A Marked Man: An Abigail Adams Mystery

AUTHOR: Barbara Hamilton

PUBLISHED: 2010

GENRE: Crime-Solving Pilgrims! (a.k.a. Historical Fiction)

Yes, you read that right.  “An Abigail Adams Mystery.”  Abigail Adams, wife of the second president of the United States, solving crimes.  Oh, I cannot tell you how excited I was.  This was going to be awesome.  It was going to be Nero Wolfe meets The Scarlet Letter.  The Federalist Papers meets The Pentagon Papers.*  Fair reader, your dearest blogger didest have but the highest hopes for such a tome. 

But alas!  I waseth so disappointed.  Eth.

Mrs. Adams’ private investigation skills are put to the test when a young patriot, Henry Knox, is accused of murdering a randy Englishman in the employ of the King himself, Sir Jonathon Contrell.  Sir Jonathon was in Boston on business from Maine where he was… doing something?  I’m still not sure.  Something with land rights.  This book masters that mystifying paradox of being both so completely crammed with detail that it is virtually impossible to get through and yet so lacking in proper explanation of the story or the characters that the reader is, if he or she is anything like me, lost most of the time.  The details!  They were everywhere!  Even worse, they were repetitive.  If I learned anything from this book, it is that Boston is really, really cold in the winter.  Really cold.  Cold enough that the characters spend at least 25 of the 336 pages putting on or taking of their winter gear, and 10 more pages huddling around and/or stoking a fire.  Did she mention it’s cold in Boston?

When Hamilton wasn’t writing about the cold she was introducing new characters – for every main character, there were servants, pages, maids, stable boys, that had to be named and characterized.  My favorite had to be either magnificently or absurdly-named sailor, “The Heavens Rejoiced Miller”, who I only determined to be human after his ship mate started calling him Hev, having up to that point assumed him to be ship of some sort.  But I get it.  Those pilgrims named their kids wacky things.  But if she wanted a colonial name, she couldn’t have gone for “Prudence” instead? Especially when everyone else is Paul or Jonathon or Margaret or Lucy? And I haven’t even mentioned that John Adams only calls his wife Portia or Nabby, never Abigail. Oy.

It’s a convoluted, densely-packed story that ends with a cross-dressing faux-crippled lady’s companion and an actor named Perocles, which sounds like it should be amazing, but instead is seriously unsatisfying. How did all go so very wrong?  A cross-dressing faux-cripple lady’s companion and an actor named Perocles, people!  I’m not sure if it was overexcitement or nervousness, or if Hamilton was overtaken by that common scholar’s affliction known as I-researched-it-so-it’s-making-it-in,-damn-it! Syndrome.**  But all that information smothered whatever story was under there.  And that’s a damnable shame.  I guess Sam will have to wait for that pilgrim detective idea for a few more years.

PAGES: 336 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT: I sincerely doubt there are very many people who would get as excited about this concept as I did.  Aside from West Wing fans.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: As much as it breaks my heart, no.  It just doesn’t fulfill its promise.  So sad. 

*Perhaps even more importantly, it was the embodiment of one of the greatest West Wing conversations of all time, exchanged while Sam and Toby try to write the President’s Thanksgiving Day Address:

Sam: Over three and a half centuries ago, linked by faith and bound by a common desire for liberty, a small band of pilgrims sought out a place in the New World where they could worship according to their own beliefs... and solve crimes.

Toby: Sam...

Sam: It'd be good. By day, they churn butter and worship according to their own beliefs, and by night they solve crimes.

Toby: Read the thing.

Sam: Pilgrim detectives.

Toby: Do you see me laughing?

Sam: I think you're laughing on the inside.

Toby: Okay.

Sam: With the big hats.

Toby: Give me the speech.

**Much like Stockholm Syndrome, this disease so addles the brain of the writer as to win them over to the side of crackpot theorists whose work the writer then includes in more scholarly endeavors, earning the writer a lower grade and a sorry shake of the head from his or her professor.  Sad, but true.

There's More to New Jersey than the Sopranos

AUTHOR: Marc Mappen
PUBLISHED: 2009
GENRE: History, Local Interests

As a rule, New Jerseyites spend more time defending their state than any other against a wide array of accusations and assumptions.  It's almost pathological at this point, this need to assure anyone that will listen that no, the whole state doesn't smell; yes, we do know how to drive*; no, we are not all goombas; and so forth.  It is in that category of state-wide neurosis that this book falls. 

It's a fun little anthology of short stories about the history of New Jersey, which, all other issues aside, is actually quite rich.  More Revolutionary War battles were fought here than anywhere else, given New Jersey's location between British-held New York and the Continental Congress in Philly.  We are the densest state in the union (population wise, not mentally), and if the US was to split into 50 little countries, New Jersey would be the richest place in the world.  We are, for a small place, incredible diverse, both in geology and ethnicity.  Despite being one of the smallest states in the union, Jersey is broken up into distinct parts. (Mappen says 2 (north and south), but I say 3 - north, central, and south, with this third tier being the result of a surprising point: New Jersey has hillbillies. Unexpected but true - South Jersey is full of them. Thus central Jersey's separation from its southern brethren.**)  It's a pretty interesting place to be.

It's not exactly great writing.  The first sentence has no fewer than 5 comma-separated clauses.  But you don't pick up a book like this anticipating Tolstoy-like prose.  You expect a story about George Washington and Thomas Paine lighting methane gas from the bottom of the Raritan River on fire.  And in that way, it delivers.

LENGTH: 196 pages of 2-3 page stories.
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: No.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT: Yes.  It's a full, quick book full of silly facts and fun stories about America's armpit.

*Yes, we drive more quickly that some other sections of the population.  But the BAD drivers are far and away actually Pennsylvanians.  Also, it's not our fault you can't negotiate a jughandle.  The sign did say all turns from the right lane.

**In case you're wondering, my extensive research has concluded thus: North Jersey is the top of the state to the Woodbridge area, or exit 11 of the Turnpike.  Central Jersey extends from Exit 11 to about Exit 7, or Jackson.  South Jersey is everything below.  Thus Central Jersey encompasses not only our capital city but also all the good shore towns.  Suck on that!

Isaac's Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

AUTHOR: Erik Larson
PUBLISHED: 1999*
GENRE: American History

You're going to hate me after this one. 

It's not easy to describe how horrifying, how tragic, how heart-wrenching this book is.  You need to read it anyway.

Isaac's Storm is the story of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, so called because it completely decimated Galveston, Texas, a little spit of land in the Gulf of Mexico.  The Isaac of Issac's Storm is Isaac Cline, Galveston's resident meteorologist.  Galveston in 1900 was on the verge of greatness, having cemented its reputation as a beautiful resort town, an Atlantic City for the Texas Coast.  A feeling of invincibility has taken over the town and its officials, who believe they have conquered Mother Nature with their modern technologies.  When reports start coming in of a storm in the gulf, Cline tells the residents not to worry, they need not evacuate.  The storm will blow by.

It does not blow by.  It builds and builds until it strikes Galveston with an unimaginable force that tears the town apart by the seams.  Its residents are caught completely unprepared, having been assured that they were safe, and can only watch in horror as the sea advances, up the beach, up the sidewalks, up the stairs, until there is no where else to go but underwater.  And when the water receeds, those still living must face streets where piles of dead bodies have replaced stately homes.

It is not known how many people died in the Galveston Hurricane.  6,000 is a conservative estimate.  I'm not going to try to tell you the individual stories - they are too horrific to summerize.  I'll let Larson shoulder that burden.  But it's important to hear them.  It's important to not forget them.  Because Galveston, Texas?  It's been rebuilt.  There's a seawall now, but the town still sits at the mercy of the sea.  And if we forget that, who knows that could happen.
LENGTH: 273 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: No, even though it should be.  Larson has been getting quite a bit of praise for his newest book, In the Garden of the Beast.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Like I said, you'll hate me, but yes.

*This book was published prior to Hurricane Katrina, so I'm not sure that the title of deadliest hurricane in history still applies.  It doesn't make it any less harrowing. 

The Suicide Collectors

AUTHOR: David Oppegaard

PUBLISHED: 2008

GENRE: Fiction

I’m not sure what inspired me to pick up this novel.  Maybe I was swept away by the spirit of the Halloween season. Perhaps I had seen it so many times on the library’s new books shelf that I felt bad for it.  The cover quote advertised it as “a wonderfully creepy debut”.  I would classify it kind of a bore.

I had high hopes when I saw the opening quote for the tale.  Most authors go with Shakespeare, or Poe, or if they’re feeling particularly epic, the Bible.  Oppengaard went instead with Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, an interesting and unusual choice.*  But it soon became clear that the quote had been forced into service to give the story something it lacked: a sense of urgency and nervousness, which, I think we all would agree, is kind of essential for this type of novel. 

When the book opens, its protagonist, Nelson, is returning from a nice morning of fishing, but the home he returns to is far too quiet.  His wife Jordan has committed suicide, overdosing on pills while he fished.  Nelson is distraught, but not terribly surprised; not because Jordan has been depressed but because suicide has taken the lives of most of the world’s population.  Known only as the Despair, it came upon mankind suddenly, driving the happy and sad alike into sudden acts of self-harm; after a pleasant breakfast, a businessman might head into the office, or he might jump off the local water tower.  There is no accounting for who chooses to live and who chooses to die.  Those who have managed to resist the urge live scattered and in fear of the Collectors, seemingly inhuman figures who come for the bodies of those who have ended their own lives.  The impulsive decision to keep the Collectors from his wife’s body sends Nelson on a cross-country trip to the heart of the Despair and the source of it all.

Despite its lofty themes, the story lacks any real pressure or tension, largely due to the laid-back, it-is-how-it-is attitudes of its two main characters, Nelson and his neighbor, Pops.  Dead wife?  Bummer, man.  Horde of crazy cultists?  Eh, we’ll figure it out.  These personality traits make sense; in order to survive the overwhelming death and collapse of civilization around them, they must adopt a, shall we say, thicker skin.  But that survival instinct makes for a less-than-thrilling ride.  The decision to place the story in what seems like the near future – cars have voice controlled windows, but nothing else seems different? – just confuses the reader further.  The Collectors show up infrequently, with no explanation given as to how they know the dead bodies are there, or why they want them, or any other question you might have.**

By the time Nelson finally gets to his destination, the reader has grown accustomed to a plodding pace.  Then BAM!, a major plot point comes at you like a wayward water balloon.  Having found a cell of resistance, Nelson is asked – told? he doesn’t really get a choice, they just kind of assume he’ll do it – to go on a suicide mission to destroy the Collectors’ HQ.  He agrees instantly, and no thought is given to why this man who has so far completely resisted the urge to hurt himself, who has shown nothing but the strongest sense of survival, is so willing to just end it.  One minute he’s walking in the door, the next he’s on a barge taking the all those collected bodies to the source of, well, the Source.*** 

 From there it dissolves into a lot of light and a lot of humming and a lot of shady and half-formed explanations for the Despair and the Collectors and what it all means.  It’s not very satisfying, but fortunately, by that point, you don’t really care much about what it all means.  And that’s no way to thrill anyone.

LENGTH: 304 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT: No.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Nah.  It’s an interesting concept but lacks any depth and ends without any sense of conclusion or even explanation.

*The quote is, “A swimmer in distress cries, “I shall drown!  No one will save me!” A suicide puts it another way: “I will drown! No one shall save me!” In relaxed speech, however, the words shall and will are seldom used precisely; our ear guides us or fails to guide us, as the case may be, and we are quite likely to drown when we want to survive and survive when we want to drown.”

**About all we known about the Collectors for most of the book is that they really like helicopters, making them the Delta Force of otherworldly body-snatchers. 

***This would not be same as the Source from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, unfortunately.  This book could have used a little Giles in it.

The Snow Angel

AUTHOR: Glenn Beck

PUBLISHED: 2011

GENRE: Novel

I’m going to be upfront about this: I despise Glenn Beck. I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with anything that has come out of his mouth.  Even worse that what he says is the way he says it – screaming unfounded and unsupported accusations onto the airwaves, hiding behind the First Amendment, and then accusing anyone who might differ of being a traitor to the American flag.  He’s the type of guy who thinks he can say whatever he wants because goshdarnit, he’s just being honest, then crucifies others who try to express their own views.  To put it bluntly, he sucks.

So as much as I wish I could say I went into this completely unbiased, I think you would all know that’s a boldfaced lie.*  In fact, reading it started out as a dare from the awesome Jamie Rabinaw – would I actually subject myself to the insanity and inanity that is Glenn Beck?  Not being one to turn down a dare (at least book-related), I agreed, and we both waited in rapt attention for the horror to begin. 

The Snow Angel is the story of Rachel, a young mother struggling to free herself from a life of abuse, first at the hands of her drunken mother, then her cruel husband.  (I’m not even going to discuss the idea of Beck writing in the voice of a battered woman.)  I braced myself for the lectures, for the admonishments, for the if-you-were-a-better-wife-and-Christian speeches, but they never came.  When Rachel’s best friend learns the truth of the abuse, she tells Rachel God hates divorce – but later on helps her escape.  When someone quotes the Bible, it’s generally to remind Rachel that God wants all people to be loved, not to cite his vengeance.  All that... civility kind of sucked all the fun out of it all.

That’s not to say that it’s a good book.  The writing is awful.  Beck is one of those who think that weak writing can be strengthened by adding adjective upon adjective, when it just weakens it further.  He especially loves colors.  (Someone has “denim-colored eyes”.  Would that be an acid wash or a dark fade?)  The prose is jumpy and stiff, and lacks any sort of fluidity.  His characters are stereotypes.  The long-suffering but devoted old man, the precocious, wise-beyond-her-years daughter: they exist solely to prop up Rachel and force her in the right direction.

Then there are the times when his choices are just plain weird.  Take the history of Rachel and her mother, the abusive drunk.  Beck sets up one story as a crucial turning point.  It is, he tells the reader, the worst thing Rachel’s mother ever did to her.  Really, the worst.  Ready?  Have you braced yourself?

She made fun of Rachel for using baking powder instead of baking soda in a cookie recipe.

HUH?

Not the repeated tirades about how Rachel was an unwanted accident that ruined her mother’s life.  Not the beatings that left her bruised and bloody.  No, this woman’s lifetime of psychological trauma hinges on a tragic baking accident.

It’s insane, and it’s pretty solid proof that if he wasn’t a television talking head, Beck would not be a published author.  But he is, and he’s not going anywhere.  So all we can hope to do is avoid him as much as possible – on the screen and on the page.

LENGTH: 288 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Though not the juggernaut he once was, Glenn Beck remains pretty big.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: No.  Not because of his politics, or your politics, but just because it’s badly written.

*I am, unsurprisingly, not the only one who feels this strongly about Beck.  The Amazon.com reviews for this book were 5 stars or no stars, with nothing in between.