It's September and the weather has started to cool down. Now we have another reason to stay inside and read. This month I put down what I was reading to take up a couple of books that tie into some things that happened last month. I've had them for a while and one of them I've even reviewed here many years ago.
Off The Shelf
The Guns of Heaven - Pete Hamill ($.50/$6.99, copyright 1983, 254 pages, Paperback)
Pete Hamill died last month at the age of 85. He was a well-known newspaper columnist in New York who went on to become a pretty popular novelist. I've had several of his books on my shelves for yeas and even started one once but put it aside for some reason I don't recall. I chose this one because it's issued under the Hard Case Crime imprint of pulp noir novels which ties in to a Steven King book I spoke of a couple of months ago. Hamill's main character is Sam Briscoe, an American reporter who visits his aging uncle in Northern Ireland in hopes of getting an interview with a mysterious IRA leader known as Commander Steel. He gets it but in return must deliver an envelope when he gets home to an Irish bar owner in Queens. Up to here, the book has been pretty cut-and-dry but the heat gets turned up quickly. There is a bombing, a kidnapping, and a terrorist threat and Briscoe is the only one who can solve it. Briscoe is pretty well defined but most of the others are cookie-cutter characters playing identifiable parts but Hamill knows his New York and his locations ring true. It was OK.(Side Note: I prefered Jimmy Breslin. He was funnier.)
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury ($1.25/$1.25, copyright 1962, 215 pages, Paperback)
This is the book that I wrote about years ago. I used to read it around Halloween every year but fell out of the habit. I pulled it out because last month we celebrated Bradbury's 100th Birthday. I could've gone with one of his short story collections but I felt that a full-length novel, even a short one, would be the best way to demonstrate Bradbury's ability to tell a story. Here we have two 13-year old boys growing up as best friends and neighbors in a small town in Illinois. Will Halloway is intelligent, thoughtful, and was born 1 minute before midnight on October 30th. Jim Nightshade is impulsive, impatient, and was born one minute after midnight which makes it October 31st, Halloween. Their quiet, idyllic life is suddenly disrupted by the arrival of a traveling carnival - Cougar and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show. What follows is a series of unexplained occurrences that draw the boys in. It becomes the classic tale of Good versus Evil with Will's father Charles on one side and the carnival's ringmaster Mr. Dark on the other. I am a big fan of the creepy circus/carnival genre and have read quite a few. This one stands out because of Bradbury's writing - his ability to create a scene that captures the reader by his use of words. True, his characters are stereotypes but he has recreated and refreshed them and his descriptions of the various situations involving the townsfolks and the carnies are striking and memorable. I really enjoyed it.
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt ($7.99/$7.99, copyright 1996, 460 pages, paperback)
I picked this book up because it was lying under Bradbury's on a shelf and I started to leaf through it. I first read it back in the early '90's and I found myself drawn to it again. This is McCourt's memoir of his youth growing up in Limerick, Ireland. It's given from his perspective first as a child and then grows as he does. It was not an easy life. His father, Malachi, spent whatever money he earned on drink and his mother, Angela, tried her best to hold the family together as they scrounged for food and coal wherever and however they could. But Frank has a soft spot for his father, particularly the stories he tells, and this is the beginning of his own penchant for stories. I won't go into the hardships that he experienced because you need to read the book to understand and appreciate it as it's told. McCourt doesn't sugar-coat anything but his humor shines through in even the worst of times. You can almost hear his brogue and see his smile as he recounts every high and low time. It reminded me of some of the old timers at Goggin's bar in the Northeast Bronx, exaggerating every yarn over a mug or two in order to outdo each other. I enjoyed it. (McCourt wrote a sequel "Tis" about his early years in America as he pursued a teaching career. I have it in the back room. And I understand there's a third volume "Teacher Man" which I may have to get my hands on.)
That's it for this month. I'm going back to the Dickens book I was reading and looking forward to another Bradbury novel I just got which is described as his Homage to the Detective Fiction of writers like Hammett and Chandler. I am also leaning towards that McCourt book in the other room but we'll see about that.
Anyway, today is the first day of Autumn and October is fast approaching. The leaves should start turning and Halloween is just around the corner. Continue to stay safe and ...
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