05-07-14:Michael Marshall (Smith) Opens the Door for 'The Intruders'
The Kierkegaard Knife
Identity need not be a tricky notion. We open our eyes and we are who we are. We presume the same to be true of those around us, even those who mean us harm. It's simply life as we live it.
Michael Marshall (Smith) manages to rather neatly gut us to the core with 'The Intruders,' a smart surrealistic novel, which quite methodically pulls out the pins that glue us to both ourselves and this world. It's an unlikely combination of philosophy and terror, or more accurately, philosophy pushed to the point of terror in modern American settings. Crisp and clean, it cuts deep, like a razor. You don't even know you've been sliced until it is too late.
Marshall writes in an unusual style, combining first and third person perspectives to create a very tight and unusually deep sense of mystery and tension. A man claiming to be from the FBI pushes his way into a house and murders a scientist's wife and son. Before we know why, we meet Jack Whalen, an ex-cop who published a book of photography and has since left the life of law. An old friend comes to him to ask for some help. His wife goes out of town for a business trip. It's not long before his world no longer adds up.
Marshall has a way with his own brand of surreal mystery, and he's at the top of his game in 'The Intruders.' With deft, sure strokes, he creates characters we really like, even if they're quite on the terrorizing side of life. Jack Whalen, who tells the bulk of the story, is a likable combination of cop and creative type, balancing the two quite nicely. He's able to ask the right questions, and do some dirty work, but he has the imagination required to deal with what is waiting for him in this novel. Madison, a nine-year-old girl, proves to be a complex, intense and always fascinating character. No matter who you are with in 'The Intruders,' the pages are pleasurable to read and difficult to turn fast enough.
Marshall's prose is polished and stripped down to the wire. He can craft a scene with intensity and personality without the reader ever actually noticing what's happening; we're just there. He does, however, have a very unique method of combining first-person and third-person segments that is seamless and provides for a rather different feel from almost any other writer out there. Jack Whalen is our first-person visceral perspective on the story, while Madison and other characters offer a sort of framing view that keeps the novel from feeling claustrophobic.
The upshot of this prose style mix is to give Marshall a variety of ways to increase the tension and play with the plotting. He's able to evoke a sense of deep unease that is both frightening, almost Lovecraftian, but also suspenseful in the manner of gritty thriller. And there is grit to be found here, plenty of it, in service of a core concept that is unsettling and thought provoking. 'The Intruders' will definitely make you think — and think about thinking, even as you check the lock and windows.
05-05-14:Ben Tarnoff Conjures 'The Bohemians'
Then In Now
Written histories are themselves a piece of history, as much a document of their own time as those they examine. Happily, the early 21st century appears to have been an ideal moment for Ben Tarnoff to look at 'The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature.'
Tarnoff's narrative of a nascent cultural revolution is chock-a-block with verve and reverb. He finds an engaging through-line full of fun stories about a culture in the midst of tumultuous and familiar-feeling change. Apparently, we're unlikely to run out of barriers to break down no matter how decisive any given victory feels.
Even the three stages of change that structure the book ring close to home; "Pioneers," "Bonanza and Bust," and "Exile." As you read, skip "Oh, Susanna" for your soundtrack and go straight to the Rolling Stones. Early on, it becomes clear that Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard and Ina Coolbrith were their own brand of rock stars, making use of new technology to splash out their artistic visions and just as importantly, amp up their fame and make some money.
Twain's the lead here, even if it's mostly early days for him in this slice of time. Tarnoff brings Twain, Harte, Stoddard and Coolbrith together in the opening sections of the book, each of them young, uncertain (some more than others) but driven to succeed in a new landscape where it's possible to make a living as a writer. Not a good living necessarily and not as easy one. Tarnoff's story charts not just the stories of these writers, but the larger cultural and literary landscape that itself was unsettled.
The primary strength of Tarnoff's book lies in his ability to craft a gripping story around history we sort-of know by bringing up the details of what we don't know. His prose is clean and crisp and he has a great sense of pacing and plotting. The book has a palpable sense of tension as we see these very diverse personalities, meet, form friendships and then blow up and out into the world at large.
Tarnoff is also an expert at writing about the past in a manner that suggests the present without needing to mention it explicitly. The Bohemians embodied the still lively clash between the East and West coast literary establishments, and they came together in an unprecedented bust of literacy and literary publication. Tarnoff describes situations that let his readers make their own parallels to the present, which makes reading the book quite enjoyable.
The other strength here is Tarnoff's strong sense of characterization, of both his people and the places. Without allusions or anachronisms, he makes these men and women seem thoroughly modern. His ability to transport us in time so convincingly derives from his ability to use the language of now to create for us then. We feel a real kinship to these people, and you'll care about them long after you finish the book.
'The Bohemians' is a fascinating raft of stories, an ark stuffed with tales of lives that might seem like the tall tales told by those in the narrative. Tarnoff's concise vision ensures that the book has all the drive of a novel. He uses the most modern implements of cultural histories to bring to his work the kind of excitement he portrays in the work. Twain's literary landscape was embroiled in change just as profound as that which surrounds us now. The trick of 'The Bohemians' is to let its readers be two places at once.
New to the Agony Column
09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
