Book Review: New Beginnings by Rebecca Emin

New Beginnings by Rebecca Emin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the most pressing issues epidemic amongst our young ones today is bullying. Granted, kids left to their own devices will often pull towards a pecking order war like a pen of puppies dragging each other by the ears, but the trend in bullying these days has gone far beyond that. Tales of bullied children as young as eleven or twelve committing suicide over bullying are become so commonplace that headlines are losing their ability to shock us.

Now is a perfect times for fiction and film to deal with the issue, and Rebecca Emin's novel, "New Beginnings" confronts the issue gently, and thoroughly.

Sam Hendry is the eleven year old protagonist of this children's novel, and the premise is a familiar one: a young girl leaving her old life and arriving at a new school only to meet on her very first day a bully who takes an instant dislike to her. The bully in question is a fellow classmate of Sam's, a girl named Molly who begins by first taunting Sam, and then progressing to snide physical assaults. Sam endures this privately, fearfully, dreading each Monday morning when the new week would begin and a new day of dealing with Molly's baseless hatred.

Emin writes Sam's point of view without melodrama. Sam suffers, and bad things happen, but the book is not punctured at any point by acts of violence or trauma or operatic self pity so great that a reader feels as if it's unrealistic. Any young reader suffering a similar situation could easily identify with Sam as she goes about her day, making a small group of friends, hiding the bullying from her parents, yearning to get her own computer, and singing her heart out to her favorite CD's.

No magical fixes to her problems are offered, the lessons Sam learns in the story are lessons easily applied by any of the potential young readers of this book. Helpful solutions are introduced in the story, and are quite crucially applied as the levels of Molly's bullying begins to escalate to actual physical injury for Sam. The danger is real, but not so much as to make any of the young readers faint of heart.

There are many nice things in this story, Sam's ambitions to sing, her first crush, a surprising first kiss, all written with bright optimism and tenderness. For everything bad that happens to someone, there are still things to strive for, it's a comforting message and one very accessible to the reader.

If I have any snags with this story it would only be of the nitpicky nature, there is a bit of name brand dropping, and as a matter of personal taste I've never cared for that in a story. I also would have liked to have seen a bit more insight into Molly's motivations--but this story wasn't about her, it didn't need to be. In the end it's Sam Hendry's story, and a sweetly told one it is.

I was touched by it on a personal level with memories of being a shy kid at school, and of the daily anxiety associated with various worries. It's a very genuine story told by a very good writer, and a good one for any young reader to have in their library.




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Book Review: Double Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Double Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"Double Dexter" is the latest Jeff Lindsay novel chronicling the escapades of everyone's favorite serial killer hunting serial killer, Dexter. I must admit, I have never before read a Dexter novel, nor have I seen the popular television series based upon these books, so perhaps "Double Dexter" was not the best place to begin. The opening paragraph, heavy with self importance and adjectives, grated on my nerves as anything pregnant with unnecessary description could. The entire first third of the novel, which followed Dexter in the midst of carving up a pedophile and being spotted by a stranger, to obsessing over his wife's cooking, and convincing himself he is not human as he moons over his toddler daughter, moved very slowly for me. This is where anyone already familiar with the series would probably have no problem, as they would already need no introduction to the various characters surrounding Dexter, and their importance to his life.

As Dexter putters around his life of domestic bliss, and deals with office politics in the police station, I was able to gather bits of information about the supporting characters, a brother who is also a serial killer, a sister on The Force who also knows about Dexter's habits, a badly maimed co-worker with a vendetta to bring Dexter, I began to wish I was reading one of those other books, where something interesting actually happens. We're told about a serial killer who is literally hammering police officers to death, and we're told that Dexter murders a pedophile who had it coming at the opening of the book, but there really is no vivid description--for anyone who is a gore fan, nor is there any real insight into the proceedings or killers other than the mere statement that something has happened, or something is happening.

The only real insight the book offered was Dexter's repetitive assertion that he is a sociopathic reptile incapable of human love or feeling on what felt like every page, and in response to every human flinch around him. I felt like shaking the book and yelling, "OK I get it! You're a psycho WHO CAN'T FEEL EXCEPT YOU TOTALLY CAN CAUSE YOU'RE SO OBVIOUSLY IN LOVE WITH YOUR BABY OMG IRONY!!!!!"

Dexter begins to receive a series of emails on his work computer from the very man who had witnessed him at his dark deeds in the novel's opener. The cat and mouse game ensues. This leads Dexter to a place he is not comfortable with--uncertainty, worry, and an overall dulling of his senses. Dexter's preoccupation leads to sloppiness in his home and work life, and to a series of unfortunate events that really makes him seem foolish in the face of his budding adversary.

The novel sparked for me at this point. Dark humor and suspense mix as Dexter tries to juggle his domestic responsibilities alongside that of his work, and the dark urges that lead him to hunt, kill, and dismember. Dexter's two step-children factor largely into the story at this point, and are quite feisty little buggers to boot. The plot moves swiftly to a very satisfactory finish done in by a bit of overkill.

This is a book I can see being a good read to pass an afternoon, or a plane ride, but I can't imagine ever reading this specific volume again. Although, the swiftly moving middle to end of the novel did pique my interest in Dexter the character, and in all of the previous events in his life that were alluded to in the novel. So I will be checking out previous volumes in this series. In the meantime, I really hope whatever Jeff Lindsay has planned for the next volume goes a lot better.

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Book Review: Disaster Was My God: A Novel of the Outlaw Life of Arthur Rimbaud

Disaster Was My God: A Novel of the Outlaw Life of Arthur Rimbaud by Bruce Duffy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The tumultous relationship between the legendary French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine takes a surprising backset in this biographical novel that is ultimately the fictionalized portait of the embittered battlefield that is the bond between mother and son. The Rimbaud/Verlaine relationship would seem like the obvious centerpiece for this novel, and indeed it does crackle the pages with chilling power when it is covered. It is not to Rimbaud and Verlaine we are first introduced to in this novel; it is to Rimbaud's mother as she supervises the exhumation of two of her dead children--her daughter Vitalie, and the famous Arthur Rimbaud. When preference is given to Arthur's corpse over that of Vitalie's, Madame Rimbaud is horrified.

From here we see the history of Madame Rimbaud's life, motherless, sexually abused by her father, abandoned by her drunken brothers, and abandoned by her drunken husband. All of these factors form to create an ascerbic, controlling woman who relies only on her own cunning business intelligence, and the obedience of her bullied children to get by in life. When the teenaged Arthur breaks from her stifling grip, she cuts herself emotionally from him, forevermore seeing him as the failed, useless male, that her father and brothers represented to her.

From there we learn of Paul Verlaine's naive, pregnant, teenaged wife, and of Verlaine's eccentric and forgiving mother who also keeps the preserved fetuses of his miscarried siblings in glass jars. The inner lives, and social plight of these women, trapped in a world where a good beating from a husband is considered commendable is starkly portrayed. By the time Rimbaud's and Verlaine's romance is portrayed, all of their destructive lusting seems like so much selfish pining on the part of two talented momma's boys from opposite ends of the spectrum. This fuels the novel's main flaw, creating a tedious read for anyone not sympathetic to two talented men who seem to have no shortage of self pity even as they scorn and phsyically harm the women in their lives.

The novel's prose is intoxicating at times, however, with scenes taking us through the pathetic horror of a veal calf goring its tongue on a nail out of boredom, to blisteing high adventure, and passionate eroticism on the African desert. The first sexual encounter between Rimbaud and Verlaine punctures the page with florid passion, wrestling, and finishing with the breathless abandon even seasoned romance writers strive for. The unflinching departure from romance that this novel takes forces one to examine further the works of Rimbaud and Verlaine, and the lives, and relationships formed and destroyed to fuel the creation of their poetic masterpieces. It forces one to look at the faces of the women scarred by the creation of these works, and then one is left to wonder at the human price of high art.

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Book Review: The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"There is not a single Eastern religion, where an immaculate virgin does not...bring forth a god into this world. And the Christians, displaying no originality whatsoever, followed the same pattern when they created their Jesus, who in fact, never existed at all."

These are the words of Berlioz to Bezdomny in the opening paragraphs of Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita". It's deceptively simple, words of cold rationalism that could begin any number of novels or textbooks set to showcase the the superiority of atheism, and to point out the ridiculousness of faith. And indeed it seems that way at the start, as Berlioz is meeting Bezdomny in a public park to discuss his displeasure at Bezdomny's draft of an anti-religous poem commissioned to be written on Jesus Christ. Bezdomny has treated Jesus as a real historical, albeit humanly flawed figure, in the poem, and Berlioz is determined to set the record straight--there was never any Jesus.

Enter Satan.

Now one would expect Satan to be someone reasonably satisfied with a 1920's Soviet Russia that does not believe in or accept anyone believing in God. The lack of belief deprives not only God of attentions, however, but it deprives Satan as well. Now, what could possibly happen to a city of Athiests when Satan pays a visit?

Regardless of one's personal beliefs about religion and reason there is a wicked glee one takes in the havoc wreaked upon the steadfastly reasonable and orderly 1920's Moscow. Apartments are trashed, a theater in disarray, the insane asylum begins to fill up, as the devil in the guise of a dark stranger named Woland, and his minions--a demon, a naked witch, and Behemoth, (quite possibly the coolest feline character in literary history) march through town. Surreal imagery, shocking sudden violence, biting satire, and even slapstick, fill these portions of the novel, never slowing down, never letting you go.

This isn't the only storyline, however, we are introduced to the tender romance between the title characters. The broken, addle-brained Master and the fiercely devoted Margarita who fears not even the furthest depths of Hell if it would bring her lover back to her. We are also dropped into Bulgakov's novel within a novel, a stark, frank take upon the death of Jesus Christ and the torment of Pontius Pilate.

This is a novel that left me breathless and shaky upon the finish. My mind reeled with the philisophical and spiritual debate tangled in the words, and I found myself laughing at some of the more comic imagery in it. What an iconic novel, what a delight to read, I heartily recommend everyone to enrich their lives and pick up a copy of The Master and Margarita today!

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Mothy Mae by Cee Martinez

New flash fiction has been posted.

Mothy Mae 

A story about the unexpected consequences of ostracism and bullying.

Mouseprose is a fledgling story forum. They accept stories in a great many genres and have already posted quite a few itneresting ones.

Damned by Chuck Palahniuk

Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Keep exercising, taking your vitamins, and recycling. If you're lucky, you'll never die. Otherwise, don't swear, honk your horn excessively, or pee in swimming pools; accept Christ as your savior and you may just keep yourself out of Hell. This is the hard lesson pre-adolescent little Madison Spencer learns after improbably overdosing on marijuana in a hotel room while watching her celebrity mother present an Oscar on television. Now trapped in a greasy cell, watching demons devour the flesh of the screaming damned, Madison finds herself with an eternity of torment before her with which to reflect upon her short life.

The novel, told through Madison's voice, reads with all the authentic vinegar of an intelligent young girl who, lacking in prom queen good looks, has decided to define herself with intelligence and wit. She marches through Palahniuk's vision of hell, past waterfalls of human bodily excretions, past endless loops of "The English Patient", with all the stubborn innocence of a world weary child.

Anyone familiar with Dante or Chaucer, or even the purgatory of the wonderful film "Wrist Cutters: A Love Story", will feel right at home with this Hell which basically just serves as the backdrop for a story that is the bastard child of Judy Blume and John Hughes after an acid trip bender at the Westboro Church. The story is very meta, with constant references to its own similarities to "The Breakfast Club" and Judy Blume novels, and the novelty of that wears off pretty quickly. The reader is unfortunately left with a plot and collection of characters--the prom queen, the jock, the dweeb, the rebel--that veers into predictability. You know at the get-go that seemingly shallow character will rise to the occasion, and seemingly callous ones will show heart when the story asks for it. You know that this is a standard coming of age plot that will take the heroine on a quest of self discovery and purpose.

R-rated violence and a graphic oral sex scene would make me quite an irresponsible person to recommend this to older teens--but I'm going to do it anyway. In many ways, the prose and structure of this book is a classic young adult novel with valuable lessons about family and self esteem put across more honestly than a lot of current YA best sellers.

This novel could really resonate amongst disaffected teens in this convoluted modern world of short attention spans, apathy, cruelty, and terrorism. A girl could do worse for role models than the doggedly optimistic Madison Spencer who becomes consumed with a plan to meet and charm Satan. If one is stuck in hell, then one must make the most of it right? It couldn't be so bad to be a minion of the Dark Lord rather than an ant under his foot... erm... cloven hoof?

I really enjoyed the complex relationship Palahniuk creates between Madison and her Brangelina-inspired parents. The parents could have easily been relegated to one dimensional caricatures, the scapegoat for an adolescent "no one loves me" whine-fest. Her parents both neglect and over-nurture Madison in shockingly extreme ways, but they are not evil...they're just liberal, and Madison is not bitter and hateful to them over it, she's just rather resigned to their flaws. There is even a bittersweet affection in the way she reflects upon her mother's uneven, self absorbed lifestyle, and her father's dim witted affections.

The novel is epic in scope, traversing the scorching open wastelands of hell where big name demons roam ravenous, to the clerical offices where the files and appeal of the damned are kept and conveniently lost. Of course Halloween is honored here, with the damned allowed one night amongst the living. It's the best time to collect chocolate bars--the most valuable currency in Hell. Even demons have a sweet tooth.

Hell fast loses it's shock and terror through the eyes of Madison Spencer, and as the novel picks up speed so does the fun. It's a dangerously seductive premise, because if spending time in Hell meant becoming the best friend of this plucky heroine, then it doesn't seem like such a bad prospect after all.

My thanks to Doubleday Publishing for the advance reader copy. :)

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A Book Courtesy of My Friendly Neighborhood Specter Magazine...

Sally Hemings by Barbara Chase Riboud
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

July 4th of this year found me seperated from fireworks and backyard barbecue, alone and in my livingroom with the laptop, and a History Channel marathon of The American Revolution. While running wild on Twitter and Facebook, I got to know better the editor of the brilliant new ezine, Specter Magazine, a Mr. Thomas D. DeMary II. I don't recall the exact details of the twit-conversation any longer, but the end result was that he had to pony up and buy me a book of my choosing off Amazon.com.

Seeing as it was July 4th, I went Founding Father themed, and chose a title related to Thomas Jefferson. A paperback novel by Barbara Chase Riboud about the controversial enslaved mistress of Mr. Jefferson, Sally Hemings.

I've always been fascinated by Sally Hemings, the young one quarter African slave-girl who became the 15 year old mistress of Thomas Jefferson while he was stationed in Paris--Sally serving his daughters Martha, and Maria. She was the half-sister of Jefferson's dead wife Martha Wayles, and by all spoken accounts (for no portrait of Sally Hemings is known to survive)a beautiful young woman and the spitting image of her half sister. The fact that she was the aunt of the girls she was slave to, half sister to the dead Mistres of Monticello, and bound concubine of Thomas Jefferson whether she liked it or not seemed to sum up to me the epitome of slavery's absurdity.

The legend of the Hemings scandal, a huge story at the time Jefferson served as President of the United States, and chronicled by her own son Eston Hemings in an autobiography, faded over the decades. Covered in dust and the eventual sainting of Jefferson into a flawless man of marble.

This novel, I was pleasantly surprised to find, meticulously researched and wonderfully written, chips away the marble and granite of the beloved Thomas Jefferson, and breathes life into the breast of a slave girl who had only previously been immortalized in rude poems and brushed aside as a figment of legend.

The novel opens with a census taker in 1830 Virginia meeting an aged but still beautiful Sally Hemings, a freewoman living near the grounds of Monticello with two of her sons by Jefferson. The book almost lost me at the gate when the paragraphs breathlessly worship at the altar of Sally's "white" beauty. Great emphasis is devoted to her unlined skin, though she is past 50, her ivory complexion, her ebony hair and golden eyes that glow like a gemstone. Descriptive passages like this can sometimes leave me cold, as if to say the only woman worth writing about is one that never ages and is impossibly beautiful. I was afraid that this novel would go the way of a lurid romantic bodice ripper.

Sticking with it, however, paid off beautifully. Very swiftly Chase-Riboud takes the story of the infatuated census taker and the ageless Sally and smashes them together with a hard unflinching look of the the subject of slavery, race despite skin color, and Sally's complete embracing of her own identity as a woman of African heritage. Sally is an ageless doll at the opening, but that impossible beauty is quickly stripped away, as she begins to shed the skin of her emotional enslavement to the memory of Thomas Jefferson and Monticello.

Told from a variety of viewpoints, but mostly through Sally's, the novel jumps back and forth in time, and with great skill creates a Sally Hemings that is full blooded and real. One feels great sympathy for the fifteen year old Sally in Paris, beautiful and naive, and overcome with the love that Jefferson offers. Freedom from slavery in Paris is within her grasp, but adolescent infatuation is a stronger force that binds her to Jefferson and condemns her to a lifetime of slavery returned to Virginia. At no point is she a helpless, dim-witted concubine mistress as popular tales of the time had her. She is an intelligent, assertive, graceful woman who runs Monticello, and deftly dodges the venom sent her way by Jefferson's oldest daughter Martha.

Jefferson is shown as both the intelligent, innovative man he is famous for being, but his flaws are also not skimmed over. His inability to spend or save money properly, the hypocrisy of his idea of a free America but yet allowing slavery to fester and spread, and his selfishness in binding Sally Hemings and her children to him without ever giving them anything more than his curt acknowledgment.

This book is an important one, controversial at the time for its unflinching look at slavery, race relations, and the fallibility of a Founding Father.

Read the modern paperback edition of this book as it has an afterword by the author in it, detailing the pains she took in research, and the pain she endured upon publication of the book for being an African American woman who would dare pull back the curtain on the boudoir of an American Icon.

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And I highly recommend everyone go and check out Specter Magazine at http://www.spectermagazine.com/

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