Having fallen way behind on New Yorkers, I spent a good chunk of time this weekend plowing through. Most pieces were status quo, but I thought that the fiction has been especially good lately. This one in particular, "Alone" by Yiyun Lee, has been haunting me since I read it. It's beautifully written and structured--really, a complete novel in four pages. (I hope all the people trying to pound out thousands of words a day for internet bragging rights are paying attention to this.) Recommended.
Conversely, I was kinda disappointed by "Premium Harmony," a new story by Stephen King. In general, I like King's (non-horror) writing, especially as he gets older and more reflective. But this story just felt stunted and melancholy. I would have happily read more about the characters, but the arc wasn't very engaging at all. And I saw the big climax coming, about three paragraphs in. If it were a normal story by an unknown author, I don't think I'd have been as bothered. Probably unfair, but true. Especially given that he's someone who could probably knock out a rough draft NaNoWriMo novel in a slow weekend, and have it sell 8 bajillion copies.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Evil at Heart by Chelsea Cain
Apparently I've been on a sex, drugs, and brutality kick lately--but only with the reading list, don't worry. After reading the first two Stieg Larsson thrillers (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire), I snuck Evil at Heart into the queue. Evil at Heart is Chelsea Cain's third book about Portland detective Archie Sheridan and serial killer Gretchen Lowell, after Heartsick and Sweetheart.
I was excited for this one--I really liked the the first two. Fun reads, but also challenging enough to be worthwhile. This one was just kind of...easy. It follows the same universe of characters (the Portland cops and reporter trying to bring down Gretchen, the most attractive serial killer this side of Ted Bundy), and a similar plot line. Gretchen is back on the loose, after manipulating Archie Sheridan from her prison cell for two novels and ultimately using him to escape. Archie, for his part, is still royally effed up by her, but is trying to push past it. He's in rehab for the pill addiction he developed after she carved him up and brought him back to life, and has finally started to break her psychosexual hold over him. But not much actually happens in the book, except a series of copycat murders that may or may not be Gretchen's handiwork.
There's also the world's slowest love interest development going on, between Archie and crime reporter Susan Ward. It took him one book to get rid of his wife, 2.5 to stop fantasizing about Gretchen, and now finally Archie and Susan are both admitting there might be a mutual crush. Who do they think they are, me? I don't know how many books Cain is planning, but jeez. Just get there already. Not that there's no romance going on in this installment--there's a touching scene of self-mutilation fetishization.
The most interesting part of the book is Cain's characterization of America's relationship to sensational crime stories. The newly escaped Gretchen is an object of obsession for the country, with TV specials like America's Hottest Serial Killers and "Run, Gretchen, run" t-shirts. There's also a cult of Gretchen-obsessed psychos who convene on an online message board (surprise, surprise) and meet up in spots where previous victims were found. The social commentary gets a little heavy-handed (the TV show in particular is a bit too on-the-nose), but I think Cain's pretty spot-on about the terror-to-fascination ratio.
The book also suffers from Dan Brown Syndrome, where the author uses chapter breaks to create artificial movement and action. The first fifty pages have about twelve chapters. And it's not a long book. I still really enjoy Cain's style and writing--and I would have been fine waiting longer, for a deeper and more substantial read. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the next one will be a little more satisfying. I bought this book knowing it'd be quick and dirty, but it turns out I needed a little more conversation first.
I was excited for this one--I really liked the the first two. Fun reads, but also challenging enough to be worthwhile. This one was just kind of...easy. It follows the same universe of characters (the Portland cops and reporter trying to bring down Gretchen, the most attractive serial killer this side of Ted Bundy), and a similar plot line. Gretchen is back on the loose, after manipulating Archie Sheridan from her prison cell for two novels and ultimately using him to escape. Archie, for his part, is still royally effed up by her, but is trying to push past it. He's in rehab for the pill addiction he developed after she carved him up and brought him back to life, and has finally started to break her psychosexual hold over him. But not much actually happens in the book, except a series of copycat murders that may or may not be Gretchen's handiwork.There's also the world's slowest love interest development going on, between Archie and crime reporter Susan Ward. It took him one book to get rid of his wife, 2.5 to stop fantasizing about Gretchen, and now finally Archie and Susan are both admitting there might be a mutual crush. Who do they think they are, me? I don't know how many books Cain is planning, but jeez. Just get there already. Not that there's no romance going on in this installment--there's a touching scene of self-mutilation fetishization.
The most interesting part of the book is Cain's characterization of America's relationship to sensational crime stories. The newly escaped Gretchen is an object of obsession for the country, with TV specials like America's Hottest Serial Killers and "Run, Gretchen, run" t-shirts. There's also a cult of Gretchen-obsessed psychos who convene on an online message board (surprise, surprise) and meet up in spots where previous victims were found. The social commentary gets a little heavy-handed (the TV show in particular is a bit too on-the-nose), but I think Cain's pretty spot-on about the terror-to-fascination ratio.
The book also suffers from Dan Brown Syndrome, where the author uses chapter breaks to create artificial movement and action. The first fifty pages have about twelve chapters. And it's not a long book. I still really enjoy Cain's style and writing--and I would have been fine waiting longer, for a deeper and more substantial read. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the next one will be a little more satisfying. I bought this book knowing it'd be quick and dirty, but it turns out I needed a little more conversation first.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Americans like Swedish things. Those little meatballs with gravy and jam. Incomprehensible Muppets. Our Ektorp sofas from IKEA. And now, possibly the year's unlikeliest bestseller, the English translation of late Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson's book Män som hatar kvinnor.
Written as the first book in a trilogy of brutal suspense thrillers, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo starts with Mikael Blomkvist, a magazine journalist/publisher who's been disgraced by a recent libel case against one of Sweden's most prominent businessmen. On his way to a light prison sentence and licking his ego wounds, Blomqvist becomes involved in an old missing persons case. Harriet Vanger, the sixteen-year-old heiress to a large corporate fortune, disappeared years ago--and everyone except her great-uncle, Henrik, thinks she's dead. The case is Henrik's white whale, and as he gets older and more frail, he wants definitive answers. Knowing that Blomqvist is a good journalist (pesky libel conviction aside) with some time on his hands, he hires the writer to come out to his tiny town, which is populated by his eccentric, hostile, and just plain awful relatives. Pretty much everyone involved has a motive to have wanted Harriet gone, and Mikael is tasked with finding out which one of them is responsible for the girl's disappearance back in the 60s (under the guise of writing a biography of the Vanger family).
Blomqvist takes the case, 'cause he needs the truckloads of cash that Vanger promises--as well as the super-secret evidence that Vanger supposedly has that proves Blomqvist's innocence in the libel case. Blomqvist hires an unlikely partner, Lisbeth Salander, to help. Lisbeth is a young woman who has zero social skills, but some kind of ninja ability to uncover top secret information. The two dig deeper into the Vanger family secrets, and discover that--surprise!--someone in the Vanger family really doesn't want them finding out what happened to Harriet. It's kind of like Clue, but with 100% more shady blond people.
While Blomqvist and Salander are struggling with ugly revelations of murder, double identities, and horrific sexual practices, the B-plot follows the fate of Blomqvist's magazine, Millenium, as he and his best friend/f-buddy/editor-in-chief Erika Berger try to keep everything afloat.
Overall, I liked the book quite a bit. I don't read many thrillers these days, and this one reminded me of how compelling they can be when done well. And Larsson makes his social justice agenda clear. The Swedish title of the book translates into "Men Who Hate Women." (Something tells me this book wouldn't have been the subway-reading hit it was, if the American publisher had kept that on the cover.) And Larsson is not squeamish about hitting the reader with all sorts of male-on-female violence. Pretty much any way a modern woman can be used and abused by the worst of men is in the book somewhere. And I also liked the way he created the female characters--bold, sexual, and not apologetic at all. For example, the female lead, Lisbeth, is not a pleasant person. She's blunt, probably on the autism spectrum, and unable to trust anyone. But she's extremely good at what she does, and draws attraction and respect (from non-evil dudes, anyway).
The plot has a few too many deus-ex-machina moments, but they're not so clunky that they don't fit in. And given that the writer dropped dead of a heart attack before the book even came out, I don't really fault the lack of polish/editing. The characters are interesting enough to make it worthwhile, and the writing (whether through translation or by design) is straightforward. I enjoyed it enough to rush out and get my hands on the sequel, to see what those zany Swedes will get up to next.
Written as the first book in a trilogy of brutal suspense thrillers, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo starts with Mikael Blomkvist, a magazine journalist/publisher who's been disgraced by a recent libel case against one of Sweden's most prominent businessmen. On his way to a light prison sentence and licking his ego wounds, Blomqvist becomes involved in an old missing persons case. Harriet Vanger, the sixteen-year-old heiress to a large corporate fortune, disappeared years ago--and everyone except her great-uncle, Henrik, thinks she's dead. The case is Henrik's white whale, and as he gets older and more frail, he wants definitive answers. Knowing that Blomqvist is a good journalist (pesky libel conviction aside) with some time on his hands, he hires the writer to come out to his tiny town, which is populated by his eccentric, hostile, and just plain awful relatives. Pretty much everyone involved has a motive to have wanted Harriet gone, and Mikael is tasked with finding out which one of them is responsible for the girl's disappearance back in the 60s (under the guise of writing a biography of the Vanger family).Blomqvist takes the case, 'cause he needs the truckloads of cash that Vanger promises--as well as the super-secret evidence that Vanger supposedly has that proves Blomqvist's innocence in the libel case. Blomqvist hires an unlikely partner, Lisbeth Salander, to help. Lisbeth is a young woman who has zero social skills, but some kind of ninja ability to uncover top secret information. The two dig deeper into the Vanger family secrets, and discover that--surprise!--someone in the Vanger family really doesn't want them finding out what happened to Harriet. It's kind of like Clue, but with 100% more shady blond people.
While Blomqvist and Salander are struggling with ugly revelations of murder, double identities, and horrific sexual practices, the B-plot follows the fate of Blomqvist's magazine, Millenium, as he and his best friend/f-buddy/editor-in-chief Erika Berger try to keep everything afloat.
Overall, I liked the book quite a bit. I don't read many thrillers these days, and this one reminded me of how compelling they can be when done well. And Larsson makes his social justice agenda clear. The Swedish title of the book translates into "Men Who Hate Women." (Something tells me this book wouldn't have been the subway-reading hit it was, if the American publisher had kept that on the cover.) And Larsson is not squeamish about hitting the reader with all sorts of male-on-female violence. Pretty much any way a modern woman can be used and abused by the worst of men is in the book somewhere. And I also liked the way he created the female characters--bold, sexual, and not apologetic at all. For example, the female lead, Lisbeth, is not a pleasant person. She's blunt, probably on the autism spectrum, and unable to trust anyone. But she's extremely good at what she does, and draws attraction and respect (from non-evil dudes, anyway).
The plot has a few too many deus-ex-machina moments, but they're not so clunky that they don't fit in. And given that the writer dropped dead of a heart attack before the book even came out, I don't really fault the lack of polish/editing. The characters are interesting enough to make it worthwhile, and the writing (whether through translation or by design) is straightforward. I enjoyed it enough to rush out and get my hands on the sequel, to see what those zany Swedes will get up to next.
What to Write Next
One of my favorite "why didn't I know this guy before?" literary discoveries this year has been Colson Whitehead. And this morning's Times Sunday Book Review has a great, funny essay by him: What to Write Next.
Realism: Take this test. When you read “These dishes have been sitting in the sink for days,” do you think (a) This is an indicator of my inner weather, or (b) Why don’t they do the dishes? Does the phrase “I’m going as far away from here as my broken transmission will get me, and then I’ll take it from there” make you think (a) Somebody understands me, or (b) Why don’t they stay and talk it out? What is more visually appealing, (a) a Pall Mall butt floating in a coffee mug, or (b) those new Pop Art place mats in the Crate & Barrel catalog? If you answered (a), do we have a genre for you.
Recommended for: The rumpled, drinky.
...
Southern Novel of Black Misery: Africans in America, cut your teeth on this literary staple. Slip on your sepia-tinted goggles and investigate the legacy of slavery that still reverberates to this day, the legacy of Reconstruction that still reverberates to this day, and crackers. Invent nutty transliterations of what you think slaves talked like. But hurry up — the hounds are a-gittin’ closer!
Realism: Take this test. When you read “These dishes have been sitting in the sink for days,” do you think (a) This is an indicator of my inner weather, or (b) Why don’t they do the dishes? Does the phrase “I’m going as far away from here as my broken transmission will get me, and then I’ll take it from there” make you think (a) Somebody understands me, or (b) Why don’t they stay and talk it out? What is more visually appealing, (a) a Pall Mall butt floating in a coffee mug, or (b) those new Pop Art place mats in the Crate & Barrel catalog? If you answered (a), do we have a genre for you.
Recommended for: The rumpled, drinky.
...
Southern Novel of Black Misery: Africans in America, cut your teeth on this literary staple. Slip on your sepia-tinted goggles and investigate the legacy of slavery that still reverberates to this day, the legacy of Reconstruction that still reverberates to this day, and crackers. Invent nutty transliterations of what you think slaves talked like. But hurry up — the hounds are a-gittin’ closer!
Sample titles: “I’ll Love You Till the Gravy Runs Out and Then I’m Gonna Lick Out the Skillet”; “Sore Bunions on a Dusty Road.”
Southern Novel of White Misery, OR Southern Novel: What race problem?
Sample titles: “The Birthing Stone”; “The Gettin’ Place.”
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