Left for Dead: Me after finishing this book

Ha ha.  My poor attempt at a joke.  Kevin O’Brien’s purported thriller Left for Dead begins with a serial killer known as Rembrandt (for his lovely makeup skills) on the loose, preying on women of a certain age.  The focus shifts abruptly when one of his victims, Claire Ferguson Shaw, is found alive.  Once Claire regains her memory and reunites with her family, she begins to wonder what is really going on.  Her friends and husband seem evasive.  Considered troublemakers in their small town, her son has run away, and his best friend has left on a sudden backpacking trip.  Claire’s memory of what happened the night of her abduction remains stubbornly hidden.  And it appears that someone is watching her.  Is it Rembrandt coming to finish the job?  Why are there so many disappearances in her town?  And what’s up with the “civic club” her husband belongs to? Claire must find the answer to these questions…they could save her life.

I think I made the description of the book sound better than it actually was.  The book started off promisingly enough from the victims’ perspective as each encounters Rembrandt.  Even as you were introduced to Claire and learn her backstory, there is still hope.  Unfortunately, what O’Brien appears to lack is nuance.  He is heavy-handed with dialogue and plot.  The comments Linda, Claire’s supposed “best friend” make are so obnoxious and intrusive that it’s hard to imagine any real person not replying, “Mind your own effing business.”  However, these comments serve to let us know that Linda is hiding something and advance the plot.  Obviously this plot advancement could have been handled better.  I also found Claire’s derogatory thoughts about Linda somewhat offensive.  Granted, Linda is evil, but there was something about the way O’Brien had Claire talk about Linda’s food and hair that seemed a little too much.  We get that she is a pitiful, evil, vengeful cow, but come on.  There was a level of meanness that threatened to push my sympathy towards Linda at times.  I think a better writer could have handled that relationship better. All the relationships actually.  The young, handsome detective is treated like crap by everyone except for poor damsel-in-distress Claire for no real reason.  Claire’s husband talks to her and treats her like she is a 4-year-old.  It’s like O’Brien wanted to make as much progress as possible writing his novel and just sped through.

And the plot itself was muddled. I’m still not clear exactly who was responsible for what because it seemed like certain people had certain plans that other people who had been involved in other plans didn’t know about.  Are you confused?  I was. 

I read this book in a few hours and stayed up way longer reading it than it deserved, but I wanted to finish it.  It’s a mediocre book, and I admit to skimming the last few pages because I just didn’t care.  I had an idea where the book was going about halfway through, and it took its precious time getting there.   Thankfully I spent only 50 cents on it at the booksale.

Royal Affairs: British Monarchs Behaving Badly

Leslie Carroll’s Royal Affairs:  A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy examines infidelity in the British monarchy from Henry II to Charles, Diana and Camilla.  It is fairly exhaustive and no major lover or mistress is left unturned (no small feat when dealing with a monarch like Charles II).  You have the homosexual lovers of Edward II and James I.  You have Henry VIII’s wives recounted in detail.  You even have Queen Victoria and John Brown whose actual sexual relationship is not seriously believed but as an emotional attachment is included.  I was actually a little disappointed that she ended with Charles, Diana and Camilla because why would I care to read about that old tale again, but Carroll made it interesting. 

My biggest quibble with the book is that Carroll’s writing is extremely dry.  Everything is presented factually and objectively, which is great, but it sort of took the oomph out of a book about GASP! infidelity.  It’s not necessarily a fun book, but you will learn quite a bit since she covers about 800 years of history.

Also recommended:

• Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics (Herman)
• Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry and Revenge (Herman)

Mistress of the Sun: Beware the Female Icarus

Sandra Gulland’s Mistress of the Sun is the historical fiction account of Louise de la Valliere, one of Louis XIV’s mistresses.  Tomboy Louise, a noted horsewoman of nobile but impoverished birth, eventually finds herself serving Madame Henriette, the king’s sister-in-law at court.  There she catches the eye of Louis himself and a love affair is born.  Louise is one of the first mistresses of the young Louis.  She is pious and her piety struggles with her love for the man, her dislike for the King and her fear that evil stalks her for her wanton behavior.  Louise finally chooses to save her soul and herself and renounces the king for life in a convent.

Gulland’s book was a little slow to get going and a tad difficult to get into at first, but once Louise makes it to court, the action speeds up.  She is part of the early years of Louis’ reign when Louis is young and full of energy and the desire to do good.  There is no Versailles yet.  Tomboy Louise, meek and angelic in appearance, seems an unlikely candidate for Louis’ eye, yet she does and keeps it for years.  It was a bit disconcerting to read her declare her love for Louis on one page and then strive to avoid hurting the queen, Louis’ wife, on the other.  I doubt many royal mistresses would be so considerate.  She suffers in silence…she is Louis’ mistress before he began flaunting them, and as a result, his liaisons with her and the resulting childbirths are secret.  I can’t imagine what that must have been like.  To give birth and then get up and attend a ball, acting as if nothing had happened.  Forced to give up your child to others to raise because he or she might be used as a pawn.  I had a lot of sympathy for Louise.  Though I still found it hard to understand exactly what attracted the king to her. 

Gulland also weaves a strand of the supernatural throughout the book.  Louise attempts to tame a wild horse through bone magic in her youth and when it succeeds, she fears the evil she committed stalks her.  That she herself is evil and damned.  Her life and time at court is intertwined with that of Athenais de Montespan, at first friend and later rival and also mistress of the king who is connected with witchcraft. 

Gulland’s tale is interesting, and she takes what little is known of Louise and creates an engrossing narrative.  There is a dreamy quality to the book that prevents most of it from seeming real.  At times it reads more like an intriguing novel set in 17th century France instead of a work of historical fiction based on the life of a real woman.

Also recommended:

• Love and Louis XIV:  The Women in the Life of the Sun King (Fraser)
• Sex with Kings (Herman)

Bonk: For a good time, call…

Because I am in the last, super-busy weeks of the semester, I thought I could use a little diversion, so I was thrilled when Bonk:  The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex arrived for me at the local public library.  Bonk is Mary Roach’s (Stiff, Spook) latest investigative science book.  As its title suggests, it explores the history as well as current focus of sex research.  Chapters deal with whether Kinsey was really a voyeur, what an orgasm is, clitoral research as well as whether orgasm impacts fertility (using pigs!!!) and various machines, tools and strategies for research through the years.

First of all, it is amusing, yet sad the lengths and obfuscations to which scientists have to go to obtain funding for research that even tangetially touches sex.  As a culture, we are obsessed with sex (having more of it, having it better), yet we remain so squeamish about it.  Roach’s latest book tackles the topic with sensitivity, appreciation and also humor because let’s face it, a lot of the lengths researchers had to go to to research sex as well as their hypothoses and experiments are flat-out funny. I’m thinking in particular of the experiments to see how sperm gets into the uterus. Good stuff. And God bless the people who inseminate pigs and other large animals.  Oh, and let’s not forget the sex toy manufacturer she visits (reminded me of an HBO show I watched years ago–nothing like little old ladies adding hair to a dildo to make you do a doubletake) or the man who implants penis pumps. 

I’m not sure if I enjoyed this book as much as I did Roach’s other two books, but it was very interesting.  If anything, I felt like its structure was a bit harder to follow (seemed a bit meandering at times) and that she seemed to explore the same few topics from various angles.  Roach provides numerous footnotes, which are sometimes irritating in sheer volume but are always relevant and humorous.  Roach is a funny writer, and her approach to the topic is perfect. 

Also recommended:

• Spook (Roach)
• Stiff (Roach)

A Southern Belle Primer: Guess mine was lost in the mail?

A Southern Belle Primer or Why Princess Margaret Will Never Be a Kappa Kappa Gamma by Maryln Schwartz was a somewhat bizarre book. Though published in 1991, it seemed like a book from a much earlier period.  It deals with a world in which certain silver patterns are expected on a wedding registry and what those patterns say about the bride registering.  Apparently, chicken salad should never contain dark meat.  I am not a fan of dark meat, so I likely would not have committed that egregious faux pas, but good to know.  It deals with a world in which women become festival queens with elaborate costumes and balls to which women must wear dresses of a certain length or else they will receive a sternly-worded letter. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Southerner born and bred.  I was born in Salisbury, North Carolina and grew up in a town a little west of Winston-Salem.  Therefore, I consider myself Southern.  However, as with the other books set in the South that I have posted about this year, I could not find myself, traditions or experiences in this book.  I wondered if it was age.  As I said, this book seemed to refer to an older generation.  But I also have friends who were honest-to-God debutantes complete with white gown, presentation and debutante ball.  I knwo women who followed the tradition of displaying for guests to view to the wedding gifts received by the bride-to-be.  Soooo…maybe the conclusion I should draw is maybe I am not of that world that book sought to illustrate.  And maybe that’s ok.  After all, I don’t even like iced tea.  It was just a little weird to read this book and feel like there is a whole other South of which I am not a part.  And I sort of have to wonder what attitudes and beliefs are being preserved by participating in those traditions. It’s probably just my childhood wish to be Quality, royalty, nobility that is being dented. 

The book was cute and amusing.  It won’t present foes of the South with anything that would change their mind, but if you are an insider or wannabe belle, you’ll find it instructive.

Death By Chick Lit: Cute but not cute enough

Death By Chick Lit by Lynn Harris has a cute premise: a talented, frustrated writer discovers that everyone BUT her is managing to get published and write hugely successful, lauded chick lit. But maybe they aren’t so lucky after all as one-by-one, the latest chick lit “it” girls are murdered. Can Lola solve the murders and salvage her career at the same time?

See, it sounds like a fun book, a wink at those familiar with the chick lit genre and its formula. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it past the first hundred pages. Lola seems confused in her priorities, declaring that despite being newly married, she will make sure her friends feel like nothing in her life has changed even though her husband (incomprehensably to me) wants to spend more time with her. I understand why she is bitter about her friends’ success, but Harris lays it on a little thick. It isn’t funny…more pathetic.

The structure is a little weird in that you think you are in the present and then suddenly, you are in the past as she is bringing you up to speed on certain friends and events, but the transition is not smooth.

It was just an insufferable book that I couldn’t get through.  Again I am baffled by the good reviews.  In my opinion, Harris was trying too hard.

Song of Kali

Song of Kali by Dan Simmons was a fitting book to follow Fangland in that they both dealt with destructive, ancient evil awakening and seeking to take over the world.  In Song of Kali, Simmons explores whether an entire city can be evil and rotten. 

Writer and editor Bobby Luczak, his wife and baby daughter travel to Calcutta to obtain a new manuscript reputedly written by a famous Indian poet long thought dead.  Though warned by several people not to go, Bobby blithely heads out.  The Calcutta he encounters is nasty, dirty, backwards and full of misery.  Everyone seems to have an agenda, and what Bobby naively envisioned as a simple acquisition of Das’ manuscript is anything but that. Somehow Bobby becomes entangled with a murderous group of Kali (fun fact: one of our servers at work is named Kali, which amuses me) worshipers who do not hesitate to sacrifice humans for their goal of bringing the goddess of death to life.   Soon everything begins to go horribly, horribly wrong for Bobby and his family. 

Song of Kali was Simmons’ first novel and as he demonstrated in The Terror, he is a master at evoking atmostphere.  If nothing else, Simmons succeeded at making you feel and smell the stink and heat of Calcutta, see the misery.  You almost want to take a bath after reading the book.  He also succeeded at creating a palpable sense of terror.  You know something bad is going to happen.  As I’ve said about other books, you know it will end up badly.  And you pretty much know what is going to wrong from the beginning.

The book was a quick read, and overall, an ok one.  There were a few fantastical elements that seemed a little out of place for a book so grounded in reality otherwise (the whole Kali issue); I had a similar impression about the end of The Terror. Some have called this book racist, but I don’t know about that.  It doesn’t paint a great picture of Calcutta or its residents, but it was set in 1977 and written around 1985, and attitudes were different then.  Bobby’s character was a little too naive. For an effort by a first-time author, it wasn’t bad at all.

Also recommended: The Terror

Fangland: Not as much bite as I had hoped

So continues my Halloween reading (finished before Halloween but not posted until afterwards). Fangland by John Marks is yet another variation of the classic Dracula tale with network news as one of the targets. Evangeline Harker is an assistant producer on The Hour, a successful, venerable network news show that resembles 60 Minutes (with good reason since Marks used to be a producer on that show). Newly engaged and disliking her job, she heads to Romania on an assignment to vet the mysterios Ion Torgu, supposedly a major Eastern European crime lord. Once there, Harker meets Clementine Spence who tries to warn her about evil in the area by telling her about her former experiences as a type of missionary.  Harker meets Torgu and goes off with him and is infected by his virus-like type of vampirism.  She disappears and reappears months later with little recollection of what happened.  Meanwhile, the virus appears to be infecting the offices of The Hour (that happen to overlook Ground Zero) back in New York when people and equipment begin behaving strangely and mysterious deaths and suicides start to occur.

I think that this book would have been better if Marks had stuck with one idea and developed it.  In addition to the Dracula adaptation, he tries to make statements about NYC in a post-September 11 world as well as pointed, insider jabs at documentary news shows and network politics.  The storylines don’t blend successfully.  The biggest failure is that he leaves crucial details vague.  I assume he did this deliberately, but it was the wrong decision in my opinion.  We never quite find out what happened to Evangeline when she was with Torgu.  There is mention of some “obscenity” that she does that protects her from him, but what Marks describes doesn’t seem that obscene, so I’m unsure what the obscenity was.  The end is vague as well.  Something happens…but what is unclear.  This vagueness is a problem when Torgu doesn’t use fangs and turn people into vampires the “traditional” way: what he does with the string of words he constantly chants (locations of horrific massacres throughout history) is unclear.  Marks is trying to say something about terrorism and the allure of death and biological agents (I think), but honestly, I’m not sure what. 

The format is a bit confusing as well.  The story is told from multiple points of view through diary entries, email and narrative.  The story is framed by the account of someone who is entirely peripheral to the story.

This novel has gotten really good reviews, which baffles me.  Readers hail it as the best adaptation of Dracula ever and laud Marks for the profound things he is saying.  What book did I read?   It was hard to get into, hard to follow and took me longer than I thought to read.

Read Stoker’s Dracula instead or some of Anne Rice’s first few novels about Lestat (I personally was always more partial to The Vampire Lestat over Interview with a Vampire.  But that’s just me).

Dante’s Equation: Physics and Mysticism Collide

So behind, so behind.  Let’s see if I can remember what this book was about.

I am no great math or science scholar.  I maintained a disbelief in atoms until, oh, a few years ago (not really–it was simply incomprehensible to me that we can know something so tiny exists) and geometry is beyond me (you should see my SAT math score…I think I scored barely more points than you got for showing up and signing your name).  For some reason, though, I really enjoy reading books that involve physics (though I tend to skim over the math).  Maybe it is that physics keeps getting stranger and stranger and less and less logical, and I like to think there are other universes (universi?) and ways we could reach them.

I picked up Jane Jensen’s Dante’s Equation because it wondered what would happen if an equation for good and evil was discovered.  Cool! What an idea!  I remember my 11th grade U.S. History teacher who said that science is the “how” and religion is the “why.”  Jensen’s book seemed to embody that idea.  It marries Kabbalah and physics.  Strange bedfellows you say?  Maybe not.  During the Holocaust, mystic thinker Rabbi Yosef Kobinski vanished from Auschwitz under mysterious circumstances.  Decades later, another rabbi and an American journalist for a New Age publication have become obsessed with Kobinski and the formula for good and evil he purportedly discovered.  Kobinski’s formula is amazingly similar to research being done by Dr. Jill Talcott, who stumbles upon the effects of energy waves on humans and other living entities.  The government is also pursuing Dr. Talcott and any remnants of Kobinski’s formula to keep its application for itself since the formula can alter both physical and spiritual states.  All parties involved suddenly disappear and find themselves experiencing Kobinski’s formula of good and evil.

Jensen’s book is like two books.  You have the first part which is fairly well-grounded in Talcott’s research and cold, single-minded pursuit; the rabbi’s obsession with dogma and ritual and growing obsession with Kobinski; the journalist’s willingness to use anyone to obtain fragments of Kobinski’s manuscript and of course, the mystery of just what Talcott’s research is uncovering and exactly what Kobinski’s theory is. 

The second part begins after the main characters disappear.  It’s interesting in its own right, yet it is here where Jensen’s plot begins to stumble a bit.  It’s hugely ambitious.  It is in this second part where the “Dante” of the title comes in. You know.  Dante… He of the Divine Comedy and the Inferno, its best known part?  The Dante of let the punishment fit the crime and different worlds for each type of crime/sin?  That’s the basic component of the theory of good and evil.  Without giving away too much, it’s not as simple as the bad characters go to a bad place and the good to a good one.  Humans are much more complex than that.  There are degrees of badness and goodness, and that degree will determine what type of world you will find yourself.  Each character lands in a very unique place, places well-suited to each of them and their personal demons.  It was this part of the novel that stretched my credulity.  Jensen tried to make this part of the novel as realistic as the first part, but it still seemed too fantastic.  Interesting experiment, though. 

Once the characters return, they find themselves fundamentally changed and determined to prevent any more of Kobinski’s work from landing in the wrong hands. This ending rang a little false too.  It was like they all returned with a “make love, not war” mentality that seemed a little hippy-ish even for this liberal.  It seemed a little bizarre.

I commend Jensen for what she was trying to achieve in this book.  I like that bad and good weren’t black and white and that there are degrees of badness and goodness  I believe that.  No one is wholly good or bad.  Ultimately, the overall effort was a little uneven, but it was still a good read.

Hell House: Come on over!

I LOVE Halloween.  Love it!  I don’t know if it’s part of the fact that I love fall, love all things pumpkin, look great in orange or what, but it is one of my favorite occasions.  I respond strongly to the siren call of All Hallow’s Eve. Therefore, I decided to inject a little Halloween spirit to my reading by checking out some books that fit the season.

Hell House by Richard Matheson was a good, quick read and not a house I would like to visit.  Yes, I can talk a good game but wimp out very quickly when it comes to putting myself in scary situations (I think my shriek of terror may still be echoing in that vault in Edinburgh that a friend and I toured –cockily I might add–on a ghost tour. How mortifying).

A scientist, his wife, and two mediums (sounds like a bad joke)–one of whom was the only survivor of a previous attempt to study the house–agree to a wealthy publisher’s offer to spend a week studying the phenomena there.  Each person has his or her own motives. The publisher, near death, hopes to have confirmation of life after death.   The scientist wants to prove his theory about parapsychology being simply energy and nothing paranormal.  Ben, the lone survivor from the last attempt, wants to survive the house and give it another go and trying to figure out its mystery.  Florence, the spiritual medium, sees it as her opportunity to free restless souls and earn money for her church.  And the scientist’s wife can’t live without her husband.  

The house in question is officially named the Belasco House but is referred to by all as Hell House.  It isn’t just any haunted house.  Emeric Belasco, the former owner, created a culture of debauchery and violence in the house that led to many deaths.  Previous attempts to study the house have led to more death and madness.  Who is haunting the house?  How many are haunting the house?  Is it being haunted at all or are the manifestations in the house created by the mediums themselves?  Settle in and find out the answers!

I can tell a horror novel/ghost story is getting to me when I can’t read it too late in the night.  I felt a little uneasy reading it at 1am and had to put it down, and after I cut out the lights, I was afraid I would see something nasty staring back at me through the window.  So right there, that response elevated this novel above the run of the mill horror story for me.  It’s not a perfect book.  I’m still a little unclear about what happened at the end, and some of the events seemed written so vaguely that it was difficult to tell whether it was a dream/nightmare or really happening.  The pace was a little slow at times, too.  I felt like Matheson left a lot unsaid and unexplained in the story and characters which probably helped (even as it frustrates) because it allowed the reader to use her own imagination.  It’s a good technique for a horror story since it amps up the scariness.  And yeah, the group of people getting together to study a haunted house is a cliche in the horror genre.

I worried the book would be a trifling confection with nothing more than a ghost going “boo” once or twice, but there were some genuinely shocking scenes and plot developments.  Sexuality and horror seem to go hand in hand.  This was my first encounter with Matheson, and I was unaware of how much he had written that I recognized (from their film versions anyway).  I’m going to have to read more of him.  It’s rare that you can find an enjoyable, genuinely scary, fairly well-written horror story.

I’ll have to think of some good, scary books to recommend for Halloween.  What are your favorite horror stories?