Culture Watch
Deceit
By James Siegel, © 2006
Warner Books/Hachette Group; hardback, 369 pp
The Night Gardener
By George Pelecanos, © 2006
Little, Brown & Co.;
hardback, 372 pp
Every now and again, the urge to read an escapist story strikes me. “Escapist” can cover many genres, depending on the reader. For example, fantasy is the answer some; for others, romance or even light verse. For me, it’s hardboiled, gritty stories about policemen or reporters. Don’t ask me why: the only way I can explain my odd tastes even to myself is to note that nothing could be farther removed from my life experience or interests.
That said, last month’s reading was more than enough to take care of my escape needs for the foreseeable future.
It seems to me that you’d have to be a die-hard fan of film noir to appreciate Deceit, since the text reads like the fast, simple dialogue best spoken by Humphrey Bogart or John Travolta. Never have so many one-line, one-sentence paragraphs filled page after page of one book. And those one-line paragraphs are quite often just phrases, not sentences
The story is narrated by Tom Valle, a reporter who is working for a small-town paper in Littleton, CA. He considers himself lucky to have gotten the job, as he was fired from his high-profile job at New York’s premier newspaper for fabricating stories, and his mentor and editor fell with him (sound familiar?).
An automobile accident outside of town seems routine until Tom begins to notice little indications that it is not at all what it seems. His investigation of the event leads to all sorts of harrowing experiences and discoveries, best left for the reader to uncover for herself. Suffice it to say that conspiracy theorists will be drawn to this book like flies to honey.
The Night Gardener, is a beautifully written and constructed crime novel, and it was balm on the wound after the sloppy, abrupt writing of Deceit. Pelecanos is more than capable of drawing the reader into his gritty, urban landscape, and he doesn’t need taut phrases presented as sentences to do it. Indeed, the writing is quite lush.
The plot revolves around three policemen who are involved in the investigation of a series of murders of young people, all of whom have first names that are palindromes like Otto or Eve. The story begins in 1985, when the lead detective on the case snaps at two young policemen who should be guarding the crime scene. That crime is described as the characters are introduced.
The next thing we know, we are fast-forwarded to current time. Oddly enough, the palindrome murders stopped with the last case in ’85. The lead detective had to retire leaving the case unsolved, a fact that continues to haunt him.
One of the young policemen is now a full detective. The other, who was probably a better cop, was forced to resign when his methods were questioned during a police sting operation.
What brings the three of them back together is the apparent palindrome murder of yet another youngster (named Asa), twenty years after the last.
The book takes quite awhile to rev up. Pelecanos takes his own time to set up and develop his story, time that is well-spent. You find yourself a bit at sea at first, but before you know it, you’re completely sucked in.
And the ending, which is anything but what you expect, is both honest and satisfying.
— JS
The Land Breakers
by John Ehle, original © 1963; current edition © 2006
First published by Harper & Row; current edition published by Press 53
paperback; 344 pp
The Land Breakers is the first of seven novels in John Ehle’s saga of the families who first settled in the wild country of North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains. Its reissue in paperback offers a chance for new readers to discover this quiet, authoritative novelist.
Although Ehle tells a fascinating story about his people, it is the wilderness itself, its rocky immensity, the wild storms that blow across it, and the fierce animals that inhabit it, that simply overwhelms the reader.
This book is the “town read” for my little city this year, i.e. a book suggested as reading material for as wide a group as possible. Our libraries have stocked many copies, and there have been readings (by Mr. Ehle and others) and discussion groups all over the city. If your city is looking for a similar project, The Land Breakers would be a good place to start.
— JS
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