Gemma

After quitting acting some years ago, Meg Tilly (Agnes of God, The Big Chill) turned to writing novels. Tilly who was a very good actress proves to be an even better writer, but let’s first get the unpleasantness out of the way: Gemma is disturbing; Tilly doesn’t pull any punches with any of the details, but that’s what makes Gemma such a gripping story.

Told from Gemma’s point of view, readers first meet the 12 year old while she is still at school, telling us that her mother’s boyfriend has arrived to pick her up. She’s surprised and says that it’s out of context for him to be there. From there we learn that Gemma enjoys going to school and studying. She likes learning new vocabulary and using the words. Although she has a bit of an edge to her, Gemma is a charming little girl.

However like most tweeners who like to talk, Gemma has a tendency to say too much, and the reader discovers early on that Buddy has been molesting her since she was eight years old, telling her that if she says anything she will be going to jail. So Gemma has kept quiet, wondering if her mother even suspects of these nightly visits. Now Buddy feels that he can make an easy $100 and sells her for the afternoon to his friend Hazen Wood, who becomes obsessed with the girl.

A few days later, Wood kidnaps Gemma, throws her in the trunk of the car and embarks on cross-country trip a la Lolita. But Hazen is by no means the sophisticated and non-violent Humbert Humbert. Wood is a monstrous beast. He repeatedly rapes and beats Gemma, yet deludes himself to think that Gemma will eventually love him.

Tilly skillfully switches narratives often. From Gemma’s point of view, we read how she copes through “Gemma Travel,” imagining safe beautiful places where she’s far from the reaches of men like Buddy and Hazen, while Wood’s thoughts are twisted fantasies of a child bride and family (Tilly includes a chilling passage that harks back to Lolita about fantasies of incest).

By the time Hazen and Gemma reach Chicago, the nightmare ends for the girl. Wood is taken into custody and Gemma goes to live with a sympathetic foster mother who was also sexually abused as child. Tilly ends Gemma on cliff-hanger, with Wood going to trial and Gemma telling the jury her story.

Some readers will probably want more psychological drama, angst, and more backstory, but there is no doubt that Gemma will leave readers raw, angry, and even dazed. Tilly’s characters jump from the pages in a realistically and frightening manner that overly sensitive readers might find the first half the book difficult reading, but given that 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys are sexually abused (U.S.Department of Justice Statistics, 2002) it’s a story that needs to be told often and read by many. Kudos to Tilly for writing such a heartbreaking book.

On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

About four years ago, I took a fabulous writing class to break into magazines and newspapers at the New School in Manhattan taught by Sue Shapiro. Sue is a prolific writer: She’s written five memoirs, a novel, hundreds of book reviews, and thousands of essays.If you take her class, she’ll give you realistic assignments that possibly can lead to publication in major newspapers or magazines like The New York Times or Newsweek in the sections that publish essays. Most of the reading assignments are in those sections, Sue’s published articles, in addition to what I consider an important book–On Writing Well by William Zinsser.

When we were told this was required reading because it would answer all our questions of how to write nonfiction, I was skeptical. However, good student that I was, I ordered it on Amazon. As soon as the book arrived in the post, and I started reading, I was hooked.

Zinsser offers clear and to the point advice on sharpening your writing style. Divided into four parts, Zinsser kicks it off with writing principles. Chapters include: how to simplify your prose, develop a style, get to know your audience etc. Part two concentrates on writing methods: How to construct a lede and conclude your piece, how to make your story cohesive. Part three is about the different forms of nonfiction: intervews, travel, book reviews, sports, humor, science and technology and so forth. The last part is about attitudes and these chapters include the sound of your voice, decisions you make as a writer, writing as well as you can, and the emotions and phases all writers experience–enjoyment, fear, and confidence.

After On Writing Well, Zinsser published Writing to Learn and this book has also been invaluable to me. Once again, he teaches you how to write clearly about any subject and how to use writing as a means of learning.

For anyone who wants to write non-fiction, On Writing Well is a must have. Buy it, read it, and refer to it often. You won’t regret it

What does this mean for Alvah’s Books? It means I am back to requesting and receiving new books, reading and reviewing them. I can’t make any promises of how often I’ll post during the week because I do have an enormous backlog of books that were sent, and I did promise to review every single one, and I have a job. So…what’s in line for review?

Meg Tilly’s Gemma and Adam Haslett’s Union Atlantic. Two very different books that kept me turning the pages in one fell swoop. I usually can’t pull off reading one book in a single session, but obviously these kept me riveted to my seat.

A few changes are also in the mix. I’ll restart the bestseller list this coming Sunday, but I’ve gone through the cookbooks I like and now it’s time to look at some of my favorite books on writing. Come Sunday, I’ll post a review I did a while back for my previous blog on William Zissner’s On Writing Well.

Crime and Drugs on Trip City Street
By Timothy Louis Baker
Strategic Book Publishing 2009
103 pages
$21.50

 Reviewed by Randall Radic

Not too long ago, Cormac McCarthy wrote The Road.  It was a great book and McCarthy is a genius.  In 2006, Vintage Books – which is a part of the Random House empire – published McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited.  The publisher described The Sunset Limited as “a novel in dramatic form.”  Translation:  it was written in dialogue as if for the theater.  Whatever one cared to call it, the technique was effective.  Especially in the hands of someone as gifted as Cormac McCarthy. 

Timothy Louis Baker did just the opposite in his new novel.  It’s called Crime and Drugs on Trip City Street.  And to all intents and purposes Baker has – in effect – taken a dramatic screenplay and turned it into a novel.  And like McCarthy, Baker is neat-handed as he weaves a story of domestic terrorists plotting to take over the government. 

The terrorists finance their conspiracy by means of a continual criminal enterprise – the manufacture, distribution and sale of illegal substances.  Drugs.  To reveal much more of the story would spoil it.  So what happens and how it all turns out won’t be mentioned.  However, the plot is tightly wrapped and rockets along to an explosive ending.

If you want something to compare it to, think Reservoir Dogs, the bloody, intricate and action-packed movie made by Tarantino some years ago.  Which means that Crime and Drugs on Trip City Street would make a hecka-good movie.  In fact, the reviewer suggests Jean Claude Van Damme, Christopher Lambert and Rutger Hauer would be perfect as the principal bad guys.  Ridley Scott or Tarantino or Rodriguez could direct, adding their personal chromatic touches to an already dark story.  The interplay between directorial coloration and thematic blackness would produce a subtle turbulence. 

Baker’s growth as a writer is evident in Crime and Drugs.  He’s gone from the charm of miscellaneous stream-of-consciousness to the sharper images of a more traditional style of writing.  And his ear for dialogue is skillfully displayed in this latest effort.  Which means it’s an easy book to read, because it resonates with action and a linguistic sartorial flair.  Which means it’s all dressed up and it has someplace to go.  

On the Read-O-Meter, which ranges from one star (pitiful) to five stars (startling), Crime and Drugs on Trip City Street comes in at 5 stars.

When the news broke that the magazine Gourmet Today was going kaput I was heartbroken. This was one cooking magazine that I always meant to subscribe, but never got around to it. For 2010, I vowed that I would give myself this relatively inexpensive gift and then, well, Gourmet Today is no more.

However, I was easily consoled that Ruth Reichl, the editor-in-chief, had just put out a 1000+ page cookbook and even at the pricey $40 I thought I would get it and add it to the cookbook collection. The recipes in the magazine never let me down and I doubted the cookbook would, but prior to buying it I was able to preview it thanks to my wonderful local library. As soon as I opened it and went directly to the dessert section, I knew that I had to have this book. 

Apart from the sweets section what makes this cookbook so good? Well, if you’re like me at all and wonder why a recipe calls for sea salt, table salt, and kosher salt, Reichl provides a great sidebar about the differences right from the very get-go, and now I have all three. It’s information of this nature that makes reading a cookbook fun, interesting, and, hopefully, makes one a better cook.

Typically, I like to review a cookbook after I try three recipes and then give it my stamp of approval, but so far I’ve tried only one. Here, at chez moi, we’re trying to eat less meat and more vegetables and soy products. The one recipe we’ve tried so far was Grilled Tofu Sauteed with Asian Greens. It’s a simple dish to prepare. The only labor-intensive part of the recipe is making sure that you’ve pressed all the moisture out of the firm tofu (keep a full roll of paper towels on hand, you’ll need at least half a roll).

The first time I made this, I didn’t have enough paper towels and the tofu was a little springy. The second time, I followed the directions to the letter and the tofu seemed to better absorb the marinade’s flavor, plus it had more of a consistency or bulk to it.

What’s next on the menu? Tough question. There are too many recipes and I want to try them all. Maybe sometime this week, we’ll have Wuxi Spareribs, Hunan Scallion Pancakes, and Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (Millennium Trilogy, 3)
By Stieg Larsson
Quercus
602 pages

Note: American release of the book is scheduled for May 2010.

Lisbeth Salander fans who can’t wait for the American publication of the final installment of the Steig Larsson’s Millennium trilogy can order the book via Amazon.uk or the Book Depository, and for a few dollars more readers can find out what happens to her and Millennium’s publisher Mikael Blomkvist.

In the second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire, Larsson played a cruel joke on readers, leaving them with a horrible cliff hanger that some (including this reviewer) thought a page was missing. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest immediately follows up with Salander and the evil Alexander Zalachenko flown in by helicopter to the hospital. Salander, with bullets in her hip, shoulder, and head, is barely alive and is rushed into surgery. From there the story evolves more of Blomkvist’s attempts to proves Salander’s innocence, who is  still suspected of the murders of two Millennium journalists.

However, this story is more about a covert operation run by Säpo, the Swedish secret police, and how Salander inadvertently  became a victim of the Swedish welfare system in order to hide and protect Säpo’s secrets. In this last tome, Larsson spends more time with the inner workings of Säpo and its bureaucrats—characters who seem to be stuck in an antiquated cold war mode. It’s in these sections that slows book’s pace, but to speed up the story, Larsson includes a subplot concerning Erika Berger, the editor-in-chief of Millennium and Blomkvist’s occasional lover. In the second volume, Berger has accepted the editor-in-chief job at Svenska Morgon-Posten. Right from the very start, she is seen as the enemy by many of the old-time staffers, who make life difficult for the forward thinking editor, but as days go by Berger begins to question about having left  Millennium for this new job. Life becomes even more complicated for her when she starts receiving sexually explicit emails.

There is more meat to the story and Berger has an out thanks to a story that Millennium plans to publish concerning the newspaper’s chairman of the board, but overall this secondary story seems gratuitous and really doesn’t add much to the overall plot of proving Salander innocent.

And that’s Blomkvist’s mission—to prove that his friend is not a murderer and to show that she’s been a victim of an illegal government conspiracy. Blomkvist convinces his sister–a woman’s rights lawyer with little trial experience under her belt–to help Salander with her defense. It’s in these scenes that feature Lisbeth that Larsson’s writing shines and  keeps readers turning the pages. Once again, he outdoes himself into bringing this fabulous character to life.

Although this final installment of the Millennium trilogy has sections that seem unnecessarily long, and some readers might be confused with the who’s who of Säpo’s cast of characters, it’s the ending that’s important. Larsson, before he died suddenly, had started a fourth volume and originally had planned a ten book series about Millennium. The question for most readers was whether Larsson would satisfactorily resolve the Salander and Blomkvist broken relationship. Without offering any spoilers, readers will be pleased with it how it concludes and it will leave them more than satisfied and  perhaps smiling.