This is the Life. Keith Richards writes it all down.

Life
Keith Richards
Little Brown and Company, 2010

Rating: 4 out of 5
Reviewer: Trudi

This is the Life. Believe it or not, I haven't forgotten any of it. ~Life, Keith Richards

Well now, there you have it. Who'd have thunk "Keef" would have lived so long -- he certainly won't be leaving a beautiful corpse when he finally does kick off, that's for sure. And that will probably be from natural causes at this point in his life on the eve of turning seventy, but who the hell knows with this guy? Sure he's laid off the dope, but he's still managing to fall out of trees hard enough to put a crack in his skull, or find himself reaching for a giant tome on the top shelf of his home library and subsequently getting buried under an avalanche of falling books (that one caused him a few broken ribs).

This cat has got more lives than can be counted. Yes, he should be dead, a looooong time ago. That he's not, is astounding. That he can remember most of his life, even the heavy drug years, is more astounding still. That his telling of it should be so engaging and insightful, raucous and unflinching and funny ... well, that astounds me most of all.

Rolling Stones at Glastonbury, 1964 (mirror.co.uk)

I’m not a raving Stones fan, that isn’t what brought me to this autobiography. Sure, there are about 35 of their songs I can sing along to and like many people, there are another 10 I consider to be some of the best rock songs ever written. But I wasn’t born early enough to come of age during the Stones golden era when they were young, ferocious and unstoppable. I wasn’t a “Mick girl” or “Keef girl”. For better or worse, I missed the 60s and 70s, but that doesn’t mean that time in music history doesn’t interest me. It interests me quite a lot actually.

Rock histories and music retrospectives on particular times and places endlessly fascinate me. It’s not enough just to listen to the tunes, I want to know the where, when, who, how and why something was written, recorded, and imbibed. The birth of rock n roll? I want to know the characters, the causes, the culture that spawned it. I want to know when it learned to walk, and then I want to know who made it run. Who was in the engine room? I love hearing about all the little asides and anecdotes about who was where, who saw who perform and then started their own band – the roots of the roots (stretch it back as far as you think you can).

I came to this book hoping I would get a glimpse into that engine room, at all the characters huffing and puffing, fighting and fucking their way along in there, keeping this beast coined Rock n Roll running. Rock n Roll will never die if everyone in the engine room keeps doing their job. In that vein, this book did not disappoint. The first half is a fairly detailed portrait of what was going on in the world of music at the time the Stones stepped onto the world’s stage, how the times were a-changing and people were ready for something different. It’s ironic that what the Stones started out doing was Chicago blues -- what was “different” is that it was now reaching a white audience.

Keith, Anita Pallenberg, son Marlon, 1969
source: virginmedia.com

Richards has a very definite opinion on how everything unfolded in his life and in the life of the band (i.e. he didn’t steal Anita from Brian Jones, he rescued her). It may not be the complete truth, but he’s not bullshitting the reader either – it is the truth as he believes it to be. In a lot of ways this is a long conversation with the man that you start in the middle of the afternoon over coffee and don’t finish until dawn the following day when the empty wine bottles lay strewn about you and you have the beginnings of a nasty headache coming on. It’s intimate, forthright, and in your face. There were times I flinched and felt like screaming: “TMI Keith! For godsake, TMI”

 I was appalled to hear him so blithely recount his and Anita’s epic drug years, strung out on smack, with two small children in their care. Even after many arrests (and car crashes), it didn’t seem like there was ever any threat of having their kids taken away. When a third baby is born and dies in Anita’s care of supposed “crib death” my stomach rolled over with nausea. Maybe that’s all it was, but maybe it was from junkie neglect. Thank heavens Keith at least had the sense to send his little girl Angela to his mum to love and raise in England. Despite the extremely unconventional upbringing, Keith’s eldest son Marlon (named after Marlon Brando) seems to be pretty well-adjusted these days with a family of his own. His few reminiscences that are included in the story are not filled with bitterness or anger, but rather with a sardonic humor and a deeply expressed loyalty to his father.

Mick and Keith recording Exile on Main Street

The music bits are really really good and if you’re a guitar player, you’ll even get some awesome tips. Keith’s descriptions of the songwriting process are fascinating too, as well as the realities of recording albums in the pre-digital age. My favourite portion of the book might just be the time the Stones spent in France recording the double album Exile on Main Street. I’ve since found out that a documentary has been made on this very subject called Stones in Exile that I now HAVE to see.

The book does become a bit of a slog in the third act. There are places where Keith begins to ramble a bit and the narrative loses focus. I mean c’mon, you’re not that fascinating bro, how about a little nip and tuck here and there; isn’t that what an editor is for?

Keith Richards, 2011

But overall, I remained completely immersed for the two weeks it took to listen to this unabridged version read by Johnny Depp, Joe Hurley and the man himself.

And what begins as a charming and enchanting coming-of-age tale and a young man’s love letter to the power of music eventually does descend into the pit of hedonism and rock star excesses. How could it not? It’s Keith bloody Richards after all. But through all the shit, there is pure, unadulterated love for the music. That I can admire, that I can respect.

This review is also posted to Busty Book Bimbo.

Among Others

Among Others
By Jo Walton

Reviewed by Stephanie
4 out of 5 stars

"I care more for people in books than the people I see every day.”

uh....kind of the truth sometimes.

Morwenna Phelps is a fifteen year old who is a veracious reader, especially for anything Science Fiction, or 'SF' as she calls it. I was tempted to write down every book mentioned as this book moved along, but seriously that would have been more work than I really had the energy to do.

Among Others is written in the first person in the form Morwenna's diary, which begins after a horrible car crash that both Morwenna and her twin are in. Mor's leg is severely injured and her twin doesn't survive. Mor takes refuge in her books to get though it and heal.
“It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books.”
Morwenna and her sister grew up seeing fairies and doing magic (very vague magic). Mor's mother is a very powerful and evil witch, for whom she blames for her twins death. Mor runs away from her mother to stay with a father who she has never met and is sent off to boarding school.

Everything that happens in this book, or diary, is all filtered through Morwenna and her SF books. Morwenna IS her SF books, so what might actually be happening and what Mor is telling us are likely two different things altogether.

“I don’t think I am like other people. I mean on some deep fundamental level. It’s not just being half a twin and reading a lot and seeing fairies. It’s not just being outside when they’re all inside. I used to be inside. I think there’s a way I stand aside and look backwards at things when they’re happening which isn’t normal.”

I really enjoyed Among Others, a unique read, written in a style that I I truly liked. I haven't come across anything quite like this book. It doesn't give you many answers, it doesn't tie things up nice and neat, and I liked that.

“This isn’t a nice story, and this isn’t an easy story. But it is a story about fairies, so feel free to think of it as a fairy story. It’s not like you’d believe it anyway.”

Also posted at Goodreads.

Are you an innie or an outie?

Quiet
By Susan Cain
Non fiction

Reviewed by Stephanie
Rated 4 out of 5 stars


March 6th [2012] was Super Tuesday and I live in that Oh-so-much-talked-about-battle-ground-state of Ohio. I work the elections as a Ballot Judge, which means I hand out the ballots to the voters and give them instructions. I get to talk and talk, for 13 hours straight *sigh*. I try to make it entertaining for the voters, myself and the others I work with because of its repetition, but by 7:30 pm when the polls close I don’t think the language I was using was English.
My spiel went something like this…….

Me: “Hi. What ballot can I get for you today?”

Voter: “Uh…….what do you mean?”

Me: “Today we have, Democratic, Republican, Libertarian or Green (I have never given out the last two)”.

Voter: “What’s a Green party?”

Me: “I’m not sure, but there is next to nothing on their ballot.”

Voter: “I’m an independent (code for embarrassed Republican) can’t I have both a Democratic AND
 Republican ballot?”

Me: “No, you must declare one and you will be that party until the next primary. Ohio is a closed primary state.”

Voter: “Uh….then give me a *whispers* a Democrat one.”

Me: *loudly* “Democratic it is! Take all this to a table and vote, when you are done bring everything back to Rosemary in the red sweater by that machine. Make sure to tear off the stub on the bottom of the ballot…….the one that is marked “do not detach” when you come up to the machine. If you don’t, you will make Rosemary angry (a very sweet and very old woman) and you won’t like her when she’s angry. She will cover you in I Voted stickers.”

This resulted in lots of chuckles, but I did it 301 times. I was drained. I slept for 12 hours that night. Twelve. Grant it, I got up at stupid O ‘clock to get to the polls by 6 am and maybe had 4 hours of sleep, but I was just a shell my former self. I am an introvert.

Introverts and extroverts are most easily determined by how their energy is drained and how it is refreshed. Extroverts are drained when they have spent too much time alone, and the opposite is true for introverts. So for me, my life force was gone.

In the United States our culture is biased towards the extrovert. We are about the loudness, the out there, the utter insanity if you will. In school “poor Johnny is so quiet, he needs to come out of his shell.” I want to scream “Leave him alone…..he’s FINE, he likes his shell!” School rooms now do this Pod thing where they pull four desks together and make these poor kids work as a team. WTF? No way would have that “concept” worked for me and it’s not working for introverted kids.

“There’s no I in team” and that is a damn dirty shame.

I haven’t worked in an office setting in years, so when I read in this book that office places are arranging offices areas with an open concept, everybody face to face with no walls. Workers going about their day, shooting the shit, getting ideas……brainstorming (which doesn't work). Who in the hell thought that one up? What a nightmare. What if I only tolerate a certain co-worker……now I have to stare at his annoying face all day, every day? How is anything ever accomplished?

Companies are beginning to realize this mistake and are changing things up. Google (I think it was them) designed their offices with food, bathrooms and the like all in the center, like a town center, with offices around the edges. It is designed for casual meetings where ideas everyone figured out in their quiet offices are shared and expanded.

Introverts are a third to half of the population. Many of these don’t even know they are introverted, because of the push to be extroverted has made them fool themselves into thinking they were extroverts.

Another interesting thing I learned from this book is that extroverts are motivated by rewards. They work toward things, and take risks if need be to get to the goal of getting that reward. Extroverts are soooo happy when they get the reward.

Introverts are motivated by fear. So they do things more cautiously, careful not to mess things up in the process of getting to a goal. That sounds like me. It’s doesn't sound cool that I am afraid to F things up, but I am.

This book is interesting, whether you are an I or an E. Because if you’re not an introvert, odds are you know and love one.

Also posted on Goodreads.

Madness, I Say!

The Female Malady:  Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980


Elaine Showalter
Penguin Books
Reviewed by: Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

In this informative, timely and often harrowing study, Elaine Showalter demonstrates how cultural ideas about 'proper' feminine behaviour have shaped the definition and treatment of female insanity for 150 years, and given mental disorder in women specifically sexual connotations. Along with vivid portraits of the men who dominated psychiatry, and descriptions of the therapeutic practices that were used to bring women 'to their senses', she draws on diaries and narratives by inmates, and fiction from Mary Wollstonecraft to Doris Lessing, to supply a cultural perspective usually missing from studies of mental illness.

My Review

Elaine Showalter’s The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture 1830-1980 is a very informative, very accessible, and very disturbing look at how “insanity” was treated from 1830 to 1980.  It examines cultural expectations about how women should behave and how these male perceptions affected the diagnosis and treatment of women’s mental health problems.  

I read this book from cover to cover and would have been very happy if it were a school text.  One of the things I liked most about the book was its personal approach, using the perspectives of female "inmates" themselves, and fiction excerpts from a variety of authors, such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sylvia Plath, Charlotte Bronte, Doris Lessing, and others to highlight women's mental health issues and experiences with doctors and provide an insight into the culture and period. 

There was also a section on men who suffered "shell shock" during WWI, the treatment they received, the similarities between "hysterical" men and women, and the modernization of psychiatry.

I highly recommend this book for those interested in mental health, history, and the effects of power and gender imbalance in the mental health care profession and in society.

   

Also posted at Goodreads.

Historical Western. Wait! Come back, it's good!

BLOOD KIN
Henry Chappell
TTU Press
$22.36 hardcover, available now

Reviewwd by Richard, 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In Blood Kin, Isaac Webb, a young Texas ranger, struggles for decency amid the violence of the Texas Revolution and the early days of the Republic. Still in his teens when he joins the legendary ranger captain Noah Smithwick, Isaac discovers in himself extraordinary mettle in battle and a fierce yearning for young war widow Catherine Druin.

But victory over Mexico does not bring the new Republic nor Isaac the peace and stability he fought for. Escalating Indian depredations forestall Isaac’s hopes to work the farmland he’s cleared near Bastrop, and to marry Catherine. Pressed into accompanying Smithwick as Sam Houston’s peace emissary to the Comanches, Isaac befriends Looks Far, a young warrior at whose side he fends off Waco Indian attacks and with whom he learns to grieve. As the Texans’ hunger for land and the Comanches’ penchant for raiding imperil Isaac’s friendship and thwart peace negotiations, Isaac returns to Bastrop prepared for the worst.

When his future with Catherine is confounded by her father’s blind hatred of the Comanches and his own commitment to the indomitable Inez, a Lipan captive, Isaac must confront a brutal dilemma and a painful secret. So achingly honest and culturally sensitive is Chappell in his telling of this epic story that every image, every characterization rings true. It is hard to believe that he did not live it himself.

My Review: I loved this book. It's about a fascinating time in Texas history, and a group of men who can often be reviled with justice...told from the perspective of a young, innocent man who joins the Texas Rangers almost by accident, it traces his development into an upstanding husband (of a Waco Indian woman) and father, a fighter for justice for all, not just all whites, and a friend of several of the founders of the Republic.

I loved the descriptive power of the author's prose, and felt his characters were limned in fast, sure strokes. He comes at the subject from a deeply personal perspective, a love of his native Texas in all its warty glory. He makes the landscape, one I'm familiar with since Bastrop is close to my hometown of Austin, more real than I would ever have thought possible. He's describing the frontier, the time when there was nothing urban about anyplace much in Texas. And I can see it in my mind's eye, fitting over the modern small-town exurban reality of Bastrop.

Chappell does an excellent job of making the dilemmas of his characters come to life. It's amazing to me how much drama and passion there truly is in history and how the way it's taught to kids makes that seem impossible. Novelists like Chappell see the story in history, choose a thread in the tapestry, and showcase it for us. It cuts through the propagandizing and malarkey of most works of historiography, when done properly and well. It's done both properly and well in this book.

I can't recommend it strongly enough, especially to non-Texans.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Lacking in Bite, But Plenty of Suck

Blood Oath

by Christopher Farnsworth

Published  by Jove

Reviewed by Amanda
2 Out of 5 Stars

After avoiding the vampire genre for so long (thanks to Stephenie Meyer turning it into one giant suckfest of romantic longing), I've lately been wallowing in it.  Between watching seasons 1 and 2 of SyFy's Being Human, reading DC's excellent The New 52 I, Vampire, as well as Scott Snyder's American Vampire, my faith in the genre has been restored.  Bring on the bloodsucking fiends!  So I was more than ready to tackle Blood Oath, which, based upon several excellent reviews, I thought would also put the bite back into the genre.  And my final verdict is . . . eh, not so much.

The premise is promising:  when a sailor is found aboard a whaling ship, surrounded by the ex-sanguinated corpses of his mates, President Andrew Johnson brings Marie Laveau in to bind the vampire to the office of the President for as long as he walks the earth.  As a result, Nathaniel Cade has been our country's best kept secret weapon for 140 years, protecting our country against threats foreign, domestic, and supernatural.  He lives in an off-limits wing of the Smithsonian Institute and uses his prowess as a hunter to serve our country.  The latest threat?  Dr. Johann Konrad may be helping Islamic jihadists create zombie soldiers from the parts of fallen U. S. servicemen.  His credentials for doing so?  He was in charge of Hitler's attempts to create Unmenschsoldaten, soldiers raised from the dead to fight without feeling pain, empathy, or hunger.  Oh, and did I mention that waaaaayyyyy back in the day Johann lived in Castle . . . Frankenstein?

I could hardly wait to wrap my peepers around the words that held so much promise for giddy, ridiculous, blood-drenched fun!  Alas, the more promise offered, the greater the potential for disappointment.  The book reads more like a movie script than a novel and all of the characters are flat and one-dimensional.  The dialogue is groan-worthy; the attempts at humor are weak and obvious; the descriptions are virtually non-existent.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like a good, light read, but I also expect it to be done with a certain flair and panache that keeps me entertained.  If the banter had been witty instead of predictable, if the absolute absurdity of it all could have been embraced without always bringing it back to the seriousness of politics and patriotism, and, most importantly, if there had been a vampire that was interesting, this book would have lived up to my expectations.

The greatest weakness of all was the one thing that, if approached differently, could have saved it.  Nathaniel Cade is perhaps the most boring, tedious vampire you will ever meet in literature.  He shows no emotion, he refuses to drink human blood, he's a tortured soul because of the sins he's committed, he admonishes people for taking the Lord's name in vain, he wears a cross that causes him pain to constantly remind him of his sins.  Put a sweater vest on him and he could be a Republican candidate for president.  Hell, Bunnicula has more of a personality than Cade.  To be of interest, Cade needs a few more quirks and more menace; he needs a dash of the devil in him (like Anne Rice's Lestat).  The one bit that held promise--Cade attends AA meetings to help him deal with his "thirst"--is only briefly touched upon and a brilliant opportunity for hilarity to ensue is wasted.  I wanted Cade to want to raise hell and put a brick under it.  Instead, he's just being compelled by the spell of a voodoo queen and a need to right his wrongs. One gets the sense that, if let off his chain he would promptly waste himself by walking into the sunlight or driving a stake through his own heart.  By the end of the novel, I kind of wish he had.

The Family That Shocks Together . . .

The Family Fang

by Kevin Wilson

Published by Ecco

Reviewed by Amanda
3 1/2 Out of 5 Stars

Annie and Buster Fang, like so many twenty-somethings, blame their parents for the lack of fulfillment and success they find in their careers and in their personal lives.  However, unlike many twenty-somethings, Annie and Buster may have a valid claim for blaming their parents for their seeming lack of autonomy and self-actualization.  That's because the Fang children's parents were artists--as in Artists (that's right with a capital A and italics).  And not just any kind of artists, but performance artists hell bent on causing chaos in established patterns and the unexpected in the routines of daily life.     

Their parents, Caleb and Camille Fang, are nothing if not utterly dedicated to their art, which involves creating elaborate "happenings" in the most predictable of American venues: the mega-mall.  People lulled into hypnotic trances by muzak, colorful window displays, and giant pretzels are prime targets for the art favored by the Fangs.  Always admonished by their mentor that "children kill art," the Fangs create an unconventional solution to preserve their art and raise their family: Annie and Buster become Child A and Child B, props used by their parents to pull off the increasingly elaborate happenings. 

Flash forward to Annie and Buster as adults.  Both have managed to completely FUBAR their adult lives and return to the Fang family nest for a real world time-out.  Immediately drawn back into the weirdness created by their parents, Annie and Buster revert to their childhood roles.  Buster becomes the sensitive younger child, always anxious to please his parents, while Annie becomes the protective older sister, encouraging Buster to challenge their parents' authority.  Shortly after their return, the Fangs disappear and foul play is suspected by the authorities.  Annie and Buster, however, believe this is another elaborate art piece created by their parents and must examine their seriously dysfunctional relationship with them as they search for the truth.

The Family Fang explores a dilemma faced by every family.  Most parents consciously or unconsciously push their children toward their own personal passions and expect this shared love (whether it be art, football, reading, politics, etc.) to create a bond that no one can break.  Problems inevitably ensue when the child begins exploring the world on his own terms and begins to assert himself as his own being.  In the case of the Fangs, Annie and Buster try to create their own brand of art (in her case, acting, and, in his case, writing), but find that, after years of their parents controlling and shaping the events around them, they are ill-equipped to just let life happen. 

If all of this sounds weird, it is.  But it's also very entertaining and not nearly as dark as one might expect.  Populated with quirky characters and clever dialogue, Wilson's narrative avoids taking itself too seriously by inserting absurdity and humor in all the right places (especially in the scenes where Annie and Buster bicker and banter like close siblings do).  This is a solid 3 1/2 stars and the only reason I didn't give it a 4 is because I enjoyed the first half immensely; however, after the Fangs disappear, I felt as though the shift to the mystery plot was too abrupt and unexpected (granted, that was probably the point, but it just didn't work for me). 

By the Skin of her...

Money Shot
Christa Faust
Hard Case Crimes (# 40)
2008
Anthony Vacca's rating: 3 out of 5 stars






Against my basest male desires, I had to resist the urge to give this book a four star rating. I don’t really mean that this book was lacking in exactly what it was promising to deliver, it’s just probably not ethical (because apparently I think my GoodReads reviews are the epitome of my journalistic standards) to give this book another star just because I have a crush on the author. I mean, here we have a talented female author who is also a huge fan of any and everything noir and she looks like this:

I am well aware from what I have read that Ms. Faust would eat me alive, but this will not deter me from thinking she is, like, so totally super cool and/or marrying her at a moment’s notice if she so wishes. In fact this is probably true for most pretty women with piercings and tattoos who also are really interested in crime fiction (sadly, I have yet to meet any in my own city.) I will gladly meet such a woman and proceed far too quickly to think she is the greatest person ever and will marry her.

I am a weak man and prone to bad decisions.

But enough about me, let’s talk about Christa Faust’s Money Shot—a fun, hard-boiled revenge tale starring the beautiful, and very capable, Angel Dare.

Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way: Angel Dare is not really Angel Dare’s name. This is the stage name she picked back before she took the adult film industry by storm. And now, over ten years later, she is something of what I’d guess you'd call a household name and is perfectly content with her name and identity Angel Dare. She owns and manages a successful talent agency that treats its adult-film actresses fairly and respectfully. She has a good number of close friends. She has a nice house that she sees as the pinnacle of all her endeavors and successes. This is America, and there are easily a million different ways to find your own personal dream of happiness—and Angel Dare has found hers.

But things go wrong very quickly (like in the first sentence) when Angel finds herself shot and left for dead in the trunk of a car. How did she get here? Well thankfully Angel spends the first thirty pages letting us play catch-up from point A to point B.

An old director friend calls up Angel one day for a last-minute shoot of a simple no-fuss-no-muss guy-on girl scene. Now angel is technically retired but she likes helping out an old friend. There are also two other important factors in the decision that are a little less noble. 1) Angel is reaching middle age and is starting to fret about a sudden decline in her sex appeal. 2) she hasn’t gotten laid in a while and (as Angel wonderfully states it) she totally has a woman boner for the male actor she will work with in the scene.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the out-of-this world stud Jesse Black. He’s got it all: baby blue eyes, long and thick black hair, a body to die for, and the blessed endowment of the porn gods…you know what I mean. He’s the hot new talent on the adult industry scene and Angel is flattered when Jesse personally requests to work with Angel. It’s like a dirty little fantasy come true for Angel—that is until he punches her in the face, ties her up, tortures her, locks her in aforementioned trunk, and oh yeah, he shoots her a couple of times.

So why does poor Angel Dare have this happen to her? Well for one, men suck; and two, it turns out Jesse Black is involved with some nasty Eastern-European white slavers. Also there is a matter of a suitcase full of a lot of money that has gone missing. These scum bag gangsters have somehow gotten the idea that Angel knows where there money is. Unfortunately for Angel, she doesn’t. So they decide to go ahead and dispose of her.

Fortunately for Angel, Jesse is kind of a tit and does a very bad job of leaving Angel for dead. Unfortunately for the bad guys, Angel is not the kind of person you want pissed at you.

This doesn’t mean revenge is going to be an easy thing for Angel. The gangsters were also kind enough to leave a murder rap on her head so the police aren’t going to be too sympathetic to Angel’s plight. But like I said, Angel has some close friends, including the ex-cop turned adult actress bodyguard, Malloy. Pretty soon Malloy and Angel are on a race against time to find out where the missing money is and also to make sure that every single one of the bad guys end up a lot of dead.

This was a fun and fast-paced book, and also very refreshing. I have felt for a while now that the crime and mystery genre has been lacking in interesting female protagonists. It seems more often than not that most female protagonists in these kinds of books are often pretty bland and straight laced. So this was a book I had been meaning to read for a while. While I did really enjoy the book, I did not love it. There was a lot of strong characterization in this book, but I felt that Ms. Faust did not push the story as far as it could go.

There seemed to be a tug-of-war going on in the novel where the author couldn’t decide whether she wanted the book to just be over-the-top or if she wanted it to be a more personal drama. I opt that she should have gone for more of both (an example of this would be the excellent mystery novels by the writer James Crumley).

That being said, I am also aware that there is a sequel to this book—Choke Hold—and that many reviewers have described it as a strong improvement over the first. I will definitely check this one out at some point in the near future and hope to see much more work from Ms. Faust in the mystery/crime genre.

ALSO POSTED ON GOODREADS

A hero in his own mind

The Adventures of Gerard

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Reviewed by: Terry
4  out of 5 stars

At Waterloo, although, in a sense, I was present, I was unable to fight, and the enemy was victorious. It is not for me to say that there is a connection between these two things. You know me too well, my friends, to imagine that I would make such a claim. But it gives matter for thought, and some have drawn flattering conclusions from it.

Thus does our old friend Etienne Gerard begin his penultimate tale of adventure, reminiscing convivially about that horrible day at Waterloo. His characteristic reserve and modesty are obviously on full display, for is not humility one of the greatest traits of this very great man? Not on your life…and we wouldn’t have it any other way. I was once again struck by the ways in which Gerard is so similar in character to Harry Paget Flashman, and yet also so diametrically opposed to him. Where Flashy blunders treacherously from misadventure to misadventure in a cowardly attempt to escape danger while still managing to cover himself in glory and praise, Gerard nobly blunders from misadventure to misadventure in a valiant attempt to singlehandedly win every battle in the Napoleonic wars and manages to escape with his life despite his foolhardiness and obtuseness. Some glory adheres to him, but it’s unclear how much is truly universal in its acclaim and how much is only in his own mind. Of course, there’s usually a woman involved as well. And she is always smitten to the core by our brave and dashing hussar. Who wouldn’t be?

Conan Doyle certainly seems to have had a knack for creating memorable, even great, characters. Sherlock Holmes is of course an icon, a literary giant that has stood the test of time. I hope that Gerard does as well, for while he is certainly less well-known than his consulting detective confrere, he is no less intriguing a character. As with Holmes it is due mostly to his faults that Gerard ought to win a place in your hearts and minds. A bigger braggart and narcissist could little be imagined (Harry Paget Flashman notwithstanding), and yet he is a lovable egoist for all of that. Gerard’s heart is always in the right place and if he happens to believe that everyone (even his enemies) truly love him, is he really, perhaps, all that wrong? He is, certainly, an eminently likable old fellow.

This is sadly the last volume of Gerard’s adventures and it runs the gamut of chivalrous exploits undertaken in the name of a lady, to affairs of honour (in the name of a lady), and let’s not forget the martial exploits in the name of the Emperor which of course override all other concerns (though sometimes a lady *is* involved). It’s a pleasure to listen as the Brigadier recalls his days of glory and for all of their inherent humour (usually indiscernable to Gerard) there is also some pathos evoked by them, for it is apparent that this jovial old grognard living on half-pay and memories alone has nothing else save the planting of cabbages with which to while away his final days, for he remained loyal to his beloved emperor and his own prospects and standing faded away as the star of Napoleon itself dimmed and disappeared. This last was certainly not without some attempts by Gerard to undo the wrong done to his master, but that’s a tale you will have to hear for yourself. I urge you to do so, the Brigadier is always a genial companion. Ah, by the bye you don’t mind springing for a bottle of burgundy, do you? There’s a good fellow.

Also posted at Goodreads

Theseus, the man who would be king

The Bull from the Sea

Mary Renault

Vintage

Reviewed by: Terry
4.5  out of 5 stars

Mary Renault’s _The Bull from the Sea_ takes up where _The King Must Die_ left off and continues the legendary story of Theseus and his kingship of Attica. There are some differences between this volume and its predecessor, most notably in the fact that the scope of this tale is much broader. Whereas the first volume concentrated primarily on Theseus’ youth and time in the bull ring of Crete and covered the time involved in a fair amount of detail, this volume is much more a précis of many events, covering a much wider range of time. Important events and periods are singled out, however, and expanded upon with more than enough detail to satisfy. I never had the sense that the tale was in any way rushed or incomplete and the broader scope perhaps allowed for a more elegiac tone to the novel, which is appropriate given the ending to Theseus’ tale. This is a memoir giving the wider story of Theseus’ kingship and deeds after the defining moment of his youth has passed.

Even though this memoir comes from the hand (voice?) of Theseus himself and is often told very much in overview I was impressed with the way in which secondary characters came to life. For example with only a chapter seen from Theseus’ POV and the things he is able to glean from implication we learn a lot about the entire youth and development of his son Hippolytos. Theseus’ great friend Pirithoos, his wives Hippolyta and Phaedra and his other son Akama are also all very well depicted even when painted with minimal brush strokes.

Another thing that struck me with Renault’s Theseus saga (and this volume in particular) was the deft way in which many other legends and tales from ancient Greece were woven into the fabric of his tale without taking anything from the tale being told, but also without detracting from their own importance. These include the legend of the famous bard Orpheus, the tragedy of the king Oedipus, the existence of the Centaurs and the apparently contradictory traditions of both their training of the heirs of kings and almost bestial gluttony and lust, the tale of Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece, and even echoes of the coming Trojan War in a cameo by the young hero Achilles. As with _The King Must Die_ Renault is able to retain the mythic stature of these stories while making them much more ‘realistic’.

For all of the many events that make up the career of Theseus Renault tells a tight tale, woven deftly with nary a thread left astray. We very much see him here as Theseus the King (as opposed to Theseus the wandering hero, though the latter is never wholly absent from his nature or actions) and we see him constantly trying to live according to the guiding principle of his life, learned in first trials of his youth: “To stand for the people before the gods, that is kingship. Power by itself is the bronze without the gold.”  Despite the fact that he is a heroic figure whose deeds may often seem larger than life he is also a man whose ultimate tragedy is born of the foibles of his own human nature. In the end Theseus comes to learn, perhaps too late, that all of his choices and actions, along with the fate he has willingly embraced, have a price: “Fate and will, will and fate, like earth and sky bringing forth the grain together; and which the bread tastes of, no man knows.” The taste may be bitter at the end, but the sweet was no less great and is ultimately not erased by his tale’s conclusion.

Highly recommended.

Also posted at Goodreads