Now reading...

[Larry Kart]

Just re-read Peter Rabe's "Murder Me For Nickels," a noir classic set in a unnamed medium-sized midwestern city in the late 1950s. Narrator Jack St. Louis is second in command to Walter Lippit, who controls the juke boxes in town. Neither Lippit nor St. Louis is a gangster -- their business is legit -- but gangster-connected folks may want to try to take it over. Humorous at times, the book has a unique, off-the-wall flavor -- in a way it's about the non-sexual but arguably romantic bond between St. Louis and Lippit, which is complicated in part because St. Louis digs Lippit's girlfriend, while she is fond of both of them.

St. Louis is a Mitchum-type perhaps, a man who doesn't want to take orders, doesn't want to be tied down, prefers to follow his own nose, spend his money as it comes in, etc. And yet he's drawn to Lippert, is tied to him practically and emotionally (but how much?), and because Lippit's outfit is doing well, St. Louis has more money in his pockets than he can get rid of as he used to, which leads him to start a small record label on the side to suit his own tastes (he likes jazz, has a good ear for it). One nice typical scene comes in Chapter 8, when St. Louis visits a bar where some semi-thugs from one arm of Lippert's outfit have been waiting to see if trouble arrives from the group that may be trying to muscle in.

"I went to the bar on Liberty and Alder where Folsom [a somewhat dubious, in St. Louis's view, Lippit associate] had one of the goon squads waiting. I didn't see them at first because the place was so dark. There was a long bar, with one morning drinker and the bartender was doing a crossword puzzle. And there was a grey cat. She sat on top of the jukebox and her eyes were closed. Suddenly she gave a screech like a woman and flew off the machine. Somebody laughed. They were sitting behind the jukebox at a round table, playing cards. But without much interest, One of them was laughing.

The bartender came over with the cat on his arm. The cat was clawed into his shoulder and if she were afraid of the height.

'Listen,' said the bartender. 'Who done that?'

The cat smelled a bit of burnt fur and the bartender knew very well who had done that. But he was short and thin and the one who was laughing was big and fat.

'Phew,' he said, 'what a stinker,' and threw his cigarette on the floor.

It hit me on the shoe and I stepped back a little. Then I stepped on the cigarette and rubbed it out.

'They been bothering you?' I said to the bartender.

'It's just the cat here, Mr. St. Louis. They keep bothering the cat.'

'We're here to see nothing happens to jukeboxes,' said the big one, 'and cats sitting on top of jukeboxes is not allowed. Right, fellers?'....

'Not allowed,' said the big one.

'Put the cat back up there,' I told the bartender.

'So you're the feller with the name,' he said. 'New Orleans, wasn't it?'

I didn't have to answer because he filled the space right after that crack with a long, phlegmy laugh. After a while it even sounded stupid to him and he let it die down. Then he talked as if had never laughed before in his life.

'Folsom's been telling me about you, New Orleans.'

'St. Louis. And now I'm going to tell you about me.' I came just a little closer to make it more personal. 'Folsom is running you and the rest of the apes, but the orders come from me. You sit down and hold still. You wait till you hear from Folsom before practicing your art and in the meantime no extracurricular activities. And leave this cat alone.'

He looked at me and then at his buddies and I think he didn't answer anything right away because he wasn't sure of all the words I had used.

Then he said, 'You come all he way down here to tell me about that cat?'

He hit the ridiculous part of the conversation right on the head and I didn't feel very impressive. Which is no trick anyway. I'm just built about average and he wasn't. I felt I should talk about something else."

Etc.

I particularly like "After a while it even sounded stupid to him" and "before practicing your art" and St. Louis's apt internal follow-up -- "I think he didn't answer anything right away because he wasn't sure of all the words I had used." And the air of tension -- one senses that this scene could lead to violence or even death or dissipate into semi-nothingness. Further, the tension, even the potential menace, and yet so little in one sense is or should be at stake; they all "work for the same outfit," right?

[ejp626]

St. Louis is a Mitchum-type perhaps, a man who doesn't want to take orders, doesn't want to be tied down, prefers to follow his own nose, spend his money as it comes in, etc. And yet he's drawn to Lippert, is tied to him practically and emotionally (but how much?), and because Lippit's outfit is doing well, St. Louis has more money in his pockets than he can get rid of as he used to, which leads him to start a small record label on the side to suit his own tastes (he likes jazz, has a good ear for it). One nice typical scene comes in Chapter 8, when St. Louis visits a bar where some semi-thugs from one arm of Lippert's outfit have been waiting to see if trouble arrives from the group that may be trying to muscle in.

Interesting, though the guy doesn't sound quite like a Mitchum-type, who would be far more threatening and get his way with the lower-level thugs without sounding a bit ridiculous.

The relationship in the book doesn't sound completely dissimilar to that between the Alan Ladd & Paul Donlevy characters in The Glass Key, which I just watched a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, just 100 pages more to go in Anna Karenina, which I hope to wrap up tonight. It's definitely an ok story and doesn't drag that much, but I think contemporary readers, such as myself, just are not that interested in Levin and his doings/musings, which do pad the book to some extent.

After this, I need to finish reading Things Fall Apart. I'm about 25% into it. While I know it's a stone-cold classic of African literature, I don't care that much for the main character and his deeply misognistic worldview, so I don't think I'll be reading this again. Fortunately, I've found it to be a fairly fast read.

[paul secor]

William Saroyan: Fresno Stories

[John Litweiler]

This is surely Ballard's wildest satire. Must have been written in the 1970s, since robot Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, etc. are among the characters (to use the word loosely) but not Reagan. The story is about an expedition from living Europe to dead America, a desert in the east and a jungle in the west, and the characters are all Ballardian obsessives - not quite archetypes, because they're all uniquely insane. Was Ballard just having fun here? Or does this foretell the anger to come in his later novels? He always seems to have envisioned America as a madhouse. Absolutely deadpan style, lots of explosions, never a smile in the story. Yet every few pages his razorblade-cuts leave me gasping or laughing.

Re "Murder Me for Nickels," this is my favorite Rabe though he wrote some other goodies. Even in hackwork like "Mission for Vengeance," which he must have written before supper one day, his ongoing atmosphere of menace keeps the reader awake.

[jazzbo]

[paul secor]

Ross Macdonald: Sleeping Beauty

[BillF]

[Head Man]

Ross Macdonald: Sleeping Beauty

I love his novels, read them all in the 1970s and re-read them often. Apparently he died quite young of Alzheimer's... a great shame.

[kinuta]

An excellent account of the Russians in Afghanistan.

I'd suspected we only knew part of the story, I was right.

Recommended.

[patricia]

Just finished David Rakoff's "Fraud" and am now partway into his "Half Empty."

For those of you not familiar with Rakoff's work, his first book was a collection of essays, "Don't Get Too Comfortable." His style of satire and general observance is similar, but not the same as that of David Sedaris. Rakoff is a little darker.

I was saddened to learn that not long after I had seen him on "The Daily Show", he died of, I believe cancer. Gone way too soon.

[ejp626]

Finally gotten to Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy. It's a little bulky so I'll actually check out the individual volumes for train reading.

[paul secor]

Kate Atkinson: Started Early, Took My Dog

[jlhoots]

Walter Mosley: Little Green

[Jazzmoose]

For the last thirty years, I've toted two books of a trilogy everywhere I moved knowing that SOME DAY I'd find the third book and be able to read the whole thing. Last year I finally scored a copy of Mark Adlard's Multiface, so I started the first book Interface last night. Should have read it years ago; it's good stuff.

Edited July 11, 2013 by Jazzmoose

[Head Man]

Kate Atkinson: Started Early, Took My Dog

She's a terrific storyteller. Recently several of her books featuring the private detective Jackson Brodie appeared as an excellent series on TV.

http://www.kateatkinson.co.uk/jacksonbrodie/tv.asp

Edited July 11, 2013 by Head Man

[erwbol]

[BillF]

Excellent novel by Richard Ford. Very different from his Sportswriter trilogy.

[B. Goren.]

[Jerry_L]

The Good Earth is a classic worth re-reading. Pearl S. Buck was a famous Sinophile who lived in my part of Pennsylvania for a good part of her later life, at an 1825 built farmhouse in Perkasie that is now an official National Historic Landmark.

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973), also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu (Chinese: 賽珍珠; pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū), was an American writer and novelist. As the daughter of missionaries, Buck spent most of her life before 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932 and won thePulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces." ^[1]

After her return to the United States in 1935, she continued her prolific writing career, and became a prominent advocate of the rights of women and minority groups, and wrote widely on Asian cultures, becoming particularly well known for her efforts on behalf of Asian and mixed race adoption.

This is what I'm currently reading:

Twelve Thousand Years: American Indians in Maine [Paperback]

Bruce J. Bourque (Author)

Twelve Thousand Years: American Indians in Maine documents the generations of Native peoples who for twelve millennia have moved through and eventually settled along the rocky coast, rivers, lakes, valleys, and mountains of a region now known as Maine. Arriving first to this area were Paleo-Indian peoples, followed by maritime hunters, more immigrants, then a revival of maritime cultures. Beginning in the sixteenth century, Native peoples in northern New England became tangled in the far-reaching affairs of European explorers and colonists.Twelve Thousand Years reveals how Penobscots, Abenakis, Passamaquoddies, Maliseets, Micmacs, and other Native communities both strategically accommodated and overtly resisted European and American encroachments. Since that time, Native communities in Maine have endured, adapted when necessary, and experienced a political and cultural revitalization in recent decades.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Jerry_L

[ejp626]

Am quickly wrapping up Palace Walk (book 1 of The Cairo Trilogy). I should be able to start Book 2 tomorrow!

[paul secor]

Cristina Garcia: Dreaming in Cuban

[B. Goren.]

[jlhoots]

Cristina Garcia: Dreaming in Cuban

I like that book as well as some of her others.

[Jazzmoose]

I finished the Adlard trilogy, and there's nothing like following depressing English SF with more of the same, so I went with Brian Aldiss for a follow up:

[Swinger]

I finished the Adlard trilogy, and there's nothing like following depressing English SF with more of the same, so I went with Brian Aldiss for a follow up:

Excellent choice! Brian Aldiss is one of my favorite SF writers

Edited July 21, 2013 by Swinger