Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022) Harper (Pulitzer 2023)

David Copperfield in the Appalachians.  The story even starts with a similar line; “First, I got myself born.”  Only here we are in the current century with the current problems that have affected our society.  Our hero, the title character, lives with his drug addicted mother, until the government decides it would be in his best interest to live in foster care, meaning people who are only interested in the monthly check from the government and the free labor that comes with it.  Things go from bad to worse until he hits the jackpot with the local hero football coach.  But fate won’t by stopped by the cornucopia of temptations and tragedies of the twenty-first century.  And all Demon wants to do is see the ocean.

“Polka Dots and Moonbeams” by Jeffrey Ford (2011) from Stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, Harper Perennial

An infinite loop of noir wherein Dex takes Adeline on a date in his Belvedere to visit a nightclub in the desert with plans afterward to watch the stars fall.  There is a fez capped maître d', a shark toothed professor, guns and murder and promises of a solution.

"Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" by Neil Gaiman (2014) from The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy edited by Mike Ashley, Carroll & Graf

An American student, following a guidebook on a Walking Tour of British Coastlines, discovers that in the "off season" that not much of anything is open along the rainy grey coast.  He stops at a village called Innsmouth.  He finds a pub with an odd name and checks to see if they serve food.  They do, of a sort, but he decides the British serve food as a punishment.  Two fellows sit by him and he buys them a round of Shoggoth's Old Peculiar.  He's never drank alcohol before and listens as the two men talk to him about H.P. Lovecraft and how they're acolytes.  He wakes up in the morning with a terrific headache, but no village.

Your First Million Words: Finding the Story Inside You by Jeff Wheeler (2019) Amberlin

Jeff Wheeler is a best selling fantasy author who is also deeply religious and worked many years for Intel.  This is a tretise on how he continued on with his dream of becoming a writer in the face of disasters, raising a family, going on a mission, serving in various leadership capacities in the church, and stumbling through years of trying to break into becoming a published writer, even publishing his own e-zine and books.  The basic conclusion is to be prepared for the consequences of what you want.

The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang (2019) Harper Voyager

Rin, the heroine of the Poppy Wars, returns, addicted to heroin in an effort to quiet the murderous Phoenix inside her mind and to escape the guilt of how she ended the war.  This time, the Dragon warlord seeks to overthrow the empress and establish a republic with the help of foreigners who have advanced technology, but will not provide help until they see that the Dragon lord's plan will work.  Only the empress is not so easy to defeat, and the Dragon lord is not really helping a republic form.  In the end, he will do whatever he needs to preserve his family's position and safety.

The Hob’s Bargain by Patricia Briggs (2001) Ace Books

A farmer’s daughter, Aren, gets married when she thought she was doomed to be an old maid.  Then on the second day of her marriage, everything goes wrong.  Raiders kill her husband, his brother, and her parents.  She could see it was happening and ran to her hidden cellar, terrified she would suffer the same fate.  Magic is considered evil, even having the sight.  But she sees more and feels compelled to warn the villagers, even though she knows they can condemn her to death.  While in the village, a great earthquake happens, and the villagers and farmers fear it will cut them off from the town where they sell their produce.  As they go over the Hob, a mountain between them and their destination, Aren is ‘saved’ by the Hob.  He is bound to the mountain and is a strong magical spirit.  More spirits attack the village and Aren returns to the Hob to strike a bargain for his protection.  But what he wants in return is her.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022) Harper

David Copperfield in the Appalachians.  The story even starts with a similar line; “First, I got myself born.”  Only here we are in the current century with the current problems that have affected our society.  Our hero, the title character, lives with his drug addicted mother, until the government decides it would be in his best interest to live in foster care, meaning people who are only interested in the monthly check from the government and the free labor that comes with it.  Things go from bad to worse until he hits the jackpot with the local hero football coach.  But fate won’t by stopped by the cornucopia of temptations and tragedies of the twenty-first century.  And all Demon wants to do is see the ocean.

Silverton County SD-101: Trust Part 2 by Timothy Brown

This is a story of people who are experts in defending themselves, but they are put to the test in ways that make their lives difficult at best.  The character’s voices are distinct enough to hear snippets and know which one is talking.  The suspense is intense.  And there is a supernatural element, giving us a connection in the story that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.  It needs editing (we all do on our writing), but that can be taken care of after the first draft is complete.  A very interesting story.

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

The Drum Family lives in a small town south of Mankato in Minnesota.  The father is a pastor to three congregations in the vicinity.  The mother is talented soprano and conducts the local chorus.  The daughter outshines her mother due to the same teacher.  She composes, she plays, she astounds.  There are two brothers, one is the narrator of the story and often gets himself and his brother, who has a stuttering problem, into difficulty.
The story takes place post-World War two.  A blind man, the teacher, son of the local wealthy family, and his sister, who is deaf, seem to only be befriended by the Drum family.  The boys help the deaf woman with her garden.  The father plays chess with the man.  The mother has fond memories of the man she was going to marry, before he went off to war and lost his sight and his beauty.  The daughter is typing up his memoir.  But the story is not about an idyllic life.  It is about death, which seems to occur repeatedly in the story.  One death in particular leads the narrator to want to solve the puzzle that seems beyond his reach.  But he is persistent.

Angel Catbird by Margaret Atwood, Illustrated by Johnnie Christmas and Tamara Bonvillain (2017) Dark Horse Comics

A three-issue set written by the imitable Ms. Margaret Atwood.  It serves two purposes; 1) a fun and sometimes silly story about a superhero (?) who is part human, part cat, and part bird vs. a man who is part human and part rat.  And 2) a plea for people to keep their cats indoors so they won't get killed and won't decimate the songbird population.  Ms. Atwood obviously enjoyed herself as the writing exposes her trademark wit.  Worth spending the afternoon reading.

Split Second by David Baldacci (2003) Grand Central Publishing

The first of the King and Maxwell books.  They have something to be ashamed of in common.  Both have lost a presidential candidate while in the Secret Service.  King eight years previously when he was distracted during an orchestrated assassination, just enough time for the shooter to kill the man he was supposed to be protecting; a hateful man who had no chance of winning the race.  Maxwell, now, also protecting a man whom everyone hopes has no chance of winning.  Only hers is kidnapped.  And a man who was in WITSEC and worked for King’s legal office has been killed in the office with King’s gun while King was on his weekly volunteer deputy patrol.  A joint task force is formed between the U.S. Marshall’s office, the Secret Service and the FBI.  No one can trace the kidnappers.  Then more people are killed and more are kidnapped.  It’s up to King and Maxwell to solve the mystery and bring the perpetrators to justice.

School for Dark Thoughts by Charles Simic (1978) Charles Seluzicki

I went by appointment to the Wilson Special Collections Library at UNC Chapel Hill to see a copy in the Rare Books Collection.

Hand printed and hand bound, signed - #84 of 235 copies.  First sheet is not part of the binding (without it, the copy would be incomplete).

Interesting page layout by the printer – no isolation of poems, once a poem ends, the next starts on the same page.  A set number of lines per page printed - if a poem or stanza hits the line limit, the next line is on the next page - a little jarring at times.

Simic tends to use quatrains but not always.  Often, he capitalizes each line.  But in some poems, only the first word of a sentence or stanza is capitalized.

The original copy sold for $22.50 (penciled on a blank page).  Now some of the 235 copies sell for over $150.00.

The pamphlet includes eight poems:

1. The Stream
2. School for Dark Thoughts (title poem)
3. The Great Anonymous Eye and Ear
4. Window Washer
5. The Guest (longest poem – 3 pages)
6. Note Slipped Under a Door
7. Peaceful Kingdom
8. Whispers In the Next Room

Symphony for a Deadly Throne by E.J. Mellow (2023) Montlake

In which the oldest sister of the Mousai is given an invitation to compete for the throne of the Thief Kingdom, and the impact it has on her love life and her family.  A new character is introduced who has her own impact on the people around the central story.  All is not necessarily well that ends.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1984) Arte Publico Press

A year in the life of a 12-year-old Chicana in Chicago in the 1960’s and living in the house on Mango Street.  Told as a series of vignettes, it shows the world and the city from the perspective of Hispanic girls navigating the change from girl to womanhood.  Learning too early and too late about growing up.

One Fearful Yellow Eye by John D MacDonald (1978) Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins

A curiosity that feels like the wheels went flat, then reveals what you should have realized all along.  McGee is given a call for help from a woman in Chicago that he acted as matchmaker for a few years earlier.  A considerable sum has gone missing from her husband’s accounts.  The kids blame the new wife, the cook blames her wayward daughter.  McGee has other suspicions.

“A Clean Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway (1933) Scribner’s Magazine (also appeared in the collection Winner Take Nothing)

Hemingway sets the scene in few words.  A deaf old man sits in front of a café, late at night and continues to order brandies.  There are two waiters who carry the conversation of the story.  The younger of the two wants the old man to finish and leave so he can go home.  The older waiter is patient and willing to allow the old man to stay as long as he wants.  For the older waiter, it’s a matter of pride to run a clean well-lighted café.

The Nine Pound Hammer by John Claude Bemis (2009) Yearling

Mr. Bemis combines American myth with orphans fighting for their lives in a masterful tale in a late 19th Century setting.  From the opening nightmare through outrageous characters, a traveling medicine show and a blind marksman, a pirate queen and a siren, the pace never stops.  It’s the nine pound hammer and what it means that makes all the difference.

Deadly Edge by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark (1971) Random House

Parker is just as ready to be mean as ever.  This time he’s protecting the woman he lives with.nbsp; He and a crew knock off the last show of a music venue.nbsp; They were one guy short because the guy just didn’t have it in him to do the job.nbsp; But after the money is split, they find the guy has been murdered.nbsp; Then another guy gets killed.nbsp; Parker’s contact calls him at his new residence, which he did not share.nbsp; Now Parker has to find whoever is doing the killing and stop them.

Djibouti by Elmore Leonard (2010) Mariner Books

Djibouti is a gateway to the east.  It sits on the horn of Africa between Somalia and Eritrea.  It’s also the scene of Elmore Leonard’s story about a documentary filmmaker who hopes to add to her portfolio of award-winning films.  Dara Barr, from New Orleans, and her cameraman, Xavier, go to Djibouti to film Somali pirates and get much more than they expected.

Catching Up

Trying to get back into the rhythm of writing again.

How many spaces between sentences?

For those of you who read this, you may notice that I still use two spaces after the punctuation between sentences.  All the major style guides say the rule is a single space after a period or any other punctuation mark used at the end of a sentence.

So why do I insist on using two spaces?  A few reasons.

1. I’m old school and learned to type on a typewriter about 60 years ago.  My instructor told us to use two spaces at the end of a sentence that was not the end of the paragraph.  Old habits die hard.
2. I learned to typeset a few years later.  In typesetting, we learned to use different size spacing slugs based on where on a line the space was needed.  This was especially useful when setting lines that were justified on both ends where we might add copper or brass slugs to get the spacing visually pleasing.  In between words we used a ½ pica slug called an en‑space.  For the end of a sentence, we used our largest space (only 1) that was a full pica in width, called an em‑space.  Note however, that it was twice the space between words.  You can mimic the old typesetting on a computer by reducing the font size of the spaces to half the font size of the letters (a lot of work).  Or you can maintain the old typewriting standard of two spaces at the end of the sentence.
3. I’m very near-sighted.  So, it’s particularly difficult for me to see the difference between a comma, and a period (unless I increase the size on screen 400% or more).  The two spaces at the end of a sentence makes it easier for me to distinguish between the two types of punctuation.

There is a very easy way to convert from two spaces at the end of a sentence to one space, or vice-versa, if required.  Simply use a global change.  I increase this on manuscripts I’m asked to read so I can tell whether I’m looking at a comma or a period.  For editors who request single space, I do the opposite change on the copy of the manuscript before submission.  It's more important to provide the style requested than to insist on one way or another.