The Jolly Roger Social Club: A True Story of a Killer in Paradise by Nick Foster

Posted on July 29, 2016 by pagesofjulia

A chilling tale about an expat American in Panama whose murderous crimes went undetected for years.

jolly roger

Journalist Nick Foster explores a backwater archipelago of Panama in The Jolly Roger Social Club: A True Story of a Killer in Paradise, a work of true crime and national history. As he investigates the serial killer known locally as Wild Bill Cortez, Foster asks: What is it about this expat society, or this place, that allowed these events to unfold?

William Dathan Holbert was originally from western North Carolina, where he showed an early disrespect for the law and his friends. Foster’s investigative work follows a young man who defrauded his mentor and experimented with white supremacy before running for the border with his girlfriend, Laura Michelle Reese. But it was in the small village of Bocas del Toro in Panama that he came into his own, eventually killing a number of fellow American expatriates for their cash and real estate. On the property of an early victim, he opened a bar called the Jolly Roger Social Club (“over 90 percent of our members survive”), where he groomed future victims. Holbert and Reese still await trial in Panama.

The Jolly Roger Social Club intersperses Holbert’s crimes with Panamanian history, from the building of the Canal to Manuel Noriega’s dictatorship and its ties to United States politics and economics. With this broader perspective and interviews with expats in Bocas del Toro who knew “Wild Bill,” Foster explores the factors that provided Holbert with the setting where his crimes went undetected for years: a remote corner of the Caribbean where people sometimes simply… disappear.

This review originally ran in the July 15, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 7 signatures.

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Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood

Posted on July 28, 2016 by pagesofjulia

This engrossing inquiry into faked deaths introduces curious characters and a litany of questions about life.

playing dead

Elizabeth Greenwood had recently quit teaching public school in New York City to return to school herself, and her student loan debt had hit six figures. She was feeling desperate, trapped and bored with her day-to-day existence. When a friend made a joke about faking her death to get away from it all, she was intrigued.

The idea became the research project that consumed her time and imagination for years, and resulted in Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud. Greenwood explores the world of pseudocide from several angles. She speaks with several subjects of infamous botched cases, but fails to identify any successful fraudsters (by definition, they are hard to find). She visits with the investigators who pursue these attempted frauds on behalf of the insurance companies frequently scammed (“His workplace, in a way, is the DMV of death”), as well as with professionals in the field of helping people disappear. She also cozies up to a passionate “Believer” in Michael Jackson’s epic prank: that the singer is not dead at all, but in hiding, sending coded messages to his fans. When Greenwood sits down with family members who have been left behind, she finds the most damage inflicted. Finally, in the Philippines, she sets out to purchase her own death certificate.

Initially Playing Dead asks: Is this deception possible in a modern era of closed-circuit cameras, digital signatures and the inerasable Internet? Is it better to fake death, or simply to disappear? Are those who get caught really “morons and idiots,” as one specialist asserts? By the end of her journey, though, Greenwood asks different questions. Why are pseudocides overwhelmingly male? Is this an act of sacrifice or ego? “Is transformation without annihilation possible?” By the epilogue, she has reconsidered, for herself at least, which is preferable: a difficult life or a false death.

Along the way, she acquires a few tips: keep your first name when you take on a new identity. Stay in disguise. Don’t bother with a surrogate body. Quit driving altogether. Disappear on a hike, not into the ocean. And whatever you do, don’t assume you can return home to family and friends after just a few years dead. The exercise of seeking pseudocide for Greenwood, “acts as a gentle reminder that our realities are far from fixed.”

This energetic exploration of a world many readers may not have ever considered is perhaps slightly macabre, but ultimately very human; it is a questioning of how we seek satisfaction in life, and when we cut and run. Greenwood’s narrative voice is humble and approachable, but as an investigator she is tenacious, going the distance–to death and back–to bring this oddly fascinating story to her readers. Playing Dead will please those attracted to the eccentric, as well as anyone who has ever fantasized about leaving it all behind.

This review originally ran in the July 12, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 7 cars.

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Ithaca: A Novel of Homer’s Odyssey by Patrick Dillon

Posted on July 27, 2016 by pagesofjulia

This retelling of the Odyssey gives Telemachus more voice than ever before.

ithaca

Homer’s Odyssey recounts Odysseus’s 10-year journey home from the Trojan War, to where his wife and son await him. His adventures along the way take center stage. Ithaca, Patrick Dillon’s retelling, resets that center to the son. With substantially more insight into Telemachus than readers have had before, this version also offers a more fallible Odysseus, with all the drama and yearning of the original.

Dillon remains true to Homer’s setting, but the novel is told in Telemachus’s voice, and the weighty absence of a father he never met defines his existence. At 16, he worries over his role and responsibilities, and his inability to protect his mother: he has no one to teach him how to fight. These interior workings bring Odysseus’s iconic son to light as a nuanced and fully formed character. When the wise warrior Nestor assigns his daughter to be Telemachus’s traveling companion, the story gets an appealing twist: Polycaste is headstrong and capable, and her friendship has much to offer Telemachus. The gods are less present this time around; Telemachus is openly dubious. Veterans of the Trojan War roam Greece as bandits and vagabonds.

Though only slight details are changed, Ithaca is a vibrant and fresh revival; Telemachus’s struggles are illuminated through the use of his own voice. The well-loved classic is present: Penelope is beautiful, determined, fading; the suitors are shocking; Menelaus and Helen fight bitterly; the aging Nestor tries to guide Telemachus true. Dillon’s achievement is in characterization while retaining the heart and passion of Homer.

This review originally ran in the July 8, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 8 arrows.

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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (audio)

Posted on July 25, 2016 by pagesofjulia

book thiefI need to give up the audiobooks for a while. I know I’ve been saying this, but The Book Thief is the extreme case. I may have started listening to this in, like, March.

And I had some trouble getting involved at first, but how can I criticize, when I’ve listened so infrequently and over such a long time? My bad, Zusak. Slowly but surely, I was pulled into the world of Liesel Meminger, who is (about) ten when we meet her. Her mother immediately deposits her with a foster family at the start of World War II. Liesel’s story is about the war and its effects on one child, her family and the town where she lives. Unusually, it is narrated by Death; and he is a weary one indeed, especially in 1930’s and ’40’s Germany.

I found out some time into my listening that the print version of those book includes illustrations. It is probably worth getting the print version for this reason!! I wish I had. Also, my poor perspective has been noted, but I think it may be true that the book opens a little slowly: Death reflects, and sets up Liesel’s circumstances, for perhaps a little too long before entering Liesel’s head and the intimacies of her life and struggles. Death develops as a character, too, but it is really in Liesel’s childlike, but wise and somber mind that this book becomes most absorbing and affecting.

This is barely a review. Go read someone else’s review – like this one from The New York Times, not entirely raving, or one of these, the first of which notes that slow-to-start observation I made. I made the mistake of listening to the audiobook when I think the print would have been better, and going toooooo sloooooowly. But I can see from here that this is an intriguing perspective, and witty in several ways.

And wouldn’t you know, I just found out while writing this that there’s a movie too, as of 2013. It looks a little prettier and more sentimental than my impression of the book (just from the trailer); but it also looks beautiful, and moving. I will want to see that next. The movie never accomplishes what the book does, because of the limitations of the form (time, for one thing), but sometimes the movie is a fine thing in itself.

The Book Thief: worth more than I put into it.

Rating: 7 and a half stairs down to the basement.

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Paraíso by Gordon Chaplin

Posted on July 20, 2016 by pagesofjulia

Set in Mexican “Paradise,” this moody novel combines fantasy, noir and the complexities of every form of love.

paraiso

Paraíso is an atmospheric novel both realistic and rooted in fantasy, traveling from New York City to Baja, Mexico, and exploring the nuances of love in all its forms. Gordon Chaplin (Joyride) offers a cast of whimsical, imperfect, loveable characters that readers will not soon forget.

As children, they were almost preternaturally close. Their mother named them Peter and Wendy, perhaps an early sign of something odd in family undercurrents. As teenagers, they stole the family minivan and ran for Mexico, but they never made it, apprehended instead at the very point Huck Finn and Jim aimed for.

These episodes are visited in flashbacks, from a present in which Peter and Wendy have been estranged for a decade, over a mysterious family secret. Wendy has finally made it to the little Mexican town of Paraíso, on the Baja peninsula, where she finds herself at the intersection of love and peril. Peter fled New York City after the towers fell, seeking his lost sister. They circle one another as Paraíso nears its conclusion, joined by charismatic associates, friends and lovers. These include Wendy’s best friend, who has been the siblings’ go-between for years; a sinister half-Mexican auto mechanic; an artista from Mexico City; and a teenage girl Peter mentors at work. The momentum of this expertly paced noir fairy tale increases as it nears its denouement.

Gorgeous, vivid scenery and fascinating people enrich a story that is both eccentric and universal: how to love and how to handle betrayal.

This review originally ran in the July 5, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 7 letters.

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The Art of History: Unlocking the Past in Fiction & Nonfiction by Christopher Bram

Posted on July 18, 2016 by pagesofjulia

A succinct survey of history in both fiction and nonfiction offers advice for writers and readers.

the art of history

Christopher Bram takes on the broad subject of what history has to offer literature–and vice versa–with The Art of History: Unlocking the Past in Fiction & Nonfiction.

Beginning with memories of a high school English teacher, Bram celebrates the interest and value of reading and writing history. His thesis is that history need not be written in dry, textbook form: in both fiction and nonfiction, a talent for storytelling and a keen eye for just the right details, in the right quantity, can render the near and distant past in enthralling fashion. “Details,” he says, “are the raisins in the raisin bread.” He examines works including Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, David McCullough’s The Path Between the Seas and Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and topics ranging through war, slavery in the United States, comedic perspectives and the blending of lines between fiction and nonfiction. An author in both disciplines, Bram does not claim objectivity: he is clear about his love for Toni Morrison’s Beloved and his disregard for Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, among others.

Books in “The Art of” series inspect craft from a perspective seemingly for writers and critics, and Bram offers good advice: “In both fiction and nonfiction, writing well means knowing what to leave out.” But The Art of History works for readers as well, as in an appendix of Bram’s recommended reading. Exploration, appreciation and instruction combine in this slim, accessible study of literary history and historical literature.

This review originally ran in the July 5, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 6 details.

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Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson

Posted on July 15, 2016 by pagesofjulia

jesus' sonThis is an intense, gritty collection of connected short stories that is almost a novel. The unnamed narrator (known only as Fuckhead) is clearly the same guy throughout, as we follow him through a nearly-chronological series of adventures in drug abuse, petty crime and violence, depravity and apathy. Also novelistically, there is something of an arc: the story ends with our narrator living sober with a part-time job, muddling along in a dingy, not-guilt-free version of redemption. It is not clearly told; the narrator is addled and deluded, and so is his story-telling style; it is performative of the character.

There is beauty throughout, as well. It is a fascinating, glittering series of tales in its emotional range and its tolerance for different viewpoints. Jesus’ Son has the power to entertain and amuse, to disturb and disquiet, and to uplift all at once. It is a strange, powerful creation.

Rating: 7 hits.

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The Believer, issue 113: Chippy (fall 2015)

Posted on July 11, 2016 by pagesofjulia

A little background: I’m working on developing as a reader and a writer, and approaching another graduate degree, this time in creative writing. As part of that process, I’m trying to read more literary journals. This is something we’re told to do if we want to get published by those journals, both to familiarize ourselves with what individual publications like and seek, and to support them. Over the course of six months or so, I’ve done a decent job of acquiring a bunch of print issues, but not such a great job of reading them. This summer, my resolution is to read a journal every Tuesday.

I don’t expect I’ll be writing about every one, but those I appreciate should certainly get a little space here at pagesofjulia. And that’s why I’m writing about The Believer today.

believer113The format is a little different. The table of contents is on the back cover, rather than in the first few pages. One element, the interview with Sheila Nevins (of HBO Documentary Films), is presented in pieces – “microinterviews” – spread throughout the issue. There are very few ads, and The Believer is printed on heavier, off-white paper, with nearly cardstock-weight covers. I’m sorry I don’t know the terms for these paper characteristics, but it’s got a nice feel in the hand. Oh, wait, here it is (from the website):

Each issue is perfect-bound and 128 pages, printed by friendly Canadians on recycled, acid-free, heavy-stock paper and suitable for archiving, framing in a very thick frame, or reading in the tub.

And despite the title, it’s got nothing to do with religion, or anything like that.

Also from the website, The Believer is

a bimonthly literature, arts, and culture magazine. In each issue, readers will find journalism and essays that are frequently very long, book reviews that are not necessarily timely, and interviews that are intimate, frank, and also very long.

In other words, overwhelmingly nonfictional and unafraid to go on a bit. I found the writing consistently very fine, and the widely-ranging subjects consistently fascinating. This is, in short, a magazine I want to read regularly. I am less sure that there is a place for my own writing on these pages (and if that’s self-centered, recall my original motivation in reading lit mags regularly), but that’s okay. I like finding good reading – obviously.

As to timing, I will note that the website still shows this issue, from Fall 2015, as the current issue. So I wonder a bit about their bimonthly-ness.

The highlights of issue 113, for me, included:

  • Kea Krause’s “What’s Left Behind,” about the nasty environmental disaster of a flooded copper mine on the edge of Butte, Montana. This piece made me think of Robert Michael Pyle, and hope that they know about one another.
  • Daniel Handler’s “What the Swedes Read,” a column in which he’ll read one book by each Nobel Laureate – this time, The Sovereign Sun by Odysseus Elytis, trans. by Kimon Friar. Handler’s often confused reading of these allusive poems, with frequent research digressions (“Out of my way, poem! I’m trying to understand you! Surely my loopy research was a disservice to poem and reader alike.”), really spoke to me and summed up some of my problems with poetry.
  • Ross Simonini’s interview with Miranda July finally got me really intrigued by this woman I’ve heard about here and there: now I want to check out her novel, The First Bad Man. Also, I was wowed by Simonini’s question, when July mentions that some of her early work embarrasses her: “Embarrassing because it wasn’t done well, or because it revealed something?” That is an exemplary interviewer: quick on his feet with an insightful question I wish I’d asked.

I’m excited to have discovered The Believer. I hope the missing issues of 2016 turn up, and I hope I can find the time to make this part of my regular reading.

Rating: 8 articles long enough to get lost in.

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guest review: Mother Tongue: My Family’s Globe-Trotting Quest to Dream in Mandarin, Laugh in Arabic, and Sing in Spanish by Christine Gilbert, from Mom

Posted on July 8, 2016 by pagesofjulia

My mother is here today to guest-review a book to which she brings special expertise. Mom has a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from the University of Houston; used to teach English as a foreign language to adults in community college settings; and now volunteers her time tutoring English language learners one-on-one. The disclosure here is that I was sent a free copy of this book in exchange for my mother‘s honest review. (It’s fun how that fact plays off this book’s title.) Thanks, Mom!

mother tongue

Christine Gilbert is quite the adventurous spirit. She tells the story in Mother Tongue about her quest to learn three languages – Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish – in less than three years, while living in three countries. This adventure includes a baby who acquires a sibling along the way. She and her husband have few ties to the U.S., and are able to work remotely. Thus they are perfectly placed for the language quest.

The quest is primarily hers, but includes her son as he grows and learns the local language effortlessly, as children do. (Her back-story includes a genetic disposition to Alzheimer’s disease, and she learns of brain research that suggests that young bilinguals have an advantage over monolinguals that gives about five extra years before onset of Alzheimer’s.) She sets out to understand language learning theories, while researching all the logistics of moving house and choosing the places.

Gilbert does her homework on language acquisition theory, and she makes her case for total immersion (no hanging out with English speakers!). She works long days in language study. In the beginning – Beijing during a very cold winter with pollution too severe for the family to go out much – she chooses to hire a tutor for working at home, as well as a housekeeper who doesn’t speak English. When a crisis takes the family away suddenly, she reviews her experience and decides complete isolation within the foreign country is not the only way to absorbing language and culture. Each move and new setting will bring more lessons, and Gilbert gets quite good at her tasks.

This is not a dry tome about memorizing vocabulary for long hours. We make friends along the journey, we learn to talk and savor local food. Gilbert is a fun character, and her husband’s story is equally interesting; the book is a travel story on lots of levels. As a parenting and family dynamics study, Mother Tongue is yet another book. I’ve been involved enough in the bigger story to follow her adventures as told on her blog, and can reveal that this is an unending quest – two more countries appear there, and since I haven’t looked lately, who knows where they may be now.

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This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live by Melody Warnick

Posted on July 7, 2016 by pagesofjulia

A chronic mover seeks to settle down, and offers practical, accessible steps for readers to follow.

this is where you belong

When Melody Warnick, her husband and their two children moved for the sixth time in 13 years, from Austin, Tex. to Blacksburg, Va., she started to wonder if this new town would be a panacea, or if perhaps she was chasing an impossible dream. Had her family’s search for happiness via mobility been a form of magical thinking? So began the work of This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live.

Warnick approaches the goal of settling, or of loving where she lives, enthusiastically and broadmindedly. Research is a major component of her work, but it never feels that way. Warnick consults social sciences studies and conducts myriad interviews, and distills what she learns into conversational musings that make the reader feel a part of the process. In the opening chapter, she identifies 10 “place attachment behaviors,” which form the chapters that follow. These include walking more, volunteering, exploring nature and creating something new. For each behavior, she sets a goal and records her progress; each chapter ends with a “love your city checklist” of suggested actions. This Is Where You Belong is a carefully documented experiment, explicitly designed for readers to replicate in their own lives.

By the end, Warnick has established herself as a fallible, likable everywoman, and her struggle to love Blacksburg comes to represent a universal concern. Her journey to feeling attached to where she lives is scientific and packed with research, but also feels like an old friend’s casual banter. This practical exercise in intentional place-based happiness is for the homesick and the optimistic alike.

This review originally ran in the June 24, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 8 ticks on a list.

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