On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Review by Vicky T. (VickyJo)

I have always harbored a desire to write, and of course, be published. Depending on the different stages in my life, I have thought about writing novels, children’s books, and works of non-fiction. Lately I’ve been contemplating writing a fictional account of some of my ancestors’ adventures in early America. I’m part Irish and part Cherokee…which, if you think about it, are two cultures that lend quite easily to real adventures, let alone fictional ones. But, to be honest, I’m still pretty much at the daydreaming stage, although I did do quite a bit of research into retelling Celtic folktales for children about 10 years ago. It’s my guess that there are quite a few other folks out there who not only dream about writing, but could even be farther along than I am…and actually writing! If so, I have a great book to recommend: “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” by Stephen King.

I suppose I should pause here and say that even if you don’t enjoy King’s work, or if you’ve never read any Stephen King, you’ve got to admit that he must be doing something right. He’s one of the most successful writers in the world today, and he offers some very good, concise, down-to-earth advice on writing in this book. I should also point out that, even if you have no desire to write so much as a grocery list, this is still a fascinating book because King tells us about his early life and how writing came to be in his blood. And remember, he’s a good storyteller.

The first third of the book covers King’s early years, beginning with his earliest memory:

“I was imagining that I was, in fact, the Ringling Brothers Circus Strongboy. This was at my Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Oren’s house in Durham, Maine. My aunt remembers this quite clearly, and says I was two and a half or maybe three years old.

I had found a cement cinderblock in a corner of the garage and had managed to pick it up. I carried it slowly across the garage’s smooth cement floor, except in my mind’s eye I was dressed in an animal skin singlet (probably a leopard skin) and carrying the cinderblock across the center ring. The vast crowd was silent. A brilliant blue-white spotlight marked my remarkable progress. Their wondering faces told the story: never had they seen such an incredibly strong kid. “And he’s only two!” someone muttered in disbelief.

Unknown to me, wasps had constructed a small nest in the lower half of the block and one of them flew out and stung me on the ear. The pain was brilliant, like a poisonous inspiration. It was the worst pain I had ever suffered in my short life, but it only held the top spot for a few seconds. When I dropped the cinderblock on one bare foot, mashing all five toes, I forgot all about the wasp.”

King goes on to recount other adventures of his youth, his marriage to his wife Tabitha, also a writer, the birth of their children, the sale of his first novel. With every life experience he shares, he somehow brings it back to his craft, and how it influenced his writing.

The second third of the book, King gives aspiring writers a “toolbox” as he puts it; tips and tricks of the trade. I consider this a tough love, crash course in creative writing. He gives an example of an opening to a short story he wrote…and then he gives us the edited version, a wonderful example of how to sharpen a story. He also believes that good writers are voracious readers, and to that end, provides a reading list.

The book ends with a recounting of the nearly fatal car accident in the summer of 1999. King was walking along the road and was hit by a drunk driver in a van. He tells of this life-altering experience as if it was a scene in one of his novels, but chillingly enough, it’s all real.

At one point I mentioned here that I enjoyed reading memoirs written by authors, and happily I found another one. The bonus is that I also received some great tips on writing. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually put pen to paper next!

Nightmare Town : Stories by Dashiell Hammett

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This is a collection of 20 short crime stories that Hammett published in magazines like Black Mask and Saucy Stories from the early 1920s to the early 1930s. I usually expect uneven quality in collections. But not so here.

Readers of noir detective tales will enjoy the prose. This is from the title story, which features a kungfu-type hero who wields an ebony cane:

Behind his stick that had become a living part of him, Steve Threefall knew happiness – that rare happiness which only the expert ever finds – the joy in doing a thing that he can do supremely well. Blows he took – blows that shook him, staggered him – but he scarcely noticed them. His whole consciousness was in his right arm and the stick it spun. A revolver, tossed from a smashed hand, exploded ten feet over his head, a knife tinkled like a bell on the brick sidewalk, a man screamed as a stricken horse screams.

As if the role of blind chance and accident didn’t loom large enough in the course of life, it’s a corrupt world too in these stories. Cops and judges are on the take. Gangsters run whole towns. National crime syndicates design and operate elaborate scams. And ordinary people are ground down, going along to get along.

Low-lives are cunning and effective at the felonies they commit and scams they pull off. Experience makes them good at their jobs, but their criminality is also a manifestation of personality kinks. This reminds me of John Bingham’s heartless malefactors – neither the basic rules of decency nor the damage they do to the lives of other people means anything to them. This doesn’t mean they are not empathetic – their ability to see things from others’ point of view is keen enough to enable them to manipulate other people like tools. In these stories when they fess up to crimes, they do so with relish over their accomplishments.

Readers of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald will enjoy these stories

Come Sunday by Isla Morley

Review by Mirah W. (mwelday)

I was drawn to Come Sunday because it is partially set in one of my favorite places, Hawaii.  Come Sunday is about the trials of deep emotional loss and the toll it takes on people.

Abbe grew up in a tumultuous home in apartheid South Africa.  As soon as she was able, she escaped to the United States where she eventually meets Greg.  Greg becomes a minister and takes a position in Honolulu.  Abbe and Greg settle into Honolulu and have a daughter, Cleo.  Cleo is a strong-willed child who routinely frustrates her parents.  Slowly a happy life is replaced with religious doubts and resentment over a perceived imbalance of responsibilities in the family.

When tragedy strikes and Greg and Abbe lose Cleo they are forced to face the fractures in their marriage.  They each face their grief in a different way and the fracture between them grows deeper.   In her attempts to move forward, Abbe goes back to South Africa and comes face to face with her family history and tries to make sense of all she’s thought was true and how all of that affects her experiences and life choices.

I was torn at times while listening to this audiobook.  I had a hard time empathizing with Abbe; she came across as judgmental and hardhearted even before experiencing Cleo’s death and those characteristics were intensified after that tragedy.  Hawaii wasn’t featured as prominently has I would have hoped;   however, the narration was very good and the various characters’ personalities came through with the different voices used by the reader.

Night Swimming by Robin Schwarz

Review by Vicky T. (VickyJo)

What if, heaven forbid, you were told you only had one year left to live?  After the shock subsided, what would you do?  How would you spend the rest of the time left to you?  This is the premise of an interesting novel by Robin Schwarz called “Night Swimming”.

Our heroine is 34-year-old Charlotte Clapp.  After a routine physical, she is called back to her doctor’s office and given the devastating news:  she has cancer, the same type of cancer that took her own mother a few years back, and by the doctor’s reckoning, she has just about one year left to live.

Charlotte is in shock.  The unfairness of it all overwhelms her.  She has lived in the same small town in New Hampshire all her life.  She is single, having lost her boyfriend to her former best friend while nursing her dying mother.  She works in the bank in town, sees all the same people every day, knows every one of them, and basically feels that life is passing her by, all 253 pounds of her.  And now this.  One year left.

Charlotte remembers the last conversation she had with her mother, who confessed to Charlotte that, while she had loved her husband and was thrilled to have Charlotte as a daughter, she had some regrets.  She had always wanted to travel…to see Paris, Italy, the pyramids.  Her suitcases were purchased but never used, except as storage cases in the basement.  She pleaded with her daughter to live her life, and not have any regrets at the end.  Little did Charlotte know how soon that end was going to arrive.

And so, as Charlotte leaves her doctor’s office, a plan is brewing in the back of her mind.  She doesn’t have all the details worked out, but she does have something in mind.  She swings by the bank where she has worked for 15 years..and quits.  Then she goes home and between sobs, eats every bit of junk food in the house, drinks a bottle of wine or two, and passes out on the couch. When she awakens, she has another plan.

She spends her last day at work clearing out her work area of all the accumulated junk that piles up after 15 years.  A hastily-planned going-away luncheon is held for her, where she tells people she will head for Florida and Disney World, and then perhaps to New Orleans.  She offers to lock up the bank—one last time—and after everyone leaves, loads up two million dollars in small bills.  She hurries home, packs the money in her mother’s dusty, unused suitcases, dumps her car in the river, picks up a used Jaguar and heads off for Hollywood.  The thing is, she left in such a hurry (probably due to having robbed the bank of two million dollars) that she has missed the phone call from her doctor’s office, explaining that there was a mix-up between her chart, and the chart of a Charlotte Clapp from Durham.

The author has created a likeable character in Charlotte, someone quite a few readers will be able to recognize and relate to.  And of course, the premise of “What would you do?” is a fascinating one.  Schwarz gives Charlotte an earnest, yet amusing voice.  She finds herself in comic yet believable situations, and what could have been just a “chick lit” book is something much more satisfying.  This is Robin Schwarz’s first novel, and I look forward to reading more of her work!