Sue Grafton's "U is for Undertow" - It Has Nothing to do with Water

U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

Kinsey Milhone returns for episode twenty-one in Sue Grafton’s alphabet series. The irrepressible Milhone still lives in fictional Santa Teresa, owns that single all-purpose black dress, trims her hair with fingernail scissors, and – most importantly – still lives in 1988 where (or is it when?) she's about to turn thirty-eight. At least readers can be certain that, unlike Linda Fairstein’s Alexandra Cooper, Kinsey won't ever find herself in grave peril because her cellphone battery just died. Heck, Milhone still doesn’t even own a fax machine…

Harry Bosch Plays Frantic Father in Michael Connelly's "9 Dragons"

9 Dragons by Michael Connelly

After decades in which Harry Bosch's only concerns seemed to be his trad-jazz collection and sticking bad guys behind bars, his creator apparently decided he needed a more human side. Over a span of several novels, Harry learned he had emotions after all. First he fell in love with Eleanor Wish, an FBI agent he'd partnered with on a case. After Wish had been drummed out of the Bureau (a result of their method of solving that case), he found her in Vegas at a new gig as professional gambler, where he learned to his surprise that their... ummm... "stakeouts" had created a daughter, Madeleine. Ten years later, Bosch is now part-time dad to 13-year-old Maddy, who lives with Mom in Hong Kong. He's also discovered a half brother, legal eagle Mickey Haller (the titular Lincoln Lawyer). For 9 Dragons, author Michael Connelly puts Bosch's family ties through the proverbial wringer: and it's not a pretty picture...

It started like any other homicide case: three bullet holes in the chest of a liquor store clerk, the cash drawer standing empty. A minor difference: Harry Bosch had vaguely known the dead man, John Li - all the more reason to put the perp in slam. Bosch and David Chu, a Chinese-American cop from the Asian Gang Unit and his latest semi-partner on the case, finger a triad bagman as the killer. Luckily, they nab him on his way to the airport to skip the country. It's Friday, so Bosch and Chu perform some backroom paper shuffling to keep him stashed over the weekend so they have more time to build their case. As Harry's sifting through the evidence, he receives a message that almost stops his heart: a video of Maddy, bound and gagged in an anonymous room. The message seems clear: drop the case, and you get your daughter back in one piece. Bosch being Bosch, no one - NO ONE! - else is good enough; so Harry's on the next plane to Hong Kong, hell-bent on doing anything to get his daughter back.

Unfortunately, in his hurry to leave, Harry Bosch forgot to say a prayer to the god of unintended consequences. He will regret that omission...

After years of carefully crafting one novel a year, author Michael Connelly's annual output has doubled in each of the past two years - and he's also taken to "cross-posting" his characters, such as Mickey Haller's cameo in 9 Dragons, or the double cameos of Haller and Bosch in 2009's Jack McEvoy novel The Scarecrow. While "factory writers" like James Patterson farm out at least part of their production, Connelly is doing it all himself. And if you ask me, the strain shows this time out.

Bosch, ever irascible, is even grumpier than usual (maybe if he stopped listening to heroin jazz all the time?) in 9 Dragons. Normally pushy and demanding, this time out he's simply arrogant and condescending; and at times just a little racist. While I'd assume that Connelly intended to depict Bosch in a different light with a plot that casts him as a frantic father, he came off more like TerminatorDad to this reader; a veritable bull in a China shop as he shot hell out of Hong Kong. I'll grant that Connelly managed to toss in some pretty wicked plot twists, but I caught on to the biggest one of all long before he even set it up. And at least one of those twists was, to be blunt, completely gratuitous.

Worst of all, however, is that Connelly's writing - the actual nuts and bolts of it - seems to have suffered as he upped his publishing output to two per annum. The flow is choppy, the dialog is sappy, and the plot is messy. Sorry, but Bosch is always at his best when he's thinking instead of going off half-cocked. This time out Connelly's turned him into a visceral killing machine who, frankly, needs to chill out.

Wishin' and Hopin' Wally had Done a Better Job

Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb
 

After the other nuns hauled Sister Dymphna, gibbering and drooling, back the convent; her fifth-grade class weren't quite sure what to expect. They definitely weren't prepared for the beret-wearing, French-spouting Quebecoise the principal of St. Aloysious Gonzaga hired to fill Sister D's sensible shoes. The fall semester, however, proceeded normally after the “incident” - normally for a fifth-grade class that is, which, when you think about it, is about as far from "normal" as you can get. Toss a wannabe bad boy (a twelve-year-old held back twice) and a precocious Russian pre-teen vixen into that heady mix, and Felix Funicello (yes, that Funicello family: she's his third cousin) was destined to have a school year to remember. At the very least, he would have a semester to remember.

As a lay teacher (how the fifth-grade boys giggled at that word, even back in 1964) in a parochial school, Madame Frechette had her work cut out for her. The kids didn't make life any easier, of course - they were fifth-graders, after all. But as the days grew shorter and the annual Christmas show approached, this particular group of little rascals pulled out all the stops. Could Madame tame her unruly charges and pull off the requisite Christmas miracle? Keep on reading...

Kingsolver Takes on the 21st Century's Version of HUAC: The Lacuna

Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Harrison William Shepherd came south from Washington to with his mother, Salomé, after the divorce. It was at Isla Pixol that he took up the habit of keeping a journal: even at fourteen, he had a writer’s ear for the world that surroundedhim. When his pretty güera mother moved on to a less wealthy man (and smaller house) in Mexico City, Harrison accompanied her – by then, into the second volume of his life story. All of Mexico was a hotbed of revolution in the '30s, and Harrison somehow found himself in the thick of it. By chance, he found a job cooking in the household of Mexico’s much-discussed revolutionary muralist, Diego Rivera, and his wife the just-as-much-discussed painter Frida Kahlo.

It was more than a job, it became his home: the mercurial Frida recognized a kindred artist in the slender, quiet boy she called Sóli (short for insólito, “odd” or “irregular”). She also recognized his other “leanings” (that insólito business), and so young Harrison became her friend instead of another conquest. During his six years in the Rivera household, the boy’s talent blossomed until he fulfilled his destiny: he became a writer.

Much more happened in those six years; during which Harrison cooked for the Riveras’ special guest, transcribed his lectures, typed his letters, and helped him clean rabbit cages. He was there the day that special guest, Leon Trotsky, was assassinated by an agent of the Stalinist regime. By then, it was time to go… Harrison eventually landed in Asheville, North Carolina. Like Tom Wolfe, another famous Ashevillian, Harrison published a novel; and then another and another. He led a comfortable existence in his little house with his cats and his devoted secretary. The year was 1949… and Harrison Shepherd hadn't an inkling that life as he knew it was over.
   
It’s no secret that author and commentator Barbara Kingsolver doesn’t pull her punches. Whether her topic is a missionary family in 1960s Belgian Congo or her family’s year as a locavore, Kingsolver resolutely speaks her mind. Doing so does not necessarily sit well with those who don’t share her worldview, however; which is probably what landed Kingsolver on Bernie Goldberg’s list of “100 people who are screwing up America.” Seems Kingsolver told her then pre-teen daughter, Camille, that it wasn’t absolutely necessary to yield to peer pressure and wear red, white, and blue on September 12th, 2001. That’s apparently not terribly dangerous to our civilization, however, since it landed Mother K at a mere 74th on the list. Hell, Eminem and Ludacris were both more than ten ahead of her! No word on where Bernie thinks Sarah Palin might belong, since when he published his list she was just an unemployed politician/hockey mom in Alaska.
   
Kingsolver’s position on Bernie’s list (and those of his adherents) will most certainly rise, however, if they read her latest novel, The Lacuna. She might even end up in the top ten, which is pretty darned ironic: you see, The Lacuna is all about making lists of "dangerous" people…

Kingsolver structures her latest novel as an autobiography, her protagonist’s journals posthumously transcribed by his faithful secretary, Violet Brown, and then shelved for half a century. The earliest section she ascribes to the opening chapter of a memoir written by Shepherd himself; and she has also fashioned a literal lacuna – a gap of some two years – where a journal had been destroyed (to protect the "guilty"). The remainder is a remarkable record of a young man’s journey, of a facile ear for dialog, of a quiet and unassuming life. Here is a young man who stood within the shadow of a political whirlwind and yet wrote more of the banalities of his fellow servants' lives; who cared more for Lev Davidovich Trotsky the man than he cared about his politics. That would become an important point to remember a decade later…

If you’re at all familiar with the history of mid-twentieth century America you’ll know without having to finish The Lacuna what was going to happen to Harrison Shepherd – not that anyone would put it down by this point. Of course, the final chapters contain copies of letters from the FBI; the transcript of a hearing before HUAC (pointedly citing the presence of Richard Nixon), “news” filled with half-truths and outright lies, and quotations taken out of context. Harrison Shepherd became a casualty of bigotry and hatred disguised as patriotism, convicted of not being “American enough.”

If Bernie Goldberg happens to read (or more likely, hear about) The Lacuna it’s a good bet that Barbara Kingsolver will climb much higher on his next list of “America’s enemies.” Harrison Shepherd made HUAC’s top ten, and the guy was about as political as Lady Gaga. The reason Barbara has become “more dangerous”? Simple: the story of Harrison Shepherd could happen to anyone – and happen today, when “citizen journalists” feed off each other’s strident pronouncements, all without worrying about “facts”; when out-of-context quoting has been raised to high art; when desk-bangers with radio microphones happily label anyone who disagrees with them un-American. Of course, Kingsolver will herself be quoted out of context, and you can be sure that plenty of people are already calling her un-American… most of whom really, really need to read The Lacuna, but never will.

More’s the pity.