Trouble in Queenstown

Trouble in Queenstown by Delia Pitts, 314 pages

Private investigator Vandy Myrick has been back in Queenstown for about 8 months when she gets a visit from Leo Hannah, who asks her to shadow his wife, Ivy, who he fears has a stalker. But just before Vandy's ready to hand over her report from the week, Leo calls her to his home where Ivy and an unknown man are dead. Leo says that he killed the man who was in the process of killing Ivy, and while that's what the police department officially writes up (at the behest of Leo's aunt, who is the mayor of Queenstown), Vandy has a sneaking suspicion that there's more to the story.

A modern-day noir mystery with a troubled Black woman protagonist, this is an intriguing and fun read. I had a few quibbles with the way things wrapped up — it felt a bit unlikely and convenient — but I'll happily read more in this world, assuming this is a series starter. I hope it is.

On Turpentine Lane

On Turpentine Lane by Elinor Lipman (2017) 305 pages

Faith Frankel is thirty two. She's returned to her hometown after time in NY and now works for a private school, writing thank you notes to donors. Her fiance, Stuart, is attempting to cross the country on foot, financed by her and by his parents, but he spends more time posting photos with himself and women he meets, than returning Faith's calls. In addition to dealing with Stuart, she is trying to buy a house that may have a history of people dying in it, is trying to intercede between her parents (her father has moved away to become an oil painter), and she is trying to save her job, which is suddenly in jeopardy because she is so good at it. Luckily, her brother Joel and her office mate, Nick, are there to listen.

All these rather separate issues take on life. Even the stable guys in Faith's life have their own drama. As the camera rolls, all the action keeps the reader laughing (or catching one's breath). Most of Lipman's books are the kind I reach for when I want a fast, fun escape. This one fit the bill.

Leaving Time

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult (2014) 405 pages

Jenna Metcalf, 13, has lived with her grandmother since she was three, when her mother disappeared from the elephant sanctuary that her parents ran after a dead body was found. Her father had a breakdown and has been living in a mental facility all these years. Jenna has never fit in anywhere, and spends her life reading her mother's journals, while keeping her eye on missing persons reports online, hoping that her mother is still alive and will be found someday.

After earning enough money babysitting, she reaches out to a detective (Vic Stanhope) whose name strongly resembles the name of the police investigator who came to the elephant sanctuary the night of the murder/disappearance. He spends most of his time drinking now. Not one to hedge her bets, Jenna also finds the name of a psychic (Serenity Jones) who used to be famous for finding missing people until she provided dramatically bad information for a senator and his wife, whose baby had been kidnapped. Serenity now makes a living giving ten-dollar readings. The three of them begin to work together, after several fits and starts. The pieces begin to come together in chapters delineated by the various characters' points of view. The results were not at all what I was expecting. Tremendously good read. And fascinating facts about elephants provide a superb framework for the story.

The Echo of Old Books

The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis 433 pp.

Ashlyn Greer owns a rare book shop and has the ability to sense the previous owners of books. When she receives some boxes of books from a local estate she finds two beautifully bound volumes that apparently were not published. The books are the story of a doomed romance during the days leading up to WWII. Belle is the younger daughter of a wealthy family who is in an arranged engagement to a wealthy young man whose father wants to do business with her father. Belle's father is an evil man who is part of the America First Committee, an anti-Semitic, pro-fascist, isolationist organization. At the engagement party Belle meets Hemi, a British journalist, and they soon begin a clandestine affair. The two books are written by each of them, giving their own side of what went wrong. Ashlyn contacts the man who brought the books to her store and together they search for the real identities of Belle and Hemi in his family. The story is well written but I was hoping to see more of Ashlyn's telemetry skills used in the story.

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler, 419 pages

For reasons unknown, Davi is stuck in a time loop wherein she is tasked with defending humankind against the Dark Lord, and after more than 200 unsuccessful tries (read: she literally died trying), Davi has had enough. On try 238, she decides to become the Dark Lord instead of fighting him/her/them, and while it takes her a few short lives to get the hang of it, Davi learns that she has a knack for leading a horde of orcs and other wild beings.

This is a fun, raunchy, irreverent fantasy novel, full of pop culture references and snarky humor. It may throw off those new to the genre (as there isn't really a great explanation for the Earth-centric pop culture references other than Davi musing that she "must've come from Earth at some point"), but for others, this is will be a welcome goofy adventure. Read it if you liked Dreadful, Soon I Will Be Invincible, Hench, or other novels with a fantasy antihero. 

Fantastic Mr. Fox

 Fantastic Mr. Fox, by Roald Dahl, 81 pgs                                                                                                                                                  

My daughter is reading Roald Dahl books and is loving them so much that she's demanding that I read them too. So here we are! I brought Matilda home for her to read and she loved it so much, she said it was one of the best books she's ever read. I miss reading the illustrated kids books now, since she's getting older but I'm learning to love some of the chapter books she's reading. 

    I've never actually read any of Dahl's books but this was a great one to start with. Mr. Fox outwits three mean, ugly farmers and saves not only his wife and family but the families of other animals living underground in the hill. I loved that he gets his tail shot off--so violent. They don't put violence in kids stories like they used to. Just when you think the three mean farmers will capture Mr. Fox, he comes up with an even better plan to rob the farmers of all of their supplies. This is an easy read and the illustrations by Quentin Blake are fun and whimsical. 

Nightwood

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes (1936) 182 pages

I listened to the audiobook on Hoopla narrated by Gemma Dawson. The Atlantic published a list of The Great American Novels earlier this year. There was a lot more diversity amongst the authors on this list compared to others I've seen, so I added several books to my reading list. I had also recently seen a review of a graphic biography about Djuna Barnes that will be published later this year. I jumped into this novel, which is Modernist, without knowing much about the Modernist movement. T.S. Eliot wrote an introduction praising the novel as an example of this artistic movement. He suggested that people who like poetry would appreciate her use of language. It certainly is florid in its literary stream-of-consciousness. Eliot also prepared me not to expect much plot, but I really like a strong plot. Audiobooks are "real" reading, but it is more passive. By the end, I had forgotten how the two characters, who converse about a woman's love for another woman, connect to the characters introduced at the beginning. I struggled to fully understand this book. It was not for me.
 

A Scout is Brave

A Scout is Brave by Will Lugwigsen, 158 pgs. 

This is a quirky, coming-of-age book about a young, 1960's-era boy scout, Bud, who moves to a strange New England coastal town with his family and stumbles upon a cult of townsfolk who are intent on releasing ancient sea creatures to enslave humanity. 

The story reminds me of other short stories by Bradbury or Stephen King, with a dash of Lovecraft just for good measure--to wit, the name of the seaside town is Innsmouth! 

Bud makes friends with the only other boy in town and they decide to start their own scout troop, but as they start exploring the dark secrets of the area, the residents' nefarious plot rises to the surface and Bud has to figure out a way to save his parents and himself. 

DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE

 Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska by Warren Zanes, 298 pgs. 

The story of how this seminal work came to be is one for the ages. Fresh off The River tour in 1981, which garnered his first top ten hit for the song "Hungry Heart," Springsteen had a slew of new material to work out for his next record. He wasn't quite sure what it was going to sound like, but he knew he had something he wanted to say. 

At the time, he was working his way through a deep depression, reviewing the trauma of his childhood and taking interest in stories about the darker side of Reagan's America, who had been newly elected President in 1981. Nebraska would become Springsteen's response to Reagan's optimist "Morning in America" messaging. The rocker took some cultural clues and blended them with his own influences: chiefly, the film Badlands by Terrence Malick and the short stories of Flannery O'Conner. 

To record his demos, Springsteen rented an hold farmhouse in New Jersey and set-up a new TEAC 144 Portastudio--the first portable, multi-track mixer to use a standard cassette tape. Springsteen recorded his songs alone and sent the tape to his manager. The songs were dark, far darker than anything the artist had written at the time. When Springsteen got the band together to record the new material, the sound wasn't working--"nothing seemed to capture the spirit of the cassette recordings." 

The artist tried to re-record them solo, in a nice studio with good equipment, but even then, the characters in the songs were getting lost. It wasn't until his manager suggested that, maybe he should just release the demo tape as is. Then the book pivots to the struggle to get the best possible sound signal from the cassette tape onto the vinyl record, which was another major headache and almost never happened. Ultimately, the critically acclaimed Nebraska would become one of Springsteen's most revered albums and cement his legacy as a true artist--to this day, he still cites it as the best thing he's ever done. 

Viewfinder

Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen by Jon M. Chu (2024) 304 pages

I've seen the movies Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights that were directed by Jon M. Chu. And I'm very excited for the musical film of Wicked, the first part of which will be released this year with the second part next year. Jon is now in his 40s and the memoir covers his life so far with clear introspective eyes. He grew up in Silicon Valley with his parents running a local Chinese restaurant. He got into being an entertainer and maker of videos in his teen years. He studied film at USC. He talks a lot about his heroes Spielberg and Steve Jobs and the relationship between tech in Silicon Valley with Hollywood's long history. Straight out of college he has a lot of potential, but his film career seems to stall. He ends up making several sequels and a couple music documentary projects. It is through exploring his parents' story of coming to America that he decides he should be more selective in the stories he brings to movie screens. He offers tips and lessons for others considering a career in filmmaking. Despite the rise of Netflix disrupting Hollywood and the pandemic he finds beauty and hope to continue forward.