Some books are slightly disturbing and others are downright chilling. Here’s a book to take to bed with you when you’re sure you’re not being watched.
dream of me
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Category Archives: novel
novel::novelist
Sherman Alexie is one of the great literary voices of our generation. How lucky are we?
follow the frog
we love it when a nonprofit gets all edgy with a pinch of grace and splash of humor.
still: summer reading
It may be August but it’s still summer and there’s plenty of good vacation reading left to do. Start with Rosecrans Baldwin’s debut novel. It’s a bright shiny star in the firmament of new fiction.
earth day (g)
For thousands of years, we’ve used and reused the same water as the dinosaurs, Galileo, Genghis Kahn, and Jesus. Until now. Now the water is chock full of contaminants that the ancients didn’t even know how to pronounce. That’s because Mama Nature doesn’t know how to remove radionuclides, usually held safely within the earth’s crust, and other chemicals found in the fracking wastewater that’s slowly making its way into Her rivers, lakes, and streams. Until now, we’d been sipping the same stuff as Adam and Eve. Until now.
Enjoy an excerpt from THE QUALITY OF LIGHT:
She died that night. Doc attended the funeral along with dozens and dozens of ranchers and their families all come to pay their respects to this great woman, one of the “stickers” whose family had come in the late-1800s during the first boom and bust era of timbering and mining and oil and construction and who had stayed on to make a living. They worked the land for what it would produce – cattle. So when the time came and they asked if anyone wanted to say anything on behalf of this fine woman, Doc’s hand raised itself, his body stood up, and he took over the funeral.
“Twila’s great-grandfather was thrilled when the first oil men knocked on his door with a check and a promise. They may not have tamed the harsh out of the land, but at least they made it more hospitable. They built roads and paid well, and the ranchers loved them. That was the heyday when oil flowed like free love out of those great big underground reservoirs. Sweet gas, they called it. Back then a whisper could’ve coaxed that oil out of the ground.” To read more of this post, click here…
earth day (f)
Just because Earth Day is done, doesn’t mean we are. Here, then, is another environmental warrior, pen poised in furtherance of the cause. If you haven’t read any of Carl Hiaasen’s environmental crime thrillers, you’ve been denying yourself. Read on…
sit. stay. read.
In his infinite wisdom, Chinese philosopher Lau Tzu coined the phrase “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and it is a hard one with which to argue. However never being content to leave a great sage alone, I would add: “all the pages of a genius novel begin with a single compelling sentence.” The usual list of literary greats contains the (mostly) names dead white guys, but this is one for the girls. Herewith, a list of 15 brilliant first sentences and the novels from which they arise. By women.
four stars
OIL IN WATER
Pam Lazos
Chapter Eighty-One
Gil coughed and opened his mouth, pushing with his tongue. His eyes flew open and he found his face pressed against Max’s coat, a mouthful of the course bristly stuff, dry as cotton, poking at the insides of his cheeks. He coughed and spit the hair out, whacking at it with his unencumbered hand. The bushy mane turned, like a giant rock rolling away from the cave’s opening, and yawned. Max lay on his back, paws in the air, and whined, waiting for Gil to rub his belly. Gil grabbed his water bottle from the night stand, took a big swig and swished it around in his mouth.
“Yuck.” He sat cross-legged next to Max, adjusted his sling, then began to rub in slow, deliberate circles with his good hand, putting them both in a trance. Max moaned in ecstacy, scratching the air one front paw at a time until Gil stopped in mid-stroke.
“Oh my God.” Gil looked at Max. “I had a dream, Max. I had a dream.” Gil got up on his knees and bounced. “I had a dream, Maxie. A dream!” Gil stood up on the bed and began jumping up and down, then dancing in a strange, cohesive rhythm, singing all the while. “I had a dream. I had a dream.” He danced and sang and twirled, “I had a dream. I had a dream,” until his foot accidentally landed on the discarded water bottle and he toppled to the floor. He stuck the landing. Max stared over the side of the bed after him. For a moment Gil looked at him with wide-eyes before bursting into peals of laughter.
“I gotta tell Kori and Avery.” He leaped up and in two giant, awkward strides, he was at the door. “C’‘mon, Max. Let’s go.”
➣➣➣
Hart sat on the couch with his laptop and a cup of coffee. Avery sat at the other end reading the Sunday Inquirer . Kori and Jack snuggled together on the recliner. They could hear Aunt Stella, whistling in the kitchen while she made breakfast.
“I still can’t believe it’s a week already,” Avery said.
“Can we not talk about it please?” Hart asked. “I’m better if I just don’t think about it.” Hart sighed. Had Bicky, in a single and unlikely courageous act, not saved Gil from probable extinction at the hand of a man whom Hart had at one time considered to be his close friend and ally, things would be vastly different right now. For the past week, Hart had struggled to redefine his relationships with both men, but the matter was too close, the parameters too large, so he filed it under the category of Life’s Mysteries and Conundrums, the kind that need time and space for disentanglement. Kori’s yelp roused Hart from his reverie.
“Aaaah, your feet are cold,” she said. Jack rubbed his bare feet against Kori’s calf. After a few seconds of squirming, she wrapped both her legs around them.
“God, I love you,” Jack said, nuzzling Kori’s neck. “I come to you with cold feet and you embrace them.” He hugged her to him and whispered in her ear, “I really love you.”
“I love you, too,” Kori whispered back.
“No, I mean I really love you,” Jack said. “Really, really love you.”
Kori poked Jack in the ribs and he grabbed both her hands. She squirmed free just as Gil came running down the stairs, Max barking in his wake.
“I had a dream,” he said, jumping up and down. “I had a dream.” He stopped in the center of the room and did a little jig. Max jumped around Gil’s feet, barking until Gil picked him up by the front paws and danced with him.
Hart stared at Gil and Max, a smile gracing his lips. Drawn by the commotion, Aunt Stella waddled into the room.
“What was it?” Kori asked, sidling up next to Gil. Used to the last week’s worth of uber-mothering, Gil stopped his little dance and raised his face to Kori so she could feel his forehead with her chin. “No fever,” she said and shrugged.
“He’s alive,” Gil said. Robbie’s alive.”
Aunt Stella covered her mouth and folded into an armchair. Kori yelped as if she’d been poked and dropped to her knees. “Tell me.”
Avery joined Kori on the floor and Gil sat down next to them, wrapping his good arm around Max’s neck to keep him still.
“He’s someplace with a lot of water.”
“Water? Iraq’s a desert,” Jack said.
Gil shrugged and ran his closed lips back and forth over his teeth. He looked at Jack.
“Ssshhhh,” Kori said to Jack. “More,” she said to Gil.
“Well, there was a desert in the background, but there was so much water everywhere that I’m just not sure.” He scratched at Max’s ears and drifted off, back toward the dream.
“More,” said Kori.
“Robbie was wearing a robe and one of those head thingees,” Gil said, rubbing Max’s wide side. “And the people traveled by boat. Well, really by these little canoes. And they used poles instead of paddles to move the canoe through the water.”
“Interesting,” Hart said. He assessed Gil with his brilliant hazel eyes before typing something into the computer.
“More,” Kori said. Her eyes didn’t leave Gil’s face.
Gil thought for a moment, his mouth animated, his eyes and nose scrunched in concentration. “Oh yeah. He was digging a hole. He was using a little shovel and this long cylindrical thingee that was open at the top and bottom and some of the sides.”
“An auger?” Jack asked. Gil shrugged. Aunt Stella sat, fanning herself with a dishtowel.
“Got it,” Hart said. “Is this what you saw?” He turned the laptop’s screen toward Gil who jumped up and ran over to look at it.
“That’s it! That’s it!” Gil said.
“Where is that?” Avery asked. Everyone leaned in to peer at the screen.
“That, is the Fertile Crescent,” Hart said. “It’s in southern Iraq. And if you believe the bible, this is where civilization got its first leg up.”
“Wow,” Gil said.
“Are you sure that’s where he is?” Kori asked.
Gil nodded. “Looks exactly like it.”
“So how do we find him?” Kori asked.
“Depends. He might not want to be found,” Jack said. “He’s supposed to be dead, remember?”
“Which means…” Kori said.
“…that he faked his own death,” Avery finished.
“He doesn’t want to see us anymore,” Kori said, a crack in her voice.
“No. It’s not like that. He’ll come back,” Gil said. “When he’s done.” Gil nodded his head with enthusiasm.
Kori gave Hart a look which he interpreted as a need for deliverance.
“I’ll put feelers out,” Hart said. “See what I can come up with. I do have some contacts in Iraq….”
“Is that safe?” Jack asked.
“I’ll be discreet,” Hart said. He looked to Kori. “Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, hugging him so hard he yelped. She ran over to Aunt Stella whose eyes appeared to be leaking then floated back to her spot on the recliner.
Avery grabbed Gil by the shoulders and looked into his eyes. “You sure?” Gil nodded assent. Avery pulled Gil to his chest and let out a long, haggard breath.
“Of course he’s sure. He’s a visionary,” Hart said, smiling. “Okay,” Hart said. “Now — Gil. You feeling up to a little work?” He patted the seat next to him.
“Sure,” Gil said, and flopped down on the couch.
Hart smiled and gave Gil a brief hug, avoiding the sling. Gil, startled by the gesture, sat very still for a moment before awkwardly patting Hart on the back.
“I give you four stars,” Gil said, looking pleased with himself.
“Who? Hart?” Jack asked. “Why does he get four stars?”
Gil looked at Hart with complete admiration in his eyes. “He just does. And if he moves in with us for good, I’ll give him four and a half.”
Hart cleared his throat, blinked his eyes and stared at the screen, suddenly at a loss for words. Gil leaned against him on the pretense of following Hart’s gaze.
“Okay,” Gil said, “show me what you got.”
(c)2013
fiction valentine 1.4
Love. It’s everywhere. Some would even venture to say that if you haven’t found it, you’re not looking.We don’t know if that’s true. We do know that sometimes fictional love is better than no love at all.
Excerpted from “Jesus, Mary, Buddha”
Over warm olives and crusty sourdough, Helen learns that Nick’s third wife parked her Range Rover at the edge of town on the banks of the Snohomish River and washed down a handful of pentobarbital with a bottle of flinty Oregon pinot gris.
It was his first year of mourning and he still hated her and loved her in ways he hadn’t yet explored. “I don’t know how I can do better than that,” he told Helen one night. “I mean fucking look at her.” He gestured toward a framed photo of them on his living room mantle. “She’s gorgeous.”
On Earth Day they up-cycle a pair of antique windows and build a table out of them. Later, they eat salmon with their fingers, straight out of his backyard smoker. After dark, they sit in deck chairs in the garden and watch shooting stars. Eight weeks into their affair, she drives home through the city streets late at night with the windows down, with air warm as a lover’s breath sliding up her arms, through her hair. The rhododendrons are in bloom. The azalea, lavender, chives, strawberries, raspberries, pear, five kinds of apple, chestnuts. Even at 11 pm, there are couples walking, cyclists peddling down the quiet evening streets in thin cotton dresses, short sleeves. It is evident that even in the dark, they are sucking the juice out of the first days of summer, taking shy steps toward the grilling season.Through the car windows, Helen Okabe breathes in the perfume of lilac.
For his birthday she gives Nick an anatomically correct chocolate heart spiced with habanero pepper. He makes his signature clams and beer. Afterward, he builds a fire in the backyard firepit and they recline on deck chairs, watching the sky. He talks about his men’s group, about getting in touch with his feelings.
“I’ve been wondering,” he begins. “What if I’ve been sabotaging relationships my whole life?” Unlike so many middle aged men, Nick is messed up on love and he knows it. To his credit, he is actually trying to unpack that baggage.
Helen sucks an ice cube and lets the water slide down her throat. “I was just wondering that myself,” she says. She has. She has been doing her spiritual inventory and counting up the number of times that, when the going got tough, she got gone. She was up to four. It wasn’t pretty.
“I think I have intimacy issues,” he says.
“Wait,” she replies. “You said you and Reina were simpatico. You were married ten years. You renewed your vows every spring for God sake. That sounds awfully intimate to me.”
“Nah,” Nick waves the idea away. “That was only appearances. I checked out after two years, if I’m honest about it.”
Appearances, her Zen master said, not only fool, you they aren’t even real. Helen still hasn’t wrapped her head around that one.
She offers the only solace she has, something from a piece of research she is working on. “The top five fears of most people are public speaking, followed by flying, heights, fear of the dark, and intimacy.” She counts them off on the fingers of her hand and refrains from adding that following this list, the fears continue with death, failure, rejection, spiders, commitment.
“That can’t be right,” Nick says.
“It’s from a university study,” she replies.
“I would say fear of intimacy is number one,” he continues.
“People are scared to death of intimacy. Just think what it means if you are right.”
“I am right.”
“If you are right, and I’m not saying you are, it means people would rather sleep with strangers than speak in front of a crowd of them.”
“It doesn’t mean that at all.”
“People are more afraid of emotional honesty than talking,” he says. “Look,” he says, pointing to a light moving across the night sky, “a satellite.”
It is a clear spring night and the sky is shy of clouds and the moon is new so they have space to shine. “Anyway. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.”
(c)
Cynthia Gregory
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persephone's step-sisters 