Alvah’s Books

In light of the recent news about Mr. Polanski’s arrest in Zurich, I thought I would run this review I wrote about a year ago for the Internet Review of Books:

 
Polanski: A Biography
by Christopher Sandford
387 pages
Palgrave Macmillan
$29.95

In a small and informal poll, I asked a group of writers to play a game of word association when they heard the name Roman Polanski. Although a few complimentary words were mentioned, the majority were linked, not surprisingly, to the two terrible and ugly events that occurred in Los Angeles so long ago. For many people, Polanski is the devil, no matter what they’ll find in Polanski: A Biography by Christopher Sandford, an honest and balanced account of the controversial filmmaker’s triumphs and tragedies.

There is no doubt that Polanski’s life is sometimes stranger than fiction, but readers who want the prurient details of Polanski’s tragedies or salacious gossip about his sexual peccadilloes will be disappointed that Sandford doesn’t deliver those goods.

Polanski opens at an early turning point in the filmmaker’s career: his departure from Poland to live and work in the West, specifically Paris. As he crossed the Polish border, he brought with him a print of his full-feature film, Knife in the Water, which had received mixed reviews in his native Poland—the state party secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka vividly expressed his reaction to the film by flinging an ashtray at the screen.

Whatever the Poles’ response to the film, it really wouldn’t matter. Thanks to a small import company, Kanawha, which bought the American distribution rights for the film. Knife in the Water enjoyed a cult status in arts clubs and on university campuses across the United States. But what eventually catapulted the film and Polanski to fame was its entry, by Kanawha, in the first New York Film Festival in 1963, and after a photo still of the film appeared on the cover of Time magazine. In an interview with Polanski, a New York Post writer said: “it [is] entirely possible that Polanski will be an unnaturally brilliant boy for the next thirty years until suddenly he will be decrepit. Meanwhile, what a life!”

The beauty of Polanski is it can be read out of sequence. For those who have had enough of the rehashing of the murders and the statutory rape case, these chapters can be set aside without missing a beat.

Film buffs will most likely be interested in the stories behind the camera, Polanski’s attention to detail, his obsessively numerous retakes (“Fandastic, fandastic! We go again.”), and his expertise in technical matters and overall capabilities in relation to filmmaking. As noted by the cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli, the cameraman on Sergio Leone’s The Good, Bad, and the Ugly, who also worked on Polanski’s productions of Bitter Moon and Death and the Maiden:

Polanski was absolutely the best technical director I’d known in fifty years in the job, including those old masters Malle and Fellini. They were good, but Roman was better. [Polanski] knew as much about cameras and lenses, which he could identify at a glance, as I did, and I frequently had the impression that he could have easily made the film with just himself, the three actors and maybe a wardrobe assistant.

This impression by Delli Colli is not off-base. Sandford writes that the perfectionist Polanski, when he was a student at the National Film School at Lodz, “… proved himself to be a gifted and industrious student, who came top of his year in photography exams, and second and third, respectively, in editing and sound.”

There are those who will argue that both Polanski’s achievements and tragedies are inseparable, some naming as an example the director’s version of Macbeth—his first film after Sharon Tate’s death. Sandford cites several American reviewers who make that same connection to the very violent film and Manson. However, as the author notes, the British critics reviewed the film on its own merits and not as a cathartic exercise by the director. Even Polanski observed, “When you tell the story of a guy who’s beheaded, you have to show how they cut off his head. If you don’t, it’s like telling a dirty joke and leaving out the punchline.”

There always will be unfortunate correlations between his films and the two events. Even Roy Jenson, the character actor in Chinatown, who acted opposite Polanski in his cameo commented, “Roman did it explicitly because of Sharon Tate. He wouldn’t let another actor handle a shiv if he could help it. No one else was ever going to play that part.” How true is that? Only Polanski knows. However, there is an interesting aside, which Sandford notes, in the closing credits of the film: Polanski’s role is listed as The Man with a Knife a possible wink to the audience alluding to his first film? Again, only Polanski knows.

Sandford relies on many of these tidbits from more than 200 interviews with actors, writers and other Polanski collaborators, as well as previously sealed court documents and magazine and broadcast interviews that the understandably media-shy director has granted over the years. And just as in the informal poll taken for this review, Sandford also discovered through these conversations the contrasting opinions people have of the director. Some think of him as “our greatest living director, but almost a saint in terms of his personal experience; while certain others take a notably different line, favoring words like ‘evil’ and ‘bastard’ among the even more colorful epithets.”

Polanski is not a deep psychological study of the director—that should be left to the psychoanalysts—but it does provide readers with a very comprehensive and fascinating account of a talented yet flawed man who can charm his audience as well as repel them.

Across the Endless River
By Thad Carhart
Doubleday 2009
309 pages.
$26.95

Reviewed by Randall Radic

Edgar Rice Burroughs – considered a ‘hack’ by the cognoscenti – imagined what would happen to an aristocratic infant born in Africa and raised by apes.  Burroughs went on to write a series of books – twenty-five different volumes – about Tarzan the Apeman.  So popular were the books, that Hollywood noticed and enlisted Johnny Weissmuller to play the role of Tarzan in a series of movies, which were not only entertaining but real moneymakers.  Eventually, though, Johnny got old and plump.  So Hollywood discarded his loincloth and put him in a safari outfit.  They called him Jungle Jim.

Years later, Hollywood – as is their want – decided to make a re-make of Tarzan.  This time they hired an unknown Frenchman – Christopher Lambert – to play the part of Tarzan.  Lambert was fantastic in the flick.  He was sexy, brooding, handsome in a slightly cruel way, and very, very body-con.  It was one hell of a good movie, because it explored what happens when mankind who, for the most part has opted for monoculture, lives between two cultures.  In other words, when cultural memories and cultural symbols are reshuffled, what kind of human being is produced?

The bicameral mind as envisioned by the highrolling Hollywood movie moguls.

All that just to say this:  Thad Carhart has written a new novel, which does the same thing – explores the “in-between path” of a person who lives within two cultures.  Carhart has titled his novel Across The Endless River, which is perhaps a little smarmy.  But thankfully, the novel isn’t.  For from the get-go it’s obvious that Carhart could never be labeled as a ‘hack.’  He’s a ferociously goosed up littérateur with enormous talent. 

Across The Endless River is the story of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, who actually existed.  Only not much is known about his life, especially between the years 1824 – 1829, during which he lived and traveled in Europe.  His traveling companion was none other than Duke Paul von Wurttemberg, the nephew of King Friedrich III von Wurttemberg. 

Jean-Baptiste commands interest because of who he was – the son of Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau, who were the translators for Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition in 1805.  Massaged by two vastly divergent cultures – the Mandan-Hidatsa Indian Villages of North Dakota and the genteel world of St. Louis – Jean-Baptiste grew up to be a person at once noun and verb.  Which means he was not only a fascinating character of rich complexity, but he struggled with the basic human problem of context.  Who was he?  And what did he want to do with his life? 

That’s the story that Thad Carhart digs into.  He takes the human progeny of the Lewis and Clark Expedition – for Jean-Baptiste was born in the midst of the expedition – and sends him on a personal expedition, the expedition called Life. 

It’s a beautiful tale, wonderfully wrought.  Carhart plunges the reader into a slo-mo atomic hurricane of human passions and the age-old conundrum of ‘what gives meaning to one’s life?’  The tale glitters with beautiful women – a Princess and a feisty Irish lass – and with adventure, as Jean-Baptiste ranges from one continent to another, discovering his destiny.

On the Read-o-Meter, which ranges from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best Across The Endless River scores an unquestionable 5.  For this is a book shot through with a myriad of scintillating points of luminescence.  It’s a wonderment.

I’m happy to announce that Randall Radic, author of Gone to Hell: True Crime s of America’s Clergy, A Priest in Hell: Gangs, Murderers and Snitching in a California Jail, has been promoted to senior editor at Alvah’s Books.

We look forward to Randy’s future reviews and commentaries.

Randall Radic Alvah's Books' new smoking senior editor

And the Devil Laughed
By Carole Sutton
New Generation Publishing 2009
238 pages
$12.99

Reviewed by Randall Radic

In a sense, Carole Sutton – who is the author of the book under discussion – is a little like Jesus.  During his First Advent, Jesus wandered around preaching a message of salvation.  Whereas Carole – in her delightful first novel, Ferryman – preached a message powerful enough to convert this reviewer, who found crime-fiction distinctively boring, to the pleasures provided by a rollicking ‘who-dunnit.’  Furthermore, according to some, Jesus will return at the Second Advent and kick Satan’s butt.  Taking a cue from Jesus, Carole decided to make a second appearance too.  She’s back with another bang-up ‘who-dunnit.’  This one’s called And the Devil Laughed.  And just like Jesus, it kicks ass.
           
The plot of the story goes like this:  Hannah Ford is a policewoman trying to make a comeback from an emotional double whammy – the recent death of her husband and her own traumatic experience as a rape victim.  She takes a job as an undercover cop in a small town, which, so the rumor goes is little more than a depot for drug smugglers.  Hannah’s job is to determine if the rumors are true.  When Hannah arrives at the town, drug smugglers are old history.  No one cares about that anymore.  What’s worrying them now is the rape and brutal murder of a local barmaid.  It’s this intersection of hysterical trends that sends the story rocketing off with reckless dynamism.

When it comes to telling a story, Carole Sutton is the Mistress of Mechanical Advantage.  For she knows just how to do it.  She winds the story tight, then lets out a little slack so the reader thinks this might be a good time to take a breath.  Just as the reader opens his mouth to inhale, she pulls the line even tighter, almost garroting the hapless reader with breathless excitement.  And the Devil Laughed is the textbook example of the raw power of superb storytelling, which is a talent that can’t be taught or bought.  It’s a knack.  Either a writer has it or not.  Carole Sutton has it!
        
Some novelists, of course, can tell a story, but where they come up short is in their dialogue.  In other words, when the story’s characters speak, they don’t sound like real people.  Instead, they sound like no-talent actors in a really bad horror flick, which was written and directed by some haberdasher from New Jersey, who got the job because his brother-in-law put up the money for the flick.  It’s called ‘cultural dislocation.’  Which means the author has no ear for conversational idiosyncrasies.  This literary disease is usually brought on by proximity.  Proximity narrows perspective.
 
Hooray!  Carole Sutton does not have the dreaded dialogue disease.  She has DESH, instead.  DESH is a musical term – diatonic elaboration of static harmony, also known as the major chord accompanied – appropriately – with a descending bassline.  Which means her dialogue is life-affirming.  Which is a fancy way of saying that when her characters speak, their speech patterns sound right.  There is texture and streamlined organicism.  Which means harmony in the conversational universe.  And that translates into happy readers.

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best And the Devil Laughed hit a factor five on the Read-o-Meter.  Even if, like the reviewer, you think ‘who-dunnits’ function best as paperweights, do yourself a favor and read this book.  Perhaps you, too, will have a religious conversion.

[Editor's Note: This review was written for the September/October issue of ForeWord Magazine]

When Autumn Leaves: A Novel 
by Amy Foster
Overlook TP
304 pages
$14.95

When Autumn Leaves, the title of Amy Foster’s debut novel, refers not to Johnny Mercer’s song of lost love, but to the gentle and wise witch Autumn Avening, who has been notified of a promotion and has to select her successor from a list of thirteen names. It’s no easy task, for each person on that list holds a special power, which may or may not benefit the town. Autumn decides to hold a contest for an apprentice and choose her disciple.

This is the first book in a series about the town of Avening and its magical inhabitants. Foster introduces the main characters that readers can assume will be making their appearances in subsequent books with an expanded storyline. Each one has a whimsical quality that might be seen as personality quirks or traits in mere mortals; these qualities bring a unique twist to Foster’s story about the splendor and wonder of everyday life.

To read the rest of the review, please visit ForeWord Magazine

…well, now you can. Alvah’s Books has become an Amazon affiliate. You’ll notice that the last two titles reviewed by Randalk Radic are hyperlinked (I would have linked the book’s covers, but somehow WordPress is not cooperating). 

If you click on the title, it will take you directly to Amazon where you can read other reviews and buy the book. Hopefully, Randy’s or my reviews will have swayed you to purchase any of the books reviewed on Alvah’s Books.

Street Legends
By Seth Ferranti
Gorilla Convict Publications 2008
347 pages
$15.00

Reviewed by Randall Radic 

A few years ago, Alice K. Turner wrote a book entitled The History of Hell.  The book traces the idea of hell throughout history.  In like manner, Jeffrey Burton Russell wrote The Devil:  Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity.  His book traces the idea of the Devil in a period of history.  Turner and Burton are highly educated, erudite, and talented.  They write about abstract ideas.

There’s another writer, who wrote a book combining the subjects of Turner’s book and Burton’s book.  His name is Seth Ferranti aka “Soul Man.”  He, too, is erudite and talented – only in a different kind of way.  Seth has been incarcerated in the “feds,” which is the federal prison system since 1993.  If everything goes smoothly, he will be released in 2015. 

In his book, Street Legends, Seth writes about the same subjects as Turner and Burton, hell and the Devil.  Only Seth doesn’t write about ideas, he writes about reality.  There is a hell on earth.  It’s called a supermax prison.  And it’s where they keep the Devil.  Only in this case, there’s more than one Devil – there’s six.  The names of the Devils are:  Kenneth ‘Supreme’ McGriff, Wayne ‘Silk’ Perry, Anthony James, Aaron Jones, Peter ‘Pistol Pete’ Rollack, and George ‘Boy George’ Rivera.  And they make the Biblical Devil look like a three-year-old toddler at a Sunday school picnic.

Seth ‘Soul Man’ Ferranti tells the actual story of each man.  The stories twirl around cocaine and heroin, oodles and oodles of money, plump cars, and bling bling.  Unfortunately, in each case, the merry-go-round of fun turns into a Tilt-a-Whirl of violence and murder as the street hustlers ride the streets.  In the end, each of the six Devils is imprisoned in hell on earth for life.

 Ferranti’s style is raw and edgy, full of street slang and prison jargon, which is fascinating to read.  What really keeps the book moving – and the reader engaged – is Ferranti’s talent for storytelling.  As he relates the story, Ferranti seems to be idolizing the lifestyles and actions of these street stars.  And in a sense, he is, but only because he’s showing the reader how members of certain socio-economic groups look at these men.  To these people, these men are legends.  They are street stars, because they’re “living the life.”

Then, though, as each man’s life spirals into a black hole from which there is no return, Ferranti politely acknowledges the utter folly of such a lifestyle.  He shows each man for the fraud and charlatan he was.  Oh, Ferranti respects their code of omerta (silence), and the fact that they were willing to go to prison for it.  Yet Ferranti implies that only totally immoral individuals operate on a pseudo-moral system founded on omerta or silence.  Only corrupt people worry about someone snitching on them.  And anyone who knows enough to snitch about such people has, at the very least, been dabbling in corruption. 

At the same time, Ferranti does not pretend that the agents of justice – the authorities – are impeccable angelic beings, who always play by the rules.  In Street Legends, carrying a badge does not guarantee a squeaky-clean character.  Ferranti points out that the authorities sometimes stack the deck when it serves their purposes.  In other words, this is not a story about good guys and bad guys.  It’s a story about waste.  This does not, however, dilute the moral of Ferranti’s book.

The moral of the story is that “living the life”, if that life is based on drugs and murder, is nothing more than a fleeting mirage.  When the mirage disappears, all that’s left is a sign that reads “Welcome To Hell.” 

Street Legends is the story of the cry of utter desolation coming from those now residing in that hell.

One of my favorite writers passed away. What a morose way to greet the morning.  Below is a portion of The New York Times  obit:

Jim Carroll, Poet and Punk Rocker Who Wrote ‘The Basketball Diaries’, Dies at 60

By William Grimes