Alvah's Books

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

The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square
By Ned Sublette
Lawrence Hill Books 2008/2009
360 pages
$24.95

 Reviewed by Randall Radic

The World That Made New Orleans is a masterpiece of a book.  Ned Sublette wrote it.  From the press release that the publisher sent along with the book, the following facts are ascribed to Ned:  he is the author of a previous book called Cuba and Its Music, the co-founder of a record label called Qbadisc, he co-produced a public radio program called Afropop Worldwide, and he is a singer/songwriter.

In other words, Ned is very, very talented.  Intrigued, the reviewer watched and listened to one of Ned’s music-videos on YouTube.  Ned was performing ‘Ghostriders in the Sky.’  His voice was passionate as well as vivid.

What the press release fails to disclose is the elegance of Ned’s book, which is a sugary confection akin to pink cotton-candy, light and sweet, yet carrying remarkable charm and urgency.  The book is about the origin of the city of New Orleans and its delightful quirks.  In telling the story, Ned uses figures of speech to go beyond science, history and poetry to indicate the deepest reality of the city.  The technical term for what Ned does is called “metaphorical ontology,” which in simpler terms is “the WOW factor” that most historians strive for but miss.

For example, for a brief period Louisiana was a French penal colony.  Condemned prisoners were branded on the shoulder with a fleur-de-lis.  This brand meant the wearer was sentenced for life.  And get this:  the fleur-de-lis still appears on the New Orleans flag, which means it is either a co-incidence of great singularity or a wonderful example of respectful humor.

Another knockout example the book relates is the origin of the city’s name.  New Orleans was named for Philippe II, Duc d’Orleans, who for a while held the lofty title of Regent of France.  Philippe II was a gourmand, and an amateur composer who liked to party “like a Rock-star.”  So it should come as no surprise that he enjoyed spirited beverages and the company of pretty women.  Ned quotes Francine du Plessix Gray, who wrote of Philippe II saying, “The Regency was the most dissolute period in French history and might well vie with the late Roman Empire as the most debauched era of Western civilization.”

The World That Made New Orleans is full of such juicy stories.  The kind of thing where the reader goes “Wow!           

Ned begins each chapter with an appropriate epigram.  Together, these epigrams form a series of architectural fore-thoughts, which tell a distinct story about New Orleans and its world.  For example, in chapter 11, which is called The Eighteenth-Century Tango and relates the story of gumbo, Ned cleanses the reader’s palate with this epigram:

“but if he eats flour and okra he’s a true Congo” – Jesus Alfonso (of Los Munequitos de Mantanzas)

The chapter goes on to explain the ins-and-outs of gumbo, where it came from, how it’s made, so forth and so on.  It’s a pleasant chapter to loiter in.

 In fact, the whole book encourages loitering.  Why?  Because of the little touches, the little asides, which, for reasons mysterious and inscrutable, enhance the elegant pattern of the story.  In other words, Ned does not submit to the dreary treadmill of ‘writing history’ – that conspiracy of dullness.  Instead – thank God! – Ned allows his words to move to the emotion of the story’s music.  Or do the words generate the shape of the music?         

It doesn’t really matter, does it?  All that matters is this:  Ned Sublette has taken a wide range of events, which are only roughly amenable to classification, put them in hat, waved his magic wand, and pulled out a magical story about a marvelous city.       

Don’t make the mistake of putting this book on any ‘to-be-read list.’  Instead, buy it and read it right now.

The Neurology of Angels
By Krista Tibbs
Friction Publishing Company 2009
284 pages
$14.00

Reviewed by Randall Radic

The title of Krista Tibbs’ book hints at what’s to come.  Neurology of Angels?  Who says angels have a nervous system?  Surely someone somewhere does.  And just as surely someone else will say angels don’t have nervous systems.  Someone else, inevitably, will say angels don’t even exist.  So first, the question of the very existence of angelic beings must be resolved.  Once that’s done, then a discussion of venation may occur.  The situation is a mess because both objectivity and subjectivity enter into it.  Or as Woody Allen would say:  “Being right just pisses people off.  Why?  Because even though you’re right you’re still wrong, because nobody agrees with you.”      

The Neurology of Angels is a novel about the pharmaceutical industry.  The gist of the story is this:  a group of well-meaning people all want the same thing – to cure a deadly disease.  Only they can’t agree on the best and most efficient way to achieve their common goal.  Which means it is a heart-rending story, because people watch helplessly as their loved ones die. 

The main character’s name is Galen.  No, not Galen of Pergamum, who was a physician in ancient Rome and probably the greatest medical researcher in that period of history.  This Galen is Galen Douglas, who is also a medical researcher.  He’s trying to find a cure for a horrible disease called Transient Forebrain Ischemia (TFI), which recently took the life of his fiancée.  As the story opens, Galen discovers a drug that will cure TFI.  This is the point where the discussion surrounding the existence of angels comes into play.  Nothing is ever simple.

Before anyone can be cured, three great tasks akin to the Labors of Hercules must first take place.  Money has to be raised to develop the drug, clinical trials of the drug have to occur, and the regulatory guidelines of the FDA have to be satisfied.  As these tasks are undertaken, the personalities and lives of three families crash into one another.  This crash of lives gives the story its humanity, which is what makes the book interesting.  Each family wants to cure TFI and save lives.  Each family has its own agenda.  Each family believes their way is the right way.   

Krista Tibbs tells the story well.  She could have easily descended into concise, arid prose calculated to bore the reader to death.  She doesn’t.  Instead, she weaves a tender tale of persons who are frail and vulnerable – like most of humanity – yet who aspire to do what is right.  And – like most of humanity – their convictions create susceptibilities.  One of which is the difficulty of breaking the habits of a lifetime.  On the other hand, the story has all the necessary ingredients required to repair these susceptibilities:  love, kindness, faith, and joy.  Combining these virtues could provide an answer.

The author doesn’t pander to one any one of the clashing viewpoints in the story.  She does, however, make it clear that while the three great tasks of bringing a miracle drug to market occur people are dying.  They are dying because of three basic circumstances:  the exquisitely subtle civilization in which they live, the security provided by over-evaluation, and the fact that bureaucracies cannot conceive of any other recourse.

All that being said, it is not a depressing or sad book, offering no hope.  In fact, it is just the opposite.  It is a persistently optimistic book.  Which means it has a moral.  The moral to the story is this:  have faith, wait, and hope.  Which is what angels do, right?

Nothing is Strange with You
By James Jeffrey Paul
Xlibris Corporation
278 pages
$29.99

Reviewed by Randall Radic

October 2, 1930.  Gordon Stewart Northcott asked for a blindfold.  After receiving it, the floor opened beneath his feet and Northcott plunged down.  The rope around his neck brought his fall to an abrupt halt. Northcott died and justice was served.

Chilling.

There’s a curious field of suppressed energy about this book.  It’s the true account of a man named Gordon Stewart Northcott.  He was a real piece of work, as they say.  Exaggerated, quaint, and absurd are adjectives that come to mind when trying to describe him.  And of course, don’t forget insane, demented, crazy, deranged, and mad as a Hatter.

Northcott kidnapped his own nephew, because he needed help.  Northcott was a child molestor and a murderer.  He abducted little boys, violated them sexually and, usually, killed them.  Northcott forced his nephew, Sanford Clark, to help him procure his victims.  After Northcott was done with them, he forced Clark to help him bury them.  Sometimes they weren’t quite dead when they were buried.

Northcott’s father, George, knew what his son was up to.  But because he loved him, he didn’t try to stop it.  In fact, with an air of simplicity both charming and suspect, he almost encouraged the secretive work.  Northcott’s mother, whose name was Louise, doted on her little boy.  She had a commitment to him that could not be disrupted.  So she killed for him.  None of the three family members – George, Louise or son Gordon – could speak anything remotely resembling the truth.  They were all pathological liars.  

Written by James Jeffrey Paul, who put years of labor into researching his material, the story is told with in a coldly detached voice, which accentuates the spookiness of the tale.  No wonder Clint Eastwood took one small part of the story and made it into a fascinating movie.  The movie was called The Changeling and starred Angelina Jolie.  Only most people don’t know that the unseen, dark monster behind the events of the movie was Gordon Stewart Northcott.          

Included in the book are actual court transcripts of what was said, and by whom, at Northcott’s trial.  As one reads it, one comes face to face with Northcott’s brooding absorption with his secret ideas – the caprice of intrinsic deviancy.  Also included are the letters that Northcott wrote to his parents from his cell on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.  The letters are disturbing, formless, chaotic, devious.  It would appear Northcott had an obsession with complication as an end in itself.          

Nothing is Strange With You is a remarkable book.  Why?  Because it operates a priori – it attempts to infer the truth of murderous, horrifying events, directly from the nature or condition in the mind of the perpetrator of the events.  And does so successfully!  The success is this:  the perpetrator – Northcott – is presented as a passenger, a listless subhuman hominoid, who is too preoccupied in depravity to recognize his stage in dying.  And in the end, when the State of California executes him, all they are doing is confirming his death. 

This is a book that needed to be written.  This is a book that needs to be read.