Yeas and Nays January through June

It's that time of year again: Emily's best and worst reads from the first half of the year. Actually, I'm a little late, seeing as June ended two weeks ago, but, oh well. Last year at this time, I gave you six favorite reads and six least favorite reads, but I cheated and gave an extra favorite. This year, (lucky me) I only read four books that I didn't like. I've decided that means I can "borrow" two from the least favorite column, which allows me to give you eight favorites to keep the total at 12. I've also decided that any books that have been featured in a "You've GOT to Read This" post will not show up here, because I'm trying to cut down on repetition, and well, you're all smart. If I've, at some point, screamed, "You've GOT to read this," then you can probably figure out it's a favorite. (Yes, it's my blog, so not only do I get to be late, but I also get to make the rules.) Here you go:

Yeas:
Americana: And Other Poems by John Updike
Emily's Inner Literary Snob (EILS -- a slippery sort of character): You hate contemporary poetry.
Emily (E): No I don't.
EILS: Come on. You recite stuff from The New Yorker laughing out loud.
E: Yes, but not Updike. Besides, that's you laughing, not me.
EILS: Well, what's so great about Updike?
E: I sat down to read the first few poems to see what it was like. Next thing I knew, I was done with the book.
EILS: You know, I've seen you do that with a collection of Get Fuzzy cartoons.
E: Hey, don't knock Get Fuzzy. This was different, though. I was mesmerized. I couldn't believe this man knew me so well.
EILS: You mean your pea brain could understand more than two poems in the collection.
E: Well, yes...
EILS: Credentials for a Pulitzer, I'm sure...
(My fellow bloggers, do not listen to EILS, who ought to be shot. It was a fantastic collection of poems, a great introduction to Updike for me, one that tapped into all the right emotions, which is exactly what poetry ought to do.)

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Dear Mr. Gaiman, will you marry me? Oh, wait a minute. I'm already married to the man I long-ago decided would be my one-and-only husband. Wandering around in the wonderful worlds you create can make a girl forget such things. Oh well, since we can't marry, would you please promise to keep writing books that tease my imagination in such fun, wonderful ways? (Oh, and more ghosts, please.)

In the Fall by Jeffrey Lent
Don't you just hate it when snotty book reviewers compare authors to those who have come before them? Nine times out of ten, they don't seem to know what they're talking about, do they? And don't you hate it when people insist you must read a book, especially yet another one of those multi-generational family sagas? Faulkner's, I mean, Lent's book is a contemporary masterpiece that you don't really have to read, you know, if you don't want me to like you.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
Once upon a time, there was this author who could take you on a breathtaking quest, full of magic and truth. You'd laugh. You'd gasp. You'd cry. Oh, and you'd get to ride a unicorn, the most beautiful creature in the woods.

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
Gee, I have absolutely no idea why I might relate to an intelligent woman stuck in provincial Small Town America, bored out of her mind as a housewife. I do wonder, though, why Sinclair Lewis has gone out of fashion. I've now read two of his books, both of which are great testaments to the fact that society is evolving at less than a snail's pace in 20th-and-21st-century America.

She by H. Rider Haggard
It was a dark and stormy night when a different author sent us on another (very weird, eerie, and mysterious) quest. There were no unicorns to ride on this quest through the jungles of Africa, but if you were to embark on the journey, you just might (if you're able to decipher the code on a potsherd), in a dark cave somewhere, discover the secret to immortality. Then again, after what you've been through, the fearsome woman you've met, and the price you'd have to pay, you just may not want it (if you're a nineteenth-century man, that is).

Stiff by Mary Roach
(Ring! Ring!) Hello?... Dr. Freud?... Thanks so much for calling... Well, since we last talked, I did do something that might be considered a little odd... I read a whole book about cadavers and their many, uh, interesting uses... Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I did laugh my way through a good deal of it... Obsessed with death? I don't really... Necrophilia?... I hadn't really thought... You don't think it just could be that I find Roach's spunk and curiosity admirable and that I love the way she writes (all those wry little asides), and I wish I had her courage (not to mention her iron stomach)?... I am not suffering from pen envy. (Click.)

Twilight of the Gods by Richard Garnett
Back during Queen Victoria's reign, when most were busy with the likes of Thomas Hardy and Anthony Trollope and perhaps a Bronte or two, others were fortunate enough to have been reading a wonderful little collection of stories that would one day all-but-disappear. Here, they found the likes of a waning Apollo whose lyre had most likely been pawned. Or they found Lucifer, transformed into a pope and grievously missing his tail. Perhaps they stumbled across a dumb oracle. My guess is that somewhere in Discworld (a place I've come to know and love in 2009. I know, I know. What took me so long?) there is a gold-leafed copy of this book being kept under lock and key and that there are rumors of a Mr. Pratchett (nobody is really sure whether he exists or not) who holds the key.

Nays:
King Lear (yes, the one by William Shakespeare)
No, I do not hate Shakespeare, so please put away your guns. I just hate King Lear. Unlike many, many other books I've reread as an adult, this one did not improve during the 20+ intervening years since the last time I read it. As far as I'm concerned, here's proof that even Shakespeare could have his off days.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
Sometimes one doesn't like a book not because it's bad, per se, but because it's just too disturbing to read and is nothing new to the reader. This would be a terrific book, maybe, for someone who needs to have his or her eyes opened to the horrors inflicted upon children around the world. I'm not that person and really didn't need to subject my over-active imagination to this one.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
(From my goodreads.com comments)
Verily I say unto you that
you will find no profundity here
unless, perhaps, you take up that bong
or eat that mushroom.
Nor will you find anything that thousands of others
did not say long, long before, far more magnificently.
And you may very well sob, asking yourself,
"Why did I waste an hour of my time thus?"
Fear not. You may happen upon an opportunity to weave it
into a novel.
Now, return to Plato, Aeschylus, Aristophanes... for your profundity,
and do not forget that life is too short for tripe.

The Real Cool Killers by Chester Himes
The real bad book. You can read more here, if you can be bothered.

Music Monday/Lyric Lundi

Due to the wonders of technology, I am actually off hiking in the Poconos with my friend Linda while this is posting for me. The Poconos aren't exactly the Rockies, but I've seen the Rockies (I actually prefer the gentle, rolling East Coast mountains to those gigantic, rugged West Coast ones. Not that they're not all magnificently gorgeous). I also know what it's like to "come home to a place I'd never been before." It happened to me the first time I visited Scotland at age 15. It happened again the first time I visited Manhattan. And it happened a third time on my first trip to Maine. So, it seems appropriate to give you one of my favorite songs today that has to do with mountains and "coming home."

Who knows? I've never hiked in the Poconos. Perhaps, at this moment, I am discovering yet another "home." I'll let you know when I get back.

Rocky Mountain High
by John Denver

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Comin' home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hangin' by a song
But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care
It keeps changin' fast and it don't last for long

But the Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullabye
Rocky mountain high (high Colorado) rocky mountain high (high Colorado)

He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below
He saw everything as far as you can see
And they say he got crazy once, and he tried to touch the sun
And he lost a friend but kept his memory

Now he walks in quiet solitude the forests and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high (high Colorado) rocky mountain high (high Colorado)

Now his life is full of wonder but his heart still knows some fear
Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land

And the Colorado rocky mountain high
Ive seen it rainin' fire in the sky
I know he'd be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly
Rocky mountain high

It's a Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
Friends around the campfire and everybody's high
Rocky mountain high (high Colorado) rocky mountain high (high Colorado)
Rocky mountain high (high Colorado) rocky mountain high do de do

Meme Award

Zoe's Mom gave me This Award, which happens to be right up my alley, because not only am I flattered to have received An Award (even if it's an award that is very unclear. I'm not quite sure what the actual award is -- judging from the picture it seems to encompass memes, books, and eggheadedness. Still, it is an award, nonetheless, and I will take any award I can get), but it also happens to be An Award that involves a meme. I can't accept The Award without participating in the meme (gee, twist the old Queen o' Meme's arm yet again).

Here are the instructions: to accept this award, I must list 7 personality traits about myself, and I must pass this award onto 7 other blogs that deserve fine recognition for their bloggers' personalities that they share with the blogging world.

My first thought: do I have 7 personality traits that I have not already blabbed incessantly about on this blog? This happens to be my 510th post (yes, not only did I miss my 3-year blogiversary back in May, I also managed to miss my 500th-post milestone. Good thing this blog is not a human child or a husband). Answer: I think so, but please forgive me if I am repetitive.

My second thought: can I come up with 7 other bloggers who have not already been given the award? Answer: I think so, but please forgive me if I am repetitive.

So, here we go. I'm starting with the bloggers (in alphabetical order) first, because that is easier for me:

7 Bloggers' Blogs That Deserve Fine Recognition:

Bob of Lacunae Musing (Bob, I know you don't do memes, really, so you don't have to do this one, but I do think your blog deserves recognition). I love Bob's blog not only because I know him in real life (no, this is not my husband Bob, so don't get confused), but because his blog is full of passion and so varied. With any given post, you might find interesting thoughts on the publishing industry, or a review about a great book, or poignant autobiography, or beautiful photos, or samples of his piano-playing, or great commentary on the state of our economy. Really, it's terrific fun to read.

Danny of Jew Eat Yet (Danny, ditto my instructions to Bob. Besides, you are way too busy these days to mess around with memes). Danny is another real life friend, and I love his blog because it's funny and because I, who basically know nothing about pop culture, learn so much from him (a Pop Culture King, living in the heart of it all in L.A.). These days, his blog has gotten very personal as he struggles with one son who is in the NICU and one who did not live, and he is writing beautifully about the whole experience, helping friends like me who just cannot imagine living his life right now understand what it is like (and, yes, he has managed to keep his sense of humor).

Fem of Feminine Feminist. She is another real life friend, who lives way, way too far away, and I keep up with her via her blog (well, and yes, Facebook, too). She has very interesting things to say about life, feminism, and religion. She doesn't post on her blog nearly enough to satisfy me. However, if you've never read her, and you start reading her right now, you are lucky, because she is busy counting down to her 30th birthday, and is, thus, posting more frequently than usual.

Heather of The Library Ladder. I've been following Heather basically ever since I started blogging. She and I are also pen pals (sort of. We haven't been doing a very good job of writing each other lately). She's the one who encouraged me to read The Faerie Queene, which I loved through Book I and have not gotten back into since (but I will. I will! One day...) She's another voracious reader with a great sense of humor and does a great job of giving brief book reviews. I think it's cool the way she ranks books with library ladder rungs.

Ms. Make Tea of Make Tea Not War. Make Tea Not War is another blog I have been reading basically ever since I started blogging. (Funny how I can't remember how I discovered all of you. Maybe it was through your comments on my blog?) She, too, is funny and writes about all kinds of varied stuff. I love her feminist ways and her taste in music is excellent. I was devastated at one point when she announced she was ending her blog, but then, happily, she came back!

Mandarine of Wise Mandarine. He's a blogging friend who has become a real life friend. He doesn't blog in English much anymore, because he is very busy with other things (like trying to change the world while raising two young boys with his wife). However, there is plenty there, stuff to make you really think, that he's posted over the years that you can go back and read.

Nigel of Handmade Luck. I'm tempted to say how can I not love a blog that so often makes me think of XTC's "Making Plans for Nigel"? But that would be ridiculous, because of course if it were some sort of hate-filled, humorless blog, I wouldn't love it. It's not, though, and I love Nigel, because he is the master of something I am not: brevity (case in point. Has anyone noticed that I can't even do something as simple as tagging bloggers without writing treatises?). And he makes me think. Oh, and he lets me pretend I am anywhere near as smart as he is by responding to the comments I feel compelled to leave on his blog.

Now, the tough part:

7 of My Personality Traits

1. I just realized today, while doing one of my stints as a volunteer at my local library, that, despite the fact I am not good with alphabetization (I was the kid in school who when we had to alphabetize lists, would look at a word that began with "L" and have to go, "A, B, C...J, K, L" in order to figure out where to place it), I am nevertheless pretty compulsive about wanting things to be in order. For instance, I don't like the fact that the "Easy Reader" books at our library are merely shelved under the first letter of the author's last name and have to keep myself from truly alphabetizing them, so that "Miller" falls on the shelf after "Martin." (Truth be told, if you watch me, you might catch me arranging them thus. I just can't help myself.) If I discover a new author, I like to read his/her books in order of publication (I don't always do so, but I would always like to do so). Give me a list of numbers, and my instinct is to arrange them either in ascending or descending order.

2. I am a "rainy day" person. I get cranky during long periods of drought (which we are beginning to enter here in Lancaster County where it hasn't rained for three weeks). Rain does not prevent me from doing such things as taking a walk -- as a matter of fact, I love a good walk in the rain -- and I am happy when rain gives me an excuse to stay indoors (which is where I generally really want to be anyway. Preferably curled up with a book somewhere). It isn't that I don't like sunshine, and I do love to lie in a hammock outdoors and read, or to hike up to the top of a mountain on a cloudless day and to be able to see all the vistas below, but I just love rain (give me a thunderstorm, and that's even better).

3. Having said that about the rain, I do not like weather that is inappropriate for the time of year. June is not supposed to be cold, so when it is, I am unhappy. Likewise, February is not supposed to be warm, so I do not rejoice the way others do when the temperature hits 65 or so right around my birthday. If it's not 65 or so in May, though, I will notice and curse the gods. Warm Thanksgivings and Christmases are horribly depressing. And I absolutely despise 32 degree-downpours in January, when everyone knows that should be a good blizzard and not rain. I won't complain too much about it to you, though, because:

4. Despite the fact that it seems like I'm weather-obsessed today, I actually get annoyed by people who complain too much about the weather. There is absolutely nothing we can do about it on any given day, so, please, just dress appropriately, and quit whining to me about it. It isn't like I have no clue that it's 100 degrees in the shade or that the parking lot is like a skating rink (well, unless I'm inside with my nose buried in a book, which is where you should be on such days).

5. I love water. I love every sort of body of water, from small streams, to wide rivers, to oceans, to ponds, to lakes. Combine water with mountains, and, well, that's heaven to me (which is why I love Acadia National Park so much). I like to wade; I like to swim; I like to sit on banks and look at water; I like to be on boats; and, of course, I like to scuba dive. (Hmmm...I guess there is a connection between this trait and trait #2.) Sometimes I wonder if this means I'm less highly-evolved than those humans I know who are afraid of water or who don't seem to be as drawn to it as I am.

6. I love creepy, crawly creatures (I also love alliteration) that most people don't like. I don't necessarily want to have them crawl on me (depending on what they are), but I love to watch them. When hiking, I'm always on the lookout for snakes. I've been known to stand and watch a giant slug make its slow way along a path, fascinated by it and what it's doing. I'm the sort who lifts up rocks to see what's underneath, who picks up lizards, praying mantises, daddy long legs, and toads to study (or pet, in the case of lizards and toads) them (and then worries that I've interrupted them from whatever they were doing and tries to remember exactly where I found them, so I can put them back down and let them continue on their way. I mean, imagine if you were busy walking out to your mailbox to collect a package from Powell's that had just arrived, and some huge being suddenly came along, picked you up, and put you three miles down the road).

7. I'm the sort who is sitting here wondering, "Have I already blogged all about all these things at some point?" "Are people going to remember?" "Is this the most boring, repetitive meme I've ever done?" "Am I going to hurt someone's feelings, someone who, say, has just written ten blog posts whining about weather that I haven't got around to reading yet or someone whose blog I did not award?" (Honestly, though, I don't associate any of you, my lovely blogging companions, with whining about weather, and I would give everyone I read this award if I didn't find linking to be such a pain in the ass -- oh, that's another trait of mine, I guess.)

An Interview with Quinn Cummings

Okay, I am restraining the 15-year-old in me who has slunk out of her "Everyone hates me. However, there are still extremely cool people on this earth, and the coolest people are David Bowie and Gerald Durrell" corner of my brain, because she is so excited that Quinn Cummings, whom I have been worshiping from afar for over two years now, ever since discovering her laugh-out-loud funny (every. single. time. How the hell does she manage it?) blog has been in touch with me. Some of you who happen to be movie-literate (which I am not) may recognize that name and be thinking, "Is that the same Quinn Cummings, the child actor, from The Goodbye Girl?" As if "Quinn" were the "it" name "Emily" has become, and "Cummings" were another "Barton," so that the answer could possibly be "no." I am not movie literate, however, so until I came across this fact on her blog, I had no idea. I merely thought of her as that "woman who has 1000 times the talent I have when it comes to humor and writing."

That fifteen-year-old wants to yell, "QUINN CUMMINGS LET ME INTERVIEW HER!!!" But, I am not fifteen years old. Therefore, I will calmly explain to you that Quinn is in the midst of the Quinn Cummings All You Can Blab Blog Book Tour 2009 to promote her new book Notes from the Underwire (which I have been waiting for ever since she made the announcement that it was to be published), and she oh-so-kindly allowed me to ask her some personal questions. The results follow. I hope you enjoy her answers as much as I did. Even more, I hope you start reading her blog and buy her book (my copy should be on its way to me soon, and I will be reviewing it here once I read it). Oh, and I say we all sign a petition for her to appear on "This American Life."

EMILY INTERVIEWS QUINN:

1. What, exactly, did a. the cat and b. the dog have to say about the book when their copies arrived?

The dog was terribly excited to have been mentioned. The cat was irritated I hadn't run this past her PR department.

2. (Sorry, long-winded question, but I am long-winded.) Being a professional editor who also writes, I have always been worried about the impact of my editorial suggestions, and I breathe a very surprised sigh of relief when an author actually tells me I was helpful. I always wonder if he or she is just being polite, because if I received back a manuscript that seemed to be marked up on every page (which, in reality, almost all are), I'm sure my first reaction would be anything but "Gee, my editor was so helpful." When you got back your copy edited proofs, did you have to, say, take a Valium and drink copious amounts of vodka or spend two hours doing yoga or something in order to call your editor and voice your feelings/lie?

I actually avoided looking at the pages for a whole day. I knew how to write, to a certain extent, but this being my first attempt at a book, I had no idea if I knew how to rewrite. I thought there would be long paragraphs scrawled across certain pages about how sweet it was that I tried, how dear I was to think this or that was funny but really, maybe I should see if I could scrape together the advance and just give it back to them. In reality, most of the notes were "Can we get here faster?" and "Is there more on this subject?" In sum, "Make it shorter" or "Make it longer." I could do that. There were copious notes on my punctuation, but anyone who knows me knew that was an inevitability.

3. I love your commentary on the Lilian Pulitzer catalog. Do you know any men who actually buy anything for themselves from that catalog?

Imagine a Venn diagram. Imagine a circle labeled "Homosexual men of a certain age" and another circle labeled "Men who live in the South." Where those two circles overlap, you will find the label "Lilly Pulitzer shoppers."

4. What TV/radio talk show do you most want to appear on to publicize your book? (Personally, I'd like to hear you reading on "This American Life." If that happens, will you please let me know?)

I'm afraid if I were ever let near "This American Life," I'd keep stopping whatever I was doing to shout, "HOLY COW, I'm on 'This American Life!'" Beyond that, I'm very easily pleased. Whoever wants me on their show, I'll probably clap my hands together and arrange for a babysitter.

5. What advice can you give those of us who have a tendency to do so to keep from hitting our heads and suffering concussions because we are laughing so hard reading your stuff that we have fallen out of chairs?

I hadn't considered that possibility. Well, in order to avoid any liability, I must insist everyone lie supine on the floor while reading my book. If you happen to notice tons of dust bunnies under the couch from that position, well...then you're at my house.

6. Does your publicity tour include any book stores in Lancaster County, PA? (I'm assuming not. How about Philadelphia, at least?)

At this exact moment, my book tour is a reading on Saturday July 11th at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, California. The rest will be a blog book-tour, as we are doing right here. But if there is a change, anyone checking in at www.quinncummings.com will be the first to know.


QUINN CUMMINGS THANKED ME FOR ASKING SUCH LOVELY QUESTIONS!!! I will never, ever erase my email. (Okay, okay, okay, I allowed the fifteen-year-old that much.)

Christine Falls by Benjamin Black

Black, Benjamin. Christine Falls. New York: Henry Holt, 2006.

(Warning: I've tried to keep it vague, but there are a few spoilers here. I've noted the one paragraph that might be most problematic.)

I was initially very interested to read this pick for the mystery book discussion group when I looked it up online and discovered that Benjamin Black was the nome de plume of John Banville. Not that I remembered who John Banville was (he won the Booker in 2005 for The Sea). I don't pay a whole lot of attention to these award-winners, unless their names come up over and over again, so it's not surprising that I didn't remember Banville. However, right after this book was chosen for the book group, I happened to be at the Lancaster Library book sale, where I found a copy of his The Ghosts and nabbed it (before disappointingly discovering that it's the second in a trilogy. I hate reading books out of order, but you must know how library book sales are. You take what you can get).

While being very interested in a contemporary literary author who decided to try his hand at writing genre fiction, as I read about him online, I sort of wondered why he had bothered with a nome de plume if he was just going to announce his identity anyway. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, thinking, maybe he tried to write pseudonymous-ly, and someone came along and "outed" him, and he'd had to come clean once the book was published. But no. I went to pick up the book at the library, which turned out to be a first edition and discovered right there in the cover copy that "Benjamin Black" is John Banville. That just seems odd to me. (Perhaps he remained pseudonymous in Ireland before the book was published in America? Does anyone know?)

Oh well. I put that little oddity aside and longed to attend the book group in person, because this book seemed like such a great choice to follow Ross Macdonald, who was someone (I know from having read that biography I constantly harp on about) who began his writing career with hopes of being a literary writer but all-too-soon found himself categorized as a writer of detective fiction, a label he was never able to escape. Here's a man who, instead, wrote his literary masterpiece (apparently) and then decided to try his hand at mystery writing. I had quite high hopes for such a book.

So, that was a very long way of telling you that my initial response to this book can be summed up in one word: disappointment. Part of the problem, I am sure, is that I'd just read stellar examples of "family drama cum mystery" writers (Macdonald and his wife Margaret Millar), and it was probably unfair of me to expect this first attempt by Black to hold a candle to two masters who'd honed their skills by the time they wrote the two books I'd read by them. In fairness to me, though, I will say that my first thought as I read the first few pages had nothing to do with those two authors. It was, "Ian Rankin does 1950s Dublin." Not that this thought did not bias me against Black, because, truth be told, that thought was actually preceded by a, "Oh no! Not..." Because, you see, for me (thanks to this book discussion group), just as there is no other Ross Macdonald, there is no other Ian Rankin. And yet, here we had an obviously alcoholic, once married, tough loner, and, well, I hope you can see why I might have made comparisons to Inspector Rebus.

But then I read on and realized that what was really bothering me was not that he was an Ian Rankin copycat (he really isn't. What he really is is a sort of bits and pieces copycat, someone who doesn't seem quite able to make up his mind exactly whom to emulate or what kind of mystery/thriller he is writing). No, what bothered me is what so often bothers me about contemporary literary writers. He wrote too hard. And I can sometimes understand why a writer who is trying to win awards might write too hard, but, come on, the mystery genre does not lend itself to writing too hard.

One of my fears is that, as a writer, I write like this,

A little black car, squat and rounded like a beetle, was approaching from the other side of the crossing, and at the sight of them surging forward it veered in fright and seemed for a moment as if it would scurry off the road altogether to hide among the marsh grass. (p. 266)

Okay, I don't fear that I write like that. I know that I do write like that. However, when I write like that, it's because I'm trying to be funny or trying to help people see life's absurdities the way I do. I would not stick such a sentence into a scene that involves a man we already know is impetuous and dangerous who might be in the process of driving one of the other characters to her death (especially when this scene is basically a foreshadowing of two similar and horrific scenes to come). It's out of place and over-dramatic to imply that even cars scurry out of this man's way. Even worse, a few lines down, the car bleats at him. Which is it? A bug or a sheep? Maybe it's a sheep-bug.

(Paragraph with spoilers right here.) And that's why I can't shake my, possibly unfair, comparisons to Macdonald and Millar. Those two give me beautiful quotes, marvelous simile and metaphor that's so effortless I almost feel as though I've been making the same connections all my life while being struck by their novelty and brilliance. They give me mystery and intrigue and screwy family dynamics that encourage me to fill in the blanks and create my own stories without seeming implausible. They do not, for instance, give me a woman who thinks she could possibly have fooled her dead sister's husband into thinking a child was hers that wasn't (wouldn't the man have any questions about how she'd suddenly had a baby? I know one couple was in Ireland and one in the States, but this was the 1950s, not the 1700s. Surely he would have known if his wife's sister was pregnant, especially when his wife was pregnant herself, even in 1950s Ireland, oh and given the fact that she, well, you know, happened to be married to an obstetrician). They would not give us an abusive, controlling husband who would agree to a very unusual adoption of a child that wasn't his without some truly compelling reason to do so (say, a wealthy, controlling brother-in-law who was the real baby's father. That would be classic Macdonald). I mean, most abusive husbands do not want to raise their own babies, let alone some stranger's. Granted, Black did give us some reasons, but those reasons were not compelling enough. As a matter of fact, that whole marriage made no sense to me. I came away from this book with all sorts of unanswered questions that didn't have plausible answers, and I didn't feel all that compelled to answer them anyway.

Black seems to have been trying to write a psychological mystery, but he doesn't seem to have had any real focus, and it doesn't even seem to be much of a mystery (the library from which I got it doesn't classify it as such). As with a lot of good psychological mysteries, the murder and whodunit are really inconsequential as the reader tries to understand the mysteries of this odd family. Who are the Bad Guys? What are these Bad Guys really doing? Again, the answers to these questions were ultimately unsatisfying to me (please tell me: nobody could possibly have been fooled by that one supposed "good guy." He was set up in a way that was almost farcical), and I didn't find anything very original here. (I know. I know. I'm looking for genre fiction to be original? But...well...yes.)

There was social commentary here, too, as Black highlighted the abuses that can so easily surface in a society in which young women are frowned on when they get pregnant out of wedlock (no matter who got them pregnant) and abortion is illegal. Yawn. And then there's that other old tired theme of organized religion's abuse of money and power. Yawn. Yawn.

Black was trying to do so much, and he fell short. I didn't have trouble getting through the book. He didn't lose my attention, but I can't be bothered to read more of his. As a matter of fact, John Banville has now been relegated to the bottom of the TBR pile, despite that eye-catching title.

Another Monday Meme: 25 Firsts

One of these days, we'll get back to music on Mondays. For now, it's another meme I got from my niece stolen from Facebook (no you are not experiencing déjà vu. The fact that I skip Music Mondays in favor of memes I get from my nieces is merely one of life's repeating patterns).

..25 firsts...Share (Those directions sound suspiciously like my niece. Those ellipses suggest more, like tag 25 friends or something, but I like these the way they are.)

1. Who was your FIRST prom date? As if I had even one prom date, let alone so many that there was some sort of first.

2. Do you still talk to your FIRST love? First unrequited love? No. First requited love? Well, we've "chatted" via Facebook, if you consider that "talking."

3. What was your 1st alcoholic drink? Shandy (if that counts)

4. What was your FIRST job? Other than babysitting or bargaining with my mother for the worth of certain tasks around the house or getting her to agree to let me do all the grocery shopping and whatever money I saved from what she expected to spend, I got to keep? Those were all "jobs" I did until I finally reached the magical age of 16, which in NC meant I could get my worker's permit, and I went to work as a cashier at a now defunct grocery store called Food Fair (incidentally, that's where I met that first requited love).

5. What was your FIRST car? A Nisssan Sentra, which one of my brother's friends wrecked just before my parents gave it to me.

6. Who was the FIRST person to text you today? No one I know would dream of texting me unless they don't know me very well. I haven't received a text since I quit working.

7. Who is the FIRST person you thought of this morning? Myself, wondering why the hell I don't ever seem to be able to sleep past 5:30 a.m. when I don't have to get up and seem to want to sleep till 9:00 when I do.

8. Who was your FIRST grade teacher? Mr. Rullman (or Herr Rullman as my siblings and I like to refer to him)

9. Where did you go on your FIRST ride on an airplane? England

10. Who was your FIRST best friend & do you still talk? Gena, and no, we don't still talk.

11. Where was your FIRST sleep over? At Gena's (we were in kindergarten)

12. Who was the FIRST person you talked to today? Bob

13. Whose wedding were you in the FIRST time? My sister Forsyth's, which seemed to set a precedent, because I then went on to be in six more (including my own). That's a lot of dresses I paid for that I only wore once.

14. What was the FIRST thing you did this morning? After wondering about my 5:30 wake up time, you mean? I lay around in bed till 6:00 and then got up.

15. What was the FIRST concert you ever went to? Jethro Tull in 8th grade, and I still think it's really cool that that was my first and not something like Sean Cassidy. Even cooler? My sister and I were escorted not by my parents but by one of my father's students, who happened to be a German exchange student (sometimes it really paid to have a father who was a professor).

16. FIRST tattoo? None. I look back at clothes I wore when I was 20 (or even 30) and cringe. I can't imagine having to have constant reminders of some fashion trend, and what idiotic thing my younger self might have chosen, for my entire life. (Besides, I hate needles and pain.)

17. First piercing? Ears (and only)

18. First foreign country you've been to? England

19. FIRST movie you remember seeing? Lady and the Tramp

20. When was your FIRST detention? We book worms didn't tend to get detention.

21. What was the first state you lived in? (Don't you love the way these FB memes always assume everyone is an American?) North Carolina

22. Who was your FIRST roommate? Other than my sisters, it was Tina.

23. If you had one wish, what would it be? To have more wishes, of course. Can't decide how many, though.

24. What is something you would learn if you had the chance? XML coding or maybe Latin (and there you have a fine example of the two wars that go on inside my head all the time: practicality v. romanticism).

25. Who do you think will be the next person to post this? That's a good question. Someone surprise me.

Happy Independence Day

Or Happy Purification of the Empire Day (as my father would say). Or maybe just plain old Happy 4th of July, everyone! I have no idea what I'm doing today, but you can bet it will involve hot dogs.