6 from McIntyre's

So, I thought I'd get this blog started back up by talking about six pretty different books I picked up at an independent bookseller outside of Pittsboro the first summer I visited Kate in her new diggs (they were still new at the time, anyway). I enjoyed all of them in different ways, and most of them were books I wouldn't have sought out on my own at a Barnes & Noble or Amazon (at least not without a couple of recommendations). I'll talk about them in the order I read them.

Heading Out to Wonderful is probably the furthest from my usual fare. The (beautiful) cover of this edition gives almost a chick lit feel, and it's clear early-on that this is not a plot-driven novel. The story begins in 1948, when a stranger drives into town, "Brownsburg, Virginia  ... the kind of town that existed in the years right after the war, where the terrible American wanting hadn't touched yet, where most people lived a simple life without yearning for things they couldn't have, where the general store had tin Merita bread signs as door handles ..." bringing a briefcase full of cash, a cardboard suitcase, and a set of butcher's knives.  There were times, especially in the beginning, that I worried this would be a too idealistic take on rural Virginia – the opening chapter includes such assertions as "They just accepted their lot, these five hundred or so men, women, and children, black and white, the blacks knowing their place, as they said then, which meant that the whites knew their place, too, and were pretty pleased with their lot in the evolutionary parade." – but as the story unfolds, characters begin to clash, power dynamics are laid bare, and this reader stopped suspecting the narrator owned any rose-colored glasses. (Although the narrator's identity isn't spelled out until the end of the book, it's obvious to anyone paying attention to the hints dropped in the opening.)

There's a feeling of a pastorale about many of the passages. Some of the most memorable describe the newcomer, Charlie, sleeping outside by the river in his truck. ("The summer moonlight filtered through the willow branches and made shadows on his pale, gleaming back. The black, cool water sparkled as he shook out his wet hair, turned from brown to the black of the water and the starlit night. ... Then he knelt by the truck with the singing of the crickets loud in the dark and the murmur of the night moths like a fluttering in the heart, and he said his prayers, even though he knew deep down he had lost his faith somewhere along the way.") I also appreciated the insights that accompany Charlie's visits to the local churches and how their congregations respond to him. The end of the novel takes the same slow-paced, lyrical approach as some of the earlier chapters but dives into chillingly stark, distilled meditations on human nature and motivations.

***

A far future heroine named Artemis, raised on a "library planet" and coming of age among the criminals of planet Cuchulainn? You know I had to pick that one up. The first section ("Revenge") of Artemis is what you what you might get if Tarantino directed sci-fi. It opens with a magnificent, visceral prison break and expands to tell a story of assassination and revenge. It also comes with the baggage of trendy, pulpy action films – an overabundance and aestheticization of violence and its share of gratuitous sex. In the first part of the book, these are easily out-weighed by the Artemis' vibrant and powerful first-person narration, on-fire pacing, a cinematic feel, and a sense of originality.

While entertaining, the rest of the book doesn't live up to the first section. As soon as the second chapter, we're treated to a giant chunk of exposition that, if I had to guess, is a lengthy plot summary of Palmer's novel Debatable Space. (It does make me want to read the book, although part of me fears there wouldn't be much to add to the summary!) As the book goes on, the focus widens from Artemis' personal story to bring in both her family story and a larger, galactic war. Sadly, Artemis' mother (who I'm guessing stars in one of Palmer's earlier novels) steals the focus, making our vivid protagonist Artemis seem like heroine-light, and the war story pales next to Artemis' revenge saga. On the other hand, Palmer creates some fascinating aliens, even if their participation in this novel is marginal (and they sometimes appear as deii ex machina).

***

Witches on the Road Tonight is probably the favorite of my McIntyre's selections. I was surprised I hadn't heard of it, since it was published in 2011, and I tend to pay attention to news of author Sheri Holman. (I've heard her speak, and her first book, A Stolen Tongue, about the medieval "translation" of saints' relics, was marvelously strange. Her next book, The Dress Lodger, was probably her most popular, though I found it a little grim. I hadn't read her next effort, The Mammoth Cheese, because I didn't feel like I was particularly in the mood for biting, comic critique of rural Virginian politics and dairies, but reading Witches made me want to give The Cheese a try!)

After a present-day prologue, the story begins in Panther's Gap, Virginia, 1940, when two young WPA employees, sometimes-couple Tucker and Sonia, a writer and photographer working on an annotated tourist map for the Virginia Writer's Project, drive into the rural southwest. Tucker hits young Eddie Alley on a mountain road, and although the boy isn't seriously hurt, it leads Tucker and Sonia to take an unscheduled stop in the bare-bones cabin where Eddie lives with mother, Cora. Soon Tucker finds himself attracted Cora, who has a local reputation as a dangerous witch who on occasion roams the mountains in the skin of a panther; meanwhile, young Eddie is fascinated by Tucker's film projector and an early Frankenstein.

The story skips back to the present day, where an aging Eddie lives in New York, contemplating the end of his life and his somewhat-strained relationship with his adult daughter, Wallis. We see Wallis in present day as a risk-taking journalist but follow her memories into smalltown Virginia in the 1980s, where Eddie has worked for years as Captain Casket, introducing the weekend horror movies for the local television station. Now, the station faces rocky financial straits. Young Wallis is largely oblivious to this, but she notices the strains in her parents' relationship when the family takes in a homeless teenage boy who works part-time for Eddie. As Wallis tries to adjust to the changes in her family life, she ultimately finds herself haunted by an act of witchcraft and a weekend spent visiting the old family cabin in Panther's Gap.

The strength of the novel is in the insight with which Holman describes the complex character motivations and interactions. We see and understand both Sonia's attraction to Tucker and to her work; Tucker's fears and warring ideals; the conflicts between Eddie's and Wallis' passionate desires and their legacies and responsibilities. (Although Holman makes an effort to round out Eddie's wife/Wallis' mother with a brief section from her point of view, she remains the least interesting figure.) There's also real suspense, especially as the reader begins to wonder, and fear, what really happened in 1980 ... and 1940. Meanwhile, Holman treats her magic with both seriousness and mystery, taking an approach that's not quite magic realism. Saturated in the details of the personal, Holman nevertheless touches on big ideas as her themes echo through the generations: art and family, death and mystery, life and love.

***

City of Bohane begs to be read aloud in a thick Irish accent. Of course, I couldn't produce a satisfactory accent and had to be content with imagining one. In one way, then, the novel can be slow going, since it can't be read any faster than the speaking rate of my imaginary inner Irish storyteller. But why would you want to rush? The earthy, exuberant, self-aware storyteller's prose is the heart of the book. An example from an early chapter: "Smoketown laid out its grogshops, its noodle joints, its tickle-foot parlors. Its dank shebeens and fetish studios. Its shooting galleries, hoor stables, bookmakers. All crowded in on each other in the lean-to streets. The tottering old chimneys were stacked in great deranged happiness against the morning sky. The streets in dawn light thronged with familiar faces. The Gant felt at once as if he had never been gone." Above all, City of Bohane has style.

The tale is one of gang rivalries in Bohane, an invented (yet mythically vibrant) west coast Irish city on the edge of the Big Nothin'. Logan Hartnett (with some assistance from his mother Girly, his lieutenants Wolfie Stanners and Fucker Burke, Fucker's Alsatian Angelina, and Jennie Ching the hoor) has dominated the city and the enterprising young thugs of the Hartnett Fancy for years when the Gant rides into town and upsets the balance of things. The darkly comic tone is reminiscent of the Galway-set film The Guard with Brendan Gleeson (but with more epic overtones). The plot takes place in a not-terribly-distant future (it's hard to figure out whether Girly grew up as a contemporary to the reader or in a somewhat earlier or later time), and while the details of exactly how much time has elapsed and what events have brought Bohane to its present state are sketchy, they don't really matter for enjoying the novel. The rivalry and the word play are what's important here, and both are to be relished.

***

The Fifth Servant is the rare medieval-set tome with the energy and pacing of a contemporary detective story. The point-of-view switches between the noir-like first person narration of Benyamin Ben-Akiva, a poor scholar new to town and filling the humble role of fifth shammas for the Jewish community, and various third person interludes (when, for example, we need to find out what the Christian serving girl or the corrupt clergy are getting up to). The narration is notable for both using contemporary slang without calling undue attention to it and being deeply immersed in the details of Jewish religious life and practice – sometimes proverbs, but mostly exceprts from Talmudic stories and interpretations of law. (“The Talmud asks, ‘Why are scholars compared to a nut?’ The answer given is that even though the outside may be dirty and scuffed, the inside is still valuable. But I could think of other reasons for the comparison.”) The story kicks off with a murder that must be solved before Passover. Ben-Akiva finds himself the go-between between the Jewish and Christian communities (as well as the more literal Talmud scholars and rabbis and those who follow the mystical bent of Rabbi Loew), hindered by religious strictures, threats of violence from the Christian community, and the Jews’ position, not as citizens but as property, of the Hapsburg Emperor (who makes an appearance).

This novel set in sixteenth-century Prague makes an interesting companion piece with the historical sections of Everything Is Illuminated. I suspect the characterizations of the rabbis and the plotlines surrounding Rabbi Loew would be even richer for a reader better versed in Jewish history, but even this amateur found a lot to appreciate. (And between the Foer and Wishnia, I found myself delving into the very interesting Learning to Read Midrash, with scholarly but entertaining explanations of stories – intriguingly found in both Midrash and the Qu’ran but not in the Bible/Torah – and exegesis of Biblical word choices and seeming contradictions. I also checked out Swimming in the Sea of Talmud and Searching for Meaning from Midrash, mentioned in The Fifth Servant’s useful acknowledgments, but didn’t get far: these much drier tomes, while chunked into shorter sections, focus more on interpreting duties and regulations and are less friendly to a reader unfamiliar with Jewish law.)

***

Alif the Unseen calls to mind the work of Ursula K. LeGuin. The characters may not be quite as well rounded or the deeper layers as philosphical as Earthsea’s, but Alif shares the ambience of quick-moving fairytale with a serious side. Whether it’s due to the upper-class girl he’s secretly been seeing, the illegal security and encryption services he provides his online customers, or the rare book that has suddenly fallen into his hands, Indian-Arab hacker Alif knows he’s in trouble when he finds the national security services surrounding his house. 

Fortunately, the cat that sometimes sneeks onto his balcony turns out to be a jinn (one of several, friendly and otherwise, he will encounter in his travels) and Alif finds fellow travellers in his neighbor Dina and a contact that goese by the screenname NewQuarter. There are fantastic locales, exciting episodes (like the escape from the secret desert prison), and cogent reflections on religion, politics, and ethics. While the end (written in the midst of the Arab Spring and published in 2012) reflected both the chaos and hopes of current events and incorporated a mythic hacker showdown, I did feel it left a little to be desired. Overall, however, Alif brings a bright energy and fresh setting to the fantasy and modern-day-fairytale genres.