Review: The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan

I've been a follower of Caitlin R. Kiernan's blog for a year or so now, but The Red Tree is the first of her books that I've read. I follow her blog for the same reason I follow other authors - to get a glimpse inside what the process is for them, how they write, create, and manage to move in and out of the world of their art. I think I like her blog best, however, and I find myself looking for her posts every morning, mainly because she doesn't gloss over the life she leads, and the difficulties she has as an artist. It's all out there for the world to see - the bad days, the periods of writer's block, the fears she still has about whether or not she's good enough. She lets her readers into her life in ways I'm still not brave enough or comfortable enough to do yet in my own writing, or even here.

Yeah, I know, I know, this is a book review. I'm getting to that.

My point is, over the course of reading her blog I've come to know a few things about her, and when I read somewhere that The Red Tree was autobiographical to some extent, it interested me. It's a tricky thing, injecting some of what you are into a story - it sort of sets up a "is it real, or is it memorex" kind of situation for readers and fans. I started reading the book with that mindset, and the feeling stayed with me throughout the experience. The reality of it, however, turned out to be much more layered and complex than that.

Let me say first of all that I loved the book. Not in the way one loves Shakespeare, or Hemmingway, but in the way one loves Poe, or Lovecraft, or Swinburne. The Red Tree left a mark on me, a feeling that I know I'll get every time I see it sitting there on the shelf. Even as I type this, and look down at it here beside me, I'm drawn into it, into the atmosphere the author created, and I feel myself slipping into a memory of that world - the world of Alice - through the looking glass, as it were. A world where "everything we see is but a dream within a dream."

And that's the point of The Red Tree, I think. Throughout the novel, I went round and round with the story, in and out of reality, in and out of what might be true, what might be dream. I thought about how many things the protagonist had in common with the author, and I wondered - what is real here?- with every chapter I read. What is real for Sarah, the protagonist? What is real for Caitl in? What is real for any of us?

Throughout Sarah's journal entries and dreams, her research and her memories, I was kept slipping, looking for a foothold into reality. As it turns out, this is both the draw and the magic of The Red Tree. It's a book about finding oneself lost, even though the path may appear straight; about the confusion and pain of losing our way, and how anger and pride cloud things even further. It's all of those things wrapped in an atmosphere of dark fantasy and gothic sensibility, and it was a great read. Five Stars.

18 August 2009

Review: The Strain by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan

I have to be honest – I initially picked up The Strain because of Guillermo del Toro’s name plastered across the front – “From the Creator of the Oscar-Winning Pan’s Labyrinth!” I’m a big fan of del Toro’s, and in fact I loved Pan’s Labyrinth as well as his more recent Hellboy 2. He brings a surreal vision, a dark fairy tale-like quality to his projects that I admire. From a writer’s perspective, however, I have to say I feel for Chuck Hogan, overshadowed as he most certainly is by his co-author’s celebrity. In any case, I’m a long-time fan of vampire fiction and mythology as well, so I figured it was worth a read.

The book is the first in a trilogy about an old world vampire who hitches a ride aboard a passenger jet from Germany to JFK in order to make lots of baby vampires and take over the world. Vampirism itself is treated as a disease (hence the title), and many of the old tropes about garlic and crosses are abandoned. On the opposing side, trying to save humanity, are CDC specialist Ephraim Goodweather, his assistant Nora, and, presumably in a nod to Stoker, Abraham Setrakian, an aged vampire hunter who survived the Treblinka death camp in World War II and has spent his life studying and preparing for this conflict.

I really liked the fact that this is truly a horror story – no handsome, moody, teenaged vampires here. I was actually really creeped out reading this thing in the middle of the night. These vampires are evil, and they’re scary, and they’re everywhere, hiding in suburban basements and subway tunnels, just waiting to jump out of the darkness and make a snack of anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. The authors are spot-on when it comes to keeping the action level just right and sustaining the fear factor, building to the ultimate showdown with the master vampire himself. It reads like a good fright-fest movie, and I say that as a compliment.

This, however, is the flip-side of what I didn’t like about the book. It was originally pitched as a script for a television series to Fox, and that’s exactly what it reads like. As I read it I couldn’t help but feel like I was reading a movie novelization. The characters, their dialogue, the settings, everything feels a bit contrived, as if I were reading the proposal for a movie. In the end, though, the good storytelling kept me interested, and that, on the most fundamental level, is what makes or breaks a book.
The Strain will never be considered among the canon of great American literature. It is what it is – a rollercoaster ride, a well-written horror movie, a summer fling. It’s fun to let go now and then, and give yourself over to an experience without having to think much. Bottom line – it’s a page-turner, and I liked it. Three stars.

11 June 2009

Review: The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown

The Donner Party incident has, over the century and a half since it was first publicized, become a part of the shared American history mythos. Unfortunately, it has also suffered from its notoriety – reduced to a sad tale at best and a punch line at worst. Like most people, I knew almost nothing of the tragedy itself when I picked up this book. I only knew the barest of facts – a group of wagon trainers caught in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains during brutal winter conditions who resorted to cannibalism to survive. As with all well-known historical episodes, however, there was, and is, much more to the story.

Instead of trying to focus on as many party members as possible, Daniel James Brown instead centers his narrative of the tragedy around one survivor, newlywed Sarah Graves Fosdick, who was only 21 when she set out with her husband and family on the journey. Through Sarah’s eyes, Brown is able to then illuminate the other victims much as another human being would, instead of relegating them to a catalog of facts.

The best history books transform their subjects from unknowable objects into what history truly is about – real people who dealt with monumental circumstances. Brown’s writing is superb, not only for having achieved this goal but for the way he brings us into what it meant to be alive in 1846. His research encompasses not only the Donner Party itself, but the social and economic forces which spurred the great American migration westward, along with practical and relevant knowledge about everyday life in the middle of the nineteenth century. All of these factors played a part in the choices these people made, and how those choices ultimately spelled their doom.

Daniel James Brown has written a seminal work on the history of the Donner Party incident. Anyone interested in this tragic, wholly American story would do well to read it.

11 May 2009

Review: Babe & the Kid by Charlie Poekel

I’m not a big baseball fan. I can admit that. I love history though, and like nearly every other American I’m a sucker for pop culture. Most of us tend to think of celebrity in terms of what Paris Hilton wore last week, but this story reminded me of a time when doing something nice instead of something stupid was what got lots of publicity.

Babe & the Kid tells the story of Babe Ruth and his enduring friendship with a young boy during and after the 1926 World Series. The kid, Johnny Sylvester, was seriously ill when a kind gesture by the most popular pro ballplayer of his day literally made the difference between life and death. What I found most interesting was the fact that their friendship endured for years afterwards, a testament to Ruth’s character. His visit and gift weren’t a publicity stunt staged for the camera, but the genuine actions of a true hero.

Poekel has done a fine job of researching the facts related to an iconic story in American sports. Especially welcome were the numerous photographs and memorabilia he was given access to through the collection of John Sylvester, Jr., who maintains the scrapbook his father kept of his extraordinary friendship with some of the leading athletes of his day. The book is well-written, an easy and accessible read, and thoroughly enjoyable

12 February 2009

Review: Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans

New Orleans is a city full of contradictions, a place out of context with the rest of America. It defies understanding, explanation, and most especially, classification. It’s a quality the residents hold onto, this testament of uniqueness, even as the city has teetered time and again on the brink of destruction.

I’ve lived near New Orleans for most of my life. I’m a frequent visitor there, and, like everyone else who comes, I’ve fallen in love with its decadent grandness, its welcoming, leisurely way of life. All manner of humanity calls New Orleans home, and the city embraces them all. It’s a unique place, out of step with the rest of America, and that is exactly why it is so important to save. This has never been truer than now, as the great lady teeters on her knees, still struggling, three years later, to rise from the devastation of Katrina.

Dan Baum, on assignment from The New Yorker after the storm, quickly learned all of these things. Along with his wife Margaret, he eventually moved to New Orleans in order to write a book, one which, using the timeframe between Betsy in 1965 and Katrina in 2005, captures perfectly what it means to love this city.

Baum chose nine people he got to know after the storm, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews, writing the story of the city through their eyes. They are from vastly different ends of the socio-political spectrum, ranging from the widow of a revered Mardi Gras Indian chief to the long-time coroner of Orleans parish, from a transsexual bar owner to a former king of Rex and pillar of the Uptown community. Their stories are unique, yet a common thread runs through them all – the deep, abiding love of this place, of the home New Orleans offers to each.

The author captures that love without being preachy or overly sentimental. New Orleans is far from a fairy-tale land of mutual respect, understanding, and tolerance. Poverty, desperation, and crime are huge, unending problems, and Baum acknowledges this by telling stories that are candid, real, and fraught with generations of loss and disappointment. They are also, however, stories of hope, of people who have risen, time and again, despite adversity after adversity.

Many people in the rest of the United States have questioned why we should rebuild such a place, crippled as it is by poverty and corruption. It takes spending time in New Orleans to learn its value, I suppose, to experience the unique magic that makes this city special. If you can’t visit, however, read this book. Dan Baum has clearly seen and understands. Five Stars.

28 January 2009