Alvah's Books

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.

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.

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.

Prophecy of Power
by Andrew Parker
Bedside Books/American Book Publishing 2009
242 pages. 
$22.00

Reviewed by Randall Radic 

The title of this new religious thriller sums it up:  a prophecy of power, potential and talent reside in the author, Andrew Parker.  All the elements of a rock ‘em sock ‘em bestseller are in his novel, Prophecy of Power. 

There’s a skeptical rabbi, who wonders if Judaism is indeed the one, true religion.  The rabbi, whose name is Jacob Droutman, begins comparing one religion with another, as he searches for the truth.  The quest leads him to a seminar on the Book of Revelation.  The seminar’s speaker – Dr. Renton – is a slick purveyor of the most irresistible type of religious snake oil – prophecy.

There’s a mysterious femme fatale, too.  She hands Jacob Droutman an envelope containing information about three missing students, who may or may not be dead.  Soon afterward, Droutman’s landlord is found murdered.  As the police homicide unit investigates, two CIA agents show up, informing the police that they are taking over the case “for reasons of national security.”  Suspicious of everything and everybody, the police decide to continue an unauthorized investigation. 

The story is now cooking with gas! 

Rabbi Droutman, pulled in ever deeper, finally goes to Israel to try and find the three missing students.  If he can find them, maybe he can discover their ‘secret.’  A secret so potent, world governments are willing to kill for it.

Now we are talking!  Prophecy of Power has every ingredient necessary for a thrill-a-minute ride.  Almost.

Parker writes well.  For example, his description of Lansky Lounge, a local bar where the good rabbi indulges in a daily health regimen is a doozy:  “Lansky Lounge was the Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky’s old boardroom and they kept his hideout dark and dangerous.”  And Parker’s ear for conversational sound-bytes is finely tuned.  There’s nothing phony or affected in the speech patterns of the characters.  In other words, the dialogue isn’t forced.  Rather it’s smooth and natural.

There are, however, a couple of glitches in the story.  For one, the story unfolds too fast.  It’s like taking a hit of crank and then watching Jason Statham – who is also high on crank – as he tries to keep his heart rate up in the action flick of the same name, Crank.  The overall effect is one of supreme twitchiness.  One scene jumps into another scene before the first scene is over.  Which means the reader is left breathless and wishing he was allowed to inhale before he was forced to exhale. 

For two, the story and the characters – which are definitely intriguing – lack development.  Which is directly connected to the first glitch of too much velocity.  Most readers want to watch the characters and the story evolve.  In Prophecy of Power, they explode.  Which means readers can’t enjoy the nuances and flaws of the people populating the story.  Nor can they relish the interactions that result because of all those human flaws.        

All in all, Prophecy of Power is a good book.  It has a zippy plot with lots of electrifying hanky-panky.  Who doesn’t like tales revolving around the Book of Revelation?  The Apostle John’s apocalypse has it all:  demons, angels, Second Advent, Rapture, Armageddon, Gog and Magog – and oodles of prophecy.  Combine all that with the writing talent of Andrew Parker and, well, it could be one hell of a story.

But it’s gotta be developed just a little bit more.  If that had taken place, then a good story would have become a kick-ass thriller.

Dream Room:  Tales of the Dixie Mafia
by Chet Nicholson
Oakley Publishing Company
417 pages
$17.95

Reviewed by Randall Radic

Chet Nicholson, who is the author of Dream Room, is an attorney.  Dream Room is his first book.  And it is – hands down – one of the best true crime books to be published – ever.  That is a bold and categorical statement, but it is an undeniable fact.         

Dream Room is the true story of the Dixie Mafia, which is sometimes called the Southern Mafia.  Unlike the more famous Sicilian Mafia, members of the Dixie Mafia were linked only by crime and not by family or ethnicity.  Their criminal activities included moonshine, bootlegging, gambling, drug trafficking, dog fighting, burglary, prostitution, and murder.  They achieved the peak of their power between 1960 and the end of the 1980s. 

“The Strip” in Biloxi, Mississippi, was ground zero for the Dixie Mafia.  Indeed, the title of the book – Dream Room – refers to a strip joint in Biloxi.  It was owned and operated by Mike Gillich, Jr., who was the unofficial Godfather of the organization.  Gillich, who was also known affectionately as “Junior,” owned a string of motels, nightclubs, and a bingo parlor. 

One of Junior’s henchmen was a goon named Kirksey Nix, who was a singularly unimaginative worm of reckless dynamism.  The story swirls around Nix and Junior as they ruthlessly intimidated and murdered anyone who got in the way of their criminal activities.  Which means a lot of people, including a judge and his wife, ended up dead.

The Dixie Mafia had only one law, which was akin to a Biblical commandment:  Thou shall not snitch to the cops.  Of course, since most criminals subscribe heavily to the doctrine of self-interest, the rule was often violated.  And in the end, Junior fractured the law with vigorous enthusiasm.  To relate how and why would vitiate the delicate forces of the story.  Needless to say, the episode seethes with the arithmetic of necessity, contingency, and negotiation.  It is the narrative of the justice system – if you want to play, you have to pay.

Nicholson’s raw ability in storytelling is fantastic.  And it is this talent that gives the tale its resonant vibrations.  Every word and paragraph is designed to titillate interest and, at the same time, entertain.  Most writers lose their readers because they try to charm them with verbal glitz.  Which means they forget to tell the story.  They’re so busy peddling Las Vegas-like neon that the reader needs sunglasses to see through the glare.  Nicholson, either by plan or by innate talent, avoids making that mistake.  Instead, he cedes ultimate authority to the story.  Which means the story is the Star of the book, not the special effects.  Which is the way it’s supposed to be.

What is more, Nicholson lets the story develop through the actions of the characters and their dialogue.  Dream Room places a premium on conversation.  And it’s obvious that Nicholson has a real ear for conversational quirks.  Listening to the characters speak induces a delicious rippling sensation through the reader’s diaphragm.  That’s the way people really talk!  People don’t talk like robots in real life.  People aren’t machines, spewing out perfect grammar and syntax. 

Try it this way:  Nicholson’s dialogue is as good as or better than that of Elmore Leonard. 

Dream Room is a supercharged book.  It has guts, which means it has rhythm and motion, and that means it has energy.  It’s alive!  Don’t miss this one.

Like Oklahoma’s Ado Annie, I am easily seduced. However, my seducers are not men, but books. On Monday, after clearing another surface to make room for yet another pile of books, I said aloud to anyone who would listen, “No more books until I’ve read through these six piles.” Lola, my Labrador retriever, picked up her head from the floor, and shot  me a look that basically said, “Yeah, right, I’ve heard that before,”  sighed loudly and then went back to sleep.

Well she was right; my resolve to not request or buy any more books went like smoke out the chiminey. Yesterday, I received emails from three publicists, inquiring if I’d be interested to review the books they were publicizing. After reading the blurbs and the synopsis, how could I say no? The titles seemed too tantalizing and as I my finger pushed the mouse cursor to “Reply” for a mere second I thought, but do you really need to read this? Don’t you have enough to tide you over for the rest of the year? Apparently not because I hit reply three times.

If you recall my Bibliophile or Bibliomaniac post, I listed recent acquistions. Here’s my progress: I’ve read and completed  two of the 14 listed (The Angel’s Game and The Scarecrow, reviews awaiting) , currently reading four (You or Someone Like You, Stardust, The Rise and Fall of Communism, Beowulf on the Beach) and outsourced two for review (Hunter and Two to Six) to my brilliant reviewer and speed reader Randall Radic—I still don’t know how he reads these books so quickly maybe it’s all that Merlot he drinks.

That leaves me with five from that list that are patiently waiting for their turn, but after I finish reading Julie & Julia and The Puzzle King, but wait what about the seven recent ones that came in the mail these past few days?

Okay, I have you all as my witnesses, no more books until I’ve finished and written reviews for all the books I have stacked all over the house. There, it’s in writing. Now hold me to it.

The Future Is Happy
By Sarah Sarai
blazeVOX Books 2009
93 pages. 
$16.00

Reviewed by Randall Radic

The reviewer freely and enthusiastically admits to knowing absolutely nothing about poetry.  Except for one thing.  He knows what he likes.  He likes Shelley, Lord Byron, Blake, e.e. cummings, and August Kleinzahler.  To the list of favorites he now adds Sarah Sarai, who has written a wonderful volume of poetry called The Future Is Happy.  It is full of truly excellent poems.

Like a Sorceress, Sarah has a magical way with words.  She casts them forth and beguiles the reader by creating an image in the visual region of his brain.  He finds himself breathless, struggling in the grasp of titanic emotions that he used to feel – once upon a time – but had forgotten about.  Which means her verse is enchanting and mystical while at the same time being concrete.  It’s like concrete love, if there is such a thing.  Which is a fancy way of saying it has substance, originality and – get this! – is comprehensible.  

What is most appealing is her use of traditional and Classical allusions.  Most contemporary poets don’t have the intestinal fortitude to bring the Bible into their poesy.  Why?  One supposes they believe it signals intellectual anarchy, the prostitution of logic.  Not Sarah.  This poetess has balls, which explains why her stuff is so excellent and so readable.  For example, in “Let Me Ask You This,” which is about great sex, she speaks of

Moses,
who’ll break stone tablets so
you get this night right

Talk about hormonal exuberance and the alpha-theta syncopation of sexual excitation!  This is the real deal, making magic wands from words, which in turn zap into spells and exsufflations and cantrips and merrythoughts. 

In another poem called “The Brave One,” she combines images of Jodie Foster, God, Scheherazade, Jimmy Carter, and Emily Dickinson to produce a singularly imaginative work on how proximity narrows perspective.  Or try it this way:  “The Brave One” asks a very simple question:  Is this, in sum, any way to live?  Which is a very serious question, seeming to demand much soul-searching.  But as the reader reads the poem, he has a smile on his face, because there’s an element of impishness in the question.  Like Bugs Bunny, looking over the barrel of Elmer Fudd’s shotgun, asking “What’s up, Doc?”

This is the essential quality of genius. 

The reviewer’s favorite – one of ‘em anyway – is “Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina in Heaven.”  The title alone makes one laugh out loud.  And reading it is like listening to ZZ Top sing “Jesus just left Chicago and he’s bound for New Orleans.”  It focuses the attention because of its quirkiness.  The poem starts out like this: 

Two suicides here?  There’s no screening.
Want a pocketbook kingdom come?
You’ll ascend.  The buzz
On heaven is a lot of white noise.

That last line is a killer, simply for its triple entendre.  It leaves a delicious sensation rippling through one’s diaphragm.           

If you love excellent poetry, buy this book.  For Sarah Sarai writes poetry to relish – poetry that one can read out loud to the one you love.  Sarah knows how to give words muscle.  Her verse is so buff it hurts.

Republicanism and Anticlerical Nationalism in Spain
Enrique A. Sanabria
Palgrave Macmillan 2009
258 pages
$79.95

 Reviewed by Randall Radic 

In today’s world, most people have some familiarity with what is known in history as The Inquisition, which was when – during the 13^th century – the Roman Catholic Church established a tribunal called the Holy Office.  The function of this tribunal was the discovery and suppression of heresy, and the punishment of heretics.  In other words, the Church went after people who didn’t do, believe, and act the way the Church wanted them to. 

Monty Python did some great spoofs on the Inquisition, by the way.

What most people don’t know is that the Church got its comeuppance a few hundred years later.  In other words, every dog has its day.  There comes a day when the dog bites back.  During the 16^th century, the dog got tired of being kicked around and turned on its master.  The turning movement was called anti-clericalism.  Anti-clericalism is an attack on the Church, its clergy, and their power. It’s still around today, too.  Only it’s not as violent or bloody as it used to be.  Nowadays, instead of killing priests, vandalizing religious sites, and seizing churches, the anti-clerics commit a different kind of violence.  They kill their victims softly – with words.  They write books exposing them and articles that flay them.  For example, Saussy wrote Rulers of Evil, and Malachi Martin wrote The Jesuits.

In his new book, Enrique Sanabria, who is a professor of Iberian and Atlantic World History at the University of New Mexico, uncloaks the anti-clericalism that took place in Spain in 1931. The book is entitled Republicanism and Anticlerical Nationalism in Spain.  And it’s a humdinger!  Professor Sanabria knows his subject matter inside and out.  And what is most astounding is this:  for an egghead, he writes very, very well.  He keeps it interesting.  There is a small delightful spark of life in his sentences, which means his readers can set aside their stoic resignation, and actually enjoy the book and the story it tells.

The story goes like this: the Republican government came to power in Spain in 1931.  Now this kind of Republican is not like a Republican in the USA circa 2009.  No sirree, Bob.  Some of the Spanish Republicans were Communists.  You know, the guys McCarthy got apoplectic about after WW2.  Anyway, these Spanish Republicans didn’t like the Spanish Monarchy, naturally.  And they didn’t like the Catholic Church and its priests because they supported the monarchy.  In other words, the Church knew which side its bread was buttered on. 

The Republicans secularized education, which meant no more private, religious schools.  And they tossed the Jesuits out of the country.  Then they nationalized the Church’s properties and made the Church pay rent and taxes in order to use what had once upon a time been theirs. 

Payback is a bitch, isn’t it?  

It was politics is what it was.  And as usual, the political junk got out of hand and the next thing that happened was Civil War in Spain.  During the Civil War, lots of churches were destroyed.  Thirteen bishops and about 7000 priests were executed, along with 283 nuns.  Needless to say, the Catholic Church opted to support General Franco and the Nationalist forces.  From the Church’s standpoint, it was a good choice, especially since Franco won and became dictator of Spain.  The Church knows how to pick a winner.

Professor Sanabria spices up the story by focusing on Jose Nakens, who was the editor of the most important liberal magazine in Spain.  The magazine was called New Life, which is almost humorous, because the name carries its own religious connotations.  Nakens was a Communist, and part of the industrialized production of anticlerical newspapers, books, cartoons and propaganda against the corruption of the Church and the monarchy.  The fascinating result of all the propaganda was this:  hatred of the Church and its clergy was used as a unifying agent by the Republicans.  Of course, the reason it worked as a unifying agent was because it was true.  The Church and the monarchy were corrupt, and everybody knew it. 

All in all, it got kind of complicated, but Sanabria does a good job of untying the knot so the reader understands what’s going on and why.

It’s a very good story – and a true one – told in a rich voice, under exquisite lilting control.  And in the end it leads the reader to some inescapable conclusions:  for one, extravagant ambition is bad.  For two, it’s probably best for everyone concerned if Church and State never get married. 

“You gotta’ keep ‘em separated.”