Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Frank Bascombe... your reading public. Reading public... Frank Bascombe. You know how this works. He gets a peek at books before they come out. He breaks them down for you. Simple enough. Let’s go.
It’s that time again, and to tell you the truth, I’ve been holding out on a very special collection of stories. It’s been laying around, waiting for the right time to present it. USA Today snared Richard Russo for their inaugural book club pick. Seems that Katie over at the Today Show is gonna try to pick up Oprah’s mantle, and run a book club. Good luck. Kelly Ripa’s ahead of you already, but don’t let that slow you down. Even with all this clamor about book clubs, a bunch of people are still getting canned in the book business, and the powers that be continue to pay enormous sums of money for one page proposals. None of it is really a surprise to me. It’s just business. And as you know…
…It’s Not A Secret If I Don’t Tell Anyone.
THE WHORE’S CHILD by Richard Russo
Richard Russo has set the standard over the last ten years of high-end story telling, actually elevating it to an entirely different level. Certainly there are other more adept and stoic spinners of the yarn, but none this accurate or profound at inserting humor in to the droll everyday lives that surround us all. Russo is not alone at the top, but he certainly shines more brightly than others do. Perhaps it’s his connection to Hollywood, his youthful perspective, or the fact that he’s just fantastic at what he does.
Fresh off his Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, Russo has whittled a batch of one-of-a kind stories for you to delight in. The Whore’s Child is a slim little volume of seven short stories, each filled with wonderment and uncanny excellence. At first glance, I’ll admit that I was not so sure Russo could pull a short story off. There are other purveyors of the art that outmatch, outman, and outgun him ten out of ten times when it comes to this end of the craft. My suspicions were laid to rest, though, by some of the finest writing to come along since Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. I was moved nearly to trembling tears during the final moments of Empire Falls as it all came into focus, and have since devoured his work like a just-rescued cast away. The last paragraph of Richard Ford’s short story “Rock Springs” resonates in the last paragraph of “The Farther You Go,” and Russo makes no bones about his being influenced by Ford. It seems like a tip of the hat how the last paragraph of a short story is that final twist that keeps you thinking about it for days to come. To this day, I wonder what happened to the man who was staring down into the darkened windows of the cars parked outside the motel he was staying in. Where did he go? Where did Ford leave him? Like Nicholson at the end of FIVE EASY PIECES, what happened to him when the truck driver he joined got to where he was going? Did he set up another little franchise? That’s the mystery Russo leaves for you to wonder about in “The Farther You Go.”
This story is not the real gem here, though. You’ll be torn with the couple who go vacationing on an island where the electricity goes out more frequently than it’s on in “Monhegan Light,” where they find that previous infidelities weigh more than any swordfish that can be pulled into the boat. Or you’ll be riveted by the kid who watches the wheels come off of his mother’s life right before his eyes as they take a sudden quick and hasty cross country trip to see her parents, escaping a father he happens to like. Russo writes about men and women so well, and how they work their lives out more predictably than they ever thought they could. He frequently examines the world from a growing child’s perspective as he does in “The Mystery’s of Linwood Hart,” where Linwood, a hopeful baseball player and a novice in life, has a front row seat to the men his mother courts. He also dreams about the father he wishes would show up at his games. It’s all so wonderfully rich and filled with moments of pure unadulterated brilliance that a rave review here can never do it justice. Russo covers the writer’s life, the popular novelist, the confused aging husband who cares for his crazy wife, and basically the palate of human characters who’ve achieved mythic status in this, Russo’s world.
Many times over the course of this all-too-short series of examples on “How To Write A Short Story”, Russo proves that each and everyone one of these could be a stand alone novel, a new episode, another section of Americana that we as a country so desperately need. If we need anything in this country, it’s the possibility to believe that things do come to a happy close, or the knowledge that maybe they don’t, that they never work out like they’re supposed to, but they do work out. Russo shines a light on the impossible, and he gives the kid a chance to win the game, or gives a father a second chance at being a Dad, or imparts some wisdom on the fine art of restraint. The lead story about a Nun who wishes things were different through her fiction will lead you rapidly down the path after the rest of these stories. Russo has done it again, and thankfully he is young enough to keep doing it, over and over. By far, this book contains some of his most accomplished and thought provoking stories. When you get the chance, take a look, and don’t be surprised if you end up agreeing with me.
A SPY’S LIFE by Henry Porter
To tell the absolute truth, I’ve read exactly two spy novels in my entire life. This is one of them; the other, I can’t remember. It was a mass-market sized Vaseline thrill ride, but other than that, nothing comes up. All of my experiences with the spy genre come from two places: 007 and my father. Of course the former is a staple in most every young adults shared history. My dad, on the other hand, managed to indoctrinate me into the spy world, even though he didn’t know it. TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY was on the television set at my house every Sunday night, and before that it was I, CLAUDIUS. My parents were big Public Television fans. My father was obsessed with Alec Guinness as George Smiley, the wonderfully affable and polite British Secret Service operative. I watched this show every week. I don’t remember how many there were, but there were a lot. Nothing much happened to George Smiley, and I wished something would, since I was tuned into 007 and had managed to stay up for ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. I remember seeing Bond get married and cut it real slick at the ski resort. What ends up happening to these characters is they stay embalmed in your mind in certain ways; they are the profiles you hold others up to, seeing which is more valid, like pasta flung against the wall to see what will stick. I remember George Smiley coming in from the cold, literally, and James tossing his hat onto the coat rack, giving Moneypenny a sly glance.
On the way through this much-praised, slightly clunky spy novel which has the terrible misfortune to be titled A Spy’s Life, you’ll learn that being a spy or operative for the government is not the roller coaster ride you’ve all been seeing at the multiplex. Bobby Harland is by far one of the most interesting and wonderfully rendered characters to cross my desk in some time, spy or no spy. Bobby is retired, but as we know, you’re not ever retired from this game. Henry Porter has done a miraculous job at laying bare the facts of Harland’s past, releasing them one small tidbit at a time. A Spy’s Life starts with a bang, and it’s a little too close to home. We meet Harland as he is belted into his seat, slowly drowning in the East River. The private jet carrying him and another government luminary has mysteriously crashed only two thousand feet from the runway and slid helplessly into the East River. La Guardia is no stranger to this, since the runway is built right on the edge of the river, and flying in, you’re given a front row seat to what could be a watery grave. Harland manages to free himself from his seat and stand in the freezing swamp, wind battering him with ice crystals and the sound of death audible to all involved. His mate, laying a few yards away, may still be alive, and Harland checks him. Of course, for this to be a real thrill ride, this guy has got to be dead. But his cell phone is not. Harland retrieves it from the dead man’s pocket and calls in to his office. What a call to make. Imagine getting that call. Or even making it. It’s a heart-stopping experience; you’ll be breaking speed records just flipping the pages.
After this amazing opening, we drop back into a low gear and coast for the rest of the book. Harland’s pal and his past come to greet him immediately upon recovery. Turns out his son and his wife have more to offer than he ever imagined. For the most part Harland is the only character you’ll end up liking. He’s got some style, and he’s very motivated to discover how his plane went down. Then an unsuspected event bits him in the ass, and he’s soon embroiled in the war crimes of Eastern Europe, knee deep in ethnic cleansing. If this book had been written today, the central figures would be organized a little differently and the villain would be more topically relevant. The spies Bobby Harland comes up against are as ruthless and deceiving as anyone you’re likely to meet. Traitors come with a smile and a helping hand. No one is who they seem, and everyone has an alternate agenda. The larger geopolitical picture is very five years ago, but that’s not Porter’s fault. If one thing could be changed, I’d make it more British, and less like a Brit trying to make it easier on Yank readers. The language occasionally dips into the Queen’s English, but not enough. There’s no tea and crumpets, and they never seem to mention that they are driving on the wrong side of the road. Of course this stuff is taken for granted and rightly so, but the adventurer in me wants things to be a little bit different, like I’m actually traveling along with Harland, so I can see Mary Poppins, smell the fish and chips and hear Big Ben. Really, that’s A Spy’s Life’s only downfall: it’s trying to be and American Spy Thriller. I hope Porter keeps writing and Harland keeps living so maybe he can chase an outlaw whom we’d all like to see get his comeuppance.
THE FROG KING by Adam Davies
The publishing industry is such a vast and immovable object that when someone sticks a fork in it, don’t be sickened by what squirts out. When a writer takes his first stab at a novel and hits the target as accurately as Mr. Davies has here, you have to wonder what kind of research he did. He did the kind of research you can’t do if you’re only going to write about the book business; you’ve got to work in it to get it this right. Mr. Davies worked at the famed halls of Random House Inc., the place where Cormac McCarthy gets his books published. John Grisham runs his game there, and a very sorry desperate batch of bankers can drop $8 million dollars on a one-page proposal for Charles Fraizer’s next novel. Never mind that the movie has not been made of his first book yet, Cold Mountain. Or that he’s not written said second novel yet. Don’t worry about anything. If you paid a car dealer $8 million dollars for a new car, would you expect to get in it and drive it off the lot? I should hope you would. But this is the same business that paid Whoopi Goldberg $4 million dollars for her bio, then took half of the first printing back and put it out on the remainder pile. Talk about a loss. Holy Christ. Random House Inc is as good a place as any to start a career, I suppose, and Mr. Davies got going in the editorial department, working for one of the finest editors in the business, a well respected editor, one who shall remain nameless. Being an editorial assistant at Random House Inc is like being the toilet bowl cleaner at Yankee Stadium. No one wants you to watch the game; they just want you to clean up their shit. It’s sort of like a whorehouse: you either lay down and take it or you get up and leave. Recently Random House Inc. went through their staff like a hot knife through butter. They’re not the only ones to cut back the work force, of course. The business is hurting. No two ways about it.
Harry, our hero, is not unlike anyone I’ve ever met in the lower chambers of the book business. Woefully underpaid, extremely unhappy, bitter, and profoundly cynical about everything around them. He’s almost toxic; everything he touches turns to shit. He works for an editor, a regular guy who basically wants Harry to do his job, which means showing up on time and getting manuscripts out the door. He can’t do either, or much of anything else for that matter. Harry has involved him self with another editorial assistant, Evie Goddard. The name alone smells of royalty, and Evie is nothing more than a crutch, created for Harry to lean on, and, boy, does he ever lean on her. The plot for this novel is nothing more than Harry’s demise as he sort of falls down an open elevator shaft telling his tale of woe the whole way down. Never has a person been so despicable, repulsive and utterly stunk from the page as Harry does in this. Mr. Davies has a wonderful knack for describing the underworld of a just-scraping-by twenty-something in the concrete jungle. Harry has rashes all over his body, which are given to him by his dirty clothes he’s too poor to wash. There are fruit flies under his bed that swarm him at night, and generally he’s given to an odor that keeps everyone back at least ten feet. A portrait this foul has not been drawn since Bukowski’s Post Office, and in reality this character’s living situation is nothing less than anything Mickey Rourke’s character in BARFLY went through.
It’s divine intervention that somehow keeps Harry out of the gutter, and we come to find out in a very slyly slipped in way that Harry comes from money, real green backs. At anytime, when things get pushed right to the edge, he could call home and get bailed out. But thankfully we don’t see that. Instead, Harry has a push-over mother who wants Harry to teach at a private Connecticut boarding school. We come to find out the people at the school offer him a job, even though he fails the interview miserably. Harry’s personal life comes unglued so quickly that if you’re not careful you’ll miss it. Harry not only has Evie to thank for his love life... he has a girl on the side to keep him busy. At one point Harry applies his blue blood training to the world of ballroom dancing to make ends meet. There he meets a hard-up, desperate woman from the high towers of publishing. Lillian is the publisher of her own imprint and a corporate big wheel to boot who, along with devouring Harry in bed, promises him a bright future in publishing. She’s given up a love life for a career and now desperately needs sexual attention. Who better to provide that than Harry?
This story does for publishing what THE PLAYER did for Hollywood. Both industries like to take shots at themselves, if only to show that they have a sense of humor. Harry works for and with people that are truly unique. His boss is a plant fiend. Lillian is a complete control freak nut case. There’s also a Dictionary Editor who Harry has little contests with to see who can stump the other with a word. Harry impressed me right off the bat, admitting he’s a loser, living the loser life, barely able to make ends meet, but he still manages to impress the ladies. He steals appetizers and puts his shirts in the freezer so that when he puts them on at night before going to bed, it will keep him cool through the hot summer. On top of all this, he’s a book snob and is reading the dictionary from start to finish.
Adam Davies has poured his entire life experience into this book at the tender age of 32, as well as most of his time and energy, and it shows. His grasp on the obscure, the wild and the ugliness of book publishing and surviving in New York is all more than accurately described. He’s created a character full of insecurities and wild creativity. At it’s heart, this is a love story, not only with Evie, but also with the written word. This is as pure and clean a voice that you’re likely to hear for sometime. If we’re lucky, Adam Davies will stay around long enough to raise a glass to his own success.
Looks like Frank’s got big plans for next time, including an interview that will start here on AICN and lead to another website, where Frank’s expanding his coverage of the world of books. Always nice to see one of our AICN boys take off and find some success, and I’m definitely looking forward to his continued coverage.
"Moriarty" out.
