Full review to follow. But, by way of a preview, it's Boffo! If you're not familiar with showbiz lingo, thaAll the Wrong Places: Hooray for Hollywood!
Full review to follow. But, by way of a preview, it's Boffo! If you're not familiar with showbiz lingo, that means extremely good, a hit, great box office. This one's a treat. Oh, yeah. It was a selection by Otto Penzler for his Mysterious Press Bookstore....more
David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
Should you read any history of the Korean War it should be The Coldest Winter: AmericDavid Halberstam's The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
Should you read any history of the Korean War it should be The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam. It was Halberstam's last book. Shortly after publication, Halbertsam was killed in an automobile accident April 23, 2007. He was on his way to interview a subject for his next book.
Lest the reader pick up this volume thinking it is a history of the compete Korean War, it is not. It is a masterful treatment of the background of the War and its principal players. Here are careful portraits of the division of the Korean peninsula into North and South following the end of World War II, the respective leaders, Kim Il Sung, indoctrinated by the Soviets during World War II, and Synghman Rhee, considered friendly to the United States. Throw in detailed sketches of Dean Acheson and Averell Harriman, original Cold War warriors for the United States, and Harry Truman in his second term as President, the man under estimated by his political opponents. Most of all, General Douglas McArthur seems to tower over them all, the Supreme Commander in World War II's Pacific Theater, and America's ruler of Occupied Japan from his headquarters in the Dai Ichi.
But Korea was long ignored by the United States. McArthur considered the country to be the problem of the State Department, not an issue of his concern. He was wrong. As time passed he would realize how wrong he was, but he would not accept responsibility for his errors. Rather he would attack the Truman Administration for not having fulfilled his request for more support and permission to widen the war that began in June, 1950, with an attack by North Korean forces across the Thirty-Eighth Parallel that caught the South Korean government and United States by surprise.
North Korean forcess threatened to push American troops off the Korean Peninsula at Pusan. It was a war of strategic mistakes, divided commands, largely the responsibility of Ned Almond, a McArthur man. Almond primarily attempted to wage war by surveying maps rather than studying the actual terrain which favored North Korean forces. McArthur waged war from his headquarters in Japan. He never spent an entire day in Korea while in command. American casualties were horrific.
An American defeat was avoided by McArthur's last hurrah. An amphibious landing at Inchon, behind the North Korean forces who had cornered American troops far south in the area of Pusan. The North Korean Assault was halted. American commands pushed the North Koreans back beyond the Thirty-Eighth Parallel. McArthur planned an American drive all the way to the Yalu River on the Manchurian Border.
McArthur promised the war would be over by Christmas and American boys would be coming home. In Washington the Administration was worried about intervention by Mao's Communist Chinese. Intelligence reports indicated massive Chinese Divisions forming along the Yalu River.
But McArthur only believed in truth as he decided it should be. The Chinese would not intervene.
American forces continued to race North. McArthur's head of Intelligence, Charles Willoughby, suppressed information of the Chinese presence. Nor was Washington any the wiser of the presence of Chinese forces. If there is a villain of the Korean War, Willoughby is one. A colleague, knowing of Willoughby's deception said Willoughby should be in jail.
On October 25 and 26, 1950, Chinese forces actively intervened, carving up American Units. Many American troops fought in summer uniforms. They were equipped with bazookas incapable of piercing the armor of Soviet T-34 tanks. The treads of American Sherman tanks froze to the ground. Soldier's carbines and M-1 rifles locked in the cold. Willoughby continued to suppress information about Chinese intervention. Division Commanders on the ground insisted they knew a Chinese when they saw one. They were ignored.
The secret presence of Chinese troops could not be kept. Not by Willoughby or McArthur. No, the troops would not be home for Christmas. McArthur argued that a widened war was absolutely essential, proposing an invasion of China and the use of atomic weapons if necessary.
McArthur's political thrusts against the Truman Administration that his hands were tied by Democrats who wanted to fight a war of appeasement ultimately led to his recall by Truman. McArthur never seemed to grasp that America was no longer alone in the nuclear age. The Soviets had successfully exploded their first atomic device in 1949.
Some military histories can be remarkably dry. David Halberstam never wrote anything that was a turgid stream of facts. This is an exceptional book filled with the stories of men, heroes and cowards both. And as with any good history, it has its lessons. It leads us to the frightening conclusion that Kim Jong-Un is the grandson of the man who launched the surprise attack on South Korea in June, 1950. There will be no easy answers to today's problems on the Korean Peninsula.
Lieutenant Mark Ballard is a dirty cop. Works Vice. Knows where it is, but doesn't take it down. What he does is live high for a cop. It takes brass to live like Ballard. Driving a shiny Olds 98. Wearing tailored suits. The regular guys on the force don't see the inside of his apartment. There's wouldn't compare to his, put togetther by an interior decorator.
When an honest cop is down on his luck, Ballard is the go to guy for a loan. Wife's in the hospital at Christmas? All the bills come due at the same time? Your three kids need Christmas? Santy Claus ain't gonna come on your honest cop's lousy take home pay? Ballard will spot you. You'll feel like less of a man. Maybe he'll pause, look at you, make you spell out your problems before he opens that shiny wallet and takes out two crispy fifties. You promise to pay it back. But Ballard says that won't be necessary. No, it won't. But it don't make you feel any better.
Maybe Ballard was a good cop once. Like his Dad was. But wearing the Badge got his old man nothing. Nothing but a grave. And Ballard. When Ballard made Vice, Ballard tried to bust the rackets. But the higher ups they protected the rackets. The guys in the suits that went to the same church on Sunday. Played Bridge in the same club on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Busting the rackets was a no go.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Say, Luxtro, he's one of the biggest. He wants a man on the inside. One with all the scoop, the low down. Take Luxtro's money. Get somewhere. Drive the Olds, wear the suits, live in the decorated apartment. But don't get close to nobody.
Take Hilma, she looks good. Good in bed. Put her kid in private school. Drop a hundred a month for her private apartment. Visit when the itch needs scratching. But now she's whining about a gold ring. That's a no go. Every visit is a fight. It's not worth it. Easy enough to go to a whore house. What's the difference. He's paying Vilma. It's expensive snatch.
Then there's this poor shmuck Earl Walker. Calls Ballard up to the Pen where his clock is ticking down on Death Row. Going to sizzle for offing a high class call girl. But the guy says he's innocent. Well, don't they all. Jesus Christ, the guy cries. Damn, how he hates it when the dumb shmucks cry. And Walker says he's prayed for Ballard to come see him. Don't they all pray the closer it come s to sittin' in the chair.
Walker says, "You was the only one decent to me. Treated me like a human being. Didn't beat out of me what you wanted to hear."
The look on Walker's face when Ballard told him he was nice to him because he just didn't give a shit about him. Didn't give a rat's ass about anything anymore. And you don't, when you been through everything Ballard has and seen how the whole damn system stinks. Why care. Take what you can while you can.
Then Walker's wife Peggy comes to visit. Peggy with the pert breasts filling out the gray dress she chose to make an impression. Peggy who's not like all the other little hausfraus down at the super market. Peggy who's been a good girl but obviously never known what it's like to be with a real man. You know, maybe Ballard maybe should look into this Walker case more.
Damned if Ballard doesn't go and fall in love with Peggy Walker. And where Harry Whittington starts off spinning a yarn with all the trappings of a classic Noir tale, the trolley slips the line. Because Ballard starts doing the honorable thing no matter the cost. Jesus, he believes Earl Walker is innocent!
BUT IS IT NOIR?
Which brings us to the point to talk a little about just what Noir Fiction is about. You can't get a better definition for my book than Otto Penzler, the founder of The Mysterious Press. As he has so aptly defined it, Noir fiction is about losers, not P.I.s, or in this case Police Detectives. Their motives are greed, lust, jealousy, or, as Penzler puts it a form of alienation. See Noir Fiction Is About Losers, Not Private Eyes, Otto Penzler, Huffington Post, Books, 08/10/2010, updated May 25, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/otto-pe.... My grandmother would have said, "He just doesn't look quite right out of his eyes." Think of The Killer Inside Me.
So, what we end up with here is something of a hybrid Noir-Hard Boiled Detective Novel. Without giving away too much of the plot, let's just say Mark Ballard, with all his faults, having fallen in love, strikes out on a path to redemption.
Otto Penzler tells us, "The characters in these existential, nihilistic tales are doomed. They may not die, but they probably should, as the life that awaits them is certain to be so ugly, so lost and lonely, that they’d be better off just curling up and getting it over with. And, let’s face it, they deserve it." Ibid
Don't get me wrong. Ballard has no easy time getting to the end of Brute in Brass. The tables are turned. The cards become stacked against him. The odds are high. The corruption of Luxtro's rackets extend all the way to the Office of the Police Commissioner.
Harry Whittington: King of the Paperbacks
[image] Harry Whittington (February 4, 1915 – June 11, 1989)
Born in Ocala, Florida, Whittington wrote over eighty five pulp novels, sometimes writing as many as seven a month. You'll find many of his titles in the original Fawcett Gold Medal Editions that sold for 25 cents a copy. His most influential titles are his hard-boiled and noir titles appearing in the 1950s and early 1960s. However, he wrote 200 novels under nearly twenty pen names. He was also known as a writer of westerns. Among his screen credits is the Lawman television series airing on ABC from 1968 to 1972.
Brute in Brass: The Verdict
This is a quick, entertaining read. Whittington holds your attention. 3.5 Stars out of 5. For those interested, Mark Ballard returns in Any Woman He Wanted. The action takes up four years after that of Brute in Brass.
Hemingway in Love: His Own Story, A Shot of Tequila to be Taken with Ample Salt
Well, well, well. This is a beautiful little literary memoir written byHemingway in Love: His Own Story, A Shot of Tequila to be Taken with Ample Salt
Well, well, well. This is a beautiful little literary memoir written by A.E. Hotchner. Mr. Hotchner's a nice fellow. He helped Paul Newman start the Newman's Own food brand, the proceeds of which are donated to charity. He also, along with Newman, established the Hole in the Wall Camp for kids ages seven through fifteen with cancer and rare blood diseases from which they are unlikely to recover. Admission is free. Anyone involved in projects like that under his belt is all right in my book.
I can almost excuse him for writing this book about Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway took a much younger Hotchner under his wing around 1948. Obviously, Hotchner never suffered one of Hem's infamous tongue lashings as most of his friends did throughout Hemingway's life. Of course Hemingway had a use for Hotchner. Hotchner was involved in bringing a number of Hemingway stories to the screen, small and large.
To be continued after having slept on it. My blood pressure having subsided to a relatively normal rate. While I attribute no scurrilous motive to Mr. Hotchner, having read numerous academic biographies of Mr. Hemingway, I do believe Mr. Hotchner has been thoroughly duped by a man who considered truth to be a relative concept, one that served his purpose moment to moment. Believe me, more to follow...
So, it is a new day. I have had a solid night's sleep. A visit to the medicine cabinet should have my blood pressure on an even keel. I'll do my utmost to be objective. After all, I am a great admirer of the writing of Ernest Hemingway. Let's examine this little memoir.
As I write this, I'm listening to an interview with A.E. Hotchner. He is ninty-five years old now. Sharp as a tack. He obviously loved Hemingway. He thought Papa was the ideal nickname for the man for he viewed Hemingway as a father figure. Hotchner admits he did no research for this book. He vetted no facts. He wanted the reader to discover the personality of the man he came to know over the course of a thirteen year friendship.
Hotchner was an employee of Cosmpopolitan Magazine prior to the Helen Gurley Brown days. Before the Cosmo Girl days. When it was still a literary magazine. Hotchner was sent to recruit Hemingway to write an article on "The Future of Literature." Hotchner traveled to Cuba, sent a note to Hemingway introducing himself. He was surprised to receive a phone call from Hem, inviting him for a drink at the Floridita Bar. Although Hotchner did not realize it, it was the beginning of what became a fast friendship.
Hotchner last saw Hemingway at Saint Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, three weeks before Hemingway committed suicide. Hemingway was in the depths of depression and out and out paranoia. He believed he was under surveillance by the FBI, that his bank account was being audited, that the Federal government was after him for back taxes. He believed his nurse, Susan was a federal informant. It was Hemingway's second admission to the hospital. It was Hemingway's second course of shock treatments. The treatments had no effect on his delusions.
What is contained in this brief memoir largely consists of segments excised from Hotchner's biography Papa Hemingway published in 1965 because of references to people still alive, especially Hemingway's fourth wife, Mary Walsh Hemingway, and his third wife, Martha Gellhorn, and, yes, Hadley Richardson Mowrer, who received the news of Hemingway's suicide while on vacation with her husband Paul Mowrer to whom she had been married since 1931 .
Hemingway poignantly tells Hotchner that his only true love was his first wife, Hadley Richardson, whom he lost to Pauline Pfeiffer. While Hemingway paints Hadley as his Eve, he depicts Pauline as his Lillith. He finds little fault with himself. Pauline was a seductress who inserted herself into the Hemingway family, becoming a friend to Pauline, all the while looking for a suitable husband, her target being Ernest. My, my, my.
It would be one thing if Hemingway's story of his love for Hadley haunting him for the rest of his life came at the end of it when Hotchner was visiting him in St. Mary's Hospital. But it did not. Hemingway related his story to Hotchner in the mid-1950s following his two airplane crashes while on safari in Africa with fourth wife Mary.
Hemingway's story, actually recorded by Hotchner on tape relates to times before Hotchner ever knew the man, the women, or the people Hemingway called his friends. The memoir relates none of the betrayals of friendship. It still contains Hemingway's blatant insistence that he was in the Italian army during World War One, although he was a Red Cross Volunteer. Hem portrays Scott Fitzgerald as one of his closest friends, even bestowing his lucky rabbit's foot on Scott when Fitzgerald had hospitalized Zelda in an asylum. In truth, Hemingway despised Zelda as much as she did him. Zelda called him a fake the first time she met him.
All of the 1920's expatriate crowd in Paris appear in this memoir. All with Hemingway's unique spin. Where his untruths are not actually told they exist by omission. Yes. For Hemingway, truth was a relative concept. While you may read this memoir and find an absolute air of heartbreak and poignancy within its pages, Hemingway lived a life of conscious choices. As biographer Robert R. Mellow so aptly titled his book regarding this man, it was Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences
You may wonder, considering the contents of this review, why a rating of four stars? Because A.E. Hotchner is a wonderful writer, whether he was duped or not. It is a portrait of friendship, beautifully captured. Perhaps, in friendship, it is sometimes easier to look the other way. Hemingway taught Hotchner much. That Hotchner viewed Hemingway a father figure is without question.
The punchline? Hemingway was right about one thing.
"Decades later, in response to a Freedom of Information petition, the F.B.I. released its Hemingway file. It revealed that beginning in the 1940s J. Edgar Hoover had placed Ernest under surveillance because he was suspicious of Ernest’s activities in Cuba. Over the following years, agents filed reports on him and tapped his phones. The surveillance continued all through his confinement at St. Mary’s Hospital. It is likely that the phone outside his room was tapped after all." Hemingway, Hounded by the Feds. A.E. Hotchner, July 1, 2011, The New York Times
I did not. Not until college. I grew up in a segregated South. The only blacks I knew were the housekeepers who helped raise me. They were the most important women in my life aside from my Mother and Grandmother. I was taught to call them "Ma'am."
This young man is Emmett Till. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, July 21, 1941, the son of Mamie and Louis Till. In the summer of 1955, he visited relatives in the small town of Money, Mississippi. On August 28, 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, two white men, kidnapped young Emmett Till from his great Uncle's house, beat and shot him to death, and threw his body into the Tallahatchie River weighted down with a cotton gin fan motor tied to his neck with barbed wire. The reason? Emmett Till allegedly whistled at Roy's wife Carolyn at their Bryant Grocery.
As most criminals, Bryant and Milam didn't know that it would take a substantially greater weight to keep a body submerged. Three days later, Emmett Till's unrecognizable body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River.
Mamie Till made a startling and bold decision. She had her son's body shipped home to Chicago and insisted on an open casket ceremony. Over fifty thousand Chicago residents paid their respects to Emmett Till and his family.
Mamie Till did not stop with the open casket ceremony. She allowed Jet Magazine to cover the story of her son's murder, including photographs of the decomposed face of her young son in their magazine. The story and the shocking photographs appeared in the September 15, 1955, issue of Jet. And it was a story that shocked and horrified a nation.
A spoiler alert is posted here because of the graphic nature of the photographs hidden herein. (view spoiler)[
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Fourteen year old Emmett Till in his casket(hide spoiler)]
The injustice of the murder of Emmett Till continued. Bryant and Milam were tried for Emmett Till's murder. They were acquitted.
Subsequently Alabama author William Bradford Huie interviewed the killers. They brazenly admitted their crime. Double Jeopardy prevented retrial for their heinous offense. At that time no such thing as a Federal 1983 Action for Violation of the Civil Rights of an Individual existed. These two killers got away with murder to brag about it.
Every movement has its martyrs. The Civil Rights Movement has many. However, the murder of Emmett Till was the flashpoint of the Civil Rights Movement. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955.
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Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., 1955
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Woolworth's, Greensboro, North Carolina, February 1, 1960
Would it have happened but for the murder of Emmett Till?
The Significance of Elle Thornton's Novel
Today it is amazing that the story of Emmett Till has faded from memory. Howard University Students studying the Greensboro Four indicated that the class did not address that the motivation of that initial confrontation came about as a result of the acquittal of Emmett Till's killers. One student, bemoaning the fact that black american students did not know about Emmett Till authored a play, "Mississippi Mourning," to raise awareness. The play celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the famed sit-in at that Woolworth's lunch counter.
Two weeks prior to the play's premier, the writer and other members of the cast began receiving threats--death threats. The murder of Emmett Till remains a national shame that some would rather remain buried in the past.
Comparisons between the Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till resulted in thousands of Tweets asking "Who is Emmett Till?"
The latest controversy surrounds Pepsi severing its relationship with rapper Lil Wayne over his inflammatory remarks regarding Emmett Till's "beat that pussy." Lil Wayne has suffered the condemnation of numerous black musicians and surviving members of Emmett Tills family. Wayne's apology to the Till family has not been accepted as not being sincere.
The Girl Who Swam to Atlantis keeps the story of Emmett Till alive. Elle Thornton has written a novel that accomplishes its task with memorable characters, a quickly moving plot, and a painfully accurate portrait of prejudice and intolerance in the South of 1957.
This is an important book. It is written for the young adult audience, an audience that has not yet been exposed to novels such as Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden or Wolf Whistle by Lewis Nordan. Yet, it stands on the same level as those two novels, because of the unique perspective of its protagonist Gabriella Winter, a young girl, twelve going on thirteen, who has an eye for what is fair, right, and just.
The Story
It is summer, 1957. Gabriella Winter has returned from St. Agatha's Boarding School to a Marine Corp base in North Carolina. Her father is the Commanding General. Gabriella should be the Queen Bee of the base. However, her mother, Maria is not on station. There is no flock of Officers' wives making the Winter household the center of social activity. Rather, Gabriella is the object of other Officers' daughters' hand me downs.
The absence of Mrs. General Winter leads Gabriella's father to have Hawkins, a black Marine, assigned to the family as a steward. Hawkins face is scarred. The Korean Conflict Combat ribbons on his Dress Blues account for the General's trust and respect for this man. Hawkins will become Gabriella's friend and guardian angel.
Throughout the novel, Thornton weaves the story of Emmett Till, whose story Gabriella has learned only a part at her Boarding School. Gabriella will face racism in forms subtle to outrageously alert.
At the Officer's Club Pool the appearance of a lithe, muscular, black Officer clears the pool as quickly as if the lifeguard had announced an approaching thunderstorm. Two white officers laugh over the ignorance of "that Emmett Till boy" who didn't know any better than to flirt with a white woman.
Gabriella asks her father if he has heard the name Emmett Till. The General resoundingly tells her she is too young to know the brutality of the world, that she is too young to even understand it.
Much to the General's surprise, Gabriella responds, "I'm too old to be as ignorant as I am." The General softens.
"Nowadays in the Marines, all men, whether they are colored or white, live, train, and fight together. They die together fighting the enemy. Remember that, Gabriella."
As summer passes, Hawkins will teach Gabriella to swim. Gabriella will learn the full story of the injustice of Emmett Till's murder from Doyle, a boy slightly older than her, who will tell her of Emmett's murderers' acquittal.
Has it not always been the case that times change as a result of the manner in which the world is perceived through the eyes of the young? Doyle is learning the Blues from other black Stewards on the base. His first song is the Willie Brown classic from 1926, "Dirty and Ragged." Bob Dylan later covered Brown's classic updating the lyrics. But this small vignette is a hopeful sign that the times are indeed a' changin'.
But not changed. Gabriella sits with Eula Mae Perkins, the aged mother of Colonel Perkins. Eula Mae whispers of Jonas and Star. Eula Mae tells her that Jonas was her black play companion in her youth. Star was the pony they rode. The Colonel insists to Gabriella that his mother has an overactive imagination and she is not to speak of his mother's stories outside the house.
Believing her mother to be in the town across the river from the base, Gabriella borrows a rowboat. She crosses the river. She observes black children swimming and playing in the distance. She considers that the spirit of Emmett Till watches over them all. To her, she is on a quest for a hidden place as mysterious as Atlantis.
Gabriella does find her mother. However, I will not tell you her precise whereabouts or the reason for her presence there. Read the book. Actually the Mantra for each paragraph of this review should be READ THE BOOK.
Returning to the riverbank, Gabriella discovers the rowboat has drifted away. She is stranded and lost. She finds herself at Sharky's, a black juke joint, seafood and barbecue shack. Sharky is nobody's fool. No white girl has business being in his place in the day time much less at night. He parks Gabriella at a table in the kitchen, surrounds her with crab cakes, french fries, and other delicacies, telling her he'll call someone to pick her up.
Obviously, Gabriella and Hawkins' reputation have preceded them. It's Hawkins that shows up to take his charge back to base. The wail of a siren and flashing lights cause Hawkins to pull over. A North Carolina Sheriff catching a black man with a white girl in his car after dark is a prime reason to make a stop.
This time it's Gabriella who rescues Hawkins. Identifying herself as the Generals daughter, she tells the Sheriff Hawkins is her father's most trusted aide. The Sheriff eyeing the combat ribbons and medals on Hawkins' uniform jacket hanging at the window in the back seat let's them go about their way.
The encounter causes Gabriella to realize that her friendship with Hawkins endangers him, perhaps even more than Emmett's ill-fated whistle. As the summer wanes Gabriella continues to think of Emmett, thinking of his smiling face, his mischievous eyes.
The novel culminates in a spiritual meeting between Gabriella and Emmett. READ THE BOOK.
Gabriella wants to stay with EMMETT. READ THE BOOK.
Emmett tells Gabriella she must give to others on earth. READ THE BOOK.
Gabriella realizes Hawkins is the man Emmett might have grown up to be. I couldn't agree more.
The Long Journey of The Girl Who Swam To Atlantis
I first became acquainted with Elle Thornton as a member of goodreads group "On the Southern Literary Trail." I founded the group in February, 2012. Recently, in an effort to give new voices in Southern Literature an opportunity to find a venue for their work, I broadcast a message to all authors offering them the opportunity to offer copies of their work to group members in monthly giveaways. Elle Thornton was our second giveaway author.
Elle Thornton was awarded the Florida Writers Association for Young Adult Fiction in Prepublication Form in 2009. Elle obtained a literary agent. The book was shopped to six major publishing houses. Random House was a near deal. But it was not to be.
Although Elle and I have not personally met, nor talked on the phone, we have communicated a great deal about this book by what some call e-mail. I prefer to still call them letters. Letter writing is a dying art. Between tweets, texts, and shot e-mails, many are losing the ability to communicate via paper, be it electronic, or pulp. Elle is another of those who has not lost the art of letter writing.
Not only does she write a beautiful letter, she wrote a beautiful and lyrical book. I frequently become frustrated at publishing houses whose primary interest is only putting before the public what sells. Well, of course, I realize money is what makes the world go around.
The point remains that books never reach the public for fear the subject matter won't sell. I've given a great deal of thought to Elle Thornton's novel. I've given a great deal of thought to what sells in the field of Y/A literature today. These are the conclusions I have have reached. John Green is a Y/A God. It seems to me that Y/A has become a genre of what's happening now. Is it new. Is it relevant? Don't get me wrong. I like Green. I like Jay Asher. Each of their subject matters needs to be addressed. However, issues raised in novels such as Elle Thornton's do as well.
Anyone who thinks racism in this country is dead is a fool. In some ways it has become more subtle. In other ways, it is treated as matters deserving of legislation. Are not strict immigration laws a form of racism? Aren't we scared of any person with a middle eastern appearance? And how politely we hide our heads on questions of gender identity.
Keeping the spirit of Emmett Till alive today remains as important as it was during the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. Don't think there are those who still have no need for Civil Rights.
I admire authors who throw themselves into a work, play by all the rules, go through the hoops of Publishing Houses and face rejection. I admire those who have the courage to edit and re-edit and publish their own works.
I have read many a book published by a major publishing house I didn't even shelve. However, it sold, by God. The Folks who put out the Fifty Shades trilogy should be real proud of themselves.
The Folks who turned down a thoughtful Y/A novel must not think today's kids are as smart as they are. Of course, our schools are all aflutter over testing scores. It the question ain't on the test, it doesn't need to be taught, right?
This is a book teachers should read. Particularly school librarians should read it. This is a book that should be on every junior high school and high school library shelf.
One last thought. If Hawkins is the man Emmett Till might have grown up to be, perhaps Gabriella Winter grew up to be Elle Thornton.
A Hunger in the Heart: Kaye Park Hinckley's Novel of Love, Forgiveness and Redemption
I am grateful to Kaye Park Hinckley having been gracious enough tA Hunger in the Heart: Kaye Park Hinckley's Novel of Love, Forgiveness and Redemption
I am grateful to Kaye Park Hinckley having been gracious enough to have provided me a copy of her novel for review. Kaye is a member of "On the Southern Literary Trail," a group I founded and moderate. She has also generously offered copies of her novel for our group's June Author Giveaway.
MEMORIES
In the Summer of 1959 we packed up our 1958 Oldsmobile. It was my family's first air-conditioned car. It was a little square unit that sat under the dash that blew cool air through little round vents.
The scariest place I ever saw was an alligator farm. They were everywhere in concrete ponds. They would look at you and open their jaws wide, showing those rows of tremendous teeth. I hung on to the rails around the gator pits. I would have hated to have ended my vacation as a snack.
I suppose it was the beginning of a loss of innocence. It happens in degrees. In this case, the little box air-conditioner froze up on a regular basis. My grandfather would turn it off and let it defrost. The hot air would blast through the windows. Afternoon thunderstorms caused us to roll up the windows and we would sweat until the magic box emitted a weak stream of cool air for a short time.
I have long ceased to believe in mermaids. However, I still am fascinated by Alligator Farms. I do keep my car's air conditioning system fully maintained.
The Novel
Kaye Park Hinckley brings that era of Florida alive vividly. It certainly brought childhood memories alive for me after many years, but A Hunger in the Heart is not a simple story of a Florida that was less metropolitan and more Southern.
As you read this beautifully written novel you may well find yourself finding similarities with the writing of Flannery O'Connor. Kay Hinckley does not wear her theology on her sleeve anymore than O'Connor did. However, Ms. Hinckley is a member of the Catholic Church. Just as you will find moments of grace, salvation, and redemption in O'Connor, so will you find them in this novel.
The novel follows three generations of the Bridgeman family. Coleman Putnam Bridgeman, the patriarch, is the Boss of Gator Town. No, Gator Town is not Gainesville, Florida, but a small Florida town in which some folks might be said to recognize themselves. The Boss has developed Gator Town with tourist attractions, such as an alligator farm. He is bringing tourism to the small town.
His son, known as Putt, served in World War II. He was a hero, saving one of his Sergeants lives. In the process, he suffered a head wound. Though it is the 1950s, for Putt, the war is still very real. Some men return from war forever changed.
Coleman, III, loves his father and his grandfather. However, when he plays war with his father, he doesn't understand that for his father, the maps he draws in the sand are actual tactical battle maps recreating situations he encountered in the Pacific.
The Boss, a widower, has moved Putt, Coleman, and Putt's wife, Sarah Neal out at the old cabin he once shared with his beloved wife Emma. It is Sarah's job to see that Putt stays out of trouble, takes his medication, and keeps him out of town.
Sarah's is a hard plight. Her faith is not enough to cope with Putt's condition. She bolsters her faith with booze. As the Boss bluntly tells her she has crawled into the bottle and she will drown there.
But on a bad day, Putt sneaks away from home. Down at the Piggly Wiggly, surrounded by customers, Putt believes he is back in the war. He believes he's on fire. He strips naked. The Boss must wrap him up and carry him home.
(view spoiler)[Upon learning that he is to be committed to a state mental institution in exchange for false charges of sexual assault being dropped, Putt becomes involved in a struggle over his weapon with Sarah Neal. Whether he kills himself, or Sarah Neal accidentally shoots him in an effort to take the gun away from him is left to the interpretation of the reader. A central question is whether young Coleman will ever forgive Sarah Neal for his Father's death. He believes she killed him. (hide spoiler)]
Ironically, Putt saved a native of Gator Town, a young black man named Clayton, an orphan raised by Aunt Aggie, known for raising homeless black children. Sarah Neal angrily blames Putt's condition on the Army for making him responsible for saving a no-account such as Clayton.
The truth is Clayton is a no account, a prisoner, in the state penitentiary for a theft. The crime for which he has been convicted is minor to what Clayton has actually committed. In Clayton, evil is a palpable force. For Clayton, Jesus is an entity with whom he can bargain. Escaping from prison, he carries with him, a Madonna he had stolen from Putt, the man who saved his life.
"'Remember how you saved me once? Okay, okay. So I fell out of your boat and got sent up the river again. You don't want me to spend another ten years in that prison do you?' Then he remembered the statue and felt for it in his pocket. See here? I got your mama. I'm gonna take care of her too, if you just come on, Jesus' and save me.'"
Ms. Hinckley addresses the issue of whether a life is so without value it is not worth saving. The resounding answer is no. Every life has value because each person has the possibility to change. It's a matter of choice.
Without any doubt, the moral center of "A Hunger in the Heart" is "Fig," a black man taken into the Boss's home as a child from Aunt Aggie's. For Fig there is no black and white. He is in a sense color blind, not only to race, but to all human frailty. He is the Boss's right hand man. He is the purveyor of forgiveness, the moral compass for young Coleman, and the ultimate key to redemption.
Fig serves as the perfect foil to Clayton, or "Sarge." They are respective representatives of good and evil.
In an especially effective structural device, Ms. Hinckley provides a five year skip in the action aging young Coleman five years. We watch Coleman developing into a young man. He is estranged from his mother because of her alcoholism and her attraction to her therapist who is attempting to cure her alcoholism. What is especially effective is his recognition of Clayton as the man whose life his father saved and his recognition of him as a conman and thief. The question is, will Coleman seek revenge.
Kaye Hinckley writes with a lyrical beauty, yet can shake the reader with a sudden jarring edginess. Her characters are memorable. They are human. Each has frailties and faults. Each needs the strength, love and forgiveness of others. Don't we all?
Winston Groom wrote, "Kaye Park Hinckley's novel, A Hunger in the Heart, is a story of hope, forgiveness, and redemption. It's a great read in the tradition of southern fiction."
Mark Childress said, "Kaye Park Hinckley is a writer with a sensitive ear and a keenly developed sympathy for her characters. Her debut novel, A Hunger in the Heart, marks the beginning of a promising career in the world of fiction.
“There’s folks you just don’t need. You’re better off without em. Your life is just a little better because they ain’t in it.”
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William Gay, October 27, 1941-February 23, 2012, Hohenwald, TN
I had the good fortune to meet William Gay on two occasions. The first was on his book tour with Provinces of Night. I had read The Long Home when it appeared in paperback, recognized there was a special voice that had burst on the scene, and acquired a first edition of his first novel. When his anthology of short stories, I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories appeared I bought that too. Each work was an exceptional read. At the time I bought those first works by Gay, I had no idea if I would ever meet him or not.
Gay always struck me with his easy going way. His form of dress was unconventional. Both times I met him he was wearing carpenter's overalls, rough boots, and either a shirt of insulated underwear or a river neck shirt. I imagine it was a simple underwear shirt.
The last time I saw Gay was on his tour with Twilight. He sauntered in The Alabama Booksmith in Homewood, Alabama. He had added a checked flannel shirt to the outfit I had seen him in previously. Jake Reiss, the owner, asked him if he was about ready to get started. "Right after I go to the bath room and step outside to burn one. I waited for Gay to approach the door to the porch outside and asked if he minded company. "Naw. Come on." We went outside and burned a cigarette. I've never escaped that vice, nor apparently did he.
We talked a little about his books. I told him I had "The Long Home" and "I Hate to See that Evening Sun Go Down." He nodded. "I'm happy to sign them." Then he looked over and said, "Wait until you meet Sutter." I told him I'd be looking for him. "You can't miss him," Gay said.
We went inside. The signing began. Some folks didn't know what to make out of William Gay. He wasn't what they were accustomed to seeing at a book signing. I suppose that's one of the things I liked the best about him.
For what it's worth, "Let's burn one" entered my phrases of Southern idiom. I reserve it for my smoking friends. There are a few of us left. We huddle on the screened porch in the winter. A cup of hot coffee helps. If it's night time and the mercury's really dropping, a shot of whiskey in the coffee helps a little more. We sweat on the screened porch in the summer, trying to catch a breeze from old time oscillating fans. A glass of lemonade goes down good. We recognize we are persona non grata, and try to spare our non-smoking friends and loved ones the second hand hazards of our vice that we know is probably shortening our lives.
Call it a recognition of "twilight," an intimation of mortality. We are rather resigned to it. At one time or another all of us have said, "None of us is gettin' out of here alive."
When you read "Twilight" by William Gay, the image of twilight is repeated a number of times at key sections of the book. The timbre of the light changes, too. At times, the light is so obscured by mist you can't tell which way is up or down, or what direction you're headed. You're lost. Whether good or evil is going to prevail is any body's guess almost to the last page.
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Are you comfortable with the twilight of your life?
My grandmother always told me there's people in this world that just don't look quite right out of their eyes. Over the years, I learned she was right. There are those people you look into there eyes, and there's nothing behind them. There's no conscience, no sense of remorse. Fact is, they'd just as soon kill you as look at you.
William Gay draws you into a page turning frenzy. His prose is spare, lean, and devoid of words unnecessary to propel his story forward. Then the man can amaze you with vivid imagery that is more poetry than prose. You get the sense that each word has been carefully parsed from every other possible synonym that might have been dropped into the same place. But without that careful parsing, the words wouldn't have been right.
The novel is divided into two parts. For the sake of brevity, I'll call the first part "The Town, and the second part "The Harrikin." Each is a setting unique unto itself. Peopled with characters that you would not find in other than the place Gay put them. They wouldn't fit. That is, no one but Granville Sutter and Kenneth Tyler who become parts of both worlds.
The story line is fairly simple and straight forward. However, as you read it, you realize you are in the hands of a master writer.
THE TOWN
“The bodies of the newly dead are not debris nor remnant, nor are they entirely icon or essence. They are, rather, changelings, incubates, hatchlings of a new reality that bear our names and dates, our image and likenesses, as surely in the eyes and ears of our children and grandchildren as did word of our birth in the ears of our parents and their parents. It is wise to treat such new things tenderly, carefully, with honor.” --Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
The time is 1951 in a small Tennessee Town.
Kenneth and Corrie Tyler, the offspring of bootlegger Moose Tyler have made a startling discovery. Fenton Breece, the town undertaker, got good money from the Tyler family to put Moose away right, including an expensive vault. At Corrie's insistence, she's had Kenneth dig up the grave. The vault's gone. Moose only has half a suit on. He's naked from the waist down. Somebody has mutilated him, taking his male unit and family jewels. The inspection of other graves yields further proof that Fenton Breece has some peculiar notions for dealing with the dead, male and female alike.
Breece is the butt of jokes of the town's men. His weak efforts of showing interest in women are rebuffed by raucous laughter. One citizen says, "You know Fenton Breece isn't lying when his mouth isn't moving."
Corrie makes it her mission to extract justice from Fenton Breece. Kenneth questions what she expects to accomplish. After all, Kenneth isn't that interested. His Daddy had been a terror to him when Kenneth was a child.
“What do you think we ought to do? she asked. Do? Put his sorry ass away. Tell the law and let them open the graves themselves. Put him away forever in some crazyhouse. They’d have to. You think they would? I know they would. What would you do with him? There’s supposed to be respect for the dead. It’s the way we evolved or something. It’s genetic. This man here…he wouldn’t cull anything. He’d do anything.”
Corrie's about right. Folks in these parts hold great respect for their dead. Go messin' with a cemetery or desecrating the corpse of a beloved ancestor is worse than stepping into a nest of yellow jackets.
Out in the country in the churchyards there are old sagging dinner tables that have been there most likely for generations. Attend a dinner on the grounds. Listen to the hymn singing and watch the living attend to the graves of their dead. In my county one old cemetery was vandalized. Ancient tombstones turned over and broken. Young people obviously. They had the bad sense to leave spray painted pentagrams identifying themselves as devil worshipers in the minds of the aggrieved. "No, we can't give'em the death penalty."
“You buried my father, she began. He nodded unctuously. He couldn’t wonder what this was about. He remembered the girl, and he remembered the old man, but he couldn’t fathom what she wanted unless someone else was dead. He kept glancing at the purse, and he couldn’t remember if it had all been paid or not. Maybe she owed him money. Mann Tyler, she said. He had an insurance. We paid for an eight-hundred-dollar steel vault to go over his casket, and it’s not there anymore. The room was very quiet. She could hear rain at the window. Breece got up and crossed the room. He peereddown the hall and closed the door. He went back and sat down. His hands placed together atop the desk formed an arch. He was watching her and she could see sick fear rise up in his eyes. Just not there, she went on. And that’s not all. He’s buried without all the clothes we bought for him, and he’s been…mutilated. She just watched him. A tic pulsed at the corner of one bulging eye like something monstrous stirring beneath a thin veneer of flesh.”
“What do you want? You’re finished. You don’t begin to suspect how finished you are. When all these people hear about what you’ve done to their folks, they’re just going to mob you. They’d hang you, but you won’t last that long. They’ll tear you apart like a pack of dogs.”
Fenton sputters that he'll make things right. That he'll replace the vault, that he'll make reparations.
Tension ratchets up when Kenneth steals Breece's briefcase which holds the demented mortician's ugly secrets. There's an ugly stack of photographs. Fenton Breece is a necrophiliac. Fenton is capable of committing acts that raise the hair on the back of your neck. But he lacks the spine to get his own dirty secrets covered up.
As Gay said, "Wait till you meet Sutter."
Granville Sutter is one of those men my grandmother would have said didn't look right out of his eyes. He's gotten off of a murder charge on a lesser included offense. He has the knack of terrifying the populous of the entire town. When Sutter tells anyone he'll see them later, nothing good will come of it.
Breece cuts a deal with the devil. Get his photographs back, he'll pay Sutter $15,000.00. Sutter has no compunction about killing Corrie and Kenneth Tyler. They just don't know a hell hound is on their trail, yet.
Even Breece recognizes he's made a dangerous deal.
“It was the first time they had ever talked face to face and Breece divined in a moment of dizzy revelation something about Sutter that no one had noticed before. Why, he is mad, Breece thought. He’s not what people say about him at all. He’s not just mean as a snake or eccentric or independent. He’s as mad as a hatter, and I don’t know how they’ve let him go so long.”
Something happens to put Corrie into the clutches of Fenton Breece. Don't ask me. I'm not telling.
The HARRIKIN
“When Tyler fled and Sutter pursued him, this was the closest thing to a wilderness there was, and there was really no thought of going anywhere else, and as these fugitives, mentor and protégé, fled from a world that still adhered to form and order they were fleeing not only geographically but chronologically, for they were fleeing into the past.”
Mentor and protégé? Wait. Are you feeling a bit uneasy?
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The Harrikin, where a man gets lost, where a compass won't show true north
It's a one on one contest between Kenneth Tyler and Granville Sutter. Kenneth is on his way to Ackerman Field where there's a Sheriff Bellwether who can't be bought. There's a District Attorney itching to bring Sutter to justice, too.
All Kenneth has to do is cross the Harrikin, a tangled wilderness, where it's so easy to lose one's way. People have gone in there and never come out of there again. Folks who live there now don't want to be found. They don't have social security numbers, don't care for the government, and the government long ago lost interest in them. It started in 1933 with a storm, a tornado or hurricane that blew into Tennessee up from Alabama.
It is a world that might have been the creation of the Brother's Grimm. Perhaps, Hieronymous Bosch. It is haunted by abandoned towns. It is a world of abandoned mines with shafts overgrown by weeds, where a man might step, slip, and never be heard to hit the bottom. A witch woman lives deep in the heart of the Harrikin.
Nearby is the old Perrie Mansion, formerly the scene of many a ball and party. Until a balcony filled with merrymakers were spilled from it when it collapsed. Now the witch woman tells Kenneth that on some nights you can still hear the music, the laughter, and then the screams.
The witch woman advises Kenneth,
“There’s somethin about you. Some folks say more than they know. You say considerable less. There’s somethin about you, and I don’t know if it’s a great good or a great evil. Well. You being a witch and all, looks like you’d know. I would if you wadn’t blockin it out. You’re hidin somethin.”
There's things in this world better let alone. Things sealed away and not meant to be looked upon. Lines better not crossed, and when you do cross 'em you got to take what comes."
There is Bookbinder, the old man who raises goats and keeps them as pets. He shares coffee with Kenneth.
There is a family, mother, father, daughter, son. They feed Kenneth.
On the chase for Kenneth, Sutter will encounter many that Kenneth has met. Some will live. Some will die.
From time to time Sutter will sleep. His sleep is troubled by dreams.
"After a while he slept or thought he slept. He dreamed or dreamed he did. Anymore the line between dreams and reality was ambiguous at best. For years he'd felt madness sniffing his tracks like an unwanted dog he couldn't stay shut of. He'd kick it away and it would whimper and cower down spinelessly and he'd go on, but when he looked back over his shoulder it would be shambling toward him, watching him with wary apprehension but coming on anyway."
A reckoning is coming. William Gay's prose drives you relentlessly to a haunting conclusion. When you've reached the end, ask yourself a question. If one contends with evil too much, too long, can you escape without being caught in its tendrils? Gay leaves the reader much to ponder.
One last word of advice. If a 1950 Black Buick Roadmaster pulls up and you're hitchin' a ride, keep walkin'.
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