Great Openers

It was in a junior high English class that I was first taught to make the opening sentence/paragraph of a story or essay a banger. That it should grab the reader by the back of the neck (or maybe by both ears) and pull them in. The reader can come in slow and easy but, better, the first sentence in particular should hit 'em over the head and yank ‘em in.

It was my freshman year English 101 prof who really drilled that lesson into my head. After our first writing assignment, the class had been scolded for our, across the board, safe, pablum writing quality. The professor seemed to be personally, offended and even a wee bit disgusted with our poor efforts. Our papers were, at best, snoringly dull soporifics.

Next assignment – review/critique a popular magazine. I chose Reader’s Digest. Why? My parents had a subscription so I was familiar with it (as opposed to Golf Digest or Good Housekeeping zzzzz) and it was an easy target. Did I go with just the first line being lit? Fuck no! It was fireworks up and down.

I ripped Reader’s Digest to shreds in the most scathing, disdainful way. // All of the magazine's features were homogenized drek, with any even vaguely sharp edges of reality stripped off and replaced with soft, rounded bumper car foam for the reader’s protection. The humor pieces were beyond lame – barely able to raise a smile on a quokka. // I went on and on – like a wolf surgically carving up a baby bunny. 

My classmates were shocked and a bit horrified to the point that no one spoke to me for the rest of the semester. Seriously. This was mid '70s Appalachia – so, still the '50s. My classmates were beige. Very. How did the prof react? He applauded and I got an A. I learned my lesson well. 

Now? I don’t pull a banger beginning off every day but I try to keep the snoozers at bay.

In any case, here are some of my absolute favorite brilliant hooks:

Life is beautiful and life is stupid. This is, in fact, widely regarded as a universal rule not less inviolable than the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Uncertainty Principle, and No Post on Sundays. As long as you keep that in mind, and never give more weight to one than the other, the history of the galaxy is a simple tune with lyrics flashed on-screen and a helpful, friendly bouncing disco ball of all-annihilating flames to help you follow along.
~ Catherynne M. Valente, Space Opera

A screaming comes across the sky.
~ Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow 

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
~ Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude 

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
~ Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
~ George Orwell, 1984 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities 

I am an invisible man.
~ Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

I have never begun a novel with more misgiving.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.
~ Virginia Woolf, Orlando

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
~ William Gibson, Neuromancer 

One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary.
~ Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 

It was the day my grandmother exploded.
~ Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road

It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.
~ Paul Auster, City of Glass

Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu.
~ Ha Jin, Waiting  

All this happened, more or less.
~~~~
Listen. Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time. 
~ Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five 

The moment one learns English, complications set in.
~ Felipe Alfau, Chromos 

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.
~ Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.
~ Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups

How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President
~ Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
~ Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the Chaplain, he fell madly in love with him. 
~ Joseph Heller, Catch-22

In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
~ Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

 I am so fucked.
~ Andy Weir, The Martian

It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men
~ Mark Lawrence, Red Sister

Perfect Murders

Eight Perfect Murders is a psychological thriller and mystery novel by Peter Swanson. The story follows Beacon Hill mystery bookstore owner and recent-ish widow Malcolm Kershaw. He’s a quiet guy – goes to work with his two employees every day, comes home, reads, has a beer, goes to bed, gets up, and does it all over again.

I want to like him.

Then, one extremely cold, snowy, February day, a young FBI agent stops in with questions. It seems there have been murders that might be echoing a blog post he wrote years ago titled, "Eight Perfect Murders.” In that debut post for the store’s website, he listed the top eight trickiest murder mystery/thrillers – the most unsolvable murders. 

These included: Agatha Christie’s A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin’s Death Trap, A. A. Milne's Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox's Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity, John D. Macdonald's The Drowner, and Donna Tartt's A Secret History.

There appears to be a copycat about – someone who’s using Mal’s blog list as a blueprint, a script, a project inspiration site (Instagram for killers). Except shit gets WAY deeper than that. You see, Mal is something I totally fucking despise. Mal is an unreliable narrator.

Was ist das, you ask?

An unreliable narrator can be defined as any narrator who misleads readers, either deliberately or unwittingly. Many are unreliable through circumstances, character flaws or psychological difficulties. In some cases, a narrator withholds key information from readers, or they may deliberately lie or misdirect. (source) 

Confession – once I fully twigged to this (about 45% of the way through the book), I ended up skipping to the end. Yes, despite Eight Perfect Murders being well written, engaging, having a couple likable characters, AND a cat. WHY did I do this? 

My fault (?) – I can’t and will NOT tolerate being lied to. 

There are myriad reasons why people lie.

They lie to cover their shame.

A friend told me they had sent their children to live, temporarily, with their ex (several states away) for a few months because they needed to take care of some general, unspecified issues. A partial truth at best. Child protective services had stepped in and made this choice for them.

People lie because they’re, perhaps, not fully aligned with reality. 

A person I knew and loved told me an elaborate, detailed story about how they lost their job at an eldercare nonprofit which they supposedly created – built from the ground up. The person was completely blindsided – absolutely stunned.

The more they talked the more they contradicted themself. There were SO many gaping holes in the story. They fully believed what they were telling me all while reality was standing there saying "nah babe...sorry, no way." This was an intelligent person but, in certain circumstances, objective reality was beyond their grasp.

People lie for profit and power. Fer instance – Pedo and his Party of fools, sycophants, planet and people rapers, greedheads, thieves, and micro-schwanzed morons, lie with every breath they take.

Some other reasons why people lie:

Sometimes it’s to shield or protect others. Would you lie about Abdullahi Mohamed or Vargas Arellano hiding from ICE in your attic? I sure as fuck would.

“White lies” are theoretically told to spare someone's feelings. Would I? //shrugs// Maybe. It depends. I think I’m more likely to tell the truth as gently as I’m able. This might be how I’ve gotten the rep for being honest – AKA direct, blunt, a stone asshole. //shrugs// Someone's gotta do it.

Lies of omission are committed in order to protect privacy and/or avoid conflict. Sometimes that’s good and necessary. Sometimes that’s chickenshit assholery.

Back to Eight Perfect Murders though – because of this lying shit and me, inevitably, being sparked off into the next dimension by it, I returned the book to the library early. Yes, I read the last chapter and I’m glad I did (no, I won’t give away the ending). Now, NOW I want to know how Mal, the lying little shit, got to that end. I wanna know if his two bookstore employees and the cat (ESPECIALLY the cat) are okay. And what about the FBI agent who seemed like a nice, less buttoned up Agent Scully type. Maybe. 

I might have to get back on the waiting list and take the book out again even though I’m still RILLY pissed off about this lying ass narrator shit.

And now I have Annie Lennox in my head singing Would I Lie to You. THIS is a good thing! 

Come to the Caberet

I needed a lightweight read. OF FUCKING COURSE I DID (and do)! Don’t we all? I mean, fer fuck’s sake, the US is being stripped for parts by a crew of vulture capitalists and their installed kakistocratic puppet government.

So, what am I reading? Liza Minnelli’s memoir Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! I’m only 35% of the way in so this post isn’t a book review so much as a reaction to things I’ve come across so far.

First off, I’m at war with myself about how relatively easy it was for her to succeed in her family’s business – show business. WHY am I conflicted? Did I not know from the get-go that Minnelli was the daughter of ultra famous, successful-in-their-respective-crafts parents? Did I not take the damn book out of the library in part because I wanted to read about glittering celebrity lives? Why…yes, yes I did!

So then…what the fuck, madam?

I’ve always resented people who’ve been given opportunities handed to them like gifts they’re owed. Especially folks whose parents don’t just have money, they have connections too. They know the right people, can put in a good word for you, get you an audition, a review of your portfolio, a foot in the door. And if they don’t get the starring role right off, do they have to work the breakfast shift at the local diner until their big break? Nope, they can crash, rent-free, on their agent’s couch until something comes up.

Yeah, this is jealousy. I didn’t have the big financial cushion or familial connections within the art world AND, to be completely fair and honest, I was no Jean-Michel Basquiat either. Andy Warhol wasn’t about to discover me and put me on the cover of Interview. So, I’ll quit kvetching. Also, Minnelli is quick to volunteer that “I was the original nepo baby.” She’s well aware of the privilege she had. Still, if she wasn’t dynamite, she wouldn’t have become so popular. 

Imagine Paris Hilton (media personality, businesswoman, socialite, “actress”), the great-granddaughter of billionaire Conrad Hilton, taking on any, honestly ANY of Meryl Streep’s roles and doing anything beyond embarrassing the shit out of herself. Connections and money alone won’t ever do the trick – you have to have actual talent.

Okay, second – mein Gott, Judy Garland, a profound prescription drug addict and alcoholic, was on so many levels an awful, horrific, horror show mother. Minnelli writes that at age 13:

“I was my mother's caretaker—a nurse, doctor, pharmacologist and psychiatrist rolled into one.”

There are other stories from when Liza was a bit older and starting to make it as a performer on her own. Garland seemed to be torn between being a supportive mother and fellow artist and being an insecure, imperious, resentful, competitive bitch.

And yet Liza writes of her great love for Judy. It seems to exist at a far greater level than any bitterness over being, at bare fucking minimum, denied a significant part of her childhood. Has she embraced and worked through all of her anger and sadness about her mother’s negligence, abuse, and the insane home life she created for Liza and her siblings? Is she numb, in some kind of denial, or clinging through all the bad memories to those few wisps of goodness? Is she trying to find, within memories of Judy, the kind of love she needed and deserved as a child?

If so, why? 

I guess I’m going to need to keep reading to see if there are any answers to that question.

And Now For Something Completely Different

While we Valhallans are here in the snow packed wilds of suburban Boston, Hillel and his lovely wife are visiting friends in Bangkok. Yep, Thailand where it’s currently a “cool” 85º. Cool as compared to March – June, which is considered the hot season. 

While 85º is too damn toasty for me (I wilt in temps above 78. Hey, what do you expect? I’m a New Englander!) I can’t say I’m overly fond of our current -5º with two feet of snow on the ground.

The 10 day forecast for Bangkok is for sunny weather with daytime temps in the low 90s. YIKES! I’d be an immobile puddle of stinky sweat. 10 day forecast for the Boston area? Daytime temps in the teens to mid 20s, clouds and sun with another snowstorm due at the weekend. Eh. Whatevs. It’s winter and, luckily, I don’t need to go outside until this next Monday.

Ten, Jen, and Oni did all the shoveling which was quite the epic task this time around. Apparently, for some unknown reason, the city hired out-of-towners to plow the very skinny streets of our neighborhood. Instead of depositing all the collected snow on the long, wide grassy area along the seawall, the snowplows just pushed the snow to the side and into people’s driveways. The result? Everyone was blocked in and the barely two lane roads were down to one.

 Someone called our newly elected councilman, who we Vahallans voted for. He came out, walked the streets and had a look see. Plows were sent in again. Yea!

Okay, maybe Hillel could bring home some of that Thai heat. Ya know, just enough to melt the snow and ice off the sidewalks and streets. It can stay on the yards, in the forests, on the beaches and mountains and shit. I bet it's real pretty on the shoreline right now.

Now then, I’m taking a mental health day. No news. No doomscrolling. No fussing about. I’m gonna dive into my new book, Kills Well with Others by Deanna Raybourn and probably, just generally, annoy the fuck out of Cake and Ten all day. Hey, everybody’s gotta have a talent and, apparently, that’s mine.

I’m gonna assume that someone will give me a heads up if the powers that fuel the universe join together, come down to this little planet and take out this administration full of malevolently barbaric, greedheaded, power-mad idiots.

An old babe can dream and hope…ya know.

Inappropriate – Who Me?

First – was it wrong for me to send Jen a YouTube clip of the Mary Tyler Moore episode Chuckles Bites the Dust while she was at her father's funeral? 

This was the ep where the WJM-TV News staff were attending Chuckles the Clown's funeral. He had died at a parade while dressed as the character Peter Peanut – a rogue elephant tried to "shell" him. Fatal injuries ensued. Mary scolded her coworkers for engaging in dark humor only to find herself, later, during the eulogy, unable to contain her laughter. PRICELESS episode!

Luckily Jen's phone was off during Pop's service. Why? She said she probably would have interrupted to play it for everyone. Yup, she and I are besties for a solid reason. Our particular senses of humor can usually be counted on to be inappropriate to any given situation.

Franz Marc

Next – sadly, I'm once again between books. I'm between books which capture my interest, draw me in, amuse and distract me, take me away from the wretched reality of imminent world war, Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu’s gross depravity, and humanity’s general numbness to our planet's ills.

What am I doing instead of diligently hunting up new engaging, inspiring reading matter?

Why, I’m surfing Threads, of course. Don’cha know there are just shitloads of cat pics and pro photographer's offerings to view. There are hilarious and troubling reports from the far distant (thank Bast!) dating fields. There are AITA (Am I The Asshole) posts that I totally MUST read, if not weigh in on. I follow a bunch of individuals in Ukraine – I want to keep abreast of what life is like for real people who are living through this invasion of and fight for their country.

I’m NOT just doomscrolling the ICEhole reports and reading of the latest idiocies and atrocities from the Pedo Administration.

I DID find a helpful post where someone asked readers to name somebody/something we trust more than Donald Trump.

My response was, naturally, fishnet condoms.

Others noted:

• The Nigerian prince who just emailed. He would like me to help him get his inheritance. I only need to send him £5k now. After he receives his birthright, I’ll get a sizable share of his fortune.

• A fart after a night of Taco Bell and prune juice smoothies.

• Arkansas gas station sushi.

• KeanuReeves254695 who texted wanting to know how my day was and, goodness, he thinks my profile picture is stunning. He very much hopes that we’ll become close. He then told me his assets have been frozen by the FBI due to some ridiculous lawsuit. Keanu totally wants to fly to Ukraine to save all the poor kittens and puppies being bombed by Russia but he can’t access his funds. Could I cashapp him a few grand – he’ll totally pay me back.

• Dr. Phil 

• The guy on the dating site telling me he’s 6’4” 200 lbs and 38 years old who’s ONLY looking to date women 25 and younger. (Yeah, dude is totally 5’8” at most but the weight’s probably accurate. Also, he’s 45-50 years old, minimum)

I’ve also discovered a helpful post regarding womb uses. Did you know, they’re useful for a lot more than just birthing babies!

• It's where we keep our butterscotch candies. When we go through menopause, we have to move them somewhere else. That's why little old ladies have butterscotch candies in their purse.

• I have the kids Christmas presents hidden in mine so they don't find them.

• Mine’s been stretched nicely by two babies, I’m looking to rent it out as accommodation in London. About £1500 a month should do it?

• It’s clearly a portal to the underworld.

• I keep my spare house key there.

• Most women don’t know that their womb can also be used for hosting ballroom dances.

• I got mine refurbished into a hello kitty gumball machine

• I keep yarn in mine. I reel it out through my vagina. Really helps with my tensioning when I crochet.

• Mine's a She Shed.

• I keep asking mine what else she can be used for and it keeps magic eight balling me “try again later” 

Me? If I can get my essential tremor nonsense under control, I can start working in clay again. I'll put my wheel and handbuilding table up there. Plenty of room!

For more useful tips on what to do with your womb, do check out Deserye Lewis’s (@blissful_ness923) page on Threads.

20,000 Docs

With the windchill factor it’s 17 bloody degrees Fahrenheit outside this morning! I am NOT ready for this. Luckily, I don't have to venture out today.

Remember how, last Wednesday, the US House Oversight Committee dumped 20,000 docs from old dead Jeffy Ep’s estate? These files are chock full of junk (like videos of dogs playing with Trump and Hillary Clinton plushies – no, fer realies) as well as incriminating evidence. HOW to find evidence amongst all the dross?

The website Courier created a handy dandy searchable database. Check it out!

To make this massive data dump more accessible, COURIER has compiled the 20,000 documents from Epstein’s estate into an easily searchable repository via Google Pinpoint. Use the search tool here. 

Jim Morin

Awesome!

Little Mikey Johnson says that Prez Pedo has "clean hands." Oh sure he does. Dude, NO ONE’S buying that shit! Trump’s mentioned 1.628 times in the 20,000 docs that have been dumped SO FAR. That’s more mentions than anyone else including Jeffers and these are HIS damn files. Dunno Mikey, seems your boy’s hands are covered in schmutz.

Thomas Massie, the Republican rep from Kentucky who is the co-sponsor of the bill to release the files has warned his pedo supporting fascist mates:

"Donald Trump can protect you in red districts right now by giving you an endorsement. But in 2030, he's not going to be the president, and you will have voted to protect pedophiles if you don't vote to release these files. And the president can't protect you then, this vote -- the record of this vote will last longer than Donald Trump's presidency.” (source) 

Basically, this is a career killer. Once Trump’s gone, so are they if the continue to protect child rapists. Massie’s not advising them to do what’s ethical, honorable, and just – he’s telling them to think about their careers, reputations, and bank accounts. Why? Because he damn well knows that his fellow Republican reps don’t give a fuck about anything else besides themselves. They’re not in their phony-baloney jobs to serve the people of their districts. They’re in it for bucks, power, and perks. Massie’s talking to them in language that maybe they’ll understand.

I wouldn’t bet on it though.

Meanwhile, last night Prez Pedo, amongst other things (such as attacking his former bestie Madge Greene), switched course and called for releasing the Kraken…I mean files.

Trump repeated White House dismissals of the attention over the files as a Democrat-led "hoax" to "deflect" attention away from his party's work.

"The Department of Justice has already turned over tens of thousands of pages to the Public on 'Epstein,' are looking at various Democrat operatives (Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, etc.) and their relationship to Epstein, and the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON'T CARE!," he wrote on his Truth social platform. (source) 

So, it’s still a hoax, the House Oversight Committee can have whatever but the Department of Justice (AKA his pet legal team headed up by his faithful lapdog Bleach Bondi) will ONLY look at the names of Democrats who pop up in the files? If there’s an R after the name, dude gets a free pass? Do I have that right?

Ya know what? I’m gonna be smart today and avoid the news and Threads. I’ve recently begun a new mystery, Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests by K.J. Whittle, and I’m loving it. It appears to be her first book. I’m not even halfway through and looking forward to the next one.

Hate-Reading

Andy Warhol, Pink Car Crash

Ever hate-read a book? Maybe a better description of what I just did is this – I stayed up well past midnight reading an intriguing mystery despite the fact that the protagonist thoroughly annoyed me to the point of pissing me straight off. Like, is this character painfully stupid, delusional, and ridiculously inexperienced? Has she met any other humans before now? Was she raised in some paradesical la-la land meadow somewhere? Or is she just young and naive? Was I ever this green and dewy?

The book is The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant by Liza Tully.

Olivia is presented as a 25-year-old fact checker for an online media site who loves detective fiction and, somehow, thinks this means she’ll be a great sleuth. She finds out that a renowned private investigator, who just happens to live nearby, has an opening for an assistant (NOT a co-sleuth – an assistant) and applies for the gig.

First sign of “this book is really gonna challenge my ability to suspend reality?” The former fact-checker and her aspiring actor beau (who, presumably, works low paying gig jobs to keep himself free for auditions) live on 14th St. in Manhattan where, if you’re very lucky, you might be able to rent a 296 square foot, fourth floor walk-up, studio apartment for three grand a month. 

Second sign? The Goodreads synopsis starts with:

Olivia Blunt doesn't want to be an assistant detective for the rest of her life. She's determined to learn everything she can from her mentor and renowned investigator, Aubrey Merritt, but the latter is no easy grader.

“She's determined to learn everything she can from her mentor” HAH! It’s clear that after working for Merritt for just a few weeks, Olivia sincerely believes that she knows everything there is to know. She’s ready for the big time and infinite praise from her illustrious boss. 

Best I could tell, the author actually wrote this character unironically. She wasn't even in the same universe as "just okay." Olivia was obviously, in no fucking way, ready for more than a role of taking notes, doing research, observing, and learning how to think critically and creatively. Her main strength seemed to be overestimating her abilities.

She lacked:

• Foresight. Thinking up and critically evaluating possible actions? Pfft, that shit’s for suckers, amirite?
• Objective analysis. I believe, on some level she tried but Olivia was way more about knee jerk vibes than actual, hard reality. 
• Her observational skills were decidedly haphazard and I’m being generous. 

Olivia lacked a solid, real world understanding of basic human nature. She reminded me a lot of the entitled, white, young BernieBros who seem to think revolution is easy and can be accomplished in an afternoon. Simple! All we have to do is have a general strike, get out in the streets, vote for X presidential candidate who will magically solve all our problems. *BOOM* Utopian society!

Life is a LOT more complicated than that. DUH! I wonder, was I this astoundingly naive and unrealistically idealistic at 25? I’ll cop to being some level of this but I hope to fuck I wasn’t as cartoonishly nimrodian as Olivia.

Was Tully intentionally painting her as a caricature – a starry eyed, overly optimistic, shallow thinking, credulous, melodramatic, overly impulsive child? She comes off as more of a dim teen than an adult – not to dis Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, or the Scooby Gang (who were NOT dim).

Did the author mean to give her main character a giant ego, a near total lack of self-awareness, and the belief that she deserves instant prestige?

I took this book out of the library because the blurbs promised it would be an amusing murder mystery romp. It wasn’t gritty certainly but, boyhowdy, I wanted to slap the main character sideways. IF you enjoy hate-reading, and aren’t getting enough of that from keeping up with current events, OR you enjoy car crashes and train wreck, THIS is the perfect book for you.

By the by, Liza Tully is a nom de plume for Elisabeth Brink. Ms. Brink also writes under the names Elisabeth Elo and Elisabeth Panttaja Brink. I’m gonna make sure I miss out on books written under all these names.

In Distraction World

‘What happened' is never what defines you in life; 'What you did next' is what defines you. 
~ Richard Osman, The Impossible Fortune 

I just finished the latest Thursday Murder Club installment and it was awesome. Also poignant. The club members are getting up there in age. Author Richard Osman is only in his mid-50s but he writes his late septuagenarian characters with a great understanding of what it’s like to be in a body that just doesn’t function as well as it once did.

He mentions Ron, the once rabble rousing union activist, being frustrated and disturbed over the fact that he needs to hold his pint with two hands now and is losing the manual dexterity to easily tie his shoes. Ron knows he’s not as able as he once was – he’s no longer a force to be reckoned with. He still wants to protect his family, contribute to investigations, and NOT be seen as a pathetic, broken old man though. Of course!

I’m more than a decade younger but, due to that rat bastard NF2, I can totally relate. 

Ibrahim, the psychiatrist, is insecure about his intelligence or, rather, how quick, logical, and canny he is and is perceived to be by his peers. As he ages, he knows that his mental processes are slowing/slipping. It's scary.

Elizabeth, the fearsome retired MI6 spy, is not as slick as she once was either. She, however, seems less reluctant, less bothered about needing and accepting help.

I don’t feel that my own cerebral functions are more rickety than, say, ten years ago but it’s not like I’ve ever been on par with Obama, Noam Chomsky or Dr. Patricia Cowings. UNDERSTATEMENT ALERT.

Joyce is Joyce. Whenever I think she’s too much of a clueless, intellectual lightweight for the group, she surprises me. Joyce really is paying attention and is able to see past conventional presumptions. Between the last book and this, she doesn’t seem to have lost a step.

For me, this wasn’t just about the mystery – who killed Holly and will Danny succeed in offing his wife and her brother (Ron’s children) – it was, at heart, about aging and how unnerving it can be to arrive there. It’s one thing to watch your parents lose a step or three, to become forgetful and possibly come to the need of full time care. As sad and heart-wrenching as that can be, you know it’s coming – it’s expected. It’s quite another ocean of eels to look fading vitality eyeball to eyeball – to experience it yourself.   

Wonderful book. Osman's a truly empathetic writer.

IF there are sequels to that bungled, desperately disappointing, cringing embarrassment of a movie version of the first Thursday Murder Club book, the scriptwriters would have to practically rewrite the novels in order to get around their elimination of a major player. Given the writer’s wrecking ball, slapstick handling of book one, I hope they don’t get a second chance. And I really don’t need to see the smooth, ultra glamorous Tom Ellis playing a late middle-aged boxer again. Was the director (or whoever’s in charge of this sort of thing) unable to hire a makeup artist to at least create the illusion that Ellis had, at least, brushed past an opponent in the ring? Just once maybe? Possibly he suffered a stubbed toe in a fight? How's about making him look like he's a day over 35? 

I’m asking you!             

DNF

I’m adding Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson to my Did Not Finish book pile – it goes back to the library before my two weeks are up.

Kill Your Darlings is a murder mystery – actually a few different murders – told in reverse order. The ultimate murder happens first. Equally, the book is about the main characters’ – Thom and Wendy Graves – relationship.

It’s clear from the beginning, that Thom’s a benumbed, thoroughly sodden alcoholic. The probable genesis of his descent into pickledom is the crime the couple plotted together (and Thom executed) decades before.

Thom and Wendy Graves have been married for over twenty-five years. They live in a beautiful Victorian on the north shore of Massachusetts. Wendy is a published poet and Thom teaches English literature at a nearby university. Their son, Jason, is all grown up. All is well…except that Wendy wants to murder her husband.

What happens next has everything to do with what happened before. The story of Wendy and Thom’s marriage is told in reverse, moving backward through time to witness key moments from the couple’s lives—their fiftieth birthday party, buying their home, Jason’s birth, the mysterious death of a work colleague—all painting a portrait of a marriage defined by a single terrible act they plotted together many years ago. (source) 

While the reverse order story telling is a cute device, I don’t think it really serves these characters well (but then, maybe nothing would). They’re predictable and, all in all, rather dull. Apart from being an incredible lush, Thom’s a failed writer and given to monologuing. I *think* he’s meant to come off as sad but sympathetic. The alcoholism is, perhaps, his way of coping with the guilt and shame he carries for the murders he committed.

Wendy’s mostly portrayed as being a bit brittle, manipulative, and disdainful. She’s had one book of poems published but that was decades ago. Now she works some random office job that Swanson doesn’t even bother to flesh out. Apart from the occasional murder, Wendy doesn't have a lot going for herself.

These aren’t intriguing or likable people.

Wendy could have been an admirable, heartless, crafty killer type. The story seemed to be heading in that direction for half a minute but then comes crashing back down to dull domestic intrigue. It barely grazes the realm of cheezy soap opera.

There’s a lot of dead air between actual action or otherwise interesting passages – repetitive tales of Thom being drunk and Wendy being irritated and such. Given that the author’s already told me how the story ends, working back to the original murder – and then, when Thom and Wendy met in junior high – feels like a lot of effort for too small of a payout. If Swanson was a more talented wordsmith maybe he could have made this work. As it is, Kill Your Darlings should have been a short story or, at most, a novella.

I’ve read that the book’s being turned into a movie with Julia Roberts as Wendy. Perhaps that was what the story was meant to be all all along. Not a mystery novel but a movie proposal, an elaborate film pitch.

Not quite as much but I felt similarly about The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid – that is, it was probably written with movie scripts dancing in the author’s mind. Both, with talented screenwriters, could fall into the rare movie-better-than-the-book category. It could happen. I mean, look at The Witches of Eastwick. I loved the movie even more than John Updike’s well written book. 

No offense intended, just facts, but Swanson and Jenkins Reid aren’t up there in Updike’s sphere.

In the Distraction Zone

The down side of reading a hard science sci-fi novel that I’ve taken out of the library and am absolutely loving, is that I will inevitably NOT finish it before it’s due back at the good ol’ BPL. Yes, I’m talking about Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary and why haven’t I finished it in my allotted loaner time? Because I’m not some science-y brainiac who already knows and understands all the basic and not so basic concepts the author tosses out. It takes me time to take in and understand points made, to google other bits, to learn.

 You might be thinking “why not keep Project Hail Mary out for another two weeks?” To the best of my understanding, that’s not how digital loans work. I CAN request a renewal of my book loan and IF no one else is in line waiting to read the book, I can hold onto it and keep reading. If someone(s) else is waiting to read it, I go to the back of the line. It may be a couple weeks before I can finish reading the tale. It could be months. This is the reading equivalent of coitus interruptus.

So, I jumped ahead. I know how Project Hail Mary ends (more or less happily if bittersweet with a dash of weirdness). The movie version comes out in late March of ’26. Yeah, I’ll be watching it.

In other book to movie news – Jen, Oni, and I just watched the wildly anticipated Thursday Murder Club movie yesterday. Wildly anticipated by Jen and I anyway. We LOVED the books.

WHAT a disappointment though!

The casting is, charitably speaking, uneven. Helen Mirren as Elizabeth, the sharp minded ex-MI6 agent (US equivalent of CIA) is, of course, perfect. Celia Imrie as Joyce, the cozy (with surprising, underlying quick-witted toughness) retired nurse is grand. Ben Kingsley is Ibrahim, the pedantic former psychiatrist. He's understated and not as given to so much over-explanation as in the books. Kingsley’s, naturally, wonderful.

Conversely, Pierce Brosnan is Ron, the retired labor organizer and agitator. Brosnan is entirely too calm, civilized, and, frankly, too damn tall and good looking for the part. Sadly, he's not a talented enough actor to get past these deficits. A Bob Hoskins or Pete Postlethwaite type would’ve been WAY more fitting. What about Tim Roth? He’s alive still. Too young sure but there’s always makeup, ya know. 

The entirely too beautiful actor Tom Ellis plays Ron's ex-boxer son. Ellis is def a fine actor BUT there’s no way he’s believable as an ex-boxer – he’s just too damn perfect looking. Also, wouldn’t boxers be a bit more beefy? Ellis is built more like a swimmer. 

Naomi Ackie plays the young police officer Donna De Freitas. She comes off much more timidly in the movie than in the books and that's a shame.

Daniel Mays is the detective in charge of the investigations and comes off as a complete caricature. He’s sloppy, constantly shoving food into his mouth, his clothes are rumpled (and look a bit whiffy), he’s not at all intellectually quick, when cornered he resorts to bullying, AND he needs a good shower and a shave. It’s as though the directors and producers cut and pasted him in from some third rate slapstick cop comedy flick.

Apart from dubious casting and character development choices, I objected to some of the book-to-movie story changes. I know, in order to fit the two hour or less film format, cuts and abbreviations need to be made. A few of the shortcuts just seemed completely random, some worked, and there were those that didn’t serve the storyline at all.

My biggest complaint by far is how the scriptwriters dealt with the character Bogdan (played by Henry Lloyd-Hughs). He’s, ultimately, a very good guy but is, at times and by necessity, in a moral grey zone. He’s one of my favorite Murder Club characters and the writers had him deleted by Elizabeth. This doesn’t happen in the books. Bogdan’s a key player in all four installments of the series. If there’s to be a movie sequel, the scriptwriters will need to be creative in writing around his absence. 

If I leave out the book entirely, just look at the movie as a stand-alone piece, it seems like the creators couldn’t decide whether to make a cozy mystery or a cheezy comedy or a deeply sad, yet ultimately heartwarming relationship piece. 

There’s a lot of wasted acting talent on screen here. Read the books. Miss the flick.