Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold

Subtitle: A Novel Inspired by the Life and Marriage of Charles Dickens

This is an outstanding novel, a fictional examination of Dickens marriage and affair. Even the names are changed, and, as the author says in her introduction, events are rearranged to suit her narrative. But that's OK, in fact, it probably makes for a much better novel.

What's important is that it rings true and convincing, which is a testament to the author's skill. After finishing the novel, we can believe that it happened this way, and that we have had a glimpse of the real Charles Dickens.

It's not a flattering look at his personal life. The novel begins with his death, the the protagonist is his estranged wife. Dickens kicked her out of his home, denying her access to her children, ten years before he died, so that he could carry on an affair with an actress young enough to be his daughter. They didn't teach that in school when I was a kid - only recently have details emerged about Dickens personal life.

The author creates a convincing world for her fictional author, his wife, and his mistress. Highly recommended.

Link to Amazon: Girl in a Blue Dress: A Novel Inspired by the Life and Marriage of Charles Dickens

The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl

Pearl has made a career out of writing novels about literary mysteries. He has written a novel about a translation of Dante, about Edgar Allen Poe's death, and this novel, which deals with the end of the life of Charles Dickens and the end of his unfinished novel, the Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Pearl chooses as a protagonist the publisher of Dickens novels in Boston. The seamier side of the publishing industry is revealed, at a time when there was no international copyright law and the theft of manuscripts was common. The plot involves the publisher traveling to England to search for the end of the unfinished novel. It is, of course, a little contrived, but entertaining. Flashbacks include Dickens last reading tour of America, and a glimpse of the English opium trade in India. Opium plays a large part in Dickens novel, so Pearl uses it to good advantage in his novel.

A "solution" to Dickens unfinished novel is proposed, one involving real characters that Dickens supposedly based his novel on. Overall it's a good read, probably the best of the Pearl literary mysteries.

Link to Amazon: The Last Dickens: A Novel

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

This is Dickens' last unfinished novel. My cunning plan is to read this, then read some of the many novels that attempt to finish the novel for Dickens, or deal with the end of Dickens life. Any excuse to read more books!

Actually, even though the novel is unfinished, it's a satisfying read. Edwin Drood disappears. He is a young, happy-go-lucky, man who was engaged in an arranged marriage. Just as Edwin and his fiance break off their engagement, he disappears. Public suspicion falls on a friend of his, another young man. But all clues tend to point to his uncle Jasper, who seems obsessed with Edwin's fiance. Jasper is also a secret opium addict, smoking it in the opening scene in a den in London.

No one knows where Dickens intended to take the novel. Is Edwin really dead? Or has he just disappeared because of the termination of his engagement? We'll never know, but that hasn't stopped other writers from speculating.

Link to Amazon: The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Penguin Classics)

Sometimes we're always real same-same by Mattox Roesch

An interesting novel, set in an Eskimo village. Cesar, a teenage gang-banger from Los Angeles, moves with his mother back to her old home in Alaska. It's Cesar's cousin, Go-Boy, that eases the culture shock for Cesar. This is a coming-of-age novel, and it follows Cesar and Go-Boy, Cesar's mother, and his new girlfriend, as Cesar adapts to life in Alaska.

Cesar is an unlikely choice for a protagonist. It's tough to be sympathetic to a gang-banger, especially when we learn that he earned that label by participating in a gang-style rape. It's not clear if he actually raped the girl or if he just assisted, but it adversely affected my opinion of the character. Near the end of the novel, Cesar attempts to rationalize his part in the rape by claiming that everyone is guilty of something, an argument that seems immature at best:

And here we all are, standing on this ground. Sure,none of these people have ever participated in a gang rape. None of them have ever seen anything so ugly. But in a way, they have. In a way, every person here has raped someone. Every person in the world has raped someone.

The character of Go-Boy steals the novel. He is a perpetual optimist with his own odd mix of religious beliefs. It is inevitable that his optimism will crash in the face of repeated real-life failures, and that crash forms the real climax of the book. It is Go-Boy's journey that is more compelling and interesting, and his character that is more sympathetic. We see Go-Boy's struggle through Cesar's eyes, and Cesar learns much from Go-Boy.

An interesting novel, giving the reader a glimpse of modern eskimo culture that few will ever see.

Link to Amazon: Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Subtitled: Or the Evening Redness in the West

McCarthy's war novel. Not war between nations but the more elemental and basic desire of man to war on his fellow creatures to advance himself.

At times it reads like a heroic epic poem, at times like a biblical chronicle. There are no heroes here - the characters give free reign to their basest cravings and desires. Violence is ubiquitous. The central character - the kid, is curiously minimized. He appears at the beginning, and again at the end, but in the majority of the novel, as the hideous exploits of the roving warriors are told, the kid is curiously absent from the narrative. We know he is there, that he takes part, but we are not seeing the action through his eyes or even getting his reactions to what happens. In a sense he is everyman, or any man, caught up as a teenager in the war.

The character of the judge is the god of war. He is ruthlessly self-centered. Nothing exists that he does not destroy. He controls and manipulates everyone that he meets.

An unsettling read - grit your teeth and bear it.

Link to Amazon: Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

Life Portraits - Rejection

I got my latest rejection for my novel Life Portraits yesterday. This particular agent had had a partial manuscript for four months. A typical rejection: she was "intrigued by the premise", thought it had "appeal in today's market", but "just didn't fall in love".

The tally of queries and rejections for 2009 are:

I sent out 56 queries.
I got 26 rejections.
I got an astounding 30 "no response means no". In other words, 30 agents couldn't even be bothered to respond to my query with a simple no.

This is pretty discouraging for a novel that finished in the finals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Here's the Publisher's Weekly review that I received as part of the contest:

When a woman inherits a series of nude photographs of an unknown man, it triggers a search for the truth behind her dead mother’s mysterious history in this superb novel. Shifting back and forth between the present and the past, with portraits both metaphorical and literal, the parallels between the lives and personalities of young mother Sally Swain and her own newly-deceased mother, photographer Eva, come into detailed focus. Sally’s search draws her into a quest for her unknown father’s identity as Eva’s tale moves from the 1950s to the 1970s amid the drama of the Civil Rights movement and explores her relationships with two very different men: doctor and budding politician Paul James, and confused, often-depressed artist Isaac Rutherford. The suspense is maintained masterfully throughout, and Sally’s slow maturation as she learns the lessons of the past is handled gently and effectively. Paul, Isaac and their family members are richly portrayed with a complex and realistic balance of virtues and flaws as Sally slowly unravels Eva’s secrets and resolves her own personal challenges in the deeply satisfying conclusion.

What now? I suppose I'll keep plugging away at it. This is not my only novel, of course. I have another that is completed and yet another in progress. But I can't pretend that I am not disappointed.

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy

Draw a line from William Faulkner through the midnight dark of the human soul and at the end of it you will find Cormac McCarthy, picking over the bones of murderer and murdered, like some oracle seeking the truth of the ways of man and god. McCarthy’s god is, at best, indifferent. At worst, malevolent and sadistic.

This is the story of Lester Ballard's descent into hell. Ballard is a piece of work, a real child of god. McCarthy tells it in stark and simple prose with black humor. Ballard, with the cunning of all men, learns to take advantage of his situation, preying, like the "Son of Sam" murderer, on lovers parked in cars along lonely mountain roads. In his depravity, Ballard takes advantage of the dead female bodies.

No one can tell stories of this kind better that Cormac McCarthy. After reading it I felt depressed and blue for days, wary that a sadistic god would laugh when I was struck down by some depraved child of god.

Link to Amazon: Child of God