We start out on a peaceful Tuesday morning in the library. Young Tess comes in, all smiles and sunshine, with her mother. As there are – in fact – no such things as quiet mornings in libraries, Tess quickly begins contributing to the chaos. Put in time out, she pouts and accidentally³ knocks over a book cart, freeing a rowdy T.Rex from one of the books. And so the romp begins.

The rest of the book is a well-worn investigation of the many worlds that are open to the voracious reader of books. It also tells the parable of the girl who slolwly realizes that the dinosaur is her. What separates this tale from others of its type is the writing and a sly nod to mischief at the conclusion.

On first read, the writing seems all out of whack. The rhythm is awkward. Maddeningly the author gets up a pretty good head of rhyming steam and then brings it screeching to a halt. But, like a well planned racetrack⁴ the patient reader soon learns the curves and comes to enjoy the subtlety of the course. To wit:

Water spills as the story pit fills with fish and aquarium treasures/Orcas spout high. Swordfish, jellies, and squid reel by the knights doing synchornized swimming

Say wha!? I was just getting on a roll! Why not knights taking “extraordinary measures” or “enjoying the ocean’s pleasures”? What gives!?

Ah, but once you expect it, it makes a certain sense. The lack of rhyme subverts expectations just as the idea of knights in full armor strains our notion of what is good, right and orderly. The rollicking rhyme, brought to a standstill by a seemingly out of place word reinforces oursense that a might tyrant lizard is stampeding recklessly through the library.

As the T-Rex careens to new heights of destruction, Tess pleads with him to spare the books. Finally, she is fed up and puts the T-Rex in time out. Unruly behavior in the library brings the same punishment for prehistoric beasties as for young girls. But Tess realizes that her purgatory – and by extension that of T-Rex – is temporary. As she sits quietly, for now, in time out she whispers to T-Rex “I’ll be back for you.”

The children’s room in the library is not for the faint of heart, and No T.Rex in the Library reminds us that we can put but temporary reins on the madness. Time out or not, Tess will be back. All you unwary patrons have been warned.

^{1 I mean, really. It’s about dinosaurs. And libraries.
2 and more importantly, his son…
3 or was it?
4 Indy car, of course. All you have to remember in Nascar is just keep turning right}

Dinosaur Roar is full of simple rhymes that also teach the concept of opposites.

Dinosaur Roar / Dinosaur Squeak
Dinosaur Fierce / and Dinosaur Meek
Dinosaur Sweet, Dinosaur Grumpy/ Dinosaur Spikey, Dinosaur Lumpy

You get the idea. The rhymes roll off the tongue and the dinosaurs are charming and colorful. This was Zeke’s favorite for quite some time during the first year and he still asks for it from time to time. This will delight the younger crowd and come back around when it’s time to start learning to read¹.

^{1 Plus, seriously, dinosaurs! What kid doesn’t like dinosaurs?}

What I expect out of these page turners is action, minimal dialogue and multiple – often predictable – plot twists. I tend toward crime/spy fiction for my fix and my guilty pleasure is Star Wars novels.³ At worst these books are the equivalent of a junk food binge. It sounds like a good idea at the time, you realize you are overdoing it about halfway through and by the end you’re bloated, cranky and remorseful. At best they are something like The Lock Artist.

The Lock Artist is pure recreation. You’re not going to do too much soul searching after this one. There isn’t too much insight into The Human Condition here. But, I think I mentioned up top that this sort of thing isn’t what I’m looking for here. The plot’s the thing and such niceties as character development, good writing and dramatic tension are all icing on the cake.

Fortunately, Hamilton ices his cakes pretty well. His two main hooks are a protagonist who is left mute from a childhood trauma and asynchronous storytelling⁴. Michael, or so he calls himself, is our protagonist and we meet him first in prison. His talent⁵ is an affinity for locks. Specifically, the ability to coax the combination from high-end safes. The kind of safes that criminals might want to relieve of their contents.

You really don’t need to know much more than that. This is the story. A kid, adopted by his uncle, traumatized in his youth, with an ability that makes him a commodity among big time gangsters and con artists. There is psychological tension, romantic intrigue and coming of age. The pace is fast and the characters unrepentant. At this point you’re either interested or your not. And if you are interested, I’m here to tell you it’s worth your time.

^{1 Or was that Socrates? Whatever.
2 Though nothing on the order of what my good friend Walter has been into recently
3 There. I said it.
4 Pretty simple really. We get the first half (childhood) of the plot told in alternating sequence with the second half (adult years).
5 Though it didn’t get him too far in life – he is in prison after all}

What I suspect garnered much of the attention for this novel is its setting several years previous to the actual – the historical – meltdown that currently reverberates through our lives lending it, for some, a feeling of prescience. Notable also is the meltdown’s proximity to the events of 9/11 and the subsequent second Iraq war. In essence Haslett has taken the three defining events of the past decade and squished them together for viewing through a literary lens.

Union Atlantic is Haslett’s view of our contemporary world. As such, he offers some critiques. His main character, Doug Fanning, is an ex-military² man turned ultra-rich banker. In some ways he is the poor boy made good but in others he is a symbol of morally barren America.  In the other corner is Charlotte Graves, a failed history teacher from old money who rages against what modern society has become as embodied by Doug Fanning. In between are a cast of characters who will be familiar to most readers in situations that should be as unsurprising as they are competently rendered.

Union Atlantic is engaging but flawed. Though Haslett’s work may well have been prescient when he began, the fact is that much of his tale feels familiar. What may have been a cautionary tale ends up being a simple retelling of what we have just lived through. Union Atlantic, the bank for which the novel takes its name, may have been a compelling character in its own right if we didn’t know so much about Bank of America, or Chase, or AIG or any number of other institutions Too Big To Fail. Instead it is just a grim rehashing of what we already know personified by characters who are no less likable in their personal lives than are their professional actions.

For all its hype, I came to Union Atlantic having read little about it and with few preconceived notions. The one snippet I had seen was the New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani’s review calling out the novel for being uneven. For much of the novel I scratched my head at this verdict. Sure, there are matters of taste, but the writing seemed coherent and the narrative had a confident stride. It wasn’t until the end that I finally realized the truth of Kakutani’s criticism.

Haslett has a sure hand with character and his scene depicting Massachusetts high society on the Fourth of July is one of the best I have read in recent memory.  But in the end, the story doesn’t cohere. For all the interconnectedness and tightly woven stories that begin the novel,  the characters simply dissipate into the mist. For all the bang that Haslett seems to point to, the final notes are more of a fizzle. Sure, this could be an indictment of the modern existential condition, but I don’t think that’s where Haslett had his sights set.

Union Atlantic points to Haslett’s skill as a short story writer.  He writes scene and character well but can’t seem to hold it together for the long haul.  He has little to offer in terms of insight to a public over-saturated with news coverage about what exactly happened to whom and why in the banking crisis³. Instead we are left with something that very much resembles a petting zoo.  Come see the local fauna. Ogle their rich/lavish/empty/principled lives. See them interact in their native habitat. This was enough to keep me reading but not enough for me to insist that you do the same.

^{1 Although honestly, God save us from Terry Gross already.
2 His military experience providing context for both the terrorist bombings and the brewing conflict in with Iraq.
3 And really, this probably isn’t his fault. But as they say, timing is everything.}

Yes, I’m talking about that old classic from old Mr. Geisel himself – Fox in Socks². And for all the blustery warnings about taking it slow, we start out OK. Seuss warms us up with the building blocks of his tongue-twisting tome.

See the mischief brewing in fox’s eyes as he ponders what kind of trouble he can cause with these innocuous items. See the placid look on unsuspecting Knox’s face – the calm before the linguistic storm that will contort his tongue, try his patience and, frankly, test credulity³.

Hear the simple rhymes that will bring a grin to your toddler’s face. “Fox in socks/ Knox in box;” “Knox in box ON Fox in Socks.” And it warms up slowly. We add chicks and clocks to the mix. “Let’s do tricks with bricks and blocks sir/ Let’s do tricks with chicks and clocks sir.”  And we progress to making quick trick brick stacks; quick trick chick stacks. Try reading that a few times quick. We’re just warming up.

I’ll spare the grisly details, but suffice it to say that it gets pretty tricky. To the point that Knox repeatedly bemoans his fate to that tricky Fox.

Undaunted, Fox continues to up the ante until Knox finally snaps. Rattling off on of the the longest, most complex tongue twisters in the book Knox tells fox where he can shove it and shows that for all his protestation he has been paying a little attention. Like his cousin in Green Eggs and Ham Knox realizes at the end that hey, this was a pretty good idea all along.

Good fun indeed and it is impossible to overstate that you must read this book aloud. So this one’s great for any kid who likes being read to and a good challenge for advanced readers still learning the craft.

Finally, a bonus video of two men who obviously practiced reading such books as loud and as fast as possible. Skip to about the 5:00 mark for the famous gravitas rematch, the ending of which puts even the trickiest passage of our humble kids book to shame⁴.

^{1 Though, to be fair, if you don’t have that yet, Dr. Seuss may not help you
2 Yeah, I know I’m not digging up new finds here every week. But this particular title is a favorite at home and I think gets passed up for many of Seuss’ more popular titles. So there.
3 I mean honestly, a “Goo Goose” and “Cheese Trees”. Come on.
4 Or, you know, watch the whole thing. Or none of it. I’m not the boss of you.}

They were already worshiped during their bank-robbing spree between the spring of ’33 and July of ’34. They were already celebrities – heroes or villains depending on one’s position on the ever-shifting seesaw of the times – indistinguishable in fact from the many folktales chorusing around them. But they became so much more during a two-week spell in August of 1934 starting with the night they died. The night they died for the first time.

Mullen’s introduction leaves no doubt as to what this story is about. It is about  truth shrouded by myth. It is about hope and fear. It is about bank robbing.  Make no mistake – this book is about guns, broads, big scores, flatfoots, bootleggers and thieves. But it is also a book of sociology and of metaphysics.

One half of Mullen’s narrative is a straightforward account of a family coping with the Great Depression. Jason, the eldest of three Fireson boys, rebels early against his hardworking father and gets into the bootlegging game. Profitable, violent and risky, this gig lands him in jail for a couple of stints estranging him from family and introducing him to darker elements. After a curtailed final attempt at the straight life – one in which his erstwhile upstanding father falls prey to his darker nature – Jason uses his big house connections to become a bank robber, taking in middle brother Whit as an accomplice and leaving their youngest brother on the outside of the new family business.

Which brings us to the second half of Mullen’s narrative. It is a half narrative that runs parallel to the straight story. One that whispers of deep family bonds, brotherly affection, carnal love², sacrifice and most notably resurrection. Yes, the title of the novel means what it says.

The brothers’ first resurrection happens in basement morgue of a police station. Mystified at first, the brothers quickly adapt to their circumstance, planning jobs with the lingering expectation that death by lead bullet will be but temporary. Mullen does an excellent job transmogrifying the metaphor of public immortality into actual invulnerability to Death’s grim scythe. Throughout the text we are reminded of Dillinger and others infamously gunned down who live on, much like Elvis would later in the century in newspaper and eyewitness sightings.

But the Firefly brothers live on in lore as their corporeal forms stick around to stay in on the joke. The inescapable puzzle is why? Why do they die grisly deaths under dire circumstances just to rise and do it all again? What unfinished business do they have on this mortal coil? What of redemption³? Most, though not all, is revealed in time and Mullen allows the piece to breathe. He gives his readers just enough rope to leave themselves dangling from the rafters of meaning and conclusion. The ending satisfies without solving. The actual rubble of the Fireson’s last known hideout is indistinguishable from the moral rubble of the brother’s crimes.

By the end of the novel prohibition has been repealed, America is on it’s way out of economic collapse and J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI is ascendant.  But lives remain unaccounted for, the undercurrent of civil unrest still flows and whispers continue that the Fireson’s may yet live in more than just the public imagination. Spend some time with this fine novel of America during the Great Depression and you will be richly rewarded with action, adventure, intrigue, metaphysics, mysticism⁴ and social commentary. All in a day’s work.

^{1 Dubbed, ultimately, by a media hungry for spectacle “The Firefly Brothers.”
2 The aforementioned broads.
3 Don’t be disappointed – you’ll not find much of that.
4 Though who are we to say that these two are not one and the same?}

Except for Chameleons¹. Chameleons, we learn, change color wherever they go. Lionni catalogs the various circumstances upon which chameleons might change color, including the haiku-like line “and on the tiger they are striped like tigers.” And it is, in fact, on such a tiger that we meet our protagonist -the chameleon who longs for a color of his own.

So he decides to stay put, hoping that physical stasis will result in the color fastness he so desires. Unfortunately, he decides that if he remains on a leaf he will be green forever. Of course:

Oops. Had the chameleon simply chosen, say, a red wagon his wish may have come true². After a long winter of discontent, Spring comes and he meets an older, wiser chameleon. Plaintively he queries, “Won’t we ever have a color of our own?³:

The older chameleon, full of understanding⁴, breaks the news softly. No, they will never have a color of their own, but if they stick together they will share both color and solace in their solidarity. And so it is that the chameleons change color wherever they go. They are yellow together, purple together and red with white polka dots together. And like many good stories, they live happily ever after⁵.

^{1 And certain marine invertebrates, iguanas and maybe a few others. Are we gonna split hairs?
2 At least until the decision to stay one color or starve presented itself. Maybe it’s better he chose a leaf…
3 What is he expecting? Some sort of Chameleon civil rights movement?
4 It must be that all chameleons pass through this phase and only age and experience bring acceptance.
5 Or, as the Beatles remind us – “All you need is love.”}

The above is unnecessary, really; my point follows. I was inspired to writing by Conan’s recent post about The Swan Thieves. While he described exiting a book in abject misery, really just giving up, I was, how should we say, in-the-text. I was living it up, wallowing in the Word. I didn’t want to rub C’s nose in it then (well, sort of), but he’s of thick hide it would seem. That specific Good Prose was Barth’s The Development which I recommend. Curiously, next I brought home a stack from my public library of E.B. White and John Cheever, white guys dead and buried both. I looked at them. What’s come over me, I thought? I turn 30 and look here. Looking back reveals a pattern. Over Christmas I crossed the ponde to scan some Wodehouse – gasp! Last summer I picked my way through Ten short modern novels, reading several authors notorious for lacking melanin but holding a y chromosome: Faulkner, Mann, Gide. And last winter, gobs of Stephen Crane (M verily forced it on me, but I loved it). Hmm, I wondered.

I promised a point; I’ll attempt delivery. Lately I’ve been in John Cheever’s Journals and E.B. White’s Letters & Writings from the New Yorker. I’ve never read any Cheever that I recollect. His covers are awesome, so here we are. The Journals interest me for several reasons. It’s the prose behind the prose, the ‘inner writing’ of a professional writer, that still reads on the page as professional and inspired writing. I guess that’s talent? It is interesting to glimpse what concerns a novelist in the day to day: money, family, writers’ block (writing well about writers’ block…), alcohol, sex. Other entries are splendid  mini-stories, really sublime. Surely the journal is a writer’s device to aid creativity.

Now White. Again, save the children’s classics and his little grammar aid, I can’t recall reading any E.B. His prose is concise but not proud. There would seem little chance for self-deprication in such style, but it surfaces beautifully, and we see in White’s brevity humanity at once arresting, personal, and universal. Read ‘Hunger’ where the narrator bumps into an old friend starving himself to death because he’s increasingly paranoid about what lurks in our food. It’s absurd, but it reveals systemic societal paranoia, some founded some not. Kudos. Read ‘Tomorrow Snow’ where a diner waiter delivers heavy news:

“I’ve been listening to the radio,” he said. “Tomorrow snow, turning to rain.” He was a man carrying foreknowledge in his breast, and the pain was almost unbearable. We don’t remember a winter when people followed the elements so closely and when foreknowledge so completely destroyed any chance of momentary bliss.⁵

I nearly cried reading this late one night, after yet another day of scraping the frozen muck the plow spreads back across my driveway each morning. This has been a winter of great Sisyphean shoveling here. You’ll note I employed the same tactic as White, I envied it so: I nearly cried, like the waiter’s pain was almost unbearable. White belies a stoicism that attracts me. We suffer through, this is our predicament, all that jazz. Updike, another DWG, introduces the Letters and hints at a nervous condition that kept White on edge, or something like that. White’s New Yorker writings intimate this, from the food paranoia to a piece on dizziness. My Personal Private Affliction puts my world topsy-turvy too, leaves me reeling from the sun, and I delight in well-wrought prose capturing similar experience. Nothing is mentioned in White of migraine save for the odd ‘headache’ reference in letters. New Yorker editor Harold Ross allegedly said of Thurber and White, “Look at them, my two best writers, one can’t see to cross the street and the other is afraid to.”⁶ So I pretend a comrade and commiserate. Content aside, White’s prose, for those of us here at Literary Gibberish who revel in such matters, is downright breezy. Browse a passage and marvel at the space between words where you surely would have put words. ‘Omit needless words’ is a Strunk and White rule. Right ho!

Reading this stuff of late I am transcended, I am on a plane I can only describe– like earlier– as refreshingly in-the-text, a sort of formalist mind ill aware of the politics of DWGs nor any other critical meta whatnots. Reader, surely I lie– I earlier described White the humanist and hinted at a fictional narrator submerged in Cheever’s Journals; my training won’t be stymied. But this is pleasurable, heavenly, delightful reading so elegantly wrought that looking upon it is much like appreciating distinctly American furniture– far from lacking refinement in its understated forms and simple designs.

^{1 Mostly post-WWII, so comparably current in the span of English Letters.
2 RMN
3 Black, White, Afrikaaner esp.
4 Not real
5 Writings, 6.
6 Letters, photo insert.}

And yet as a blog dedicated to both visual image and written word I should add my own boilerplate². In The Snowy Day Ezra Jack Keats reminds why snow is one of the cardinal joys of childhood. If, as we like to imagine, childhood is an idyll – a time to play without inhibition and wander around aimlessly – then what better venue for this than a city snowed to a standstill? We open the book and read that

One morning Peter woke up and looked out the window. Snow had fallen during the night. It covered everything as far as he could see.

This, we find, is a great boon to Peter who promptly sets out to take full advantage of his situation. Clad in his snowsuit and mittens, the snowy world is his oyster:

But as all great literature must do, The Snowy Day, keeps us grounded – reminding us that all of childhood is not idyllic. Challenges abide, even for the young and carefree. To wit: young Peter sees some older boys engaged in combat³ using against each other the very matter that the beneficent sky gods have showered upon them. Upon quick evaluation Peter decides it’s best to steer clear of the older boys for now.

Instead he decides to stockpile some of this frozen manna for a warmer day:

Ah, the bittersweet optimism of youth. Of course the snow brought inside vanishes into a liquid pool, but oh what a ride we had while it was with us!  I recommend a glance through The Snowy Day for all of us who view these mountains of snow through adult eyes. For those of us who dig, and dig, and dig, just to free our vehicles for the next day’s labor. For those of us who sigh at the thought of being cooped up inside with those we love⁴ for hours on end. For those of us faced with this:

But yearning to re-live this:

Happy reading, and stay warm!

^{1 Or, you know, watches CNN or the Weather Channel…
2 Come on folks, this is another Caldecott. These books should recommend themselves
3 Mortal Combat, one can only assume.
4 and who inevitably drive us nuts with extended time in close quarters.}