‘Please just go see a Doctor! or go to physio.’ But alas, he doesn’t.

I don’t normally read murder-mysteries, but I thought since it was summer it’d make a good back-deck read. For the most part I enjoyed it, especially for the characters and dialogue. The publishing world in “The Silkworm” sure didn’t turn out looking so hot — it definitely exemplified a darker side of people in the book industry, where ambitions in this case ran amok. The plot and conclusion were cleverly done. I guess I just wanted it to get there a bit sooner.

What about you have you read this one? Or any of J.K. Rowling’s books post-Harry Potter? And if so, what did you think?

I’m a big fan of author Tim Winton’s books, having read “Dirt Music” (2001), “The Turning” (2005) and “Breath” (2008), but his new one “Eyrie” tested me a bit and I wasn’t sure if it was ever going to get off the ground.

It’s a story about Tom Keely, 49, a disillusioned environmentalist who lives in a downtrodden high-rise building overlooking the harbor of Fremantle, Australia. He’s divorced and been disgraced in some incident that’s forced him out of his job as spokesman for an activist group. It’s a bit sketchy what’s happened but suffice is to say he used to be on the TV news and was a prominent somebody but now he’s unemployed and his wife is gone. Meanwhile his sister and mother worry about him since Tom spends his days in a drug and alcohol haze, looking back on his life, angry at the world and becoming more broke by the minute. He’s also prone to sleepwalking, feinting spells and often doesn’t remember these episodes.

But eventually Tom runs into a neighbor from his childhood days who incidentally is living in his building. Gemma was the beauty from back then whose Tom’s parents generously gave refuge to, but she’s 44 now and taking care of her six-year-old grandson, Kai, because her druggy daughter is in prison. Tom forms a bond with them, helping Gemma on her work nights by watching Kai who’s a strange, shy, intelligent boy who worries Tom with his dreams about death.

But it’s when Kai’s meth-addicted father starts blackmailing Gemma for money and threatening Kai that things turn dicey. Tom is pressed into action that he hasn’t been capable of in eons. But whether they’ll be safe from the meth-punk, you won’t know till the very end.

“Eyrie” paints a vivid picture of disillusionment and place, the past and the present: the high-rise and the harbor in Fremantle, Tom’s childhood and current unwell state. But the story’s plot doesn’t seem to pick up until after page 200. For awhile, I wasn’t sure anything was going to happen in it. At the beginning it was just Tom going in and out of his apartment, drifting off to sleep, or listening to the building’s noises. I couldn’t take it much longer. So I was thankful for Gemma and Kai’s appearance and the novel’s last 100 pages when things indeed speed up.

Thank goodness. The second half with the meth-blackmailer dad are pretty gripping. Although the characters aren’t that likable, particularly the foul-mouthful Gemma who isn’t very grateful to Tom, I was into it by then and wasn’t sure how or if they’d escape. The ending turned out to be pretty abrupt (I had to read it over a few times), but it seemed real.

Judging from comments on Goodreads etc., other readers were either big fans of “Eyrie” or were really disappointed in it. Funny how that happens, such a wide dichotomy. I’d say I didn’t care much for the first half and liked it more in the second half. But overall, I didn’t think it his best book. From those I’ve read, I liked his books “Breath” and “The Turning” better. I’ll still read whatever he writes next. I haven’t read his 1991 novel “Cloudstreet” yet, which many say is his finest. I’m excited though that Tim Winton’s coming to our town’s book festival in October. Wow, now that’ll be good. I’ll have to get him to sign all my copies of his books.

How about you — have you read this author before or do you plan to?

Thomas Wolfe once wrote that you can’t go home again. I know what he means, but part of me says why the heck not. This week I’ve been back visiting my folks and roots again (see photo above), which I always really enjoy. I grew up in Southern, California, but my adult, married life is in Canada now, a world away. In between, I spent years in Texas, Colorado, Washington state, Virginia and D.C. All these places were great, but there’s so many memories in one’s hometown; is there not? I feel younger, and healthy here, too. What about you — do you still enjoy going back to your hometown? This week I intend to finish Kate Morton’s thick-ish novel “The Forgotten Garden” on the plane back tomorrow as I have no time to waste with piles to read. I read her book for my book club, which we’ll discuss on Tuesday. It’s sort of a light, summer read but quite enjoyable nonetheless as Morton spins an engaging tale about family secrets.

Meanwhile, I picked up two used, nonfiction books on sale here that look devourable. First, the 2010 biography of “Cleopatra” by Stacy Schiff, which I’ve wanted to read since going through a Rome phase sparked off by our trip there last fall. That was followed up by the “Rome” TV series from 2005 and 2007, which we spent the winter watching on DVD. Who doesn’t want to know more about Antony and the mysterious Cleopatra? Yes, count me in.

I also got J.R. Moehringer’s 2005 memoir “The Tender Bar,” which I’ve heard raves about for years. It seems a juicy read. Someone wrote he’s the “best memoirist of his kind since Mary Karr.” Hmm. Is this true? Have you read “The Tender Bar”? I recall Mary Karr’s “The Liars’ Club” being bleak but I’m hoping “The Tender Bar” is sweet and a bit funny, too. We’ll see. Until next time, happy reading.