Mountains Made Low

Book #18 (2009)

Arthur Neresian’s 2003 novel Chinese Takeout is about choices. Mostly, it’s about bad choices. It centers on Or Trenchant — Orloff Trencharian — a 30-something starving artist in turn of the millennium Manhattan, and his circle of friends, acquaintances, and lovers. Or is a painter whose primary residence is his van, and who has a sideline as a street vendor selling used books. His primary mistake — though he makes others that may be more momentous albeit less pervasive — is his erroneous belief that he must suffer for his art, that he must be destitute until that glorious future day when his art can support his life.

It’s also about Or’s girlfriend, June, choosing to trade their impoverished Bohemian lifestyle for that of Manhattan’s uptown ladies lunching, beginning with trading Or for a wealthy husband. And it’s about Rita, whom Or meets while he is sketching the homeless junkie population in Washington Square and she is working with the city’s needle exchange program — though she relapses and spends most of the novel as a junkie herself — which in her case turns out not to be so much about addiction as about shooting death itself the bird.

Of course there are other characters who move in and out of the story’s spotlight: Or’s friends Pablo and Shade, his friend and sometimes lover Beth, the art dealers, gallery owners, and stuffed shirt art collectors with whom he must, as an artist, deal. And Lynn, the young Vietnamese-American artist with whom he winds up sharing studio space, developing a close friendship, and perhaps finding something deeper than friendship, and whose day job is in the Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant where Or gets most of his food — providing the book with its title.

Much more about the characters than the plot, Chinese Takeout shows Or coming to the realization that much of what happens in life doesn’t so much happen to people, but happens as a result of people’s attitudes and choices. Whatever it is that happens, that is, people by and large do those things to themselves. Or is not poor because of his art or the vagaries of the art world, but because he believes he must be in order to be an artist.

Neresian’s book is gritty, even grim at times. And it, honestly, hit a little too close to home for me at times — particularly in terms of the artist and the way he views his work, the way in which Or is never quite able to cross the threshold of success, only repeatedly arrive at it. For all of that, though, I liked the book. The characters are well-drawn, and it’s easy — sometimes too easy — to identify with them as they go through their lives, making their (bad) decisions, and dealing with the fallout of their own, and others’, choices. Neresian has a talent for capturing the ups and downs of life, the happiness and sorrow and the happiness in sorrow without becoming either maudlin or saccharine in his presentation.

And by the end of the book, I must admit, I was looking around my own life for my own personal East River to swim.

Book #16 (2009)

After I finish this post, I’m taking a break from the Sookie books (Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries series) for a while, though I have three to go. I’m still enjoying them, but I may be in the process of ODing. Definitely Dead is #6 in the series, and there was one element of this book that put me off a little bit, which I’ll get to.

The title of this installment refers to the way in which vampires refer to their second deaths, because of course, each of them has already died once — a human death — and once they have died again as a vampire (through staking, burning, exposure to sunlight, or beheading) they are “definitely dead.” It also refers to the way in which, as the story unfolds, Sookie learns more and more about the supernatural world around her. She learns that this phrase is how vamps refer to their vampire deaths.

In this book, Sookie travels to New Orleans, for an audience with Sophie-Ann Leclerq, the vampire queen of Louisiana, and to close her cousin Hadley’s estate (Hadley was, briefly, a vampire, and the queen’s girlfriend). The cast of supporting characters is replete, as usual, with vampires, Werewolves, other weres, shifters, and witches. Sookie begins a relationship with Quinn, a weretiger. Her brother, Jason and his girlfriend Crystal (both werepanthers) express their intention to get married, and suffer a miscarriage. And in this book, Sookie learns some specifics about the existence of demons, and that she has some small measure of fairy blood, though this is probably unrelated to her “gift.”

The witches in the book include Hadley’s former landlady, Amelia Broadway, with whom Sookie establishes an easy friendship and who returns to Bon Temps with Sookie at the end of the book, feeling the need to get out of New Orleans for a bit.

The book closes with the outbreak of a vampire war between Louisiana and Arkansas. And that, along with bringing a powerful witch to Bon Temps and dating the very powerful weretiger, provide the plot hooks for the next novel.

Hadley’s death is the probably the most problematic part of this book, because it is introduced as a fact of Sookie’s life and has a great deal of backstory associated with it — backstory that is established in a short story published outside of the novels. I spent much of the book — the parts dealing with Hadley, Hadley and the queen, and Hadley’s estate — feeling like I’d missed something. I know that a one-off short story in another anthology that does something as drastic as killing the main character’s cousin has to be acknowledged in the on-going storyline, but I spent the first 100 or so pages convinced I’d skipped a book. Until I looked it up online.

So if you pick this one up, remember that you didn’t miss anything (presuming you’ve read books 1-5), at least as far as the novels go. Of course, the collection of Sookieverse short stories (published in other anthologies, for the most part), is due out in October.

But for me, for now, it was off-putting enough that I’m going to take a break. Well, that and I’ve got a list of recommended books to get to and my own desire to read the new Lisa Unger paperback. I really am Sookied out for the time being.

Book #15 (2009)

And this, coming on the heels of the previous post, is why I should not allow myself to get behind.

Sookie Stackhouse is a telepath. Her first ever boyfriend, Bill, is a vampire. She has tangled emotions when it comes to Sam Merlotte, her boss and a shape shifter (usually he becomes a collie) and Alcide Herveaux (a Werewolf). She is friends with fairies. She is a Friend to the Werewolf pack of Shreveport, Louisiana, and is sometimes in the employ of Eric Northman, the vampire sheriff also based in Shreveport. She knows that a widespot in the road, known as Hotshot, outside of her hometown of Bon Temps (itself not that big) is home to a group (tribe? clan?) of werepanthers.

And now, Sookie’s brother, Jason, has become a werepanther himself, because he was kidnapped, tortured, and — most importantly — bitten, by a werepanther in the previous novel.

That’s how Dead as a Doornail (installment #5 in Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries series) opens. And it moves on to a mysterious shooter attacking the Were and shifter population in and around Bon Temps. And an unrelated series of attempts on Sookie’s life, which lead to her house being burned (but not irreparably), her boss being shot, and eventually the discovery that not even all of the events that seem, or could be, related, actually are.

It also details a Werewolf pack’s change in leadership, the unfolding of Sookie’s relationship with the one supernatural being whose romantic feelings she doesn’t reciprocate, and the fact that Jason, a notorious cad, may well be settling down after becoming a part-time animal.

This book, more than the first four, really seemed to be devoted to making some lasting changes in Bon Temps, rather than telling its own individual story. I can’t, of course, be sure of that, until I read the next books in the series, but it felt like this book was mostly written in service of the longer arc, rather than standing on its own.

Or maybe that’s just my way of saying I didn’t like it as well as the others.

Book #14 (2009)

I should not allow myself to get behind on posting my book and movie notes. Especially books, and especially when I’m reading a series — with continuing characters — in series, one after the other. It gets confusing.

Dead to the World is #4 in Charlain Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries series (or as I call them, the “Sookie Books”). It focuses on events that take place in and around Bon Temps, Louisiana, and — as with the other books in the series — events that happen to Sookie Stackhouse.

In this one, Sookie is returning from her late night shift at Merlotte’s Bar, only to find a wounded vampire wandering in the road. The vampire turns out to be Eric Northman, vampire sheriff of Louisiana Region 5, wandering half naked and amnesiac far away from his Shreveport home.

Sookie, of course, takes him in.

The mystery that unfolds is the question of how Eric lost his memory, and how to get it back. In the process of unraveling these dilemmas, Sookie learns (along with us), that not only are vampires and shapeshifters (including Werewolves) real, but fairies and witches also exist.

And not only must Sookie work with the vamps, shifters, and Weres (and a fairy or two for good measure), not to mention some good witches, to overcome the bad witches who have cursed Eric, but she must also deal with that fact that her brother, Jason, has gone missing — which Sookie suspects has something to do with his (and her own) dealings with the vampires who have angered a potent group of witches, but the police suspect has something to do with crimes Jason was earlier suspected of (and exonerated regarding) or perhaps with a forthcoming, but as yet unknown, paternity suit. It turns out that Jason’s disappearance does have something to do with his interesting dating habits, but not what the police think.

So the Jason story ends up being unrelated to the Eric story. Which — because they’re so connected in Sookie’s mind throughout — I kind of expected. There was nothing else left for a twist. Especially since this kinder, gentler Eric has succeeded where his more direct, forceful, and fully mentally intact self has so often failed: he and Sookie sleep together.

The vampires and Weres of Shreveport fight it out with the evil coven, and emerge victorious. Eric gets his memory back. In the course of the preparations for this battle, Sookie’s Were friend, Alcide Herveaux, finally succeeds in dumping his shifter girlfriend, Debbie, for good.

The story unfolds in interesting directions, and to be honest, I’m not sure, were I a resident of Bon Temps, whether I’d stick close to Sookie or keep well away, because the action follows her, but she always seems to come through mostly unscathed. Of course, I really wouldn’t want her reading my mind.

Book #13 (2009)

As the second Southern Vampire Mysteries book (Living Dead in Dallas) took Sookie Stackhouse away from Bon Temps, Louisana to Dallas, Texas, so the setting of the third installment is also not Sookie’s rural northern Louisiana home. This time, though, the destination is Jackson, Mississippi.

Eric Northman, the Vampire Sheriff of Louisiana’s Area 5, provides Sookie with information that her boyfriend, Bill, has gone missing in or near Jackson. She teams up with a werewolf named Alcide Herveaux to gain entrance to Josephine’s, a bar for supernatural beings and their dates in Jackson, known among weres and shifters as “Club Dead” because vampires go there, too. Unlike the tourist bars run by vampires, however, Club Dead does not allow normal humans in, unescorted.

Plot twists ensue, as Sookie discovers that Bill is being held by the vampire King of Mississippi, along with Bill’s own long-term vampire lover. Sookie must do her best to free Bill, though it’s clear he’s cheated on her, all the while struggling with her ever-growing connection to Eric, and her burgeoning feelings for Alcide.

She manages to free Bill, and Bill, Sookie, Eric, and Alcide manage to escape Jackson in one piece, even managing to save a captured Bubba, who was protecting Sookie, from execution at the hands of the Mississippi vampires. By telling them who Bubba really is.

In the end, Sookie and Bill break up, and she rescinds both Bill’s and Eric’s invitations into her house. She’s hoping that she can find some peace and normalcy, her own special talents notwithstanding. But in Bon Temps, Louisiana, particularly if your name is Sookie Stackhouse, that’s a wish that may never be fulfilled.

Book #12 (2009)

Even when they are written by my favorite author (c’mon, you knew that), even when I’ve had a head start on the volume, even when I really want to read them, collections of short fiction seem to take me forever to read. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that I keep whatever collection I’m currently reading on my nightstand, and I only read them, one or two a time, when I actually get to bed before I’m completely ready to fall over. I really don’t know. But I know that Stephen King’s collection Just After Sunset took me a while to get through, as do most collections.

Like I said, I even had a head start on this one. I’d experienced the novelette, “The Gingerbread Girl” as an audiobook before Just After Sunset was released. I’d also seen the animated graphic novel of the novella N. on iTunes before I started reading the collection. Finally, I’d read the story “Mute” when it was originally published in Playboy in 2007.

These three stories are what a devoté has come to expect from King. “The Gingerbread Girl” has a coastal Florida setting, a young woman facing psychic trauma (the loss of a baby) and facing a psychotic killer — mental and physical pain, blood, and gore abound. N. is a tale of descent into madness, which speculates on the possibility that mental disorders might be contagious, or that they might be the result of the thinness of reality (a central conceit of King’s Dark Tower). “Mute” starts with a man making a confession (of the “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned” variety), and wondering if he is responsible for the actions of another — the horrific actions of another — tackling the question of whether we bear responsibility when our innocently-enough intentioned words incite terrible action.

There is not a weak story in the bunch. King does, though, demonstrate his range here. Just as not every novel is the bloodbath that Carrie (King’s first published work) was, not every story is a “horror story” in the literal, blood, grue, gore, and/or supernatural senses. Some of the monsters (as in “The Gingerbread Girl” and “Mute”) are quite real, quite recognizable, and, really, the more disturbing for it.

Which leads me to my favorite story in the collection. Though King is known best for novels that run nearly to (or even past!) 1000 pages, the best story in this collection weighs in at under 10. There is nothing supernatural about it, and the details of the gore are spared. In “Graduation Afternoon,” there are monsters, but they’re unnamed and clearly of a 21st century variety. And the scariest part of this story — and it is scary as hell — is that King is at his crafty best, giving us the world we know, in this case sheerly mundane, a graduation party, and turning it unapologetically and irrevocably on its ear. That irrevocability, the simple fact that there’s absolutely nothing to be done, once this June afternoon goes south, is the scariest part of all.

The other stories are good, too. As a cat person, especially one who lives with a cat who has a personality disorder of some sort, a disorder that leads my sister to refer to my little gray roommate as “Satan” with some regularity, I particularly enjoyed “The Cat from Hell” as well….

Book #11 (2009)

Charlaine Harris’s second entry in the Southern Vampire Mysteries series, which features Sookie traveling to Dallas to work with and for the vampires there. Sookie has been to Dallas before, when her high school class took a senior trip to Six Flags, but she’s never been anywhere by plane, so her flight from Baton Rouge to Dallas is a new experience for her.

Sookie and Bill go to Dallas because Sookie’s gift (as she’s more and more coming to think of it) of telepathy is needed, by the vampires there. One of their number has gone missing, and they suspect, rightly, that the Fellowship of the Sun — an anti-vampire, quasi-religious group — has kidnapped him and plans to have “meet the sun” in a media circus on a Sunday morning. This group of extremist humans has been aided by a vampire who will also meet the sun out of regret and remorse for what he has done as a vampire.

The intrigue continues from there, with the Fellowship capturing Sookie herself, and the remorseful vampire, Godfrey, helping her escape. She is also aided by a Dallas-based group of shapeshifters, including a couple of honest-to-goodness werewolves.

This novel continues to explore the themes of intolerance — the range of human prejudice — as it looks at what out-of-the-coffin and mainstreaming vampires must face. The safe space for discussing prejudice that vampires provide, though, is brought alongside the prejudices we deal with every day in our culture: The book opens with Sookie discovering the body of her friend, Lafayette, stuffed in the back of Det. Andy Bellefleur’s car outside the bar where Sookie works as a waitress and where Lafayette, was the cook. While Sookie deals, often, with people mistrusting her telepathy and being openly prejudiced against her vampire boyfriend, Bill, this part of the story deals with the fact that Lafayette is both African-American and openly (and flamingly) gay.

It also pushes Sookie, Bill, and Bill’s vampire “boss” (they have their own power structure), Eric, into the dark secret-keeping sexually adventurous underground that exists in the rural northern Louisiana town of Bon Temps.

And strangely enough, reading Living Dead in Dallas is a good time, despite the issues it deals with, and despite the fact that I wouldn’t call the milieu of Bon Temps’s residents, particularly Sookie, good. In the words of the curse, it seems, Sookie is condemned to living in interesting times, instead. But while that may be a curse to some extent for the characters, it also makes for a fun an interesting read.