Movie Review: Savages

Gators are pretty savage.
But so is Benicio Del Toro.

I don’t usually review movies here, but since I read the book the movie is based on, I’m gonna go for it.  

Oliver Stone’s movie is based on Don Winslow’s book.  The book is about Ben and Chon, two twenty-something friends who grow the best pot in the world and run their empire from a SoCal beach house.  They share a girlfriend, named Ophelia (“O” for short), who is a stoned beach bunny/trust fund girl.  When a Mexican drug cartel wants in on Ben and Chon’s operation, Ben and Chon refuse.  To help them reconsider, the cartel kidnaps O.  Instead of knuckling under, Ben and Chon decide to take action and get her back.  The book follows the dangerous and disastrous consequences of that decision. 

Winslow’s style is fast-paced, humorous, and gritty.  The book has the best first chapter in the history of literature.  (I’m not kidding.  Pick it up and read just the first page.  It’s a fast read, I promise.)  The storytelling is accomplished through straight narration as well as script dialogue, complete with stage directions.  The breezy style keeps things moving, and as the reader, I turned pages quickly to find out what happened next.  This isn’t to say the book didn’t have serious problems.  It does.  And those same problems nearly sink the movie. 

First, a bit about the movie.  It follows the book pretty closely, for the most part, which is likely due to Winslow having a screenwriting credit.  Ben is played by Aaron Johnson (I have no idea who this person is), Chon is played by Taylor Kitsch (I have no idea who this person is, either), and O is played by Blake Lively (I am an avid Gossip Girl fan, so at least I know who she is).  The head of the Mexican cartel is Elena “La Reina,” played by Salma Hayek.  Elena’s right hand hit man, Lado, is played by Benicio Del Toro.  John Travolta lends a hand as a corrupt government agent who plays both sides.  With a cast like this, you should immediately notice two things:  the main characters do not have one-tenth of the acting chops of the supporting cast.  I am not sure if this was done on purpose or it just happened that way.  It mirrors a serious problem in the book, however.

Problem the First:  None of the three main characters are interesting, unique, or likable. 

In the book, Ben is a wimp.  He’s smart enough to grow the world’s best pot using his UC Berkeley education, but he’s not smart enough to hand over his operation to the cartel, cash out, and enjoy a work-free life for the next sixty years.  The cartel beheads people with axes and knives and chainsaws and whatever other garden tools they can find.  A sheltered California beach bum isn’t smart enough to cut and run at the sight of this?  Are you kidding me?  There better be some pretty good motivation behind his decision.  And guess what?  There isn’t.  This guy makes no sense.  He shows no spine and no development.   

Chon is also a pretty flat, undeveloped character.  He is an emotionally scarred war veteran after several tours in the Middle East.  This, at least, is a reason for his strong, silent characterization.  He likes beating people up, doing it with Ophelia, getting high, and not much else.  This will never change.  He never changes throughout the course of the book or the movie.  At least he has a good reason. 

Ophelia is one of the lamest, most annoying female characters I’ve read in years.  She does absolutely nothing and adds absolutely nothing.  She is vacant and empty.  There is no personality there.  I think we’re supposed to feel sorry for her because she is somewhat the product of a shitty childhood—rich mother, several stepfathers, no one to care about her having sex too young or smoking pot since the 8^th grade.  Boo hoo.  Even so, she has no goals or ambition.  She goes shopping.  That’s it.  I have no idea why either Ben or Chon actually likes having her around, other than the fact that she lets both of them do it with her at the same time.  (There’s a gross three-way scene in the book that is begun but mercifully cut short in the movie.)         

All of these flaws are replicated in the movie.  Ben is flat, lame, and uninteresting.  Chon is flat, but moderately interesting since he knows how to blow shit up.  Ophelia is a black hole, a swirling vortex of nothing that still seems to suck in everything around her, including Oliver Stone.  Stone chose to make Ophelia the narrator of the movie, and seems obsessed with Blake Lively.  There are tons of close-ups of her eyes, her skin, her teeth, her fake butterfly tattoos.  She’s beautiful, yes.  She fits the role incredibly well, which may or may not be a compliment.  Is telling someone they’re a perfect zombie a compliment?  The voice-over narration is dull and dead-eyed and the movie would have been better without it.  Still, Lively wasn’t given anything to work with, so I can’t really say she did a bad job.  She did a great job, but zero times zero is still zero.

Problem the Second:  The supporting cast steals the show.

Maybe this isn’t actually a problem, since the moviegoer is sitting in her seat thinking, Thank goodness someone here is doing their job.

The guy who plays Ben is flat.  Stone substitutes close-ups of his pale, pretty eyes for acting.  When things 

get intense, he goes blank.  The guy who plays Chon is marginally better, thanks to an outburst where he stabs John Travolta in the hand.  He’s going for “still waters run deep,” and he might actually pull it off.  Blake Lively is…well…Blake Lively.  She’s a one-trick pony, and that’s all that’s required here.  I doubt anyone could save this character, so might as well let Lively have it. 

But all anyone really wants to see is Salma Hayek and Benicio Del Toro.  These two really fuck some shit up, in the best possible way.  Salma Hayek’s Elena is bitchy, controlling, yet vulnerable.  She wears a jet-black blunt-banged wig throughout the movie, symbolizing her need for utter control.  Every hair is always in place, except for the scene when she learns that her beloved daughter has been put in danger.  Then, in a powerful moment, she rips off the wig as she sinks to the floor, sobbing.  Everything you need to know about this character is contained in that moment, in the best possible way. 

Benico Del Toro is creep-master supreme.  I’m not sure if he’s just a creepy guy in real life, but he plays a stone-cold killer like he IS a stone-cold killer.  There’s no hesitation, no regret, no guilt.  He goes for it. Shooting punk-ass lawyers in the kneecaps?  Check.  Shooting henchmen who hesitate to murder helpless women?  Check.  Bullwhipping a traitor’s face until his eyeball comes out?  Check.  Yeah, he’s that kind of hit man.  Now here’s a lesson in acting for the guy who plays Ben.  Benicio del Toro doesn’t need all kinds of facial contortions to express emotion.  His character undergoes fear and anger and happiness, and you’re completely aware of what he’s feeling though a few very small facial gestures and body positioning.  He gets it exactly right, every time, without resorting to Jack Nicholson grins or Tarantino-style theatrics.          

*SPOILER ALERT:  DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE*

Problem the Third:  The super-sappy Hollywood ending the un-does the real ending. 

In the book, everyone dies.  It’s kind of disappointing since you’ve just spent 200 pages trying to muster up the enthusiasm to like them, and then they’re killed.  But it’s also fitting since these aimless losers drifted through life…let them drift into death, too, with the same kind of bored, unthinking abandon.        

In the movie, everyone dies, too.  Oh, wait, but then they don’t.  Ophelia’s drugged-out voiceover tells us that it might not have actually happened that way.  I’m instantly reminded of Clue, where they show you two “maybe” endings and then a real one where everyone committed one of the murders.  The movie backs up a few minutes, to before the death-carnage goes down, and it’s all re-done with the cavalry coming in to save the day, all the bad guys getting punished, and all the good guys living happily ever after.  Are you freaking kidding me?  This gang of losers takes down the Mexican cartel?  And they’re rewarded for their lame aimlessness with a tax-free life in Africa or Indonesia somewhere? 

I don’t know if Universal executives forced Stone to produce a happy ending for their big summer blockbuster, or if someone couldn’t bear to see Blake Lively bite the big one, or if Stone just wanted to give a big middle finger to the audience.  Whatever the reason, it was a stupid move and pretty much destroys any integrity the storyline might have had.  At least when the characters die, we’re presented with a lesson:  Try to get something for nothing, and you will die.  If you don’t care enough about yourself to even try to survive, you will die.  The California consumer lifestyle creates people of such unutterable aimlessness and vapidity that they can only die without producing anything of real value in life. See, death works as the outcome of all these ideas.  What does not work is letting them off scot-free, not a scratch, to live happily ever after.

Oh, well.  You win some, you lose some.  Savages is beautiful to watch, electrifying when the minor characters are on screen, but it has no soul.     

Mark Wahlberg Has Ted, but I Have Mr. Tudball

Me and Mr. Tudball today

Okay, so I saw the movie Ted today...and in honor of teddy bears everywhere, I decided to write a few words about mine.  (I promise this relates to writing.)

As you can see, Mr. Tudball is a little bit worse for wear.  I've had this bear as long as I can remember, which makes him nearly 35 years old.  I'm pretty sure I wasn't even the one to name him--how would a baby have come up with the name of the boss on the Carol Burnett show?  I don't even remember watching the Carol Burnett show.

What I do remember is taking him absolutely everywhere.  One time, my mom wanted to go to Kmart, and I wouldn't leave Mr. Tudball in the car.  I took him into the store, which resulted in us having to go all the way to the customer service counter in the back of the store so someone could wrap poor Mr. Tudball in this ugly yellow tape so the employees would know I hadn't stolen him.  I'm eternally grateful to my mom, who stood patiently and waited while all of this went on.  

As the years went by, Mr. Tudball sat in my room more than he accompanied me.  But he always held a place of honor among the other stuffed animals I acquired.  As you can see by his photo, at some point, I tried to use my Tinkerbell peel-off nail polish on him, as well as some crappy Tinkerbell lipstick.  (Do you guys remember Tinkerbell cosmetics?)  I sort of wish I hadn't done that, but then again, he's still alive to tell the tale, so no great harm was done.

1980:  Yep, me and Tudball were inseparable

Now, this adorable guy sits in my writing room and watches me while I work.  He sits very calmly, with one movable arm outstretched, and watches me write terrible sentences.  He watches me write awesome sentences.  He watches me delete and re-read and delete again.  He watches me get frustrated and cry and wonder why on earth I'm doing this.  Some days, he watches me slam the laptop shut in disgust at my inability to write something that an agent might actually want to read.  But no matter how my day goes, he's always there, waving at me.  It's weird, but it definitely makes me feel better about things.  No matter how badly I mess up, Mr. Tudball believes in me.

Circa 1981

In fact, one could make the argument that Mr. Tudball does the most important job of all--he reminds me that it doesn't matter how many agents reject my work.  He reminds that I'm writing for him.  My original audience.  Which is to say, people who like the same things I do.  If, some days, it seems like there aren't that many of us out there, it doesn't matter.  At the end of the day, Mr. Tudball still wants me to write something for him.  And I still want to write something for Mr. Tudball.


Some people might think it's a bit ridiculous for a 35-year-old person to use a teddy bear as a motivational tool.  (My husband springs to mind here.)  But anyone who's ever tried writing and then submitted that writing to an agent or a journal knows that some days, you'll take inspiration wherever you can find it.  Some days, I feel like Mr. Tudball is all I have...and all I'll ever have.  But other days, he has a few fellow fans in his corner who gather together to cheer me on.  On the days that are awesome and the days that are not, he's always there, in my writing room, wondering what I'll come up with next.

1982:  Still inseparable

Cheers to you, Mr. Tudball.

Book Review: The Preacher by Camilla Lackberg

Okay, so I finished this one last night.  If you read my previous post, you know I was worried about this one.  Here's how it shook down:

The verdict:  I can see why Lackberg sells books.  I just can't see why she gets the glowing reviews from people and institutions that should be a little more conscientious in pointing out some truly major flaws going on here.

What I liked:
The plot.  It kept me interested enough to finish the book, despite my major annoyance with the things I didn't like, listed below.  This says a lot for Lackberg's ability to dream up a scenario that sticks with you.

I figured out *why* the murders/kidnappings were happening about 100 or 150 pages into the book.  (I was actually a little disappointed when I got to the end and found out I was right...I was hoping Lackberg had something trickier up her sleeve.)  However, I didn't know who the exact murderer was, so there was plenty of suspense remaining as I finished the 400+ page book.

What I didn't like:
The writing.  It never got better.  The adverbs stuck around, there were awkward phrases, there were missing commas, and sentences that just didn't flow well.  I ground my teeth and pressed on, but it irritated me.  A lot.  Here's an example of a classic Lackberg sentence introducing a new character:  "Stig Thulin, normally sporting a toothy grin, now had a worried frown furrowing his noble brow."  Adjectives and adverbs aren't more effective when they appear in number.  They're just a sign of sloppy writing.

For those of us trying to get published, we read agent and publisher blogs, and their first words of advice are to proofread, proofread, proofread, and be sure that your writing mechanics are solid.  Then we see the kind of sloppy writing in this book, with #1 International Bestseller slapped across the top of the book.  What kind of message does that send?  Apparently good writing skills aren't that important...but being part of a trendy literary movement is.

The dialogue.  It's stilted, and sometimes it doesn't read any differently than the narration.  It reminds me of the gist of an Elmore Leonard saying:  If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.  This should count double for dialogue.  Here's an example of the clunky dialogue.  The police are questioning a character, Solveig, and the character responds angrily:  "Then his brother came along and began hovering about, and that was something completely different.  Those hands of his could be all over you at once.  He made me burn with lust just by looking at me."  Let's be honest.  Are those words ever spoken out loud?  Does anyone actually say "burn with lust"?     

The characters.  I didn't find any of them sympathetic, except for the father and parents of two of the missing girls (and these are ancillary characters at best). They're all kind of dim or mean or short-sighted.  That's not necessarily a kiss of death.  The book takes place in a very small town, with characters who don't have a lot of exposure to other people or viewpoints.  It's entirely possible this town is populated with some pretty dull crayons.  But it doesn't make for the most enjoyable of reads.  None of them were good enough to root for, and none of them were evil enough to where I could love to hate them.

The main character, Patrik, had his moments, but he seemed far too suggestible.  Near the end of the book, the police station receptionist tells him he hasn't been paying enough attention to his pregnant wife, and he instantly takes her advice to go home early and feels super-guilty from that moment on.  Is a guy perceptive enough to solve major crimes really this dim about his personal life?  I'm not sure I buy it.  

The other main character, Erica, was sidelined by being heavily pregnant throughout the book.  (She had a much more active role in the previous book, The Ice Princess.)  In this book, however, she came across as bitchy and cranky.  I have never been eight months pregnant during a hot summer, though, so maybe I'm being too hard on the character.  What I do know is that the character's misery often came by being too passive.

The quick-jump method of cutting between scenes.  The scenes here are short--sometimes only a page.  On one hand, it's good that Lackberg doesn't linger and let readers get bored.  On the other hand, in a book 419 pages long, it represents a crapload of setting and character switches for the reader to process.  It gets old.

The fact that neither the author nor publisher included a list of characters or family tree in the beginning of the book.  I was almost constantly confused as to who was who's son, cousin, aunt, grandfather, etc.  When I was still confused halfway through the book, I sort of gave up trying to actively understand and just let the names wash over me.  And this is coming from a history major and genealogy enthusiast--I'm used to keeping enormous family trees in my head.  Would it have killed the publishers to go back and add a one-page family tree in the beginning?  They did it for Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The pointless flashbacks.  We're taken back to 1979 in a series of flashbacks from the victims' point of view.  We learn nothing useful.  There's no reason for these flashbacks to be here.  Their sole purpose seems to be to break up the action and perhaps to generate a sense of sympathy for the victims.  But come on...they're murder victims.  They already have my sympathy.  In an indirect way, perhaps they're meant to show how horrific these crimes really are.  But there are better ways to do this using the reactions of the detectives as they piece the crime together.  Another example of something sloppy that probably should have been edited out, or made more useful.

The fact that Lackberg hides facts from the reader to prolong the suspense.  This is a biggie.  A no-no.  One of the dirty tricks that writers can resort to, but shouldn't.

For example, a character named Stefan is beat up in the course of the book.  We are not told who does the beating up.  The attacker makes demands of Stefan and tells him to do certain things.  We are not told what they are or who makes the demands, although clearly Stefan knows.  ("But when he was turned round so that he stood eye to eye with the person who had attacked him, all the bits fell into place.")  Why are we even taken to this scene in the first place if we're not to be told any of the key facts that are revealed here?  If knowing who the attacker is would spoil everything, why even show us Stefan getting beaten up?  Why not just have us find out when the other characters do?  This only makes the reader mad.  Had we known who the assailant was, we would have had a major clue as to the murderer's identity.  

This happens frequently.  Characters are frequently getting phone calls that provide key information in the plot, but the reader is left out of the conversation.  For example, Patrik takes a call at the station:  "With trepidation he steeled himself to listen to what the lab had to say.  Maybe they would finally have the piece of the puzzle they were looking for.  But never in Patrik's wildest imagination could he have predicted what he heard next."  We don't find out what the lab said.  The characters know, but the reader doesn't.  This doesn't strike me as fair.  Yes, it prolongs the suspense, but a bit artificially.  Once again, we would have had a major clue as to the murderer's identity, but Lackberg withholds this information.

The result:
It's weird.  I'm kind of at a loss here.  I get why people read these books--obviously I plowed through on the strength of the plot alone.  But because of all these other irritations, I'm not planning on reading any more Lackberg.  On the back of the book, some of the words of praise from her blurbs use words like "haunting," "skillful," "masterful," "perfect," and "keen understanding."  I'm shaking my head and thinking, really?  The U.S. has far more talented writers than this, ones who deserve this type of praise.  But maybe Nordic noir as a genre is so hot that publishers and even reviewers can overlook things that aren't overlooked for the rest of us?

Nordic Noir: Camilla Lackberg's The Preacher--I'm Worried, You Guys

Nordic noir, here we go!


In terms of ancestry and heritage, I'm half Swedish.  I don't speak Swedish, and I haven't yet been to Sweden, but I do know a bit about the culture and the darkness and the silence often portrayed as natural to Swedes.  Since "Nordic noir" is the latest trend in mystery/thrillers, I'm taking a sampling and sharing my thoughts here.


I'm beginning with Camilla Lackberg.  I started "The Preacher" two nights ago, and let me tell you, folks, I'm worried.   


Let's start with the good:
*The plot is intriguing.  I'm sucked in almost against my will.  I do want to find out what happens next.  I'm only 90 pages in, but so far, there's a current murder that ties in with two decades-old murders.  A sleepy small-town police department without much murder-solving experience is responsible for figuring out whodunit, so it's not like watching a crime show where the slick characters toss around lingo for the sake of looking like they know what they're doing.  These cops are regular people, and as such, easy to relate to in their befuddlement and horror at the crime.

*There's a creepy cast of characters, most of whom do seem capable of murder.  This makes for lots of suspects and lots of "hmmm...is it her?" moments.

*The details of Swedish life are interesting.  For example, to please a vacationing family with picky eaters, one of the main characters makes macaroni and Falun sausage au gratin.  I have no idea what Falun sausage is, so I looked it up.  I wondered if it's the same sausage my family makes and serves each Christmas.  These kinds of details might not interest someone without Swedish ancestry, but they're fun for me, so I'm chalking it up in the plus column.

Here's what's not so good:
*The writing itself.  It's really, really, really bad.  I don't know if this is a translation problem, or if Lackberg is this poor a stylist.  The paragraph-long bio tells us that she was working as an economist in Stockholm until a creative writing class changed the course of her life.  Okay, so this explains the poor style on her part, but what about editing?  What about revising?  Let me give you some examples:

An insistent ringing of her doorbell interrupted Erica as she was laboriously running the vacuum cleaner over the carpets.  Sweat was copiously pouring out of her, and she pushed back a couple of wet strands of hair from her face before she opened the door.  They must have driven like joyriders to arrive that fast.

I'm not a fan of the adverbs, which are EVERYWHERE in this book.  I'm not a fan of the passive voice, which is EVERYWHERE in this book.  It's grating, and I can't help but think that any American writer who submitted writing like this would be told to go back to her desk and revise and polish until the manuscript was in a bit better shape.  

*The quick jumps from scene to scene. Prepare to be confused.  The book progresses in quick scenes, no more than a few pages at a time.  Then there's a hunk of white space, and you're catapulted into another character's thoughts.  Which one?  Sometimes you don't know for a good paragraph.  And since there are lots of characters, it can sometimes be a struggle to re-orient yourself every few pages.  The book tests your determination and the author tests your goodwill with this strategy.

*Some of the characters are annoying.  Actually, lots of the characters are annoying.  One of the main characters, Erica, takes the cake.  She is whiny and passive.  Granted, she is pregnant and allowed to be a little grouchy.  And Swedes can be very passive.  But behind that passivity and silence, there is usually a deep strength of will and conviction in keeping silent to solve one's own problems in one's own time.  (Think Stieg Larsson's Vanger family in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.)  So far, I'm not seeing that in Erica.  Most of the characters are unsympathetic, which makes the rare sympathetic character stand out all the more.  A murdered girl's widowed father stands out as one of these.  It's not that he's angelic, it's just that he's not rude, whiny, passive aggressive, full of himself, or just generally dim.

*You need a cheat sheet to keep the characters straight.  There are the police officers and their families.  There are the dead women and their flashbacks and their surviving family members.  There are the suspects and their three generations to keep straight.  You have to either read very slowly, or break down and make a cheat sheet.  So far, I'm just reading slowly.

Okay, so that's my feeling based on the first 90 pages.  I'm going to slog through and see if the pluses or minuses win out in the end.  Will the interesting plot save the bad writing and sloppy style?  We'll find out.

In case you're interested in Lackberg or The Preacher, here's the Washington Post's review of this book.  What do you think?

Have you read Lackberg or any other Nordic noir authors?

New eBook: The Romanov Legacy

My third eBook, The Romanov Legacy, is now live at Amazon!

I might be biased, but can I just say that I love this book so much?  I  didn't ever want to let go of these characters and these settings.  In fact, I still don't.

If you're a fan of Dan Brown, you'll enjoy the globe-trotting suspense.

If you're a fan of Olen Steinhauer, Robert Ludlum, John le Carré, or Eric Van Lustbader, you'll enjoy the nifty Russian spies.

If you're a fan of female-driven suspense novels with more psychological goings-on than Girl, Interrupted, you'll enjoy meeting Natalie, the heroine.

If you're a history buff, you'll love the details about the Romanovs, their murder, the flight of Russian emigres through China, and the bit of speculative history I throw in at the end that might make England's Queen Mary turn over in her grave.

And if you've ever done something crazy because you love your family so much you'd die for them, you'll understand why the two sisters do some crazy things to protect each other.

Really, with all this going on, you're totally getting your .99 worth.

Here's what it's about:

A family murdered in the dead of night.  A treasure lost in the throes of revolution.  A ninety-year quest that Lenin, Stalin, and the entire Soviet war chest couldn't solve.  One woman holds the key to it all:  the missing fortune of Nicholas II, last tsar of Russia.

Natalie Brandon believes the stories--that the murdered tsar left behind a secret account intended to provide for his family in exile.  She believes them because the voice inside her head believes them.  Labeled a schizophrenic by her childhood doctors and psychiatrists, Natalie hears the voice of an angel named Belial.  Belial tells her things...things no one else could possibly know.  Natalie knows Belial is real.  She knows the tsar's account is real.  But no one believes her until a blond, blue-eyed Russian spy breaks into her apartment and kidnaps her, claiming she's the only one who can help him find it.

Together, Natalie and Constantine must find a pair of letters written by the tsar's daughters, in which the account's password is encoded.  But Russian Prime Minister Maxim Starinov also wants the letters and will do anything to get them.  The pair must outrun Starinov's lethal spetsnaz unit as they chase the letters from San Francisco to Moscow to London.  The hunt draws in Natalie's sister, Constantine's partner, and a loyal Russian family whose only mission is to preserve the tsar's legacy.

With nothing more than Belial's strange whisperings to guide them, Natalie and Constantine fight for their lives--and each other--in a race to protect the tsar's legacy from a greedy despot.


Available for Kindle via Amazon.

Using Present Tense

So, I started reading Philippa Gregory's latest, The Lady of the Rivers.  Something about the way it's written is bugging me a little.  It's in present tense.  Is it me, or is there very little point in writing a historical fiction novel in present tense?  We know these events took place in the past.  It feels a little disingenuous to think using present tense will make the past come alive.  Isn't that what good writing and research are for?

So I started wondering....what's the point of using present tense in fiction?  Is there one at all?  I'm not convinced there is.

The first book I read that used present tense was Anita Shreve's Fortune's Rocks.  This, too, was a historical.  It weirded me out at the time, but I realized the present tense did force me to slow down as I read.  Maybe this was the point.  Maybe it had nothing to do with it.  I remain unsure.

My mentor professor always discouraged the use of present tense as an MFA program affectation.  I tend to agree.  Here's the logic:  using present tense draws the reader in more deeply, creating a sense of increased intimacy and timeliness for the characters.  I'm gonna call bullshit on this one.  If you're a good writer, you can do all of this in past tense.  You do not need to warp the space/time continuum and pretend that each sentence is happening right now.  I don't think it increases intimacy.  I think it creates awkward phrasing and draws attention to itself needlessly.

Here's an example from the Gregory book:

The girl looks steadily at all of us and gives a nod of her head to each.  As she looks at me I feel a little tap-tap for my attention, as palpable as the brush of a fingertip on the nape of my neck, a whisper of magic. I wonder if standing behind her there are indeed two accompanying angels, as she claims, and it is their presence that I sense.

The prose feels clunky to me.  If I'm reading a 400+ page historical novel, chances are I'm okay with being told events happen in the past.  Chances are, I'm already interested in the personages featured in the novel.
Just for kicks, I'm going to rewrite it in past tense, below:

The girl looked steadily at all of us and gave a nod of her head to each.  As she looked at me I felt a little tap-tap for my attention, as palpable as the brush of a fingertip on the nape of my neck, a whisper of magic.  I wondered if standing behind her there were indeed two accompanying angels, as she claimed, and it was their presence that I sensed.

Overall, I'm giving the nod to the past tense.

Laura Miller, writing for Salon.com, quotes several established writers (Bill Gass, Phillip Pullman, Phillip Hensher) as being against present tense storytelling because it hints at a sort of lack of nerve, lack of confidence, or possibly aping of a literary trend.  I agree.  Miller cites Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall as a present-tense novel that works, but fails to ask the question:  wouldn't it have worked just as well in past tense, too?  It's the characterization of Cromwell that's brilliant, and characterization happens in past tense as well as present tense.

I just don't think I can be convinced that present tense adds something that would be irrevocably lost if it were taken away.  Miller cites The Hunger Games as being acceptable, if not better, in present tense in order to increase suspense.  But it's written in first person.  Um, hello?  The person telling the story needs to be alive to keep telling the story, whether it's in past or present tense.  So this doesn't work for me, either.

None of the reasons for present tense hold weight.  But I'm curious what *you guys* think.

Have any of you written in present tense?  Why did you make the decision?  Did it help the story?   Convince me!  Astound me with your brilliance!

Book Review: Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

It's been about a year since I last read one of the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries.  If you don't watch TV or read books or see magazine ads or visit movie rental stores or overhear water cooler conversation or catch the offhand reference in Psych, you might not know that this series by Charlaine Harris inspired HBO's True Blood.  The character of Eric Northman, played by Alexander Skarsgärd, is one of the dark, brooding, haunted, man-candy vampires features in both the books and the show.

Image copyright Penguin

I was first introduced to the books by a friend in Arkansas, and I devoured them.  (The first eight or so, that is.)  Before I left the state, I had the chance to hear author Charlaine Harris speak.  She is personable, funny, and entertaining.  If you have the chance to see or hear her, take it.  If you're a writer, she will encourage you.  She makes no bones about the fact that writing is hard work that sometimes (often?) feels like drudgery.  It's about getting up in the morning and getting shit done.  (My words, not hers...but I think she would agree with the sentiment.)

So here is my take on the eleventh (good Lord, read that again: eleventh) Sookie Stackhouse novel.

Sookie is still Sookie.  She cleans house when other people mess it up, she misses her deceased grandmother, she gets mad when other people butt into her business, and she has a little trouble figuring out who and what is dearest to her heart.  But there's something missing in this version of the Sook.  She seems depressed and listless.  (I'm not the only reviewer to feel this way, it seems.) During a climactic fight scene, she carries stakes in her purse but only hands one to Eric and spends the rest of the fight scene trying to hide.  What happened to the ass-kicking Sookie of previous books?  It seems as if Sookie herself is tired of living in this world.  Does this represent fatigue on Charlaine Harris's part?  My guess is yes.

Plenty of other online reviewers (check Amazon, if you're curious) have pointed out some glaring timeline and plot-point errors.  I have to say, these didn't bother me nearly as much as they did other reviewers.  Maybe this is because having read the bulk of the books in 2008/9, I simply don't remember the finer points the way some other reviewers do.  Hence, my not being bothered by even the glaring inaccuracies.  I sort of gloss over them because they matter less to me than the overall trajectory of the main characters' relationships.  This is where I had the main problem with the book.

**SPOILER ALERT**
Eric turns into an asshole in this book.  I can only guess this is because, having kept him with Sookie for a number of books, Charlaine Harris is eager to break them up and finish the series with Sookie in bed with Bill (or, as some Amazon reviewers think, with Sam.  SAM??).

The problem is that Eric's strange tenderness with Sookie is a huge part of the series' charm.  Take a big, bloodthirsty, emotionless, vicious vampire...and teach him to love a feisty blonde barmaid.  Real love, where he puts her needs before his even if he doesn't understand them at all.  Awesome!  The moments I enjoyed most were the ways Eric made it up to Sookie when vampire business ruined various items of her clothing or home.  In one of the books, he instantly replaced a brand new coat she'd gotten that was ruined.  He also re-graveled her driveway at one point.  That is not a euphemism, people.

I have a gravel driveway.
Dude, if someone re-graveled it for me, I would be THEIRS FOR LIFE.

The point here is that Eric's character is a contrast in violence and tenderness.  In this book, that goes away almost entirely.  Eric's a dick.  He's secretive, passive, self-absorbed, and cruel to Sookie.  This seems to violate most of the goodwill (and character development) Harris has spend the last six or seven books generating.  At one point, Eric calls Sookie a hypocrite and bites her against her will.  This is not the Eric readers know and love.  If Harris wants to split up Eric and Sookie because this isn't how she wants to continue (or end) the series, that's fine.  But I'd rather see it done in character.  Have Sookie be the one to kick Eric to the curb because she realizes she's in love with someone else.  Have Eric make a request of her that she simply can't fulfill.  Anything but the way the relationship just kind of ended....through neglect.

There are some moments in the book I liked.  Mr. Cataliades makes a memorable appearance.  I might be starting to like Dermot.  But if the relationships aren't true, if the motives aren't believable, I can't be taken in by the charm of random elves or demons or fairies.

Grad School Is Over...So Now What?

My two-year roller-coaster of grad school has finally come to an end.  Classes are over, and I'm in a holding pattern as I wait for my degree to post.  I'm told this could take as many as 12 weeks.  In the meantime, I'm trying to rebuild the writing momentum I had last summer.  But what does that mean?  Where do I go from here?

First things first.  Let's go out on the deck and have a drink.  Here's the view from my deck, which might explain why I'm so partial to thinking there.

I began the degree with hopes of teaching in a community college.  This still might happen, but since a multi-billion dollar California budget deficit was recently announced, I'm guessing slots will be few and far between at the few local community colleges near me.  I'll definitely apply once my degree posts, but all I can do is cross my fingers, polish my application materials, and hope for the best.

Dude, this really is a killer view.  See that pasture to the right?  Sometimes there are cows in it!  And they trot happily along, grazing in the company of one sheep and one goat.  It's true what they say.  Happy cows really do come from California.  

But seriously, in terms of writing, I've got a slough of to-do items on a list that's sat largely untouched since the semester began.  Publish next ebook?  Working on the formatting as we speak!  Publish romance manuscript that won the Daphne DuMaurier award last summer as an ebook?  Maybe.  Haven't had any luck with agents or queries for it, but truth be told, I haven't tried as hard as I might.  I'm fighting with myself on whether to go it alone here and self-publish or query some more and see what happens.

I have a pile of short stories, some needing to be sent out and some needing polishing before being sent out.  Short stories are so weird, you guys.  My creative writing professor assured me all of the things I've turned in are worthy of being published.  Yet they've all been rejected multiple times.  (Peter Ho Davies noted in an interview that he heard the average number of rejections for a short story before its acceptance is 12.  One of his stories was rejected 25 times before acceptance.)  I'm not near that number yet.  So I guess this means I need to research markets, read more journals, and submit, submit, submit.

I feel torn in several directions.  There's the literary side of me--the one that writes short stories and sends them to reputable journals.  There's the genre side of me--the one that writes thrillers and romances and dreams of mass-market publication.  There's the DIY side of me--the one that's put out two ebooks so far.  But I feel like I'm going to have to choose who I want to be....the writer I want to be.  Either that, or I'll have to start using a pseudonym for certain types of writing.

I feel like, as a writer, we are told we need to pick a market and stick with it.  Genre or literary?  Short stories or novels?  But what if I like all of them?  What if I'm able to write all of them?  Can I do it all, under my own name, without crossing some invisible boundary that the establishment doesn't want writers to transgress?

I feel a little bit like I'm walking a tightrope.  The literary journals I submit to might not want to publish me if they Googled me and see my ebooks.  But those books are just as much a part of me as the literary short stories I'm sending out.  Do I really need to submit literary fiction under a different name?  Or re-do my ebooks under a pseudonym?  I'm not sure yet.  I don't know how to be sure.

Have any of you struggled with this issue?  Do you write under your own name, or a pseudonym?  Do you write in different genres?  How do you get published in each one?  I'm all ears!

   

Book Review: Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest

Full disclosure:  I burned my thumb on a stupid plate that gets ridiculously hot when microwaved, so I'm a little grumpy at the moment.  That being said, with full apologies to Cherie Priest for reviewing her book in such a state, I will continue to self-medicate with whiskey and attempt to write this review.

Let me begin by saying that I dig books that are:  (1) about chicks; (2) about chicks that kick ass; (3) creepy; (4) about people doing sick and twisted things; and (5) about supernatural goings-on that affect all of the above.  This book pretty much satisfies all of the above.

Here's the setup:  Eden Moore is an orphan who lives with her aunt, Lulu, and her aunt's cool husband, Dave, in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  She doesn't know a heck of a lot about her family history, other than that it's twisted, multiracial, and has resulted in her seeing three female ghosts on a regular basis.

Here's the conflict:  Eden's cousin, Malachi, wants to kill her because he keeps telling her she's "him," she's "Avery."  But who is Avery?  Why can't Malachi understand that she isn't that person?  What do the rest of her family members know about her history that she doesn't?

Here's where it gets creepy:  The three ghost women Eden sees on a regular basis were murdered.  To try and trace back her family history, she visits the abandoned sanitarium her mother died--and gave birth to her--in.  (Please ignore the grammatical incorrectness of that sentence.  My thumb is throbbing and red and feels like it's being stabbed by a hundred white-hot sewing pins.)  As she learns more about her family history, she makes contact with a (very) long-lost cousin (I think?) and finds out that some members of her family have some really sinister motives for reaching out towards her.

Okay, so that's not giving too much away.  If that interested you, read the book.  Don't let my review spoil it for you--because from here on out, I'm assuming you've read the book or don't mind having some of its secrets spoken aloud.  (SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD)

What I liked:  The lean prose.  This is no-frills writing, but writing that moves smoothly and swiftly through the plot.  The heroine is no-nonsense, and so is the style--and that's as it should be.  The creepy-crawlies come from Eden's acceptance of crazy shit happening right in front of her as if it's an everyday occurrence.  If you want paragraph-long descriptions of Spanish moss dripping off of ancient trees, this isn't what you'll find here.  But you will find ghosts, villains, and violence treated no differently than cars, traffic, and poetry slams.  Off-kilter?  Yes.  Appealingly so?  Yes.

What else I liked:  The creepy elements.  Crocodiles, swamps, antebellum mansions, an African sorcerer, Tennessee forests...you're there.  You're really there.  The ghosts Eden sees feel real.  The descriptions of violence (sawing off of certain body parts) make you feel like you're watching these horrible acts happen. Eden's fear for her aunt's safety is real.  Dave, her stand-in father, is real.  There is a lot here to ground her, which is necessary because the plot goes some really weird places toward the end.  

What I didn't like:  The questions I had remaining at the end of the book.  There were lots of them.
(A few non-related questions:  why the HELL do those plates heat up so much with just a minute in the microwave?  Aren't there FDA safety regulations for stuff like this?)

(1) First of all, I could never quite grasp how all the characters fit together in Eden's genealogy.  Avery, the novel's long-lived villain, is referred to as her grandfather during the climactic fight scene at the end, but the jacket copy on the back refers to him as her great-grandfather.  He can't be her grandfather, as the text says, for various reasons--Avery's child is clearly referred to as Mirabella, but Mirabella is not Eden's mother's name (that's Leslie).  Eden's grandmother is referred to a few times, but I have no idea who that is in relation to Avery.  Either I totally missed something (entirely possible), or there's a slight glitch in the way this family tree is conveyed to the reader.  

(2)  The book of spells...who has it?  What happens to it?  Harry and Eden tear Tatie Eliza's house apart looking for an old book of spells, but don't find it.  It's never mentioned in the end of the book.  Does everyone just forget about it?

(3)  Speaking of Harry, I'm confused.  He's been undercover working for Tatie Eliza for years, trying to parse together the Avery/John Gray connection, but he doesn't bother venturing out to the Florida swamp where John Gray's followers retreated following his death until Eden suggests it, since she thinks something important happened there.  Really, Harry?  Even if you need Eden to see the ghosts and tell you what Avery's up to, you've never gone out there to check out the area for yourself?  Really?

What else I didn't like:  The rushed feel toward the end of the book.  I feel like a lot more could have been done with St. Augustine, with Gray, with Juanita, with explaining how these things all fit together.  The brisk place of the style and the plot keep us moving, true, but they also keep us rushing at times when it might benefit us to slow down for a moment.  The plot is layered and dense, and I confess that it I was scratching my head at multiple points in the book, just wondering *why* characters were doing the things they were.  They seem to accept some really weird shit without questioning it sufficiently, especially Eden.  Granted, the girl has seen ghosts for most of her existence, but still.  A screaming fit or two might not be out of place when her African sorcerer (great?) grandfather speaks to her from what she thinks is beyond the grave.  Her hallucinations in St. Augustine feels like a crucial spot in the book--it's here Eden starts seeing way more ghosts, and it's here that she and Harry piece together the Avery/John Gray storyline.  Give us a minute to catch up.  We're confused.  Maybe go over that stuff one more time for the cheap seats.

The verdict:  Definitely worth reading.  The elements are all there, they just need a little more stirring to reach that perfect blend of creepitude and explication.

The verdict about my thumb:  It's glowing red, which can't be good, but the whiskey seems to be working, which means I've stopped swearing out loud.  Cheers.

An Anthology! And I'm in It! Big Applause for Misanthrope Press

Okay, so I've been a little off the radar recently.  That will change in late May, because I'll finally be done with grad school and have way more time to focus on writing.  I cannot wait.  

But until then, I have one super-cool thing to share with everyone.  I submitted a short story called "Croatoa" to an anthology called A Rustle of Dark Leaves, to be published by Misanthrope Press.  The story was accepted (yes!!) and the anthology is now published and available.

The anthology is all about dark tales that take place in the forest.  You'll encounter things that lurk, things that creep, things that terrify.  Primeval things.  Or maybe just evil things--this is certainly true for my story.

If you're at all interested in supporting a quality small press, please consider picking up a copy of this anthology.  The link above will take you the anthology's page at the Misanthrope Press website, where you can get a feel for it.

Cover image by Misanthrope Press