Louisiana Requires All Public Classrooms to Display Ten Commandments

Louisiana Requires All Public Classrooms to Display Ten Commandments

The Dud Avocado

Elaine Dundy's first novel was published in the year I was born (1958). The NYRB Classics reissue features a rather risqué cover (by their standards) that might have caught your eye in your favorite bookstore. It is a very good book, a coming-of-age dramedy narrated in the first person by our hero, Sally Jay Gorce, who tells of her misadventures as a curious young American woman in Paris in the 1950s. To describe it as "proto-feminist" would be too strong, but the book is matter-of-fact and sympathetic about the inequities, double standards, and serious hazards a sexually active and free-willed young woman might face in Paris at that time, or in any city at any time. The plot is great, Sally Jay is great, and the prose has a way with vernacular that will sometimes whack you upside the head... the sure sign of a great writer: 

... some pretty fancy women came by, and yet I couldn't figure out what he specifically liked about them. Variety seemed to be the only rule. There was something impersonal in the way he treated them. I could see he didn't love any of them, that he didn't even particularly like them; he—I don't know what he them'd. 

"I don't know what he them'd." Whack!

Litmus test

Hey Republican / MAGA! Do you repudiate the Colorado GOP's "God Hates Flags"? How about what David French and family have endured? If not, no more civility... we are finished. Feel free to ask me where I draw the line on my side. Maybe I'm just as bigoted and mean-spirited as you are. I think not.

Lovely lovely clintonia

Wing

Reading roundup

Spring slowdown... moving into summer. 

Cahokia Jazz
Francis Spufford

Spufford tries very hard to keep a lot of balls in the air in this alternate history-cum-police procedural. He nearly succeeds.

Same Bed Different Dreams
Ed Park

A novel-within-a-novel-within-a-novel modernist mashup, where everything is connected to everything else and organized around a tour of modern Korean history. In this case, confirming the old cliché, truth is often stranger than fiction, as you discover if you keep Wikipedia near at hand. It is a book that demands steady focus and– given the need to keep flipping back and forth to name-check– should be read in hard copy rather than on a Kindle (alas). I may grab a copy at the library and try again. 

Skeletons in the Closet
Jean-Patrick Manchette

A briskly humorous private eye story, with some of the flavor of The Maltese Falcon, but more graphic violence and a good dose of profanity. Our hero Eugene Tarpon is hardly a straight arrow, but he has a moral compass, and that, naturally, gets him into deep trouble. An enjoyable romp. 

The Hunter
Tana French

The sequel to The Searcher is just about as good as the first installment. The characters– including both the appealing if flawed heroes as well as the collectivity of the townsfolk of little Ardnakelty– are well drawn and continue to grow into their roles, and the suspense builds slowly but steadily. If the plot is a bit Baroque and the ending overly dramatic for my tastes... well, your mileage may vary. And for sure I'll be back to find out what's next for Cal, Trey, Lena, and their not-always-to-be-trusted neighbors.  

The Peacock and the Sparrow
I.S. Berry

Dumb spy gets what's coming. Meh.