The Grouchy Editor

by Jay Anson

Reading this book was akin to picking up a copy of The National Enquirer in the supermarket line and becoming engrossed in a particularly lurid story.  You’re a bit worried that someone you know might spot you reading the stuff, but you also secretly hope your checkout line moves slowly, because you really want to finish reading the article.

I have no idea how much of this infamous ghost story is based on fact; it’s been rehashed so many times by so many people, and the main participants (including the book’s author) are all dead, so we’ll probably never know if the “possession” of George and Kathy Lutz’s Long Island home was a gigantic hoax … or not.  The author will never be confused with William Peter Blatty (Anson loves exclamation points!  He ends nearly every chapter with one!), but he knows how to grab and hold your attention — just like those addictive supermarket tabloids.

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by Ian McEwan

At one point in Atonement, the main character, an aspiring novelist, receives a rejection notice from a publishing house.  The publisher explains, “… you dedicate scores of pages to the quality of light and shade, and to random impressions … Simply put, you need the backbone of a story.”  Reading this passage, I had to wonder if Ian McEwan, the author of this wonderful novel, was perhaps quoting from one his own, early-career rejection slips.  I wonder about that because if I have one quibble with Atonement, it would be about the very quality that so many readers adore in their literature:  descriptive scenes in which we learn about the trees on a street, the smells emanating from a nearby restaurant, etcetera.

A lot of people love that sort of thing.  It is the essence of literature, to them.  I happen to be more of a “story” and “backbone” fan.  I think descriptive prose can be overdone, and is suited more to poetry.  But if I’m giving the impression that Atonement lacks narrative drive and power, forgive me, because McEwan’s novel is a strong, strong book — full of “random impressions,” but also a haunting tale of a child’s mistake that ruins adult lives.

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 by Agatha Christie

You gotta love Dame Agatha, bless her devious heart.  No one was better at planting red herrings and dreaming up convoluted plots.  And her little Belgian, Hercule Poirot, is one of literature’s classic characters.  But Christie used one irritating device — over and over again — that never fails to bother me:  mistaken identity.

A crucial character will be in disguise, or age will have altered his or her physical appearance, and other characters will be deceived by the ruse.  This would be understandable if the poser was merely an acquaintance, but often this person will be well known to the duped characters — and still go unrecognized.  I refuse to buy into that.  Mesopotamia, alas, features just such a deception.  But what the hell, Christie books are really just comic books for big kids, and in every other respect this novel is another treat from the queen of mystery.

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by John Ajvide Lindqvist

If Sweden has an answer to Stephen King, his name is John Ajvide Lindqvist.  I’ve been a fan of the film version of Lindqvist’s book for some time, so I wanted to check out the source material.  The novel is the same as the movie —  yet significantly different.  There are departures, primarily the gender (or lack thereof) of Eli, one half of the dynamic young protagonists.  Eli’s background, and Lindqvist’s handling of it, make this novel a deeper, if not darker, experience than the film.  This is at times a very disturbing story, but it is also message horror, cutting a nasty swath through suburban Swedish society circa 1981.  If that sounds off-puttingly political for a book of this genre, rest assured that the gore quotient rivals anything found in King.

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 by Scott Turow

Lawyer-authors Scott Turow and John Grisham are the kings of the legal thriller. I’ve read some Grisham and I think my mixed reaction to his novels has kept me from reading Turow — until now.  I guess you can judge a book by its lawyer, because Presumed Innocent is a deeper, more satisfying read than the crowd-pleasing, superficial stuff that Grisham churns out.  Innocent is meaty and philosophical, with a sweet twist and a memorable killer.  On the downside, the narrator’s frequent, introspective musings sometimes make for slow going, and the book could use some judicious cuts.

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by Sarah Silverman

The challenge for any memoirist is to win readers over to his or her side, and in The Bedwetter comedian Sarah Silverman succeeds — most of the time.  Silverman, who seems to be more famous (or infamous) for her periodic political dustups than for her showbiz career, comes across as intelligent, witty, self-deprecating … and sometimes as annoying as the six-year-old brat next door.

The book is most entertaining when Silverman depicts her childhood and coming-of-age in 1980s New Hampshire.  When she’s not penning sarcasm and poop jokes, her more-reflective passages are often touching.  On the other hand, near the end of the book Silverman laments, “At the time that this book is being written, I am single.”  Having just read about some of her childish exploits with colleagues at Comedy Central, my reaction to this statement was:  “And this is surprising to whom?”

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  by Stieg Larsson

Sometimes the movie is better than the book.  That isn’t to say that Stieg Larsson’s novel isn’t entertaining, because it is.  It’s just too long, and unlike the Swedish film version of his story, it gets its climaxes wrong.  There are two major plot threads in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, one involving a white-collar criminal, and the other about a serial killer.  The movie rightfully builds to a tense wrap-up dispatching the sadistic murderer; Larsson’s mystery takes care of the killer and then devotes 100 anticlimactic pages to the other business.

But it’s a sign of a good read when it isn’t until after you put the book down that you say to yourself, “That was highly improbable.”  There are lots of head-scratching moments in Girl, but they don’t occur to you while you’re turning the pages.  Alfred Hitchcock realized that some of his movie plots were downright silly, but he didn’t care as long as the audience was ensnared.  By that measure, “you go Girl.”

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by Jesse Ventura

Earlier this month, Jesse Ventura was on CNN asking why so few in the mainstream media were reviewing his new book, American Conspiracies.  Now that I’ve read it, I’m wondering the same thing.  Ventura raises too many provocative questions, and offers too much documentation, to have his book dismissed as the work of a “conspiracy nut.”

The book has failings – sloppy editing, and so many allegations that the book becomes a fact-checker’s nightmare (which could explain the lack of reviews; it requires hard research to prove or disprove his theories) – but his overall message is clear:  You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.  The kind of assaults on our cherished institutions that Ventura outlines, covering everything from Lincoln’s assassination to the Wall Street bailout, are not pleasant, so it’s easier to go into denial than to acknowledge that some of his allegations might be true.

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by Henning Mankell

Henning Mankell, the popular Swedish mystery novelist, writes two kinds of books:  novels with a strong social conscience, and novels worth reading.  Sad to say, The White Lioness falls into the former category.  Mankell has created a wonderful protagonist in Chief Inspector Kurt Wallander, a depressive, middle-aged cop from tiny Ystad, Sweden.  It’s a joy to follow this miserable man as he solves crimes in and around his seaside village.  We care not only about whatever crime Wallander’s trying to solve, but also about his relationships with a senile father, a maturing daughter, and his sometimes unreliable police colleagues.

But this winning setup isn’t always enough for Mankell, who in some of his books turns Wallander into a globetrotting James Bond (The Dogs of Riga), and in others like this one, puts the reader to sleep with preachy moralizing, in Lioness about South Africa circa 1993.   Mankell is so intent on teaching us all lessons that the actual mystery suffers.  And once the story loses allure, every little plot twist becomes less and less believable.  My advice to the first-time Mankell reader:  Stick to pure Wallander in books like Faceless Killers or Sidetracked.

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by Daphne du Maurier

Years ago I read Daphne du Maurier’s spellbinding Rebecca, and to this day I believe it’s one of the best novels I ever picked up.  So how are her short stories?  My impressions:

Don’t Look Now features nine du Maurier tales of the supernatural.  She was a versatile writer, in that her narrators are young, middle-aged, male, and female.  The stories range in tone from whimsical to dead serious.  Rod Serling might have been impressed by du Maurier, because most of  her stories have nifty, Twilight Zone-style endings.  In fact, I think Serling might have borrowed some of her plots (we know that Hitchcock did).  Best of the stories here: “The Birds,” “Don’t Look Now,” and “Monte Verita.”

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