Concerns of a Catholic

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Power and the Glory is the sort of title to inspire readers to great deeds, pushing beyond the bounds of normal reading capabilities to turn pages at superhuman speed! But alas no. And why not? Afterall, the premise is promising...

A cynical, whiskey priest sneaks about the poor, rural lands of southern Mexico, evading capture for the treasonous action of being a priest. The question is whether he's on the lamb to preach the word of god or to save his own neck.

I haven't read much Graham Greene, but what I have read makes me think Greene could turn a phrase and slap a good sentence together right up there with some of the best of them. The problem seems to be his plots. They don't punch you like you expect. I always seemed to be waiting for something more out of this book and it never came, and this isn't the first time it's happened with a Greene book.

Straight out of college I made a pledge to read through the works of respected authors. I powered through Kafka and then Camus. Both were exciting or at least interesting. In hindsight, I think I read them both at the perfect time in my life.

Next up was Greene. He wrote over two dozen novels, and then there were plays, screenplays, children's books, travel journals, short story collections. Out of all that, all I managed to read was The Man Within, his less than spectacular first attempt at a novel. Such were the deflating affects of that ho-hum experience that twenty years passed before I picked up my second Greene, A Gun For Sale aka This Gun For Hire. It wasn't great, but it was good enough to reignite my interest. Since then I've renewed my pledge, but with lowered expectations. I just don't think I'll be able to bulldoze through his work.

If only his work was a bit more exciting. As you read on a growing sense that nothing will be resolved starts to envelope you, and if you're a person that likes resolution, you're up shit's creek paddle-less, my friend. If you let the current take you, you'll float along into a boggy morass of self-doubt and moral ambiguity, where you're left to stew in unpleasant juices (<<< like contemplating a poorly mixed metaphor). Graham Greene writes thinking man's books and I don't mean books for smart folk necessarily. I mean he intends you to ponder his ideas well after you've put the book down. The Power and the Glory is just such a book. That's fine, but couldn't he have managed both? Say perhaps, a thinking man's thriller? I'm just asking for a little more spark. It would make me leap to his next book!



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Drinking Boston: A History of the City and Its Spirits

Stephanie Schorow
Union Park Press
Reviewed by Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

From the revolutionary camaraderie of the Colonial taverns to the saloons of the turn of the century; from a Prohibition period rife with class politics, social reform, and opportunism to a trail of nightclub neon so vast, it was called the Conga Belt, Drinking Boston is a tribute to the fascinating role alcohol has played throughout the city's history. Teasing out this curious relationship in particular, the clash between a constrained Puritanism (lingering like a hangover today) and a raucous revolutionary spirit, Drinking Boston introduces the cast of characters who championed or vilified drinking and the places where they imbibed legally and otherwise. Visiting some of Boston's most storied neighborhood bars, this pub crawl ends with Boston's distinct recipe for the current cocktail renaissance sweeping the nation. Stephanie Schorow serves up a remarkable cocktail representative of Boston's intoxicating story: its spirit of invention, its hardscrabble politics, its mythology, and the city's never-ending battle between personal freedom and civic reform.

My Review

Since Boston has the dubious honor of coming in first place on the Daily Beast's 25 Drunken Cities list for two years in a row and I regularly enjoy the pleasure of working, eating, and drinking there, I knew this book would be right up my alley.

This is a very well laid out chronology of Boston’s drinking history starting with the city’s revolutionary past and Prohibition and continuing with a detailed exploration of the city’s changing landscape, the public’s drinking tastes and habits, and an interest in classic drinks while inventing new creations using a variety of ingredients not available in years past. It covers saloons, taverns, nightclubs, jazz bars, gay bars, dive bars, and today’s neighborhood eateries that serve craft cocktails.

The mention of Cocoanut Grove’s tragic fire in 1942 that killed 492 people makes me want to visit its former location and explore the subject further, since it is a part of the city’s history I wasn’t aware of.

One of Boston’s oldest surviving bars is Jacob Wirth’s. I enjoyed reading about how it survived Prohibition by serving “near beer” that had less than .5% alcohol and loved how customers celebrated Repeal at Jacob Wirth’s even though the establishment had not yet obtained a liquor license. 

Getting smashed at Jacob Wirth's (est. 1868)


It was also interesting reading about McGreevy’s (formerly called the Third Base Saloon), a long-standing sports bar and baseball museum that is now owned by the Dropkick Murphys. Even though I’m not into sports bars, I’m tempted to visit just for its history.

Reading about some of the bars that have come and gone made me a little nostalgic for the Rathskeller (known as The Rat), a punk club in Kenmore Square known for its music scene, sticky floors, and fights. I remember seeing The Neighborhoods there in the early 80’s.



Along with the history, there are lots of interesting black & white photos and illustrations. Each chapter concludes with a drink recipe.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable and comprehensive history that I was glad to find at the library.

UnSouled

UnSouled by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After the destruction of the graveyard Connor and Lev are once again running, but this time they aren't just running away from something. They are running to find answers. Connor believes the answers will come from an old friend who he's discovered is so much more than she appeared.

Make no mistake UnSouled is a transition book. Most large series have at least one and UnSouled is the transition book for the Unwind Dystology. The board is being set, the pieces are taking their places, and events are about to become explosive...in the next book. This book is a bit slower with more parts that didn't feel quite as important as the events in the previous two books in the series, but there is still a lot of great storytelling happening here.

First off I have to discuss the curious case of Camus Comprix because his existence at this point makes no sense. I assumed at some point the purpose of his creation would be made clear, but after two books it seems Neal Shusterman and Proactive Citizenry made him for the same reason...just because they could. On top of that his own motives are inexplicable. Cam basically fell for a picture of a girl who he came to learn thought he was a monster and by the end of book two had some respect for him. So what does Cam do because of this? Vows to take down his makers who have provided him with a lavish lifestyle to say it nicely. He has minimal reasoning for practically all his behaviors and he's kind of harshing my vibe when I'm reading the book. I get it he had no choice in being made, but I can't feel sympathetic for him.

I love Grace. I love that nothing about her is standard. She isn't a beautiful girl to be saved or gawked at. Grace is described as "not fat, but heavyset and unshapely. Dowdy..." Also that "[t]he slack expression on her face speaks of a dullness that isn't her fault." She's immediately introduced as being a low cortical which I imagine is supposed to say she has a mental disorder of some sort. Don't be blinded by her outward appearance or slack face because she is something special and the story displays it quickly and often. I just loved her.

I'd be remiss to not mention Starkey. When he first arrived in the story I thought he was a murdering version of Roland, but this young man is far more capable and resourceful than I could have ever imagine. He builds on his ruthlessness and resourcefulness from UnWholly. If the AWOL unwinds simply needed to go to war to stop unwinding then Starkey is undoubtedly one of it's best options for a general.

UnSouled was a good story and I'm excited to see what happens next in the dark world of the Unwind Dystology.

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The End of Fantasy

The End of the Fantasy by Julius St. Clair
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Bastion's destiny is here. Whatever he decides will dictate the future of the world.

Catherine and her remaining Sages desperately search for a way to save all the kingdoms in the most dire of circumstances. At the same time the three kingdoms prepare to face the Yama invasion.

The End of Fantasy concludes the second Sage Saga trilogy. Julius St. Clair really reached to try to do something different in this book and this trilogy and I applaud him for making the attempt at creativity and something new. Unfortunately for me this just wasn't a satisfying read. The storyline became far too convoluted. The ending made me cringe because I'm just not a fan of the type of storyline that it foreshadows.

Far too much time was spent having every character who met Bastion saying he's clearly destined for great things. This praise is a lot like salt, a little bit improves the meal, but too much makes it nearly inedible. By the end of the trilogy all I could see was salt on my plate.

The Siege of 88 is still mentioned often, but I just realized they don't ever make mention of any measure of time other than that. It would have made more sense to just refer to it as The Great Siege or something along those lines.

I've been trying to figure out why I enjoyed the second Sage Saga trilogy far less than the first. As I was coming to the conclusion to The End of Fantasy, I realized it's because of Bastion. After the events of the first Sage Saga trilogy, some kid shows up and is stronger than everyone without any training at all. So what happens when the guy who is stronger than everyone gets hurt? He basically turns into the Incredible Hulk...his eyes turn black and he's nearly unstoppable. So rather than being a weakling who turns into an incredibly strong being he's an incredibly strong being who goes Super Saiyan or perhaps super Wolverine in a berserker rage. It's hard for me to enjoy a character who is overwhelmingly more powerful than everyone without even trying. It's the same reason I've never liked Superman.

For me The End of Fantasy was a disappointing conclusion to a much less than stellar second Sage Saga trilogy.

1.5 out of 5 stars

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NIGHT FILM BY MARISHA PESSL

Night Film by Marisha Pessl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



”Whatever the truth about Cordova, within fifteen horrifying films, he taught us how our eyes and minds perpetually deceive us--that what we know to be certain never is.”

In the shadows stood a girl in a red coat.

Stanislas Cordova disappeared from public life thirty years ago. Scott McGrath, an investigative reporter, made an attempt to uncover the truth about Cordova and his films. McGrath paid a heavy price financially when Cordova sued him, and also professionally when some of his allegations proved to be based on chimeric evidence.

It wasn’t that he was necessarily wrong; it was just that he couldn’t conclusively prove he was right.

The Cordova films are fascinating, disturbing, and not readily available. Part of the lure of them is that basically the only way you can see them is from the original film canisters or from bootlegged VCR tapes. Cordova film watching parties are thrown, but the people invited to those parties are those exclusively hip enough to know that watching a Cordova film should be on their bucket list.

So who is Cordova? A question that McGrath keeps asking those few who knew him who are willing to talk. ”He was the vampire. He made you feel like he loved you, like you were the dearest person in the world to him; all the while he was sucking you dry, leeching your life out of you. You’d spend an hour with him. Afterward, you were a carcass. You lost all sense of yourself, all dimension, as if there were no difference between you and the chair you were sitting in. He’d be more alive, of course, invigorated for a week, writing, filming, insatiable, so wildly alive. Art, language, food, men, women---they had to be constantly fed to him as if he were a ravenous beast that could barely be contained within human walls. There was no end to his appetites.”



When Ashley Cordova, the filmmaker’s daughter, commits suicide by hurling herself off a building, McGrath, despite still recovering from his last losing bout against Cordova, senses that finally he has a line of inquiry that might lead him to vindication.

He is convinced that Cordova is evil, and his daughter’s death can’t possibly be a coincidence.

McGrath traces Ashley’s final days as she goes from rehab to lockdown to living in a dilapidated building. He picks up a Scooby Gang of a girl named Nora and the “loneliest boy in the world” named Hopper. Both are marginally connected to Ashley. Like everyone else that met Ashley, even in the briefest of situations, Nora and Hopper were profoundly changed by meeting her. There was something strange about the girl with the red coat, the girl with the piercing gaze, the girl who played piano like Mozart and who was so strikingly beautiful that men and women found her irresistible.

She was smart and profoundly sad.

She was a bird chained to a life that even in death one wonders if she could ever fly far enough away to escape.

As McGrath continues to investigate, tirelessly tracking down anyone who once worked with Cordova he starts to unravel more and more madness. Madness that spills into his own mind. ”My memories seemed to have been trashed, ripped and crumpled, strewn haphazardly around my head.”

Cordova without ever meeting McGrath has a finger stirring in the journalist’s mind. The Filmmaker has spent a lifetime manipulating people, conjuring up demented versions of the truth, and using his sinister intelligence to control every situation. Life, for Cordova,is but a larger version of a movie set. McGrath and his gang, not surprisingly, are overmatched at every turn. The question is how far will McGrath take this quest? Can he catch a phantom? Is Cordova even Cordova anymore? Does the need for revenge outweigh the need for the truth?



Marisha Pessl has written a compelling story where she makes the reader feel s/he is directly involved with the investigation. She does this by sharing the screenshots of the research documents that the team finds on the web and the pages of the police dossiers that a McGrath mole shares with them. Witnesses disappear almost as quickly as they are found. No one can give McGrath a clear and distinct picture of Cordova, his Moriarty. The slivers and crumbs of information he collects only create a puzzle without edges that spiral him deeper into a black hexagon of his own lunacy.

And all along in the shadows stood a girl in a red coat.

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Disintegration by Richard Thomas

Disintegration: A Windy City Dark Mystery by Richard Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

‘There are no mirrors in my apartment. I have forgotten my own face. My wife is a distant memory, and I can’t remember what she smells like, the melody of my son’s laugh, the butterfly kisses of my daughter’s soft lips on my cheek. They are shadows that haunt my every movement, and I drown them out, blur them every chance I get.’

Disintegration is a relentlessly dark nightmare of a thriller. The story of a man irrevocably lost, a past always just out of reach of his memories, tainted with tragedy, loss and ruin.

Told in first person our narrator is a mystery man existing in the backstreet's of the Windy city. Manipulated by Vlad his pusher, controlled and compelled by a mixture of drugs, sex and a complete loss for the value of human life, to kill repeatedly every time that envelope gets pushed under the door. A tattoo honours every kill and this man looks nothing like his former self, no resemblance to the man who once had a family to care for.

An assassin whose targets are the worst of humanity, killers, abusers, wholly justified or so he believes. The dregs of society, those with no chance or need of redemption, the very thing he searches for but just what's real in this twisted existence of killing, exploitation, sex, violence and the sense of a man fading, living on the edge, a breath away from falling off it.

Searching for answers persistently kept from him, forever watched and continually broken, clinging to a semblance of life, drifting through each day, waiting for the next job and a step away from the end.

Disintegration is a story of a man lost, desperate to find a path into the future but fighting through a fog that offers only resistance, a man's fight to find out who he is, what he was, what happened to a family he's aware of but only through slithers of consciousness. This is without doubt a dark and dirty trip through a bleak haze that never seems to end but its one well worth taking. The style of writing is one that's becoming more and more popular, a short, sharp sentence structure that gets you in the mind of the protagonist but never allowing you to settle into a rhythm. Certainly giving an intense feel amidst the darkness.

This was my first read from Richard Thomas and it definitely won't be my last.

Disintegration was provided by Alibi from the Random House Publishing Group and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review and that’s what you’ve got.

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Leave the Living by Joe Hart

Leave the Living by Joe Hart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Leave the Living is a horror novella from Joe Hart and Darkfuse publications. Mickey Bannon is suffering, his ex-wife who he still loves is about to remarry, feelings are up in the air waiting for it all to end when the phone call comes that tells him his Father has died. Now he's got to travel to his hometown as a harsh Minnesota winter threatens his journey and sort everything out, see his Father for the last time.

'Mick froze, his foot dangling over the next step. The darkness was complete in its totality. Swimming afterimages left by the light danced before his eyes like capering spirit energy dissipating into some unseen dimension. His foot hovered over open air, and he pulled it back, sure that if he stepped down, there would be nothing there. He would fall into darkness, only the rushing wind in his ears and the sound of his own scream to accompany the plummet. The lights popped back on as if a switch had been thrown.'

When he arrives at his Father's house things definitely take a turn down strange alley, and he starts to question his sanity as things, impossible things start to happen. Is his imagination bursting into overdrive or is there a message for him, a path he must travel to find both secrets and answers.

Now Leave the Living is very well written, this was my first read from Joe Hart and I have a feeling it won't be my last, his writing is technically proficient and his prose is top notch. I noted loads of quotes I could have used in my review and that's generally a good sign. The story was ok, not the best I've read but this author without doubt and with the right story will be an award winner, he is that good.

'Mick let his air whistle out from between clenched teeth. In the theater of his mind, he saw the door flying open and some dark horror climbing out from inside, released from its prison by his own hand, eager and hungry.'

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Whom the Gods Would Destroy

Whom the Gods Would Destroy by Brian Hodge
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For most of his childhood, Damien was shunned by his sinister mother in favor of his older half-brother. Decades later, Cameron shows up, wanting help. Will Damien help him?

When I read the blurb saying this was HP Lovecraft meets Carl Sagan, I jumped on it since that's a pretty clever-sounding elevator pitch. Plus, I've loved some of Brian Hodge's short stories so I was itching to see what he'd do with a novella. He did pretty well.

Damien is an astronomy student with mother who was a little too interested in the occult. When his brother shows up, things quickly go off the rails in a tale of alien gods, meteor showers, and human sacrifice. Cameron's appearance shake's Damien's life to the core and one gets the sense it keeps on shaking long after the final page.

That's about all I want to say without revealing too much. Whom the Gods Would Destroy asks a lot of questions about man's place in the universe, the sheer vastness of the cosmos and whether or not we're alone. It's not fantastic but it was a fun, fascinating read. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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One Side of a Football Story

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

FOO-BAH! FOO-BAH! 24-7, 365 Days a Year!

Seriously, doesn't it seem like football is happening year 'round these days? The NFL with the help of ESPN has done a hell of a job making themselves ubiquitous. Lucky for me, I love the game. Sucks for those who don't, though...

The Blind Side is a nice, concise slice of today's true American Pastime, and it's the sort of feel-good story that will appeal to a broad audience (and by broad I don't necessarily mean dames!) *twiddles cigar and jiggles eyebrows ala Groucho Marx*.

This is essentially the story of Michael Oher, current NFL offensive lineman, former skid row forgotten child of delinquent parents. This is also the story of privileged white Christians plucking a boy from the ghetto and raising him as their own, giving him an opportunity he would've otherwise never had.

Much of author Michael Lewis' book tells Oher's heart-warming tale. When not evoking tearjerking scenes, he occasionally questions the morality of the sport in question as well as the people that thrust this naturally athletic kid into it. Analysis of the game's (after all, Evolution of the Game is its subtitle) progression and how it's changed the very shape of the players who play it runs through out and provides a nice base from which to play off the Oher example.

Football enthusiasts, historians and strategists may glean some interesting insights from this well-written, flowing story with its palatably presented data tucked in as thought-nuggets through out. Very nice read. I can see why they made a movie out of it, which I ought to get around to watching someday.

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The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A time-traveling Merlin? Stop it, White ol' boy, you're killing me!

TH White's version of the King Arthur myth is...unusual. It's not a straight up retelling of the tale that tries to pinpoint any kind of actual date upon when the "real" King Arthur lived and base the story in that period. It floats about, taking little bits of history from here, a legend or two from there, and cobbles them together. It makes for an interesting fantasy.

It's also distracting. I'm the sort that likes to get immersed in my fantasy. I want to feel like I'm in that world. So, when a ghost knight is questing after a mythical beast and out of nowhere the author is talking about police officers it breaks up my willing suspension of disbelief. Funny, I know, that something that's real should ruin my belief of something fake. It worked so well in Python's "The Holy Grail"...



Ah, but I'm making too much of this and right from the start of my review. The fact is I really enjoyed The Stone in the Stone. The above gripe is a relatively minor one. For the most part I was able to sit back and enjoy the fantastical scenes, colorful imagery and oddball characters cooked up by White. It's an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink kind of book at times, but you just have to go with it, because of course it would be a kooky life, the adolescence of the man who later drew a sword from a stone in order to become king, referenced water spirits for his life choices and overcame the Knights Who Say Ni with a two letter word and a herring. Damn it. Now I'm the one mixing things up!



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