Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Frank Bascombe’s a New Yorker. I didn’t know if I should expect a column this month or ask for one. Leave it to him, though... he’s not letting anything slow him down. Here he is for another look at a few upcoming book titles, just for you. I loved the first book by the guy who wrote THE WALKAWAY, so consider me sold on anything new by him. Thanks, as always, Frank, and I hope all is well in your world right now.
IT'S NOT A SECRET IF I DON'T TELL ANYONE
For the last three weeks it's been tough for me to get out of bed. In the wake of the attacks on New York City, it's been tough to come here to attend sporting events, let alone report on them. Getting out of the city on 9-11-01 was a tough thing to do. F-14's flying over the island, and the only way off was by ferry. Most of the people on the ferry I rode on worked in one of the two World Trade Center towers, one guy told me he was going to have to work from home on 9-12-01, I looked him in the eye, thinking this guy is in shock, work from home? His office was on the 69th floor of tower two. He's entire company is gone, building included. Seeing the devastation from the back of the ferry, watching the island as a whole, was intense. I can't say that I've ever seen anything like it. Moments before I got on the ferry, I actually gave into the idea that this might be it, anything could happen at that moment, anything. Luckily I got home, but not before I saw an outdoor hospital in Hoboken NJ, complete with beds, hospital equipment, emergency blood supplies for transfusions, in the distance the smoking remains of the WTC buildings. Police arresting people with video cameras taping the people at the outdoor hospital, panic was thick in the air around me. I could see fear in people's faces; hear terror in their voices. I can safely say I've never seen anything like it, never imagined something along these lines, and know full well that it's changed everything for me, everything.
To be honest, I looked for an escape, you had to look pretty hard, since
the news of these horrific events were everywhere. When I was able to make
it more than an hour with out breaking down in tears, I picked up a book,
and in them, thankfully I found something else to think about. Movies,
television and the arts have been affected by this tragedy, books, at least
the ones being published right now, or forth coming, are still in a world
of there own. It's amazing how something as simple as reading a book can be
so soothing. One thing I have noticed is that the residents of New York
City have found their hearts again. No longer do people mutter under there
breath when you bump them in the street, people now hold doors for one
another, smile, and sometimes even say good morning. It's interesting to
see how something of this magnitude can pull a nation together, let's just
hope we stay that way. FB- NYC 2001
LOOK AT ME By Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan has a problem. She's written a huge novel, and in doing so, has taken an enormous bite. She's unable to chew it , and actually, through some careful editing, could have most of this lumpy attempt at fiction discarded. We've got Invisible Circus, her last novel, which received a terrible translation to the screen, and we've got miles of kudos from her peers on her abundant talents. What I got was a migraine from trying to finish this tome. What is set forth in the opening chapters is plausible and exciting. Charlotte is a model, albeit an aging one, but still living on her past fame. We meet her as she flies through the windshield of her car, having just driven it off a road into a cornfield. What happens next, for about 40 pages is very, very good, told through the scars. Charlotte bounces back to her youth, recalling what it was like to have her first crush on a boy, her time spent with her best friend. Some very fond and vivid memories. Then the book takes a bad, hideous turn. Egan starts to write like she's trying to prove to us how smart she is, like a friend who tells you incredible stories just to get you to think there exciting and interesting. She writes some off the most clunky, cumbersome sentences I've ever seen. How many different ways are there to describe an apartment building in Manhattan? Several I'm sure, but do we need three paragraphs filled with seventy five scent words, to do it? She lives in a nice place, spacious, and near the East River with a great view. Set it up, and move on. Jesus. Not only do we see Charlotte limp through the New York model scene, a fragment of her former self, but also she seems to have taken on a self-destructive attitude, that defies logic. Understandably she is not the model she once was. She shares with us her past, her childhood, and as the book progresses we expect more. She meets her childhood best friends daughter, aptly named Charlotte, and you think you know which way this book will go. Sensibly she should connect the older Charlotte with the younger version, since the parallels are so painstakingly obvious.
Slowly Jennifer Egan unwraps this story, and quickly it comes to you that
it's not very happy, or exciting or for that matter, engaging. Charlotte is
bound and determined to ruin everyone around her, a detective that comes
between her and her bottoming out, her old agent, models, and finally the
last masterstroke of this dramatic story is an Internet themed thread of
nonsense. Charlotte so desperate for money, since she poured it all down
her throat, gets involved with a company that will build a website around
her personality, and her life story. People supposedly will flock to this
site, to see the "real people" with "real" problems. Finally if you look at
this book in its entirety, you come to realize several things. For one Egan
is holding a mirror up to the world of models, she is trying something
incredibly risky, lambasting it with out any real motive. Secondly she's
shaped up a cast of characters that you don't ever, once, care about.
Charlotte ends up with a homeless person, whom she helps out of the gutter,
but only begrudgingly, it's such a farce, that you almost forget it as you
read through it. What's happening here is this; Jennifer Egan is a very
good writer, and a very accomplished storyteller. What she lacks is talent
to pull it all together. Perhaps this is the fault of the characters, and
the subject. Fans of Egan's will no doubt disagree, and will be able to run
out there and buy this book if they haven't already. They'll also try to
rally around the fact that she's made a big point on the beauty myth, the
essence of identity and the power of a life-changing event to catapult a
story such as this to dramatic heights. Unfortunately she didn't pull it
off, and ended up with a book that is an overblown structurally unsound
house of cards.
EDDIE'S WORLD By Charlie Stella
You've got to hand it to the publishing industry, they've made it almost
impossible to become a well-read author these days, unless your Grisham,
Steel, Patterson, etc…. You've got to work triple time to make it work out
there in the book world. How do you do it? Perhaps you self publish your
book, like Charles Frazier did with Cold Mountain, then the horses came
running, and just like that, your holding the National Book Award. Or you
could march along like Jonathan Franzen, building on one spectacular feat
of magic after another, until the grand madam of books swoops down and
makes you a household name. If I cross my fingers tight enough, and pray
real hard, he'll be holding the National Book Award for The Corrections
come turkey day. The above success's can be attributed to many corners of
the book business, but what's really fun about it all, is there are little
tiny houses that find the most interesting gems to publish. Carroll & Graf
published the incredible 25th Hour out a few months back, and at Christmas
will have something tiny and smart, cool, tight, and with a serious edge
for you all to breeze through. Charlie Stella has his fingers on the pulse
of Manhattan, and even as stated on the cover of the book, "a novel of
crime", knows exactly how it works on the other side of the law. He's not
looking for an award, he doesn't want million dollar advances (well maybe
he does), he just wants to write, and I've gotta respect that. He tells the
story of Eddie Senta, part time crook, most of the time good guy. He and
his gambling degenerate pal decide to take down a score that on the whole
looks really easy. Both of them are under a rock out in the real world, and
need to get well fast. We're drawn into these characters not because of
what they say, but for who they are. Stella shapes each person, periphery
or otherwise with such perfection that you can't help but love them. He's
got a wife who wants a kid, but he's got one already. One of his "made"
friends is pressuring him to come into the fold. He's got an old girlfriend
that is feeding him the tip he needs to rob the place she works. Mixed in
with all this perfect exposition are some brutally honest portrayals of the
criminal life. Stella has to know more than you and I, he's writing the
book, right? He just makes it all so damn believable. Racist cops, Russian
gangsters, Irish Mafia all take a turn in this page turning feat of magic.
The robberies never go as planned, everyone has an ulterior motive, and the
characters within reveal some pretty interesting habits. This isn't the
greatest book you'll ever read, but it entertains nonetheless. Basically it
signals a start to a career that will shine for years. Charlie Stella falls
somewhere between Andrew Vachss and his child abused obsessions and Eddie
Bunker whose criminal knowledge is equaled be no one, all in all good
company to keep. Stella is straight crime, and proves to everyone that he
can get away with murder.
THE WALKAWAY By Scott Phillips
Two years ago a little tiny book, not only in size but also in sales figures, slowly snuck on the literary scene. Perhaps it could be said that it was a return of Jim Thompson. A throw back to the days gone by where a gritty, nastily paced noir tale was told among the pages of a pulp magazine. The Ice Harvest was all those things and more. It quickly picked up small awards, and was branded a mystery. A tough name to carry and lots of footsteps to fill to say the least. This book scared me; I didn't quite know what to think of it, and just couldn't bring my self to believe what I had read. It's not to late, go pick up the paperback; it's worth the cheese. Everyone lost in that story, and everyone was revealed as the subhuman they so desperately wanted to be. Toilets weren't flushed, ashtray's overflowed, and there was a stench that could barely be tolerated. And it all came off that book. Scott Phillips worked steadily for another two years, and hit his second book right out of the park. The Walkaway sneaks up on you, and when you finally turn around, responding to that prickling sensation on the back of your neck, you realize just what he's done is write a real literary thriller. It doesn't dot the I's and cross any of the T's, but what fun would that be? In a sort of reverse style narrative, told with disruptive flash forwards and flash backs, we learn about three very distinctive characters, and none of them are doing anything moral. Wayne Ogden, Gunther Fahnstiel and Ed Dieterle are all playing the parts of wronged lovers, ripped off schemers and money hungry gamblers. Taking place out in the desolate and unforgiving Midwest set now and in different parts of the1950's, we get the picture that whore's, drinking, smoking and fighting are all part of a days pay. Gunther starts the story off deserting his old folks home that he was put in by one of his many wives. In his past life, he was a cop, one that took the law into his own hands, and made off like a bandit, which explains his sudden departure from God's waiting room. What follows is difficult to figure out at first, but after repeated readings of various chapters you realize just what Gunther is after. Wayne Ogden is running a whore house slash bar out at the edge of town and some fishy bookmaking. Ed Dieterle seems to be back in town for the same thing Gunther is looking for, but just not in the same time period. That's the trick that Phillips pulls off, while your thinking this is just gonna be regular a turkey shoot. After a few days you realize that not only has Phillips pulled off a masterstroke of genius story telling, but also he's come up with a savagely brilliant twist on an aging and decrepit format. The Walkaway is something that will really stand-alone when it is published. You'll have to give it a moment, and perhaps re-read some of it. Phillips leaves no breadcrumbs, and suffers no fools. But if you get up early enough you just might beat him to the killing jar.
