Kiss Me Again, Stranger by Daphne Du Maurier

I’d never read Daphne Du Maurier until I read Kiss Me Again, Stranger, a collection of 8 short stories. “Where have I been all these years?”, I asked myself. Housed in the mystery section of the antiquarian bookstore Westsider Rare and Used Books on Broadway and 78th Street (give or take a block or two), some stories were mysteries and some were just odd, for lack of a better term. All were good.

I did learn something from the book, though. Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds was based on a Du Maurier story of the same name. That and the fact that Du Maurier wrote the story and the screenplay is almost where the similarity ends. One takes place in the U.S. and the other in England. One has a romance and one doesn’t. One is about survival and the other isn’t. I must admit the original story is quite compelling. They are both scary, though!

I’d tell you my favorite story, but they are all so different and as I look at the titles to write this, they all conjure up the story lines and I like them all. Kiss Me Again, Stranger, the story, is about GIs being murdered. The Apple Tree is about a tree taking revenge. The Little Photographer is about a vacation liaison turned bad and No Motive is about a suicide. You see, the stories are all over the place, but once started, I couldn’t put the book down.

I find that Du Maurier’s stories and Vera Caspary’s writings have a similarity in their feel. Contemporaries (Laura by Caspary was written in 1943 and Rebecca by Du Maurier was written in 1938) it is not the mystery that is commanding but the story, the atmosphere created by the authors, the surroundings described by the authors.  These are not ‘police procedurals’. They are creations. A few days ago I wrote about painting a picture with words. I found both Du Maurier and Caspary created canvases.

I know I’ve just rambled but since I couldn’t really describe the stories, I had to find a way to tell you why I like these authors so much. I hope I have and I hope my enthusiasm will rub off on you.

Just a note on Westsider Rare and Used Books. Quite a store. It’s very narrow. It has a second floor and the stairs are lined on both sides with books. Be careful climbing. Books are stacked on shelves reaching  all the way to the 20+ feet ceiling. It’s got a great mystery corner as shown in this photo to the left of the door (the paperbacks are shelved two deep), but it has a very eclectic collection. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by.

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Housekeeping

FYI – We’ve had to change our Twitter handle – hackers have to give us a break and get a life!

If you’ve been following us please forgive us and follow Twoheads2gether!

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Is This Great Writing, or What?

“A man appeared wearing frayed leather slippers and trousers of a nameless color, which had the two top buttons unlatched to permit more freedon to the suburbs of his extensive stomach.”

“I bent over and took hold of the room with both hands and spun it. When I had it nicely spinning I gave it a full swing and hit myself on the back of the head with the floor.”

Both of these are from Pearls Are a Nuisance, a short story by Rayond Chandler. I wqish I could write like this.

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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Meaning of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

I don’t get this one. Sorry. Ari meets Dante (both Mexican Americans) at the local El Paso pool when Dante offers to teach him how to swim. From that chance meeting a friendship grows. They spend the summer together and then Dante moves to Chicago for a year as his father has a visiting professorship.

During that first summer, Dante sees a wounded bird in the middle of the road and stoops to pick it up. Ari sees a car turning the corner and without thinking, pushes Dante aside, sustaining two broken legs, a broken arm and other injuries. A true friend.

During their second summer, Dante, who has started to admit his homosexuality, gets beaten up by four boys. Ari, who has a lot of anger within, seeks one of them out and beats him up.

Aristotle and Dante discusses many things. Ari’s father is a Vietnam vet and has much of the war still within him. Ari’s brother is in jail and basically purged from the family for reasons unknown until the end. As I said, Ari has much anger within him. Juxtaposed is Dante’s very loving and open family. Their love of their son is evident. Dante is happy with himself, unlike Ari. Throughout, Dante hints and then admits his sexuality and it is obvious he is in love with Ari, who does not return the feeling.

While the book was enjoyable, the ending was unexpected and, to me, did not follow the rest of the book. Saenz is the author of several books and said this is one whose story “must be told”. If the message is that it’s OK for Mexican Americans to love someone of the same sex, that’s fine. But in this particular case, the ending was, as I said, totally unsatisfying.

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First Light by Rebecca Stead

First Light, Rebecca Stead’s first novel, is a pure delight. I’m surprised I haven’t heard anything about it before. It was published in 2007. Generations ago Thea’s ancestors were being hunted. They fled England and “the wider world” to an ‘under the ice’ home in Greenland, where they have lived quite comfortably. However, things are starting to get crowded and Thea has suggested that they explore the wider world.

Peter’s father is a scientist and has a grant to study Greenland’s diminishing ice caps for six weeks and is bringing Peter and his mother along on the journey.

Obviously, given this synopsis, you know Thea and Peter will meet at some point. Stead has crafted a wonderful, middle-grade story with marvelous characters, suspense, a unique setting. The surprise ending fits the story line and is quite satisfying.

Rebecca Stead has a unique talent for telling interesting stories. This is far different than Liar & Spy, her latest novel in that it is more fairy tale-ish.  While having some of the ‘other worldly-ness’ of When You Reach Me, the story is markedly different. It is nice to see an author who does not stick to the same format book after book. After every book, I’m becoming a bigger and bigger fan of Rebecca Stead.

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A Garden of Words by Martha Barnette

If I thought that titillating you would keep you coming back to this blog, then I’d tell you that according to Martha Barnette, in her book A Garden of Words, the “…elegant Orchid is named not for its alluring blossom but for its twin bulbs that bear a rather unnerving resemblance to testicles.” Similarly, “To the ancient Romans, the Gladius was a sword and a little sword was a Gladiolus.” And when a soldier sheathed his Gladius, he did so into a vagina. (The leaves of the Gladiolus are very sword-like, by the way, hence its name.)

However, I know this is not the way to attract readers. Instead, I’ll discuss the derivations of some of my favorite flowers. The Hydrangea takes its name from two Greek words meaning “water vessel” since that’s what its flowers look like. The Hyacinth is named after the young man, in Greek mythology, of whom both Greek Gods Apollo and Zephyrus were enamored. And finally, the Clematis is derived from a Greek word meaning twig or branch.

If you are into the derivation of names, especially floral names, A Garden of Words is a treasure chest of information. Barnette starts with the flower and the derivation of its name, many times trying to relate it to its Indo-European root, sometimes successfully, to my mind and sometimes not. But if a flower’s name is a combination of words she takes both parts and expands them into many languages, including English. She comes up with many colorful words that have faded from our vocabulary. She discusses the derivation of everyday words, always relating it back to the flower of its origin.

Barnette includes poems, mythology, culture and more in this slim volume. There is a drawing of each flower discussed. I was fascinated by this book and stupidly did not make notes that I could go back to later. Oh well, maybe I’ll just have to read it again. If there are any wordsmiths out there, A Garden of Words is a pleasant diversion.

In her book, Barnette mentions another book, Who Named the Daisy? Who Named the Rose? by Mary Durant. So, just like one word leads to another leads to another, so one book must lead to the next. I’ve just ordered a copy of Who Named the Daisy?.  I can’t wait to see what it’s all about. Happy reading and happy gardening!

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Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead

I don’t know what to make of Rebecca Stead’s latest book, Liar & Spy and maybe that’s good.  It makes you think. Her second book, When You Reach Me brought her to the limelight in that it won the Newbery Award.

Georges, named after Georges Seurat, unfortunately has an ‘S’ at the end of his first name which causes him no end of trouble in school.  Forced to move out of his Brooklyn house and into an apartment a dozen blocks away when his father gets laid off, he meets Safer, also twelve, who lives in the building. Safer spends his days spying on the apartment’s Mr. X who comes and goes carrying suitcases. Safer senses something sinister and when Georges’ father spies a note on a door next to the trash room announcing a meeting of the Spy Club, Georges goes and gets recruited, joining Safer’s ten year old sister, Candy. Together, they monitor the apartment’s comings and goings through the webcam and hypothesize about Mr. X’s activities.

Juxtaposed against his apartment life is Georges’ life in school, virtually friendless, subjected to bullying by Dallas Llewellyn and Carter Dixon and Georges’ former best friend, Jason.

As I said, Liar & Spy defies categorization, which is good. It does make you think. Think about bullying, think about friendship, think about standing up for yourself. The characters: Safer and Candy, the parents, teachers and bullies, are in many ways unique, some lovable, some not.  The story is unique. Stead throws in some surprises at the end that I didn’t see coming at all.

All in all, an enjoyable, satisfying read. So much so that I in the middle of her first book, First Light. It must be the sleeper of the year since, half way through, it is entrancing. Rebecca Stead is definitely an author to read.

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The Forgetting River by Doreen Carvajal

I’ve been reading a wide variety of books on my vacation: a book on the etymology of flower names, very appropriate since every day has its gardening component;  a YA book on friendship; a poetic book on the history of a river and The Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition by Doreen Carvajal.  I’ve always had a passing interest on Conversos, those Jews during the Inquisition who outwardly adopted Catholicism while secretly practicing their faith. There appear articles every now and then about people, including priests, who uncover their unknown Jewish pasts.

Unlike the people in the articles, Carvajal, a New York Times reporter, seemed to know that her ancestors were Jewish but had a hard time proving it. Carvajal recounts her efforts to determine whether her ancestors, of Spanish descent who moved to Cuba, Costa Rica, and the United States, were indeed Conversos. These efforts included obtaining family histories, DNA testing, looking at Inquisition records and talking to everyone who might be able to help.

While the biological result was inconclusive, Carvajal’s spiritual result seems to lie in the Jewish direction. Along her journey, Carvajal recounts the torture perpetrated on one human by another because of religion, the long lasting impacts in Spain (some reaching into the twentieth century) of the Inquisition, her feelings towards the possibility of being Jewish having been brought up Catholic and her thoughts about what this might mean to her teenage daughter.

In the books and articles I have read, it seems that even in the twentieth century, there is some unexplained ritual practiced by Conversos that has its root in Judaiism and it is this, more than anything, that finally convinces Carvajal of her religious ancestry.

If you are looking for a satisfying conclusion to a spiritual search, The Forgetting River may not be your cup of tea.  If you enjoy learning little tidbits of history or the historical root of some contemporary saying or action, The Forgetting River should interest you.  Carvajal’s writing style is easy to read. Her journey was long and frustrating.

Two books of note on the subject: Incantation by Alice Hoffman is a personal favorite of mine. It is a wonderful, poetic book about Jews during the Inquisition and is in my personal library. Blood Secret by Kathryn Lasky, is mentioned in The Forgetting River as a book Carvajal gave to her daughter, talks about a young girl who discovers her family’s secret past. Both books are worth reading.

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Novel Reading, A Cause of Female Depravity

As many of you know, the value of novel reading has been debated for centuries.  Geek that I am, I’m reading A Book for Sixpense: The Circulating Library in America by David Kaser. In it he mentions an essay with the above title that appeared in 1797 in Britain’s Monthly Mirror. He further refers to an essay in the Boston Weekly Magazine of January 1803 in which the author states “How my heart aches when I see lovely girls just emerged from childhood…allowed to have free access to the circulating libraries, and suffered to read whatever book chance or fashion may put into their hands.”

But best of all is this anonymous parody appearing in the Library Journal of October 1893 entitled the Fiction Song. It goes as follows:

At a library desk stood some readers one day

Crying “novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!”

And I said to them, “People, oh, why do you say

“Give us novels, oh, novels, oh, novels?”

Is it weakness of intellect, people, I cried,

Or simply a space where the brains should abide?”

They answered me not, or they only replied,

“Give us novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!”

Here are thousands of books that will do you more good

Than the novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!

You will weaken your brain with such poor mental food

As the novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!

Pray take history, music, or travels, or plays,

Biography, poetry, science, essays

Or anything else that more wisdom displays

Than the novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!

A librarian may talk till he’s black in the face

About novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!

And may think that with patience he may raise the taste

Above novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!

He may talk till with age his round shoulders are bent

And the white hairs of time ‘mid the black ones are sent,

When he hands his report in still seventy per cent

Will be novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!

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No Crystal Stair by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

If you’re like me, you had no idea who Lewis Michaux was and that is sad because he was a driving force for educating Blacks in Harlem. Born to a small business owner in Newport News, VA in the late 1800s, he was floudering. He knew that he wanted to get ahead but had no real direction.

He was outspoken about how Blacks would get nowhere unless they knew their heritage. He was entranced by Marcus Garvey’s beliefs about Blacks going to Africa to learn their culture. After years of this and that, he decided to open a bookstore in Harlem dedicated to Black authors and Black heritage. This was at a time when people thought Blacks didn’t read, so he had a hard time getting financing. He ultimately started his bookstore and named it the National Memorial African Bookstore, after his evangelical brother’s unsuccessful campaign to entice Blacks to move to Virginia and learn farming. It was located on 125th Street and Seventh Avenue and, over the years, it became a destination for Black activists such as Malcolm X.

No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller was a labor of love and it is evident throughout the work. Michaux’s great-niece, Vaunda Micheaux Nelson (a Coretta Scott King award winner) is the author of this marvelous work, enhanced by the artwork of R. Gregory Christie. She combed archives, conducted interviews, sifted through library collections to try to obtain information about Michaux’s life.

Each chapter is broken down into snippets narrated by various people including Lewis, his brother Lightfoot, other relatives, customers and friends. It provides wonderful insight to both Lewis and the times in which he lived. The writing is descriptive. The story is uplifting. Lewis was true to himself in the life that he lived…he walked the walk and talked the talk. The accolades of this book are well deserved. So, sit down, enjoy this book and learn something in the process.

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