She’s My Dad by Iolanthe Woulff

She’s My Dad
Iolanthe Woulff
Outskirts Press (Nov 13, 2009)
6 x 9 Paperback cream, 469 pages
6 x 9 Hardback w/ jacket, 469 pages
ISBN13: 9781432743772
Fiction

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What if rumoured statistics on the internet were true, that the ratio of gay people to heterosexuals is somewhere between 20% (1 in 5) and 33% (1 in 3) of the population? Now, suspend your disbelief and imagine that you can tap into the thoughts and see the private actions of everyone in your world: gays, straights, lovers and haters. Wouldn’t the experience mimic a world where everyone says what’s really on their minds, and everyone does what they really want to do? Personally, I think the result would be a world larger than life in practically every way; it would be the fictional world portrayed in the novel She’s My Dad by Iolanthe Woulff.

Nicholas “Collie” Skinner is the bastard son of a man who is now a woman—Nickie Farrell, the end result of a top-notch sex change program. Neither of them are aware of the connection. Collie’s mother has hidden the truth from both. Which is probably a good thing. Collie supports his drunkard, abusive father (who’s a detailed caricature of the white, racist good-old-boy) and his dying mother, Luanne. Due to his environment Collie struggles with prejudicial tendencies learned from the father he hates. Fortunately, he’s not alone: Collie has fallen hard for Robin, who’s a supportive, loving, church-going friend of his mother’s. The two women want Collie to learn how not to hate. Their message is clear: “Don’t hate, Nicholas. Hate destroys everything. Don’t let it destroy you…” Collie also hates his brother, who’s back in town. Unknown to the family the brother is a homosexual in denial, who, with his wealthy partner, spends his time tracking down and beating up gays (men or women). Then there’s Collie’s sister who, rather than trying to live as a lesbian, hung herself. Quite a family to come from and still hope to be “normal,” isn’t it? And can you imagine what might happen when Collie learns that his biological father is transexual?

Let’s also throw in a crazed, racist billionaire who intends his last act to be the total destruction of the local university, which was founded with a mandate to grow as a tolerant, liberal and forward-thinking haven for learning. The place represents every person and thing he has hated all his life.

Then there’s the self-proclaimed dyke, Cinda, who aspires to be an investigative reporter. She’s very smart and such a narcissist she can’t imagine the damage she does when revealing that her English teacher, Nickie Farrell, is a T-girl (a man-made woman rather than a biological one).

Each of the people mentioned in this story (and there are more) are balanced or challenged by their opposites. For example: jaded Cinda rooms with a rich, beautiful, innocent, Barbie-like, positive thinker who is completely comfortable with Cinda being gay.  Luanne has her pastor and her love child, Collie, to help counter the nightmare of her marriage. And so on…

If you toned down the over-the-top characters, Woulff’s book would resemble some of the old drama standards like Hotel, Wheels, Airport or Chiefs (updated for the times, of course). It’s a big, sprawling book filled with suspense and interesting people. On this level, She’s My Dad is a fun book to read. But something deeper happens when you look closer at the larger than life characters. You’ll find yourself thinking: “I know someone just like that.” or “I wish I could just let go and say what’s on my mind.” or “Could there really be this much hatred in the real world?” and “Is it possible that I’m part of the problem?”

Such questions and statements would suggest that She’s My Dad is, in part, about hatred and intolerance and the possibility of redeeming change. Hatred and intolerance tends to destroy both the victim and the hater. But being tolerant of people who are different from us doesn’t mean much if we turn a blind eye toward all the prejudice and hatred these people face. In reality, it make us part of the problem. More change is required of us.

She’s My Dad deals with this last issue as well… We see something of what it is to be gay, to be straight and have to deal with people who are gay, to be so evil as to revel in your hatred of people who are different, to be so good as to consistently support others with your love while also fighting evil face to face, to hide or flaunt who you are because it’s the only way you know how to survive and, most important, how opportunities always exit for change.

I think the way I would summarize the book is that She’s My Dad is about learning that all forms of hate and all forms of love are a choice, whether those choices are as difficult as learning to accept and love who you really are or as simple as insisting that an old black man retains his position in a line in your local grocery store.

Love, hatred and redemption. She’s My Dad is a book we could all benefit from reading.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2010


Note: One improvement that could have made the book even better than it is would be making certain that all characters think and talk as per their education. There were a number of slips in this regard. High School educated people sometimes used words I had to look up in the dictionary. The errors pulled me out of the story a few times.

Who Got Liz Gardner by Elizabeth Allen

Who Got Liz Gardner
by Elizabeth Allen
YouWriteOn.com, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-84923-888-5
Trade Paperback
355 pages
Fiction

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Liz Gardner wanders into a chat room for members of her 1977 graduating high school class. She’s a financial advisor looking for prospective customers. Instead, what she finds is a discussion between a group of men trying to answer the question “Who got Liz Gardner?” And so begins a trip through Liz’s mind, not so much looking for the answer to the group’s question, but answering, for herself, the question “How did I get Liz Gardner?”

You just know this trip into the past is going to be interesting: Liz says at the outset, “My stories require no embellishing. I didn’t conform to social ideals, pressure or expectations. I drove through my life without a safety-belt, miraculously surviving my reckless choices.”

Having grown up during the same era as Liz, I expected a story of rebellion against authority, drug experimentation and plenty of sex. We were part of the “do what feels good.” generation. But Who Got Liz Gardner is so much more.

Reading like an autobiography, we first see Liz as a victim of a broken home: unloving father, self-centred mother and a young woman determined not to repeat her parents’ mistakes. Instead, Liz makes up her own rules to live by (a lot of us did that). She’s not interested in drugs. But sex is fun, driven by her, not the man. Monogamy isn’t necessary, but you better make that clear up front: Having a father who was a serial cheater, Liz doesn’t put up with liars. She isn’t perfect and doesn’t expect her men to be. Yet Liz is looking for someone, a person she hasn’t even defined in her own mind.

An aspiring actress in New York, Liz’s life is busy, messy and full of some really odd men. In fact, one of them, to whom she is technically engaged, is uncomfortably weird. He eventually becomes the deciding factor in her decision to move to Los Angeles. Happy with her new acting school and the choice of men available within that group, Liz continues living as before. But when she becomes disillusioned with the type of man she keeps returning to, and her former fiancé turns into a stalker, Liz begins her transformation. A new age retreat takes her even further. She comes out of the experience ready to become the person she needs to be for the special someone she can feel coming her way.

And she’s right. It isn’t long before Liz finds her mate: Eric Allen.

Okay, you’ve got the basic outline of the book. Why should you read it? Liz Allen tells it like it is (or was). Sex is natural, described in terms we actually used in those times, and is often funny and clumsy, the author not following the current trend of erotic romance, where everything is perfect, spelled out for you and which often crosses the line into pornography. Even when her life is falling apart, Liz is aggressive; she’s never afraid of making choices. While she may worry, Liz always seems to have a core that can turn anything around, usually in a non-typical, “I won’t run away from life manner.” Oh, there’s also the fact that even when Liz is talking dirty, behaving without regard to what may happen after the current orgasm, she’s charming, larger than life and great fun to read about.

Who Got Liz Gardner is not a book for your teenager. I wouldn’t even recommend it for those of you who prefer sex with the lights off—the book will startle and offend you. Yet it comes off in such an honest, unpretentious and entertaining way, that you, my readers, should buy a copy today!

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2010

Solar by Ian McEwan

Solar
By Ian McEwan
Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-39924-3
Hard Cover
285 pages
Fiction/Satire

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Solar. My initial thought is “Don’t expect a literary review with comparisons to Ian McEwan’s other critically acclaimed works.” First, I haven’t read any of them, and, second, a book like Solar can be over-thought. You see, McEwan has written a dark, satirical novel about the problem of Global Warming/Climate Change as seen through the eyes of just one person. And while there’s plenty of fodder for a highbrow criticism, I prefer to focus on the story as entertainment, rather than a lofty piece of literature.

Michael Beard is an aging, bald, overweight, narcissistic, Nobel prize-winning physicist who has spent most of his adult life trading in on his one accomplishment. Corporations want him on their boards, scientific institutions want his name on their letterheads, he’s in demand on the lecture circuit and the government has literally thrown money at him to make quick advancements in the field of global warming. This is a man who has had the opportunity to be great. Instead, he is a slave to his wants: food, drink, dalliances, comfort and any short-term goal that captures his fancy. One could argue Michael Beard represents the excesses of the very problem he’s attempting to solve: as he wantonly cuts a swath through his life without thinking of the consequences, one automatically thinks of mankind’s rapacious consumption of Earth’s bounty. Thus, we are, or should be, prepared for his brilliant work in photosynthesis to blow up in his face—just as his life and reputation will be ruined when his shortsightedness catches up with him.

Solar is a sluggish read. The story spans a period of 9 years, all seen through the eyes of an unlikeable person. We are forced to sit inside his abused body and inward looking mind. Clench your fists as he breaks the hearts of a string of beautiful and caring women—because he doesn’t know how to love and doesn’t care to learn. Pound your table with those fists as his narcissism single handedly destroys his greatest accomplishment, and at the very end leaves him with nothing but the love of a child and, to his very great surprise, his love for her.

Interesting as an inside look at the world of scientific research and as a study of a despicable protagonist, Solar is not your typical Sunday afternoon read.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye.

Ford County, Short Stories by John Grisham

Ford County: Stories
John Grisham
Doubleday, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-53425-7
Hard Cover
308 pages
Fiction

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Ford County is John Grisham’s first collection of short stories. Customer reviews were mixed. I mention this for two reasons: first, I believe the people who really disliked the book didn’t understand the function of a short story; second, Grisham’s stories are so unique it may have been hard for people to connect.

I think Ford County is brilliant. The humour runs the full gamut, from dry to witty, laugh out loud to guilty pleasure, even caricature to an assembly of fools. His character’s are drawn with a fine pen and a sure hand, and while we may not be able to love them, it is possible to identify with and even vicariously enjoy places we would never go and people we would avoid anyplace but between the pages of this book.  Grisham’s characters range from the very flawed to the actual criminal. In between you’ll find some gentle souls and some folks trying to live life the best they can. However you read these stories, it’s impossible to miss that the main characters in each tale are changed in some fundamental way (the cardinal rule of short story writing).

There’s Sidney, a quiet, unassuming man who loves his wife and is content to work his life away as an insurance data collector. When his wife leaves him, Sidney’s world collapses, and as he walks dazedly through his new world, he just happens to end up at a black jack table. The hilarious results are so perfect that you may start to look over your shoulder for that one person you did wrong without knowing so.

How about 3 good ol’ boys (actually, they’re the new generation) who head out to the big city to give blood to a friend who may or may not be dying. You just know something is going to go amiss. And when it does, the simple error of judgment escalates to the point of ridiculous. What do the boys learn? Could be nothing more than staying away from the demon alcohol; could be they recognize the need to behave responsibly; it could even be that there’s no place like home.

Ford County is seven meaty stories about a kind of life and people a small town, Mississippi lawyer might see at certain points of his career. My bet is that Grisham had great fun spoofing his old stomping grounds and ending up with a kind of storybook you won’t find anywhere else. Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) would be proud.


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

REVIEW: A Terrace On The Tower Of Babel by Nelson Caldwell

A Terrace On The Tower Of Babel
by Nelson Caldwell
Self Published, 2009
ISBN: 978-1450556569
Trade Paperback
777 pages
Fiction

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Let me begin this review by saying Nelson Caldwell has the technical skills to write a book of this magnitude. However, it is my opinion that he doesn’t understand the concept of story. Allow me to elaborate…

I picked up the giant volume that is A Terrace On The Tower of Babel eager to learn the inner secrets behind the collapse of the dot.coms and the ensuing real estate boom (which we’re painfully aware also collapsed). After all, this is what had been promised me. By page 172, I was able to extrapolate to the point that I could see what was coming. I was also bored to tears.

Nelson Caldwell has written a book that takes you into the boardrooms and offices of the men who are purposefully shaping the landscape of modern business. These are the men with billions of dollars and massive global networks who take part in or influence or finance the creation of silicon valley superstars, the fulfillment of the technological dreams of Arab visionaries and the future of many other organizations. This should be heady stuff, right? It’s not. When the description over several paragraphs of a character emptying a bottle of water, sip by sip, is the extent of physical action a scene, and the characters in the room talk in jargon and in terms of manipulating companies and people like they are pieces on a chess board, my eyes kept glazing over, and I would constantly lose my place. It was like Caldwell was driven to micro-manage his book, to offer up everything in great detail (whether interesting or not), when as most writers know that even in lengthy stories, where you might expect the occasional use of a fine stroke, a single action or word will often speaking volumes.

Story: main characters must be in peril (real or imagined), right from the beginning of the story. Caldwell’s characters show only a hint of what this peril is to be by the time I got to page 172. In other words, those 172 pages are unnecessary to the story. The middle of a book shows how the problem(s) develop and it also shows the hero(s) struggling valiantly against overwhelming odds. The end of the story or dénouement reveals or explains matters, usually during the hero’s victory over the forces which have stood in his or her way.

What I’ve been talking about is conflict. It doesn’t have to be as blatant as I described it, but if there’s no conflict in a story, what is there for the reader to invest in? Again, by page 172 in A Terrace On The Tower Of Babel, I can see some of the business and personal conflicts beginning to arise, but it is far too late. Caldwell has irrevocably lost me. I can’t force myself to read another word. And this is tragic, because I believe Caldwell has written something original and informative, something with real value. He just forgot to entertain me while he was doing so.

Perhaps you, the reader, will have more stamina than I.


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest
Stieg Larsson
Penguin Group Canada, 2010
ISBN 978-0-670-06903-3
Hardcover
563 pages
fiction/thriller/crime

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Well, it’s done and on the shelves; Stieg Larrson’s last book in a trilogy about a government-generated psychopath who decides she isn’t going to be a victim anymore. Lisbeth Salander is slim, short, boyish, bisexual and can hold her own, physically, against anyone. She also has a photographic memory and is one of the top computer hackers in the world. Living by her own moral code and violently rejecting anyone who tries to make her conform, Lisbeth manages to steal billions of Kroner from a crook, begins living as she wishes and even collects a few friends along the way. However, after tracking down her evil father (who is responsible for virtually everything that’s wrong with her and her life), he and her serial killer brother shoot her in the head and bury her alive, she, of course, digs her way out and almost finishes them off. This brings us to the end of the first two novels.

As the third book begins: Salander is in the hospital awaiting 16 serious charges, including murder. Her father is just 2 rooms down from her. He is also recuperating and spends his days dreaming of killing his daughter. Things take off from this point. A group of friends and honest cops join together to prove Lisbeth is innocent of all charges, that the real perpetrators are an invisible unit operating within the Security Police (SAPO), the same unit responsible for Salander’s odd behaviour and questionable mental state.

From here the book becomes what I would call a police procedural. Author Stieg Larsson obviously knew the inner workings of the Swedish political establishment, the structure and purpose of the police and, of course, the newspaper industry. In The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest, Larsson lets that knowledge out as he takes us on a virtual step-by-step journey from Salander with a bullet in her head until she finishes her case in court, to the secondary character (our real hero) Mikail Blomkvist who plans to take down the CEO of the largest newspaper in the country, help the police snuff out the nest of bad cops and criminals operating within the bowels of SAPO and put together a defense strategy for Salander that has the potential to wreak revenge on virtually everyone who has ever hurt her.

Reviewers at The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, to name a few, just don’t like the phenomenal success of these three books. You can feel it all the way through their reviews. Reviews, by the way that just can’t find a way to pick apart these monumental, international bestsellers. I think these reviewers just don’t “get it.”

Yes, Larsson didn’t know all he should have with respect to writing fiction: he was a reporter and news editor for many years. It’s a different kind of writing. Yes, he sometimes let his right wing politics loose on left wing ideals and notions. Yes, there were a number of messages in his writing, the most important being his statement about the state’s role in the diminishment of women, as well as many abhorrent individual behaviours that seem to be accepted by a complacent society. And I say: So what?

Larsson wrote detailed stories that rang so true, suspending judgment (a must for fictional stories to succeed) wasn’t ever an issue. He also entertained us with, in my mind, the most interesting antihero in modern fiction. Lisbeth Salander is such a mixture of characteristics, I believe she has the ability to capture readers from all genres and ages. Too bad Stieg Larrsson died. I’ve read that he intended the series to be 10 books in length. Wouldn’t that have been something?


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
Vintage International, 2006
ISBN: 978-0-307-47630-2
Trade Paperback
287 pages
Fiction

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The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a nameless man and his young son, referred to as the boy. They’re walking toward the southern coast of the Atlantic, hoping to escape from a winter the man knows they can’t survive. A catastrophe (also unnamed) that has turned the world into a place of ash, perpetual gray days and freezing nights hasn’t finished with them yet. It’s getting colder every day. Scavenging for food has become necessary for survival. Almost everyone and everything in the world is dead. The only living things you’ll encounter in McCarthy’s post apocalyptic story are small groups of cannibals, slowly starving people who scavenge what they can (like the boy and the man), a dog and some chanterelles.

The boy, who was born into this life is told stories about how things used to be, while being exposed to horrific sights and events: people half melted into a highway, a baby roasting on a spit, decapitated heads displayed in many ways and dead forests where one can’t sleep because trees start falling over in the mildest of winds.

As they travel in search of warmer climes, we see that the boy has been taught a rudimentary of sense right and wrong, good and bad. He also knows how to read a little. The boy and his father have no hope of a better world (other than reaching a place with a lesser degree of cold), yet they continue to scavenge to eat and to replace clothes and blankets that continually wear out from the constant walking and the unending dampness and cold. The father is dying, and as his health deteriorates his choices become very simple, very clear: self-interest for the boy and himself above all.

The man knows he’ll eventually have to kill the boy and then himself, which makes his will to survive as strong as the hardest steel. The boy having known nothing and no one else during his short life, considers the man his entire world, believing in him wholeheartedly until given reason not to. This is most apparent as his father makes ever toughening decisions in order for them to survive, where the boy would have picked sharing food, helping another boy he sees in one of the ravaged towns, befriending a wandering dog and showing some basic compassion for a man who tried to steal their food and supplies. Yet they love each other unconditionally, even as the boy slowly works toward a form of independence.

How the book ends, the resolution of the death problem, the culmination of the boy’s mental growth and what it will mean for his future, is and must be expected. McCarthy has left no room for hope as he writes of the dead world and the few left who pick at its skin. But the beauty of the love and companionship in a place where you would expect just the opposite simply mesmerizes. The Road is a book that sticks its claws into your chest and doesn’t let go until long after you put the book away.

The main reason for this last statement is the way McCarthy writes. As my 18 year-old son said today. “He [McCarthy] hates punctuation and writes so simply, yet I felt like I was reading poetry.” Further discussion revealed what my boy meant: McCarthy’s writing seems so simple and clean to him—short scenes, no quotation marks when someone’s speaking, characters who speak in monosyllables and a book that’s so easy to read it’s finished before you’re ready to let it go. Yet when you do come away from The Road, it’s with the feeling you’ve been reading poetry.

The Road was a #1 National Bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2010

Dirty Hands by T. R. Braxton

Dirty Hands
by T. R. Braxton
Montebello Books
Published Nov 2009
ISBN: 9780984124404
Trade Paperback
260 pages
Crime

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Three young men in Baltimore: Terrell, Shawntae and Brock. All have had too much to drink. So have the three party girls they’ve brought back to Terrell’s apartment. When a late night argument goes too far, Brock’s date reaches the end of her life in the shower with a crushed skull. Brock, who’s only concern is keeping himself out of jail, manages to talk his shocked friends into standing by while he smothers the other two girls (who are still sleeping). Now that they’re accomplices, Brock also insists all three must pitch in to chop up the bodies and drop them in weighted-down garbage bags into Lake Montebello.

The rest of Dirty Hands follows the actions of the three men and the police detectives assigned to the case. The reader watches, mostly through the eyes of Terrell, as guilt and mistrust wrecks the friendship and the lives of the three criminals and reveals Brock (who is Terrell’s cousin) as a stone cold killer.

It’s a rare book that focuses on the “bad guys,” building up sympathy for or, at least, understanding of their actions. Author T. R. Braxton does this well. And whether or not it was intentional, his book Dirty Hands also illustrates one of the most disturbing aspects of today’s society: the tendency of our citizens to not take responsibility for their actions. This was an interesting read.

As the technical aspects of Braxton’s writing are quite professional for a first novel, and the author manages his story with skill, I do find myself wondering why he didn’t find himself a traditional publisher. I bring this up because his choice to self-publish (Braxton is Montebello Books) has resulted in some unnecessary warts. First, the cover is awful. I’m sure the childish graphics/art were purposeful, but a publisher would have killed the cover the instant it was seen. Second, the book was obviously digitally produced, which in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. However, there were many photocopier smudges in the copy I received. This makes the book seem less valuable or less professional. And third, there was something strange going on with the font size: it went up and down for no apparent reason, sometimes right in the middle of a sentence or paragraph. Now, with these three items dealt with, Braxton did make one unusual choice I actually enjoyed… The lines of text are double spaced and make for a pleasant read.

So, here we have an example of the good and the bad of self-publishing: an unusual and well executed story that just isn’t packaged well. I hope T. R. Braxton learns from this novel and provides us with more stories. I think he has great potential.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

Walking On Electric Air by Stephen Cubine

Walking On Electric Air
Stephen Cubine
19 West Publishing, Feb 17, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-1450501965
Trade Paperback: 264 pages

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Long-time film maker and writer, Stephen Cubine, has decided to add novelist to his list of credits with a book entitled Walking On Electric Air. Typical of today’s self-publishers, Cubine had his book printed by createspace.com (a print on demand company) then listed his own company, 19 West Publishing, Inc., as the publisher. I mention this because Walking On Electric Air is not your typical self-produced fair. This is a finely crafted story/metaphor that is both entertaining and touching. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Dottie Westbrook, a seriously depressed Stepford style wife, botches her fourth suicide attempt. Left to her own devices the very next day, she decides to fix the van she had tried to use as her weapon of destruction. Enter Triple A’s representative, Shelby Struthers.

Shelby’s a drunk who’s garage is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. While waiting for her vehicle to be repaired, Dottie, who never knew her own father, discovers Shelby has an adult daughter he’s never met. Deciding Shelby and his daughter Remy deserve a chance, and running on sheer emotion and virtually no thought, Dottie decides to become a catalyst. Stealing a Mercedes from Shelby’s garage (by driving through the closed overhead door), Dottie stops long enough to encourage Shelby to come along to find his daughter. Given the state of his life, Shelby finds it remarkably easy to jump ship.

When the duo’s car breaks down, they meet Lynda Critchlow, a small-town girl who works for a sleazy used car dealership. While working on the papers needed to rent Shelby and Dottie a vehicle, Lynda decides the two escapees have the right idea, so she dumps her lousy job and her abusive boyfriend and comes along to pursue her dream of becoming a Nashville singing star.

Now the fun begins…  The car Lynda selected is full of drugs. The money she steals from her employer’s safe (she figured the $500 or so that would be in there was well-deserved severance pay) is marked for payment to the owners of the drugs—all $45,000 of it. You know some of these guys are going to be chasing her. While grabbing some clothes and her dog from home, Lynda is found and attacked by her abusive boyfriend. Dottie saves the day with a stuffed deer head to his head. You know this guy is also going to be chasing them. While all these things are taking place, Dottie’s husband has brought in the police (and, to his complete displeasure, Dottie’s mother has brought herself into the mix). There is a silver lining, though… Nobody’s looking for Shelby: apparently he has a habit of taking off for days on end, with women and booze.

Okay, so far one might think we have an author who’s building a Thelma and Louise type scenario, maybe even a small time Bonny and Clyde. But Walking On Electric Air is so much more. This is a story about finding fundamental happiness. The three main characters are searching for it but don’t understand that true happiness is not so much found as it is created. Happiness comes from doing what you love to do. Find that love, then you might also be able to build a life around it. Dottie, Shelby and Lynda get a little taste of this as their ever hairier quest draws them together into a tightly bound and caring family.

Read Walking On Electric Air to discover a powerful metaphor for happiness, as well as getting to experience first hand the antics of three ordinary people in an unusual but somehow plausible situation. You’ll also find an example that proves excellent work is being done right now by small presses and self-publishers. An uplifting and most enjoyable read. Thank you, Stephen.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

When Mermaids Sing by Mark Zvonkovic

When Mermaids Sing
by Mark Zvonkovic
iUniverse, Sep 2009
ISBN 978-1-4401-6717-1
Trade Paperback
239 pages
Fiction

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Larry Brown is an insecure intellectual who trends toward narcissism. However, when he can pull himself out of his internal world to participate actively with those around him he often has something interesting or revealing to say. And his complicated character is not so hard to understand when you consider he’s an untenured high school English teacher, while his parents are both college professors; his girlfriend is a complete narcissist who’s not only stepping out on Larry but usually treats him as a non-entity; and his only real friend is a “let’s live in the moment and have a great time” college buddy who teaches at the same school as Larry.

Attending one of his father’s annual parties, Larry meets Jenny. The girl, as it turns out, has a brother who has joined a cult called The Path to God, run by a mysterious figure named Misha. She’s planning to get him out.

When Mermaids Sing is set in the early 1970’s, before people had much experience with cults. Jenny’s father has hired a de-programmer to extract her brother, Josh. The fellow they’ve chosen is known as Black Lightning to the cult and is a man facing jail time for two previous rescues or “kidnappings.”

Larry discovers his cousin Bradley is involved with the same cult, so he and his college buddy, Hal, decide to join the operation. What follows shakes Larry to the core, affecting his relationship with the girlfriend, Millie; forcing himself to see the world in a different light; and destroying forever cherished memories of childhood as being false or, more truthfully, frozen moments that have virtually nothing to do with who those people are today.

You see, Misha is a state not a person, and Bradley is the only cult member who has ever reached Misha. Larry, in discussion with Bradley, is told that the cousin has heard the mermaid’s song just before reaching the absolute consciousness or state of bliss the cultists seek. The comment is a reference to T. S. Elliot’s mermaid’s song, which is heard when one is drowning. Larry becomes quite aware that his cousin could, in effect, be drowning (losing his life), and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Is Bradley drowning, plummeting toward suicide (as Larry fears)? We never find out, and it seems that it doesn’t matter: Bradley is no longer the person, the friend and cousin, he once was, and Larry has absolutely no influence or place in his life. For a person as narcissistic as Larry, such an understanding is a revelation with far-reaching consequences that literally force him to redefine the world and his place in it.

Mark Zvonkovic’s When Mermaids Sing is an interesting look at a time when the world was changing on an almost daily basis. As most of the story takes place within the ivy halls of America, we get to see some of these changes discussed or at least displayed. And a few characters illustrate the dangerous depths to which such ideas can bring a person. Choosing a self-centred character as narrator may turn some readers off, but Zvonkovic’s choice is actually quite brilliant: who better to study the great challenges represented by such a rapidly changing America?

If you enjoy literary experiments or interesting character studies, When Mermaids Sing is a book you should enjoy.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2010