Alvah’s Books

Diamond Ruby: A Novel
Joseph Wallace
Simon and Schuster
464 pages
List price: $16.00; Amazon price: $10.88

[Editor's Note: This review appeared in Dan's Papers on July 1, 2010.]

Joseph Wallace’s debut novel, Diamond Ruby, would make a terrific movie. It has all the elements: a historically interesting setting (Brooklyn in the 1920s) a savvy, talented teenage heroine and baseball. Throw in a few shady characters, the Ku Klux Klan along with Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey, and you have a blockbuster.

Wallace, an author of four non-fiction books (four on baseball), was inspired by the true story of Jackie Mitchell, a teenage girl and player for the all-male Chattanooga Lookouts in the all-male minors, who could throw a baseball hard and fast enough to strike out both Babe Ruth (four pitches) and Lou Gehrig (three pitches). What would have been a soaring career in the game came to crashing halt thanks to baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Landis banned Mitchell-and all women-on the premise that the game was “too strenuous” for them.

Taking parts of this story, Wallace created the engrossing Diamond Ruby. Set a year before the Great War, we meet Ruby Thomas and her family at a baseball game at Ebbetts Field. Ruby’s early fascination with baseball is triggered by catching one of Casey Stengel’s foul balls. She later discovers one afternoon while playing with Stengel’s ball that her extra long arms (the neighborhood kids call her ‘monkey girl’) and her strength provided her with an incredible ability to throw a speedy and hard ball.

Baseball is set aside for several years, and life goes on for Ruby and her family until tragedy strikes three times with the loss of her brother, mother and father from the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic; her sister-in-law’s untimely death in the Malbone Street train wreck; and her widowed brother’s acute depression and alcoholism. By the time she’s 14, Ruby has become the primary provider for her nieces and her brother. However, with her pitching skills and sharp eye, Ruby manages to kill squirrels and birds to feed the family, but it’s not enough.

With the idea that her arms are freakishly long, Ruby offers herself as sideshow attraction at Coney Island, but the carnival’s owner is not overly impressed until he sees her throw a ball, and from there Ruby Thomas becomes Diamond Ruby-a major draw, but also a target of thugs, and the Klan. When the sideshow’s owner unexpectedly dies, his partner, (who also dabbles in rum-running) takes over and works Ruby to the point of exhaustion. With the help of some wealthy friends, Ruby escapes and is later hired to be the pitcher for the Brooklyn Typhoons. All seems well, until she finds herself embroiled with the underworld.

Some readers might be put off by the narrative tone of the book, which comes across as more young adult. Brooklyn, New York City and baseball history buffs will appreciate how beautifully Wallace weaves fact with fiction. The true gem of Diamond Ruby, though, is getting readers who have little or no interest in baseball intrigued with the physics of pitching. Who would have thought that throwing a ball could involve so much strategy and tactics? (Obviously this reviewer has no knowledge of baseball).

Wallace expertly weaves in celebrity with bigger than life (even in real life) characters like Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, and even Judge Landis. These historical figures are scene stealers, but although they appear in fiction, Wallace justly portrays them as they actually were: Landis, the autocratic and uncompromising commissioner; Dempsey, who was generous to a fault; and Ruth who addressed everyone as “kid,” and who had a soft spot for children.

Diamond Ruby is absorbing, fast-moving, and a hard to put down story, but it’s not perfect. Dialogue at times seems a bit stilted. Ruby’s young nieces are precocious and act older than their presumed ages. Wallace also introduces characters who have key supporting roles in the story, then disappear. Readers might want more answers concerning the relationship between Ruby’s friend Helen and her beau Paul. And in the case of Ruby’s brother, Nick, his story peters out too early within the narrative.

In spite of these distractions, how can you go wrong with a story that features real life sports heroes, a pretty and smart heroine, gangsters, Coney Island, and America’s national past time? Like the Wazier of Wham, Wallace has hit it out of the park with Diamond Ruby.

The Lion
By Nelson DeMille
Grand Central Publishing
437 Pages
List Price: $27.99; Amazon Price: $15.11

[Editor's Note: Review first appeared in Dan's Papers on June 17, 2010]

Anti-Terrorist Task Force officer and former NYPD detective John Corey is back in full force in Nelson DeMille’s latest release, The Lion-a sequel to the author’s 2000 blockbuster, The Lion’s Gate. The Lion essentially picks up the storyline three years later when the Libyan assassin Asad Kahlil, otherwise known as “The Lion,” disappeared. Before vanishing into thin air, Khalil promised to return one day and kill Corey and his new bride, FBI agent Kate Mayfield.

Like all psychopathic assassins, when Khalil makes his threats, people listen. So it’s not much of a surprise when he makes his way back to the United States and is hell-bent on killing the people he missed the first time around. The reason for the first murderous spree had to do with the Libyan bombing of Qaddafi’s compound back in 1986 in which Khalil’s entire family was killed. So it’s payback time and The Lion manages to avenge his mother, brothers and sisters by murdering each of the pilots who flew on the bombing mission, but he fails at one attempt, thanks to Corey and Mayfield’s intervention. Foiled by the two ATTF agents, Khalil promises revenge sometime down the road.

The Lion is character-driven and told from two points of view-Corey’s and Khalil’s. The story opens with Corey following an Iranian diplomat to Atlantic City during a routine surveillance tracking, setting the premise that Corey is still with the ATTF. In spite of his feelings for the FBI and the CIA, he’s happily married to Mayfield and everything is business as usual in early post-9/11 New York City. What he doesn’t know is that Khalil has returned and has already made two of his first kills in California-business as usual for the vindictive Libyan, who has finally made good on getting that last bomber pilot.

The story skips along nicely, with Corey and Mayfield sharing a life of catching bad guys and dealing with Homeland Security bureaucracy along with the typical trials and tribulations of married life. Mayfield, who enjoys dangerous extracurricular activities, convinces Corey to go upstate for a relaxing weekend of sky diving. And that’s when the fun begins. It’s an activity that makes Corey a little unsure but he goes along with it to please his bride (they have a quid pro quo sexual arrangement). DeMille implies early on that something will go awry with the jump. Sure enough, that sneaky terrorist has learned of the weekend getaway and has a dramatic first strike planned for Mr. and Mrs. Corey.

Readers who like this sort of quasi James Bond action will be thrilled about how the attack is pulled off. Khalil piggy-backs on Mayfield 14,000 feet in the air and struggles to kill her while Corey watches and tries to stop the terrorist from murdering his wife. The attempt backfires, but Mayfield is critically injured with a stab wound to the neck, but with some crazy parachute maneuvering Corey gets himself and Mayfield back on the ground.

As improbable as the scene may seem, it’s fun to picture and DeMille never lets up in the pacing. Once Mayfield is in the hospital, the question is whether she’ll survive and what will Corey, known to follow the beat of his own drum, do on his own to trap Khalil and put an end to the terror.

Anyone who likes police procedurals will enjoy the interactions between the FBI, CIA, and even a former KGB agent. However, for those who tend to be politically correct, Corey’s derogatory references to people of Middle-Eastern heritage along with the constant sarcastic banter and ruminations tend to get tiring. In spite of these irksome character traits, Corey is a compassionate and very likeable character when he acts like a smart cop, coming up with ways to outsmart a wily, well-informed and organized killer. As political thrillers go, DeMille tucks in enough twists and turns to keep readers wanting to know what will happen next. Sections of the story are somewhat predictable, but overall The Lion is a fast-moving and highly entertaining cat and mouse game

Spies of the Balkans: A Novel
by Alan Furst
Random House
288 pages
List price: $26.00; Amazon price: $17.47

(Editor’s Note: Reviewed appeared in Dan’s Papers]

Alan Furst is back with a powerful new espionage thriller, Spies of the Balkans. This time he ventures out of Eastern and Central Europe and transports readers back to 1940, to the port city of Salonika in Macedonia. It’s the Balkans and there’s no shortage of intrigue or spies.

Spies of the Balkans follows Costa Zannis, an honest senior police official, who has the knack to smooth out problems before they spiral out of control. Early on in the story, Zannis gets involved in helping Emelia Krebs, a German colonel’s Jewish wife, to organize an escape route for Jews from Berlin through Greece to neutral Turkey.

When Mussolini invades Greece, Zannis is called back into the reserve army and it’s there where be he meets his Croatian counterpart, Marko Pavlic. They soon become friends and allies in transporting German Jews to safety.

However, there’s a hitch when the British learn via an informant that Zannis has choreographed all the details of the escape. Zannis is then recruited by Francis Escovil, a spy who is working under the guise of a travel writer, to retrieve a captured British scientist from France. Working with French resistance fighters, the plan goes well until Zannis kills an SS officer in Paris and from there he has to rely on his own contacts and wits to get the scientist and himself safely back to Salonika. But once the Germans goose step into the Balkans, the British lure Zannis back to their corner.

Furst includes two subplots; a suspicious Gestapo officer who notices that his list of deportees have disappeared and who all seem to share a friendship with Emelia Krebs; and a love interest for Zannis, who coincidentally was a childhood neighbor and is now the wife of a wealthy Greek businessman who finances the Jewish escape operation.

One of the many pleasures of reading Furst’s novels is his talent of sending the reader to a distant time and place. He captures the essence of cities and their locales, whether it is a Parisian brasserie where one can almost smell and taste the choucroute served, or a dark, dank bar in Budapest where one can inhale the strong cigarette smoke. He elegantly writes of lively parties where everyone is not above suspicion, but he also writes of mundane, everyday events:

“Emilia carried a thermos of real coffee, hard to find these days, and a bag of freshly baked rolls, made with white flour. Stepping inside, she found the Gruen living room almost barren, what with much of the furniture sold. On the walls, posters had been tacked up to cover the spaces where expensive painting had once hung. The telephone sat on the floor, its cord unplugged from the wall-the Gestapo could listen to your conversation if the phone was plugged in. She greeted Frau Gruen, as pale and exhausted as her husband, then went to the closet in the hall and opened the door. The Gruens’ winter coats, recently bought from a used-clothing stall, were heavily worn, but acceptable. They mustn’t, she knew, look like distressed aristocracy.”

Furst expertly weaves in minor characters whose roles lead to major plot twists and turns, and for the most part, with the exception of the Nazis, many of these suspect characters manage to capture the readers’ interest and sympathy. The only weak point in the narrative is Zannis’ affair with Demetria, who is described by a former lover as the “Goddess.” The love scenes between Zannis and Demetria tend to be lackluster and slow down the urgency of the unfolding political drama in the Balkans. However, romance aside, the major player to all of Furst’s stories is history, and thankfully Furst doesn’t take artistic liberties with the facts to strengthen his story.

Spies of the Balkans is a stylish and intriguing story. For aficionados of  historical fiction, espionage thrillers, or even new readers to the genre, there’s something for everyone to keep the pages turning and  satisfied to the very end.

The Season of Second Chances: A Novel
By Diane Meier
Henry Holt and Company
304 pages
List Price: $25; Amazon Price: $16.50

[Editor's note: Review written for Dan's Papers]

If you’re in the market to remodel your home and need interior decorating ideas, Diane Meier’s The Season of Second Chances might be the book for you.

Schlubby and reserved, Columbia University English literature Professor Joy Harkness is not a happy woman. Readers learn via Joy’s narration that life in New York City and teaching at an Ivy League school has been a disappointment. When she is offered a prestigious and lucrative teaching position at Amherst College, Joy immediately accepts to be part of a group of progressive instructors who are developing an exciting new method of interdisciplinary teaching.

With her new job offer in hand, Joy sells her cramped Riverside Drive apartment, moves to western Massachusetts, and buys a rundown Victorian house that needs a major overhaul both inside and out. To help with the renovation, Joy hires Teddy Hennessy, a talented, but developmentally delayed handyman who is an expert on 19th century architecture, interior design and décor, and who later becomes Joy’s lover.

As the renovation of the house beautifully progresses, Joy also goes through her own transformation; she becomes less introverted and socializes more than she has in years, and grudgingly acknowledges the emotional benefits of friendship. However, in spite of the positive changes in her life, Joy feels on many occasions put upon by her new-found friends’ personal predicaments.

Meier wonderfully portrays Joy as woman who is an intellectual snob, but who is also angry, negative, and guarded. It’s these traits that easily put off the reader, but Meier skillfully softens Joy with humor and insight, and it’s in her moments of concern over Teddy’s potential future and his well-being that one finally warms up to Joy.

However, readers will have to suspend disbelief when it comes to the character of Teddy Hennessy, the man-child handyman who is enslaved by his widowed mother’s narcissistic needs, but who has a flair with paint, wall paper, and wiring. Teddy is an architectural genius with keen eye for detail and refined taste in décor. Yet what Teddy lacks is the maturity of a grown man, and Meier adds adolescent clichés to the character from the way he speaks to the way he dresses. Although Joy and Teddy are the primary characters, it’s the ramshackle Victorian that steals the story with it glorious renaissance. Meier lovingly illustrates Teddy’s sense of style:

He painted the little room sage green with the same creamy white paint on the trim and wainscoting that ran through the rest of the house. He hung a plain craft-paper window shade on the one long window and painted the shade’s bottom hem and irregular line of daubed-on sage green dots. An old wooden desk chair from a consignment shop was painted green … On the far side of the room sat my old bookshelves, now divided into four sections chair-rail high; Teddy had screwed them together, added a top and some moldings, and painted them the same color as the wainscoting behind them.

It’s in these descriptive scenes of home décor in which Meier truly shines, and perhaps it should come as no surprise because the author is the founder of a New York City marketing firm whose clients have included luxury icons such as Limoges China, Orrefors Crystal, and Neiman Marcus.

The heart of The Season of Second Chances is that it’s never too late to build a strong and lasting foundation among the people you’ve come to trust and love. It takes Joy several months to learn this important lesson and when she receives the symbolic whack on the side of her head, she finally grasps the need to change her attitude and that friendship has much to offer, or as she’s told, “there’s the family you’re born with and then there is the family you choose.” Good advice to take to heart-with some decorating tips.

Twelve Rooms with a View: A Novel
by Theresa Rebeca
Shaye Areheart Books
335 pages
List Price: $24.99; Amazon Price: $16.49

[Ed note: I recently started a weekly book review column in Dan's Paper's. I'll post my review here as a well.]

New York City apartment owners might recognize their neighbors, co-op board members, or even themselves in Twelve Rooms with a View, the second novel by playwright and screenwriter Theresa Rebeck, who takes a vicious, but amusing look at Manhattan’s cutthroat real estate market.

Narrated by the main character, Tina Finn, Twelve Rooms opens at a funeral where Tina and her sisters, Lucy and Alison, suddenly discover they’ve inherited from their alcoholic mother the famous 12-room Livingston Mansion Apartment (supposedly valued at $11 million) located at the historic Edgewood Building on the Upper West Side.

Tina is persuaded by her socially ambitious sister Lucy to move into the apartment to stake their claim. Soon afterwards the hapless younger sister finds herself caught in the middle of an all out real estate war between members of the co-op board who want to evict Tina, and in an acrimonious legal battle with the two sons of her mother’s second husband, Bill, who dispute the sisters’ inheritance.

Wanting to play nice and sway the co-op board members to her side, Tina befriends Len a conniving and duplicitous botanist; Vince, the flirtatious son of the co-op board president; and Jennifer, the depressed teenage daughter of one of the board members, who becomes Tina’s eyes and ears during the eviction process. In the meantime, Tina also deals with Lucy’s bossy demands on how to behave.

Rebeck’s marvelously captures the conflict and tension between Tina and Lucy, a manipulative public relations executive whose sole ambition is to sell the apartment in a down market. Tina aptly describes her unhappy sister:

She smiled grimly, as if she found it satisfactory to hear me “okay,” but she didn’t look satisfied. She looked like her suit was too tight and she wasn’t eating enough red meat and her shoes hurt. She had gray smudges under her eyes, and her hair was pulled back in a bun, which was an extremely bad look for her, and usually she knew better than to try it. Her mouth was pinched together, bitter and worried, and for the first time I saw what Vince had seen instantly under the skin of my smart, ferocious sister: an old schoolmarm in a rage because the world had overlooked her.

Even when Tina offers a solution to stop a potential lawsuit over the apartment, Rebeck skillfully conveys Lucy’s disrespect for her younger sister’s suggestion:

“Hey Lucy,” I said feeling completely awful all of a sudden. “No kidding, Lucy. Maybe we could just offer to split it with them. Even split five ways, we’ll all end up with a ton of money. Has anyone offered a split?”

“I don’t believe that’s been discussed, no,” she said, with a kind of infantile brightness that had yet another sneer behind it.

“Yeah, I guess that’s pretty stupid,” I said. “Sorry. ‘Compromise.’ What a boneheaded idea.”

“You said it, not me,” she murmured under her breath.

She left. And I decided to stop asking questions nobody had any answers for anyway and just let things happen.

Subplots abound in Twelve Rooms, and include a cast of characters like the battling brothers, Pete and Doug, who want their childhood home and harbor a secret about their mother-the apartment’s original owner; the eccentric botanist neighbor, Len, who rents out Tina’s kitchen for his moss garden and has a tumultuous relationship with his daughter Charlotte; the snobbish Mrs. Gideon who aggressively campaigns for Tina’s eviction; and the harried and put upon Hispanic doorman Frank who is hopelessly in love with the sweet and beautiful Julianna Gideon; and even a ghost gets a little playtime. The problem with all these ancillary storylines is that we’re getting them all from Tina’s limited perspective and many questions that come up, go unanswered.

Twelve Rooms with a View ultimately comes to a satisfactory, but somewhat rushed conclusion. It’s almost as if Rebeck suddenly realized or was reminded that she needed to neatly tie up the subplots and give readers closure. Although many of the events that occur are highly exaggerated, there is a very big grain of truth in New York’s vicious world of real estate. Maybe renting isn’t such a bad idea after all.

The Ashes of Innocence
By Alexandra Tesluk
Tesluk Publications 2008
349 pages
$21.95

Reviewed by Randall Radic

Written by Alexandra Tesluk, The Ashes of Innocence relates the story of a child (Alexandra), whose father vanished at the end of World War II.  Alexandra’s mother – who makes Cinderella’s stepmother look like a saint – decides that, instead of going back to the Soviet Union, where she and her family would more than likely end up in a death camp, she will take her two daughters to Canada.  Upon arriving in Canada, they are classified as DP’s (displaced persons).  Today, they would be called ‘refugees.’  Essentially, they were nobodies without any status whatsoever.  No citizenship anywhere.

Things get worse.  Alexandra’s mother marries a violent alcoholic, who gets some kind of bizarre pleasure out of abusing and torturing his stepdaughters.  Good old mom, of course, who is the textbook definition of emotional inaccessibility, looks the other way.

One thing leads to another.  After the stepfather dies, Alexandra is abandoned by her mother.  Which means more suffering and loneliness.  Eventually Alexandra marries a violent alcoholic, who uses her as a punching bag.  Alexandra bears a child, whom she gives up for adoption for obvious reasons.  And on and on it goes.

Throughout the story, Alexandra keeps searching for the father she never knew.  This quest brings focus to her life.  In the end, Alexandra goes in a different direction.  She “gets a life.”  Just like in a fairy tale, she marries a prince, becomes successful in business, and reunites with her daughter.

She never does find her father.  However, she does hook up with relatives in Poland, which is where the book ends.

The story is told in a unique way and in Alexandra’s unique voice.  Which is to say Alexandra is not a professional author.  Which means the style is somewhat dicey at times.  Yet it is this very Ronco Chop-O-Matic style that gives the book its charm, the charm of a real story as told by a real person.  This realness allows Alexandra’s personality to seep out as she conveys her story.  Which means that when the reader finishes reading the book, he feels as if he knows her.  And this accretion of knowing – as the story progresses – allows the reader to identify with Alexandra, the protagonist.  Which means the reader finds himself rooting for her.

You can’t ask for much more than that.

On the old Read-O-Meter, which ranges from 1 star (pathetic) to 5 stars (outstanding), The Ashes of Innocence rates 5 stars for readability, and 4 stars for style.  Which means 4 and a half stars.

And that ain’t too shabby.

---

[1] For a fact, most of the best memoirs seem to be penned by women.  Probably because men are too worried about what other people will think of them.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print
By Renni Browne and Dave King
Harper Paperbacks
288 pages
List Price: $13.99; Amazon Price: $10.07

At the Internet Writing Workshop’s writing list there have been several animated emails going back and forth about the best books for editing. One writer always writes about his three bibles: The Chicago Manual of Style, The Synonym Finder, and Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

Since I am a bibliophile and love all sorts of reference books, it should not as a suprise when I admit that I own all three. I actually got The Synonym Finder and its been incredible.  And I agree with this particular writer concerning Self-Editing. It’s a marvelous book, and it will help shape your fiction.

Self-Editing is divided into 12 chapters ranging from “Show and Tell” to “Voice” Each chapter has exercises and the writers have included an appendix with the answers to the exercises, as well as a reading list pf other books on writing craft.

I’ve used this book, but not as often as I should. And now that I am rethinking my novel, I have the perfect opportunity revisit these chapters. Although I’m pretty good with dialogue even I need some points to make it crisper and to convey emotion through the characters words and not describe how they are feeling. In other words, if you’ve properly set the scene that a character is astonished and says “You can’t be serious,” you can easily drop the “she said in astonishment.” For Browne and King adding this tag is lazy writing. Or as they point out:

When your dialogue is well written, describing your characters’ emotions to your readers is just as patronizing as a playwright running onto the stage and yelling at the audience. And when you explain dialogue that needs no explanation, you are writing down to your readers, a sure-fire way to turning them off. The theatergoer might or might not walk out of a theater when the playwright runs on stage; the reader who feels patronized will almost certainly close the book.

Chapter 11 focuses on how to make your writing more sophisticated by using some stylistic tricks. Browne and King give the “as and ing” construction example:

Pulling off her gloves, she turned to face him.

or

As she pulled off her gloves, she turned to face him.

Although both phrases are grammatically correct and express the action clearly and ambiguously.  They write:

Both of these constructions take a bit of action and tuck it away into a dependent clause. This tends to place some of your action at one remove from your reader, to make the actions seem incidental, unimportant. And so if you use these constructions often, you weaken your writing.

Guilty as charged!

It’s advice like this that makes Self-Editing one of the best books on the market, and a valuable one to revisit often (note to self: practice what you preach). Now for those who have finished manuscripts, get editing with Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.