bookshelves of doom

Cupid: A Tale of Love and Desire -- Julius Lester

Psyche is the youngest of three princesses, a young woman of such extraordinary beauty that there are no words to describe her.  Though she doesn't want or understand the attention, people worship her as they would a goddess -- and it does not go unnoticed by Venus, the goddess of Love.  The jealous goddess sends her son, Cupid, to deal with the situation.

Of course, Cupid immediately falls in love with Psyche, and then the trouble really begins.

According to his Author's Note, Julius Lester originally meant Cupid: A Tale of Love and Desire to be about seventy-five pages long.  It was to be a simple retelling of the Cupid and Psyche story in the voice of a Southern black storyteller.  But, like Gerald Morris, as he did research, he discovered gaps that he wanted to fill and characters who he wanted to include, so the proposed seventy-five pages ended up more than doubling.

While many readers will find the storyteller's asides distracting, others (myself included) will feel that his voice enhances the story.  I enjoyed his personal asides (some of which, according to the Author's Note, are about Julius Lester and some of which are not) and his relationship with the story:

I could try to explain that, but the story is jumping up and down on my foot and pulling on my shirt because it wants to know what is going to happen to Psyche.  Isn't that interesting?  Even a story doesn't know how it is going to turn out because who knows what a storyteller will say once he or she gets going good.  Sometimes even I don't know until I hear the words coming out of my mouth.

His voice (on the page) is such a performer's voice that I could hear him speaking as I read, and I can easily imagine Cupid finding a home with theater geeks -- it seems like it'd be prime monologue material.  I don't do audiobooks, but I listened to the entire excerpt available at Random House, which I'm embedding here.

Romantics will enjoy it.  I'm not talking about fans of the little-r romance novels of Stephenie Meyer or Lurlene McDaniels.  I'm talking about teen Romantics-with-a-capital-R, who will get all twittery about passages like this:

I'm going to get philosophical for a moment since this is a philosophical novel.  In love, and perhaps only in love, are the finite limitations of self dissolved and we merge, not only with the beloved other, but with wonder itself.  In love, whether it is love of another, of music, art, or whatever, we belong to someone or something and are no longer alone.

It is very much "A Tale of Love and Desire", but it is also a coming of age story for both Cupid and Psyche, a story about letting go for Venus, a story about a boy who falls in love with someone of whom his mother doesn't approve and a story about the differences between love and lust, about sacrifice and conquering fear.  I admit that part of me would have liked to see Psyche kick Cupid to the curb and head off into the sunset, either alone or with Favonius the West Wind, but A) Cupid isn't all that bad, he's just got a lot of growing up to do, and B) that's just not the way the old story goes. 

Then again, if it's the storyteller who has the power...

The Aurora County All-Stars -- Deborah Wiles

Twelve-year-old House Jackson is the Aurora County All-Stars' star pitcher.  He's also their only pitcher.  So when Frances Schotz broke his elbow before the big -- and only -- game last year, it was a big deal.  Not just for him, but for the whole team.

This year is going to be different.  His elbow is healed, and he's ready.  The team is ready.

Except for one thing.  The Aurora County 200th anniversary pageant is scheduled for the same day, and all of the Mamas in town are hell-bent on seeing their kids perform in it, whether the kids want to or not.  The be-sequined and be-glittered Finesse has been given the job of directing it:

"Who is she?" whispered Melba's little sister Violet.

Ruby* popped her gum.  "She used to be Frances Schotz."  The bubble collapsed on Ruby's nose.  "She went off to boarding school last year, took too much French and drama, and turned into Marie Antoinette.  Where's the guillotine?"

"I think she's amazing," sighed Melba.

"You would," said Ruby.  She rubbed pink off her nose.

Remember back when I said "Except for one thing" all ominous-like?  Yeah.  Actually, there's another thing.  For the last year, while his elbow healed, House Jackson had been secretly visiting the elderly Mr. Norwood Rhinehart Beauregard Boyd -- the man that the other kids in town are convinced is a baby-eater, the man that they all call Mean-Man Boyd. 

On page one, Mr. Norwood Rhinehart Beauregard Boyd dies.

In The Aurora County All-Stars, we get stories about Sandy Koufax and Pee-Wee Reese, as well as a plethora of baseball quotes and a good amount of poetry by Walt Whitman.  We're introduced to a dog named Eudora Welty and characters named Parting Schotz and Wilkie Collins.  And it all works.  In someone else's hands, it probably wouldn't have, but Deborah Wiles has done it again, folks.  It's seamless.  Baseball and Walt Whitman and friendship and family and history and yes, it made me cry.  Not in a full-on sobbing-so-much-it-hurts** way, but in a pleasant, I-love-baseball-stories and I-love-the-people-in-Aurora-County sort of way.

House Jackson is most definitely a young man worth not just meeting, but getting to know.

Oh, and I'd like to commend Harcourt for doing something that other publishers seem to have a hard time doing -- for finding the right person to do the cover art, and for sticking with that same artist for the whole series***.  Marla Frazee is such a fantastically perfect fit for the Aurora County stories that it makes me almost delirious when I look at the three books sitting together on the shelf.

*That's right, Ruby Lavender fans -- Ruby's in this one, and she plays a significant role.  (Comfort Snowberger makes an appearance, too.)

**Unlike Each Little Bird, which, A YEAR AFTER READING IT, had me in tears again, because I made the mistake of describing it to a friend.  Yes, I have problems. 

***In hardback format, anyway.  I'm not sure what's up with the paperbacks.

Dreadful Skin -- Cherie Priest

I really should add 'horror' to my category list.

With Dreadful Skin, Cherie Priest has done it again -- and it isn't even a story about Eden Moore.  So, yeah.  Love her.  (Cherie Priest, I mean*.)

America, 1870. Women who carry guns and drink whiskey are a bit out of the ordinary, and Eileen Callaghan takes it a few steps further.  She's a gun totin', whiskey drinking, cigarette smoking, card playing (or willing to play, anyway) Irish nun.  AND she's not without secrets.

Then there's what she's seeking.  For years now, she's been tracking a man called Jack Gabert, who went to India as a man and came back as... something else. 

Sure -- Dreadful Skin is a rip-snorter** of a werewolf*** story, but it also raises questions about how far into the dark you'd be willing to go to do the right thing:

"Look," I said.  "You're sitting in a saloon with a papist and a handful of hard liquor.  A year ago, this would have seemed improbable, at best--and embarrassing or unthinkable at worst.  Yet here we are, you and I.  And we know there are worse things than critical glares and the snubs of our fellow men.  The rules are changed now, Leonard."

"Changed?  By whom?"

"By me.  By you.  By Jack, and Daniel.  They aren't playing by the rules, and neither are we."

"Then we become monsters too, in order to engage the monsters?"

As in her other books, she uses the conventions of the genre(s) (in this one, Gothic and western and action/horror), but they never feel tired.  It's smart and fast, and Cherie Priest clearly expects that her readers will be able to keep up.  Yep.  I'm definitely hoping for more stories about Eileen Callaghan.  Lots of them.

Recommended to anyone who'd like to read about a werewolf and a nun duking it out on a steamboat.  And though it's very different, there are enough similarities that I'd pass it along to discontented LKH fans as well.

*Well, yes.  Eden Moore too.

**Forgive me for that -- I'm still a little loopy from my vacation.

***I swear that's not a spoiler.  It's right in the acknowledgments on the first page, and the Introduction to Part One says, "More monster than man, he was trapped in a storm, on a boat, with a moon above that was almost full--and a deadly hunger that could not be contained."  So, yeah.  Not a spoiler.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds -- Cherie Priest

Cherie Priest, you have a new fan.

Colleen, you were right.

Chrissy, you mush read this.

Since early childhood, Eden Moore has been aware of the three sisters:

Willa, Luanna--she's over here.

Two other women appeared, one on either side of her.  They had the same vaguely African features as the first, with hair bound into submission by scarves tied in loose knots.  Their faces might have been round once, but their skin was drawn back and their wide cheekbones made shelves that shadowed their hollow jaws.  Their teeth were exaggerated by fleshy lips robbed of their firmness, and when they spoke to one another it was a terrible sight.

There she is, his darling one.

His pretty one.

Oh, Mae, she's returned to you.  She's returned to us. 

Mae crouched low to examine me with her enormous, brimming eyes.  My baby, she said, reaching one scrawny arm to my face.  My baby.  Miabella.

But when the back of her hand brushed my cheek, the horror of her dusty, dead breath broke the spell and my screams split the supernatural quiet that had descended over the mountainside.  I howled until my cries went hoarse, and the women withdrew.  Mae left me last, turning with a slow, miserable sob and vanishing into the crowded trees.  The last thing I saw before I shrieked myself unconscious was her retreating back, slashed and stained with long, dark streaks that could have been nothing but blood.

As terrifying as the first interaction, though, it quickly becomes apparent to Eden that these women mean her no harm -- just the opposite.  A few years later, they save her life.

I don't want to give you any more than that* -- if a Southern Gothic story, complete with declining mansion, a creepy old woman, a mysterious and convoluted family history, ghosts, murder, magic, a lunatic would-be murderer who thinks he talks to God, and an abandoned asylum** sound at all appealing to you, totally give it a try. 

Actually, if you like the cover, give it a try.  Because the cover art is spot on.  El perfect-o.  I love it.

Personally, I'm going to order all of her books as soon as I get my next paycheck.  (I'm already worried about what to do when I've read them all.  Anyone?  Suggestions for more modern Southern Gothic?  Please?)

*The description on the back of the book, by the way, gives way too much information for my taste.

**That segment reminded me of Session 9.  Then I was even MORE creeped out.

each little bird that sings -- Deborah Wiles

Oh my GOD.  You should read this book because:

1.  If I was still working at the store, I'd be handing it to pretty much every customer that walked in the door.  I'd also be blathering about it to all of my co-workers until they read the thing out of self-defense.

2.  I was warned by a friend that "you must be prepared to bawl your eyes out.  In the delicious kind of way".  That was a huge understatement.  I read the whole book this morning before work--by the time I was done, my shirt was drenched with tears.  I'm talking about big gasping sobs, not little weenie sobs.  I thought I was going to die.  Don't get me wrong.  There were laughing parts, too.  But ultimately, "tearjerker" is not a strong enough term.

3.  Then, when I got here, I told a co-worker about it and started crying all over again.

I loved it.  At first it kind of reminded me of Because of Winn-Dixie, but Comfort's voice and the relationships between the characters were so different that the W-D similarities pretty much ended with the southern setting and the dog.

I don't want to give anything away.  Just read it.  It's wonderful.  <SOB>.

(PS.  C.C., Mali would love this one, I think.)

Grave Sight -- Charlaine Harris

This was a fun little mystery with a supernatural twist.  I read the whole thing this morning before coming to work, so it's obviously pretty fluffy and quick.

After being struck by lightning, Harper Connelly can find dead people.  Not like Haley Joel Osment.  She doesn't see them and she can't communicate with them.  She senses their dead bodies.  If she's close enough, she can relive their last few moments.

It's a talent that is somewhat marketable, though it tends to make people very suspicious and nervous.

Harper and her brother, Tolliver, travel around the country--body-finders for hire.  In most cases, they find the body, determine the cause of death, get paid and move on quickly.  Everything changes in Sarne, Arkansas, where our reluctant heroes become enmeshed in small-town politics and murder.  (Bum bum buuuuuuum....) 

Lots of fun.  My only complaint was that I had the murderer pegged waaaaay too early.  And it wasn't just the usual: "Oooo, I think it might be that person".  It was: "Okay, I'm totally and completely dead positive certain beyond a reasonable doubt that I know who the bad guy is".  I got annoyed that it took Harper so long to put the pieces together.  But overall, it made a decent beginning to a new series. 

(Before anyone can say anything, no, I still haven't gotten around to reading the Sookie books.  But I will.  I promise.)

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil -- John Berendt

So, I thought that I hadn't read this, but as I was reading, so much of it was so completely familiar that I started to wonder.  I know that I saw the movie ages and ages ago, but I was recognizing complete chunks of dialogue.  Surely I couldn't be remembering that much from the movie?  (Sometimes I find it a little scary to think about how much information gets packed into a brain in one lifetime.  And about how hard it can be to access that information sometimes).   

Regardless of whether this was a first-time read or a re-read, I completely enjoyed it.  Berendt's depiction of the people of Savannah was affectionate, but at the same time, their real personalities--complete with faults--seemed to come through intact.  It didn't seem hazy.  I loved Miss Harty, the woman that brought him on a tour of the town squares and the cemetery:

"Savannah's always been wet," she said, "even when the rest of Georgia was dry.  During Prohibition, filling stations on Abercorn Street sold whiskey out of gas pumps!  Oh, you could always get a drink in Savannah.  That's never been any secret.  I remember when I was a child, Billy Sunday brought his holy-revival crusade to town.  He set himself up in Forsyth Park, and everybody went to hear him.  There was great excitement!  Mr. Sunday got up and declared at the top of his voice that Savannah was the wickedest city in the world!  Well, of course, we all thought that was perfectly marvelous!"

As a huge fan of Joan Aiken, I was especially interested in any mention of her father:

"Aiken loved to come here and watch the ships go by," she said.  "One afternoon, he saw one with the name Cosmos Mariner painted on the bow.  That delighted him.  The word 'cosmos' appears quite often in his poetry, you know.  That evening he went home and looked for mention of the Cosmos Mariner in the shipping news.  There it was, in tiny type on the list of ships in port.  The name was followed by the comment 'Destination Unknown.'  That pleased him even more."

"Where is Aiken buried?" I asked.  There were no other gravestones in the enclosure.

"Oh, he's here," she said.  "In fact, we are very much his personal guests at the moment.  It was Aiken's wish that people should come to this beautiful place after he died and drink martinis and watch the ships just as he did.  He left a gracious invitation to that effect.  He had his gravestone built in the shape of a bench."

An involuntary reflex propelled me to my feet.  Miss Harty laughed, and then she too stood up.  Aiken's name was inscribed on the bench, along with the words COSMOS MARINER, DESTINATION UNKNOWN.

Luther Driggins, the man who glued string to flies and carried them around town with him and was rumored to have a jar of poison so toxic that if poured into the Savannah water system, it would kill every single person in the city; Chablis, the drag queen with a mouth that might even impress Brian Michael Bendis (the man who, as far as I know, invented the word 'fucktard'); Big Emma, a woman that was famed for refusing to let her chauffeur drive her Mercedes limo--he had to sit in the back while she drove.  These are a few of the people that populate this book.  And I haven't even mentioned the story that pulls everything together--the murder of Danny Hansford, the 'walking streak of sex' by Jim Williams, a prominent antiques dealer.

I am totally looking forward to reading Berendt's new book--I'm next on the list for the library copy.

The Member of the Wedding -- Carson McCullers

Regardless of era or locale, being twelve is rough:

There was a watery kitchen mirror hanging above the sink.  Frankie looked, but her eyes were gray as they always were.  This summer she was grown so tall that she was almost a big freak, and her shoulders were narrow, her legs too long.  She wore a pair of blue black shorts, a B.V.D. undervest, and she was barefooted.  Her hair had been cut like a boy's, but it had not been cut for a long time and was now not even parted.  The reflection in the glass was warped and crooked, but Frankie knew well what she looked like; she drew up her left shoulder and turned her head aside.

Carson McCullers continues to amaze me.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter -- Carson McCullers

I'd just like to admit now that until about a year after I graduated college, I thought that Carson McCullers was a man.  (In my defense, I think it was because I kept mixing her up with Cormac McCarthy).

I know that after reading this book, everybody gushes about the same thing--that Carson McCullers wrote it when she was twenty-two years old.  Let me just jump right on the bandwagon.  It's amazing.  The book is amazing and the fact that she wrote it so young is amazing. (Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, you can suck it.  Because you'll never, ever write like this). 

Josh and I talked about it a bit, and we figure that a lot of writers learn how to be good writers, while some people just are.  (Obviously the "just are" people have to work at it, too, but I think you know what I mean).  Carson McCullers clearly falls into the "just are" category.  Her language is spare and simple--she didn't use any unnecessary words--but vivid.

Of the five main characters, I loved Mick Kelly best:

These nights were secret, and of the whole summer they were the most important time.  In the dark she walked by herself and it was like she was the only person in the town.  Almost every street came to be as plain to her in the night-time as her own home block.  Some kids were afraid to walk through strange places in the dark, but she wasn't.  Girls were scared a man would come out from somewhere and put his teapot in them like they was married.  Most girls were nuts.  If a person the size of Joe Louis or Mountain Man Dean would jump out at her and want to fight she would run.  But if it was somebody within twenty pounds her weight she would give him a good sock and go right on.

It took me three days to read, which is a long time for me--but it's the kind of book that you read slowly and savor.  I finished it yesterday morning before work and I thought about it all afternoon.  And evening.  And this morning.  I'll be thinking about it for a good while longer.  It's a book that stays with you.

Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd

So I finally read The Secret Life of Bees. And yes, everyone who told me, "Oh, Leila, you have to read this book, it's SO GOOD!" Yes, you were right. You win. I loved it. Although it made me cry on and off a lot. But not it a bad way. And even with everything that's been going on in the last couple of days, I loved it to the point where I HAD to finish it last night--I didn't want to wait to find out how everything worked out. I started it at lunch yesterday, and was really honestly MAD when lunch ended, because I just wanted to keep reading. This conversation is one that sticks:

"You know, some things don't matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall sceme of life? But lifting a person's heart--now, that matters. The whole problem with people is--"

"They don't know that matters and what doesn't," I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.

"I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

Also, I loved the way that Lily uses the word "shitbucket". I've tried it out a few times, and it's really satisfying. I have a feeling that it might end up in my regular vocabulary. I think I'll probably eventually work it into my high school reading group. But I'll have to pick others to go with it. Hmmm. Southern theme? Honey/Bees theme? Religion theme? Sixties theme? There are a lot of possibilities.