It is that time of year again, when the leaves are a-falling, and the footballs are a-hurling through the air, and the hot apple cider is brewing across the street at our neighborhood coffee shop, T Spoons, and lots and lots of people are coming in and out every week, looking for that excellent fall weather reading material.
Except that the past few days have been absurdly warm for October in Iowa, what with today reaching into the low 80s for temperature. I don't know about you, but if I can be seen wearing shorts (not that I can or will be) in October, then something's up with the weather gods. Well, I can't do anything about the weird fall-ish weather, but I can cue you, my fellow bibliophiles, on to this month's hot tips: namely, my goal, each week, to have a new book to bring your attention to, that fits the creepy and eerie motif of October, and because Halloween is my favorite holiday.
So, without further ado, I would like to draw your attention to Jennifer McMahon's Promise Not To Tell, a marvelously eerie little novel that I started reading two nights ago and have been loathe to set aside ever since. This novel follows a woman named Kate, returning to her childhood home, where a young girl is murdered the night Kate arrives. Disturbingly enough, this new murder bears a striking resemblance to the death of Del, the Potato Girl of local legend, Kate's childhood best friend.
McMahon is an engaging writer, able to write in a child's voice as well as an adult. Her characterization can be a bit off-putting at first (there is a secondary character whose overprotective maternal instinct I find particularly grating), but within three pages I was hooked into the story. I highly recommend Promise Not To Tell as my first official Weekly October Creepy Eerie and Oh-So-Cool Novel (WOCEOSCN) ... and somebody's going to have to recommend a better acronym that that for me.
Until next week, fellow bibliophiles.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Ghostwriting No. 20: A True Ghost Story
I am following a trail of
those wire-and-paper twists,
dropped every few yards
and bright against the asphalt.
No long, square plastic bags,
but still, I think of bread.
Who could eat so quickly?
Or make sandwiches while walking?
Was it all flung to the birds?
I wish I were a bird.
Not for the squabbling
that must have followed each slice.
To have been fed.
Then I see them, not many,
but all on the wire, heads bobbing,
and I think: they are full.
I could eat them. One bite, another.
Good breeding stops me.
City birds are covered in lice
and probably diseased.
Vegetarians live longer!
There are no unlocked cars
with bags of chip crumbs
hidden in wheel wells,
no dumpsters with
telltale clouds of fruit flies.
The birds. They would be too hard
to catch, too small to satisfy.
One darts abruptly, dives,
snatches a red wire tie.
I look along the path, the scattered
green and blue and white scraps,
becoming invisible just yards away
because of the heat boiling
over patches of engine fluids.
The birds dropped the ties here.
No, worse.
A little old man, born in the Depression,
collected them for decades
but now knows, his pension gone and
medical bills looming, that wire twists
have no currency anymore,
and he is plucking them from
a coffee tin - its logo from the forties -
and wrapping a happy thought in each one,
then dropping each,
and when he gets to the doors
of the distant wholesale warehouse,
he will sit and hold the can
and hope no one spits in it
because he can't afford to let it rust.
All my dreams are like this now.
I don't go to a doctor; I read enough
to know what I'd be told;
clonazepam and maybe a vacation.
I'll tough it out.
But when I pull the brown bag
out of my briefcase
and reach for the loaf of bread
and a knife to spread some butter
and I'm ready,
the white twist-tie stops me.
What would he have put
in this one? His daughter's first step,
a flawless tomato,
a wet cloth on his forehead,
the squeak of new shoes?
It's 8:43 already.
I've done the math: going 45
in a 35 doesn't actually make time.
I buckle in at the stoplight.
Coffee comes in bags now,
and even if it didn't,
what would I think to save?
those wire-and-paper twists,
dropped every few yards
and bright against the asphalt.
No long, square plastic bags,
but still, I think of bread.
Who could eat so quickly?
Or make sandwiches while walking?
Was it all flung to the birds?
I wish I were a bird.
Not for the squabbling
that must have followed each slice.
To have been fed.
Then I see them, not many,
but all on the wire, heads bobbing,
and I think: they are full.
I could eat them. One bite, another.
Good breeding stops me.
City birds are covered in lice
and probably diseased.
Vegetarians live longer!
There are no unlocked cars
with bags of chip crumbs
hidden in wheel wells,
no dumpsters with
telltale clouds of fruit flies.
The birds. They would be too hard
to catch, too small to satisfy.
One darts abruptly, dives,
snatches a red wire tie.
I look along the path, the scattered
green and blue and white scraps,
becoming invisible just yards away
because of the heat boiling
over patches of engine fluids.
The birds dropped the ties here.
No, worse.
A little old man, born in the Depression,
collected them for decades
but now knows, his pension gone and
medical bills looming, that wire twists
have no currency anymore,
and he is plucking them from
a coffee tin - its logo from the forties -
and wrapping a happy thought in each one,
then dropping each,
and when he gets to the doors
of the distant wholesale warehouse,
he will sit and hold the can
and hope no one spits in it
because he can't afford to let it rust.
All my dreams are like this now.
I don't go to a doctor; I read enough
to know what I'd be told;
clonazepam and maybe a vacation.
I'll tough it out.
But when I pull the brown bag
out of my briefcase
and reach for the loaf of bread
and a knife to spread some butter
and I'm ready,
the white twist-tie stops me.
What would he have put
in this one? His daughter's first step,
a flawless tomato,
a wet cloth on his forehead,
the squeak of new shoes?
It's 8:43 already.
I've done the math: going 45
in a 35 doesn't actually make time.
I buckle in at the stoplight.
Coffee comes in bags now,
and even if it didn't,
what would I think to save?
Nobel Prize in Literature 2010
Good news for all you South American novel fans, Mario Vargas Llosa is the Nobel Laureate for 2010. We've got several copies of his books in stock, including The Bad Girl and The Feast of the Goat.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Ali: "And I was thinking, 'Only 6 feet ahead of me and then I'm back on American soil' and then we were stuck in the terminal for four hours, and I was losing my mind going 'I need a book I need a book I need a book I'm going crazy I'm going crazy I'm going crazy', because the last time I bought a book was 9 hours before in Madrid, and it was a (author's name) novel and it was crap!"
Anna: "I hope I'm never stuck in an airport without a book. That would be awful."
Ali: "That's the thing, I had a book, but I'd already read 'Lord of the Rings' three times in two weeks and you can only take so much of Frodo's singing before you go 'Aaagh! I've had enough!'"
Nialle: "Sacrilege!"
(uproarious laughter)
Anna: "I hope I'm never stuck in an airport without a book. That would be awful."
Ali: "That's the thing, I had a book, but I'd already read 'Lord of the Rings' three times in two weeks and you can only take so much of Frodo's singing before you go 'Aaagh! I've had enough!'"
Nialle: "Sacrilege!"
(uproarious laughter)
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