The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont

St. Martin's Press
320 pages; February 28, 2012

On one level this is a boarding school story and a coming-of-age novel. That’s good marketing. In fact, it’s what attracted me in the first place. But don't be mislead by the cover. This book is packed with deep stuff for adults, with a lot to say about the difficulty of finding “the right sea, the true sea… the best path in life.”

Dermont makes that point by using sailing as a metaphor. The lead character, Jason (as in “the Argonauts”), is a senior at The Bellingham School and loves sailing. The sailing coach, Tripp (as in “odyssey”), teaches him to navigate. The coach’s own sextant is of brass, a finely crafted instrument of precision. Tripp gives Jason a sextant of his own: “It’s just plastic,” he said, “but I figured it would be a good start.”

Dermont is saying we’re all “searching for guiding stars” to help us navigate through life. Some may be better at this than others, and adults can be of tremendous help to children in this regard. But some of the adults in this story are as corrupt, unhappy and lost as the adolescents. They lost their course, or never found it in the first place.

This deeply satisfying book is one of my best reading experiences of the past year. It’s clearly aimed at grown-ups, but young adults (at least, those that are like I used to be) will enjoy it for the plot and the young characters you come to care about deeply. It’s the 12th novel I’ve read this year and much more finely drawn than most of the fiction that crosses my desk. Those who enjoy The Starboard Sea may wish to try Frederick Reiken's Lost Legends of New Jersey (2001) or Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children (2007).

God Speed!

Edmund Leighton (1900)

Some may call this sentimental, kitschy, or worse. But still, there's something about it...

Celtic Coin Hoard

Metal detector hobbyists have discovered a hoard of Celtic coins in the Channel Islands. And it's a big hoard.

Imagine digging a hole in the ground and uncovering 50,000 coins. Oddly, they were fused together in a solid block weighing three-quarters of a ton. Archaeologists needed a crane to lift this tangled mass.

Initial assessments date these coins to around the year 50 BC -- roughly the time of Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. If accurate, that would make them over 2,000 years old, as explained in this Coin World article:
Hoard yields thousands of Iron Age coins

Why does this fascinate me so? I suppose it’s because I've always dreamed of uncovering.... hidden mysteries. As to what those might be, I'm quite flexible. It doesn't have to have monetary value. No, the hidden mysteries I'm interested in include the forgotten, the abandoned, or things that are just plain hidden and old. A few examples:

• The Kecksburg Incident
• John Michell
• Infiltration: places you're not supposed to go
• Disused stations on London's Underground
• Secrets of Grand Central Station
• Abandoned mines
• Carney Mine, Unity Township, PA
• Stuff that's gone
• The underground stream

Sadly, hidden mysteries are tough to locate in Las Vegas, even with the most powerful metal detector. Yet this sort of thing happens regularly in England. For example, the Bredon Hill Hoard is described here: Metal detectorist makes find of lifetime with hoard discovery
And the more contemporary Hackney Hoard:U.S. gold coins found buried in garden

The Holy Grail by Arthur Edward Waite

Thirsting for esoteric knowledge, I set forth to read The Holy Grail: History, Legend and Symbolism by Arthur Edward Waite. It's one of the most obtuse books I’ve ever encountered.

On page 18, we have the following sentence: “The literature which enshrines this Mystery, setting forth the circumstances under which it was from time to time discovered and, in fine, its imputed removal, with all involved thereby, is one of such considerable dimensions that it may accurately described as large.” Oh my Gawd! That’s what I call writing.

Undaunted, I drilled down to page 480, where all was revealed. To paraphrase the learned Waite: The Grail itself is the manifestation of God. The quest for the Grail is the search for God, as well as presentation of the Christian life as perceived by a 13th century mind. Galahad is God’s own minister, charged with a mission which is far beyond his personal concern. It says so, right here in "Book XII: The Secret of the Holy Grail."

Ah, now I understand.

My Life

Some notable things that happened in my life this year:

Left my employer of 7 years due to corporate merger. Not as bad as it sounds; it was the outcome I wanted, for reasons I won’t go into here.

Landed a comparable job in my chosen field after only two months of unemployment. As usual, my worst fears (protracted unemployment, forced to take a menial job) did not come to pass.

Moved to Las Vegas. This still feels rather unreal.

Performed well in my first seven months on the job. It’s turned out to be more than I bargained for, but I’ve had some meaningful accomplishments in high-priority areas.

Bought a house and sold a house.

Increased savings.

Began a gambling experiment. Did this under carefully controlled conditions, playing blackjack in Vegas under a self-imposed set of rules designed to avoid financial ruin. Net result: winnings exceeded losses by $28, which is not much different than breaking even.

Spent three days in hospital for investigation of cardiac problem, which apparently is of little or no consequence.

Achieved my 32nd year of marriage.

Overall, despite all my complaints, I have much to be thankful for. I wish all my friends and family great health and much happiness in the year ahead.

Books Read, 2011

It's New Year's Eve, time once again to post my list of books read during 2011.

First, my favorites.

In the fiction category, Danielle Trussoni's Angelology (Kindle version) sent me scrambling to the bookstore in search of The Book of Enoch.

None of this year's non-fiction books made much of an impression on me. But here's one I'm in the midst of now: Janet Reitman's Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion. I've always been curious about how L. Ron Hubbard invented Scientology and got so many people to follow him, not unlike Joseph Smith and Mormonism.

(F = fiction; N = non-fiction; * = Kindle)

January
Wodehouse, P.G.
The Luck of the Bodkins F

Faragher ,John Mack
Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer N

Farrington, Tim
The Monk Downstairs F

February
Michener, James
Tales of the South Pacific F
This was a big disappointment. I rented the DVD of the musical and it was even more disappointing and hopelessly dated.

Card, Orson Scott
The Lost Gate* F

Murray, Paul
Skippy Dies* F

March
Stockett, Kathryn
The Help F
Much better than the movie.

Roslund, Anders and Hellstrom, Borge
Box 21 F*
Grim tale of human trafficking and prostitution in Sweden (or was it Norway?). Bleak and brutal.

April
Berenson, Alex
The Faithful Spy F
Excellent espionage. But the sequel didn't maintain the high standard of this first novel.

Gruen, Sara
Water for Elephants F

Todd, Charles
A Test of Wills
I remember nothing of this book -- not even whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

May
Turow, Scott
Innocent F
By this time, I had moved to Las Vegas and was living alone in a rented apartment. I had basic cable TV only -- no premium channels, and I couldn't get the DVD player to work. It was so hot that I had to stay indoors in the afternoons. I got a lot of reading done over the next three months.

O'Brien, Patrick
Blue at the Mizzen F

June
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix F
for some reason, I found these Harry Potter books soothing during my solitude.

Atkinson, Kate
Started Early, Took My Dog* F
Excellent. I'll buy more by this author.

Morton, Kate
The Distant Hours* F
The tale of the Mud Man.

Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince F

August
Walton, Jo
Among Others* F

Hill, Reginald
The Woodcutter* F

September
Woodrell, Daniel
Winter's Bone F
Must read more of his work. The movie's good, too.

Martin, George R.R.
A Game of Thrones* F
Surprisingly well written. I'll read more of this series.

Ellis, Brett Easton
Lunar Park F
Didn't like it.

Pizzolatto, Nick
Galveston* F
Great first novel with an unorthodox anti-hero.

October
Ackroyd, Peter
Thames, The Biography N

November
Harrison, Jim
The Great Leader* F

Ro, Ronin
Tales to Astonish N

Barclay, Linwood
The Accident* F

Trussoni, Danielle
Angelology* F
One of the best reads of the year.

December
Larson, Eric
In the Garden of Beasts* N

Mason, Bobbie Ann
The Girl in the Blue Beret* F

Hidden Mysteries

Last night I came to grips with a situation that has long troubled me.

There’s an air conditioner vent right next to my favorite chair in the family room. For some time, I’ve been uneasy about the dust that’s caught in the slats. I cannot abide caked-up, crusted-on crap of any description. I find it everywhere – on the toaster oven, the refrigerator shelves, my razor, and even my toothbrush.

I approached this problem with some hesitancy, as it required removal of the vent’s metal covering. What if I couldn’t get it back on? What would my wife say? But this was affecting the very air we breathe. Casting aside doubt and hesitation, I set to work.

Two sheet metal screws held in place the grid covering for the vent. To my surprise, these unscrewed easily, providing access to the filth. With the aid of a powerful vacuum cleaner and Martha Stewart’s All-Purpose Cleaner, I removed a surprising amount of lint and dog hair.

But a closer inspection revealed more blockage down below. Determined to make this right once and for all, I pulled hard on the metal cover. The entire assembly suddenly popped free with a clang and a clatter, revealing the vent as a sizeable hole in the floor.

“What are you doing down there?” my wife called from the bedroom.

“Oh, just tidying up…” I answered. Peering down into the vent, I saw shockingly heavy deposits of lint, dust and hair, both animal and human. Horribly long strings of it floated on the air current from the air conditioner. But they were being sucked downwards, towards the basement. I had uncovered the master intake vent for the air conditioner, and the furnace too!

Sickened and strangely thrilled, I went after it in a near frenzy. I would conquer this disgusting mass of caked-on crap at all costs, I thought, pulling an incredible volume of lint from the hole in the wall. How many years had it gone uncleaned, slowly growing like the creature under the floor in Hellraiser? Years, perhaps decades… obstructing the air flow… straining the equipment down below…shortening the life of our HVAC system. Oh, the horror.

Replacing the vent, I regarded my handiwork with deep satisfaction, my catharsis complete. As I trudged off to bed, I thought that most people would never dare tell this story, let alone write about it at length.

Huge Need for Dealers Exists

Important news: there are great job opportunities for casino dealers right here in my home town. I could be trained and licensed in mere months!
Soon I’d be a full-fledged blackjack dealer -- flipping cards with careless ease, wearing a richly embroidered vest and diamond pinkie ring, raking in big tips from debonair high rollers and rich, beautiful women.

Ah, but wait.

There don’t seem to be any high rollers in this town. I’d have to relocate to Vegas for that.

And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a beautiful woman in a casino. Of course, in movies, gorgeous babes often slink up behind gamblers and drape their arms around them. They also do this in shaving cream commercials. But I've never seen either of those things actually happen.

Finally, the working conditions: second-hand smoke… standing up all day… absorbing abuse from drunks and white trash wearing t-shirts and baseball caps backwards… This may not be right for me. Perhaps I'd be better off pursuing my other fantasy of becoming a professional billiards player.

Books Read, 2010

Here's a list of the books I've read in the past year. I'll begin with the most memorable in each genre:

The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Big Horn
by Nathaniel Philbrick
Penguin audio book, 2010

I'm departing from tradition by including an audio book here. But that's fitting, since I also acquired a Kindle this year. Listening to this unabridged version wasn't so different from reading a hard copy. I'm not a Custer enthusiast, but this was fascinating, especially in its unsparing but balanced assessments of the competency of both the man and his subordinates.

The Other Boleyn Girl
by Philippa Gregory
Simon and Schuster, 672 pages, 2004

Don't make the mistake of regarding this as a romantic novel. Well researched and exceedingly well written, I couldn't put it down. It left me with a yearning to read everything she's published.

I made the same determination after reading the runner-up in the fiction category, John Master's Bhowani Junction. In particular, I want to re-read his Bugles and a Tiger memoir this year, to refresh my memory on his insights on Afghanistan.


And now, here's my complete list for 2010.

(Genre: F = fiction, N = non-fiction)
January
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road, F

Blond, Anthony
The Private Lives of the Roman Emperors, N

Strout, Elizabeth
Olive Kittredge, F

February
Maguire, Gregory
Son of a Witch, F

Hinton, S.E.
The Outsiders, F

March
Masters, John
Bhowani Junction, F

O'Brien, Tim
The Things They Carried, F

O'Connor, Joseph
Star of the Sea, F

June
McCammon, Robert
Boy's Life, F

Forsyth, Frederick
The Dogs of War, F

Manchester, William
Goodbye, Darkness, N

Turow, Scott
Presumed Innocent, F

Morris, James
Pax Brittanica, N
This is the only book I've read this year by a "gender-reassigned woman." Midway through his career, Morris underwent a sex change and henceforth became known, and published, as Jan Morris. Prior to that, as a male he served in the British army in World War II. He was also a newspaper correspondent with a British expedition that scaled Mount Everest.

July
Rankin, Ian
Watchman F

McDonald, John D.
Nightmare in Pink, F
Certain sections seemed oddly familiar. When I was fully halfway through it, I realized I had read it before. The first time around must have been on a long airplane flight when I was half-asleep. Or maybe McDonald's Travis McGee novels are so much alike it's hard to tell them apart, or indeed to remember much about them at all. Still, good entertainment.

Dobyns, Jay
No Angel, N

August
Masters, John
Coromandel!, F

September
Shakespeare, William
The Tempest, F

Spencer, Scott
A Ship Made of Paper, F

Coelho, Paolo
The Alchemist, F

October
Larsson, Steig
The Girl Who Played with Fire, F
I never would have guessed his politics from reading his novels.

Gregory, Phillippa
The Other Queen (audio), F

Philbrick, Nathaniel
The Last Stand, N

November
Grisham, John
Ford County, F

Household, Geoffrey
Rogue Male, F

Gregory, Phillippa
The Other Boleyn Girl, F

Russo, Richard
That Old Cape Magic, F
Not up to the standard of Bridge of Sighs, but worthwhile nevertheless.

Caputo, Philip
Crossers, F
A thoughtful fiction treatment of illegal immigration and border security issues.

I don't want to end this without mentioning Tanith Lee's stories The Roman and The Suicide from The Secret Books of Paradys .
I re-read both this week. To my mind, these are among the strangest, most disturbing and sexiest stories I've ever come across. The Roman's encounters with Lililla are simply impossible to forget. This lead me to her web site, where she reveals her battle with cancer, grimmer than anything she's ever written about because it's all too real. I want to send this talented author my best wishes for relief and full recovery in 2011.

Who Made These Pipes?

I'd really appreciate some assistance in identifying the manufacturer of these pipes. I purchased them in 1985 from a retailer known as The Wee Piper in Miami, Florida. He thought they were Hardies, and in fact the set came with a wooden chanter marked “R.G. Hardie, Glasgow.” However, the combing on the drones and blowstick doesn’t resemble other Hardies.

The combing appears flatter than Hardie sets I've seen. It consists of tight groups of eleven grooves, forming ten raised rings, separated by a pair of grooves that are slightly wider apart. The rings are nickel silver, with one groove at the top and two at the bottom of the ring. Projecting mounts are imitaton ivory. I can't find any identification marks on them, and I’ve inspected the drone cord areas carefully.

Any and all ideas are most welcome. Measurements are detailed after the photos.

All drone reed seats are just under 7/16”.
All stocks, measured at top, are 3/4”.

Bass drone:
• Bottom section pin bore diameter is 5/16”
• Middle section pin bore diameter is 6/16”
• Top section bore (measured at the bottom end) is 11/16”

Tenor drones:
• Bottom section pin bore diameter is 5/16"
• Top section bore (measured at the bottom end) is 9/16”

Hussy

This film starring Helen Mirren hit US theaters in 1981. I remember the trailer. “See Hussy!” the voice-over commanded. Still smitten by Mirren's bewitching performance as the enchantress Morgana in the Arthurian film Excalibur, I was wild to see Hussy. But sadly, it vanished from theaters within a week or so.

I don’t know what made me search for it after all these years, but I was astounded to find it on NetFlix. So I lived out my decades-long fantasy. I actually watched Hussy.

Helen Mirren in "Hussy" (1980)

As you might expect, it didn’t live up to my expectations. In fact, it's a dreadful film. I turned it off after less than an hour. But still, it was Helen Mirren. The young Helen Mirren. in this role, she’s a nightclub hostess and occasional call girl -- at least, that's what the poster for the film says. In one scene she has to entertain a client. He’s a very fat guy. She tells him that if he doesn’t behave, she’s going to charge him by the pound. God knows why she made this film, after O Lucky Man, Excalibur, and all those Shakespearean roles.

Now, having written all this and dredged up old memories, maybe I’ll watch the rest of Hussy after all. Those seeking further indulgence can visit The Helen Mirren Appreciation Society at www.helenmirren.com.

Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight

A feast is underway when The Green Knight appears in King Arthur's hall:

"Nay, King Arthur," cried the knight in a great voice appropriate to his size. " I come here not to feed but rather to find the knight who has the courage to trade blows with me... he must strike me first, so powerfully as he will."

Therefore with great joy Gawaine did leap from his siege, take up the great ax, and with one blow strike off the head of the Green Knight, which went a-rolling the vast length of the great hall of Camelot, struck the far wall, and came rolling back unto the very feet of King Arthur. And the wondrous thing was that this head did roar with laughter throughout its journey to and fro! Then the green body rose, and taking up the green head, placed it upon the green neck, and mounted the green horse.

"Well struck, Sir Gawaine," cried the Green Knight. "And now that I have felt the strength of your arm, I shall test your moral mettle. One year from today, you must meet me at a place of my choosing, there to accept one blow from me, or else be damned as an arrant poltroon!" And guffawing he did prick his horse and gallop out of the castle.

From "Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel"
by Thomas Berger
Delacourte Press/Seymour Lawrence, © Copyright 1978.

In some versions of the legend, the Green Knight is an ordinary man who is under an enchantment cast by Morgan Le Faye. In Berger's version, the Green Knight turns out to be the Lady of the Lake in disguise. But Gawaine does not discover this until he keeps his appointment with the Green Knight in the Green Chapel, after enjoying the freedoms of Liberty Castle.

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

519 pages; Harper; 1995

Counter to what I expected, this is far more than a novelty book. It has well-drawn characters with strong identities, whose thoughts and feelings ring true. As a fantasy novel, it's a surprisingly detailed world of its own. But the author takes it well beyond fantasy. He has some important points to make.

He's telling us that many things in life are not clear-cut. Maguire's Oz is a world where everyone is flawed in some way, and what appears to be wicked may be otherwise.

Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, is not wicked, and she insists that she's not a witch either. She's well-intentioned, but handicapped by her green skin and sharp features, she inadvertently creates her own self-fulfilling prophecies. Glinda (the good witch) enters the story as a shallow rich girl, preoccupied with her appearance and social standing. But in the end, she's a benign sorceress with power beyond either of the so-called wicked witches.

The Wizard articulates these themes in one of the most memorable scenes. Quoting from the Oziad, the hero tale of ancient Oz: "It looks the same... but it is not. It looks as they expect, but it is not."

Maguire makes all these points with clever ties back to the original L. Frank Baum novel -- quite an accomplishment.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces

“…the human kingdom, beneath the floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling that we call our consciousness, goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves. There not only jewels but also dangerous jinn abide: the inconvenient or resisted psychological powers that we have not thought or dared to integrate into our lives.

Ali Baba by Maxfield Parrish

"These are dangerous because they threaten the fabric of security into which we build ourselves and our family. But they are fiendishly fascinating too. For they carry the keys that open the whole realm of the desired and feared discovery of the self."

from The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

BOOKS READ: 2008

It's a night of bitter cold and snow in western Pennsylvania. It's also New Year's Eve, a fitting time to post my list of books read in 2008.

First, the two most memorable books of the year:

No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith

Fawn M. Brodie, 499 pages, Vintage Books, 1995

A biography of the Mormon leader. The account of his early life is particularly damaging. Just one example: as a young man, Smith was an avid treasure hunter, making use of a "peep stone." Peeping through his magic stone (it had a hole bored in it), the Prophet could detect treasures buried underground. One fine day, he found golden tablets. As for his womanizing .... how did the Mormon church survive this charlatanry?

Playing Off the Rail: A Pool Hustler's Journey

David McCumber, 367 pages, Perennial, 2002

This appears to be a very realistic account of what it's like to be a professional pool player. Interestingly, most of the work is done in shabby venues in run-down parts of town, not at all like the glitzy casino matches I like to watch on TV. My favorite part is a chance encounter with Swedish pool champion Ewa Mataya Laurance. I hope she hasn't lost her TV deal with ESPN.

Now, for my complete list:

[Genre: F = fiction, N = non-fiction]

January

Rankin, Ian - Fleshmarket Alley (F )

Dunsany, Alfred Lord - The Charwoman’s Shadow (F)

February
Dolin, Eric Jay - Leviathan (N): this history of whaling made me feel sorry for the whales.

Rankin, Ian - Knots and Crosses (F)

March

King, Stephen - Blaze (F): why do I keep reading this stuff?

Goddard, Robert - In Pale Battalions (F)

April

Bill O’Reilly - Who’s Looking Out for You? (N)

Traditional - Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight (F): the Simon Armitage translation. For a useful background piece on Gawaine, visit the University of Rochester's Camelot Project.

Furst, Alan - Dark Star (F): well-written account of a man drawn into espionage in World War II. I seem to recall reading this at at Nemacolin during a trip with Nancy and Megan.

May

McDermid, Val - The Grave Tattoo (F): disappointing.

July
Brodie, Fawn M. - No Man Knows My History (N): see above.

Michell, John - Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions (N)

August

Barker, Clive - The Damnation Game (F): here again, I can't remember what it was about.

O'Dell, Tawni - Sister Mine (F): Worth reading for the Western Pennsylvania setting, but it lacks something compared to her first novel, Back Roads. It's about a woman (closely resembling the author) and her sister. It's also about a coal mine. Thus, the title. The author lives in State College, PA. Maybe I'll run into her this weekend; we'll be there for my birthday.

McCumber, David - Playing Off the Rail - A Pool Hustler's Journey (N): see above.

September
(read all three on a cruise to Bermuda)

Rankin, Ian - Hide and Seek (F)

Golden, Christopher - Straight On 'til Morning (F): The first half was one of the best reading experiences of the year, even though a key plot element owes a huge debt to the film The Lost Boys. It takes a marked turn for the worse in the second half, crossing the line into fantasy and near-silliness.

Cain, James M. - Double Indemnity (F): excellent. I'll have to read The Postman Always Rings Twice soon.

November

LeCarre, John - The Mission Song (F)

Malory, Sir Thomas - Le Morte D'Arthur vol. 2 (F): I bought this in a mall in Houston in the mid-1980s after seeing the film Excalibur. It took a few years, but now I've finished both volumes. One of those rare books that motivated me to get out a pencil and mark my favorite passages.

Groff, Lauren - The Monsters of Templeton (F)

Messud, Claire - The Emperor's Children (F): perhaps the best fiction I read this year.

All in all, a pretty good reading year. Here's to health and peace of mind in the new year. Prospero ano nuevo.

Neon Knights

Years ago, I heard a song on the radio that I couldn’t get out of my brain. I didn’t know the name of the band or the name of the song. All I could remember was two lines:
Ride out, protectors of the realm
Captains at the helm...

My search for that song became a decades-long quest, strewn with false trails and dead ends. I asked several friends if they knew the source of these lines. I also bought two Rush albums in a vain effort to locate that song. It was all in vain.

Now, purely by chance, my odyssey of more than 20 years is ended.

I heard Ronnie James Dio sing those words at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette Pavilion Saturday night. The song is Neon Knights by Black Sabbath, from the Heaven & Hell album. It was their encore tune Saturday night! See below for the complete verse, with the lines above in context:

Cry out to legions of the brave
Time again to save us from the jackals of the street
Ride out, protectors of the realm
Captains at the helm, sail across the sea of lights
Circles and rings, dragons and kings
Weaving a charm and a spell
Blessed by the night, holy and bright
Called by the toll of the bell
Bloodied angels fast descending
Moving on a never-bending light

Encounter with KK

The Metal Masters tour rolled through Pittsburgh last Saturday night. That’s what brought my brother and I to the Pittsburgh Airport Marriott before the show. For a full account, laid out better than I could hope to achieve, follow this link:

http://haggisbuffet.blogspot.com/2008/08/encounter-with-kk.html

The Storm Lord by Tanith Lee

Daw Science Fiction

Paper; May 18, 1976

• ISBN-10: 0886772737
• ISBN-13: 978-0886772734

A number of people in this book earn the designation "Storm Lord,"raising the knotty issue of exactly who Lee is referring to in the title.

Ashne'e, the lowland priestess (or Amber Witch) must

submit to the passions of the aging Storm Lord. This union is blessed with issue: Raldnor, the central character in the book. He's a fairly conventional man of action not unlike Conan The Barbarian. It's unusual for Lee to base a book around such a run-of-the-mill character, but the story itself is fine, with plenty of Lee's imaginative touches and her usual polished writing.

The passage that stayed with me occurs while Raldnor is still a wandering adventurer (or freebooter). He has an encounter with a prostitute, who excitedly exclaims: "You're indefatigable, a Storm Lord--" A hooker who flatters her client by calling him a Storm Lord? Raldnor proves her right by actually becoming the Storm Lord in due course.

Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell

405 pp. 
Signet Books, January 2001

When I lived in Florida, I used to daydream about moving to a small town up north. I envisioned a quiet place with no traffic, a town people lived in their entire lives, so unlike south Florida. I pictured this imaginary place in the autumn, with an iron-gray sky and leaves on the ground, and the sort of Halloween I knew as a child.

Last year I found myself living out that fantasy – well, nearly -- when my career brought us to southwestern Pennsylvania. Now I never want to leave.

There’s so much about this area that I love. The natural beauty of the hills and farms would appeal to anyone. So would the view looking east, with the graceful curve of Route 30 down towards Latrobe and the heavily-wooded Allegheny Mountains in the distance. But I’m also fascinated by the old buildings in the blighted downtowns of Latrobe and Greensburg, and the mining patch communities you come across unexpectedly. The evidence of coal mining is all around, for those who know what to look for.

That’s what led me to Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell. It’s set in the rural western Pennsylvania area around Black Lick, which is a real town in Indiana County less than an hour from my home. I thought that reading it would be a good way to soak up some of the atmosphere of the region. But I got much more than I bargained for.

In Back Roads, 20-year-old Harley Altmyer’s mother is serving a life sentence in prison for shooting their father. That leaves Harley responsible for taking care of himself and his three sisters. There’s poverty and tension in the household. Harley himself lacks a mother, and he needs a girlfriend. That's why O'Dell gives him his first sexual encounter with a woman that meets both needs. She's an older woman and the mother of three. Just to underscore that point, she wears a nightgown that says “World’s Greatest Mom” in the big sex scene.

I thought the book would tell the story of their affair. Later, as I got further into it, I thought the plot would be built around revealing the truth about the shooting. O’Dell does all that. But she also takes it much further. This is a book about the deep and lasting effects of domestic violence and parental failure. As Harley puts it: “The problem with trying to forget about shit is that you can’t forget it. Time does not heal all wounds.”

Back Roads can be read and enjoyed just for its plot. But O’Dell also layers in deeper meaning and symbolism with some very skillful writing. Harley and his sisters suffer through a childhood filled with fear and physical abuse. Harley wears his father’s coat and hat, symbols of the legacy of violence that he inherited from his father and carries with him still. His teenage sister’s compulsive need for comfort and safety leads her to casual sex with the wrong men. Harley has to abandon his dog. He fears that the dog will spend the rest of his life thinking he’s a bad dog, unable to understand why the one person who was supposed to love him unconditionally turned his back on him.

Black Lick is a town named for salt licks that attract deer. But the salt is contaminated by coal deposits. The salt seeping up from underground may be killing them, like the secrets that Harley and his sisters have buried. In the end he has to confront his own self-deception.

I couldn’t understand why the book jacket blurbs described this book as humorous and hilarious. It’s about as bleak and tragic a story as I’ve read since Janet Fitch’s White Oleander, and the bleak, run-down mining community is a perfect setting. Back Roads actually affected me so strongly that I had to stop reading it at night. It got me so keyed up that I couldn’t sleep. Readers – especially men – shouldn’t be put off by the fact that this was an Oprah Book Club selection. It’s much more than a book aimed at pleasing women.

O’Dell’s second novel, Coal Run, was published in paperback earlier this year.

Links:

Review in The New York Times
Television interview
Author's website

The Trooper

My daughter brought her boyfriend home to visit for a couple of days. Mike is quiet and very respectful. He calls me Mr. K------. He just graduated from law school.

When Mike left, he gave me a gift: an Iron Maiden t-shirt! It’s the one with The Trooper image.



This could be the plot of a particularly twisted sitcom: girlfriend’s dad is a middle-aged metal fan. Boyfriend is a conservative young guy. Boyfriend's new job as a prosecutor with the Florida State Attorney's office entitles him to carry a badge and gun when he visits crime scenes. We see the handsome young man wandering befuddled through the CD Extreme music store, searching... searching everywhere for an Iron Maiden t-shirt. When presented with the gift t-shirt, Dad is delighted. He promises to wear it to Ozzfest, with the right sleeve rolled up to display his tattoo.

All of this is true.