Landor's Tower - Iain Sinclair

 Sinclair's fictions are like his non-fiction: complex, deeply layered, psychogeographic, and filled to overflowing with arcane knowledge.   The latter is what we come for, the rest then seasons the mix.   As elsewhere, we begin with the book-runners, nomadic eccentrics scouring the country for bibliophilic rarities.   On their fringe is Norton, who is a writer on the side.   Some plucky soul has commissioned him to write a novel about the Victorian weirdo-aesthete Walter Savage Landor and his doomed attempt to recreate manorial life in a Welsh valley.

Sinclair is famously the psychogeographer of London.  He was born and raised, however, in Wales.   For Norton, who is really Sinclair thinly disguised, returning to Wales means returning to childhood and a long Welsh prehistory.   Time is irrelevant.   The narrative hops back and forth, action mutates into memory and vice versa.   Again, this is what brings Sinclair fans to the party.   Many of the characters he encounters are or were real.   Celebrity drug-dealer Howard Marks, for example, and a whole troop of American beat poets, many of whom I will now be checking out.   Norton falls for a woman in Hay on Wye who might be real or might be several different women.   Norton spends time in a psychiatric hospital with a bookish doctor who happens be called Vaughan.   One of Norton's manias is for the Georgian Vaughan twins, one a poet, the other an alchemist.   There is also the matter of the club foot which the owner bequeathed to Norton's father, a doctor in General Practice.

It sounds complicated and absurd because it is.   Sinclair is like Umberto Eco, only more so.   Polymath, poet, prose-wrangler and, first and foremost, a psychogeographer.   I find him and his work endlessly fascinating.

The Slab Boys Trilogy - John Byrne

 The great John Byrne, who sadly left us earlier this month, was hailed as one of Scotland's greatest contemporary artists.   But he originally made his name as a playwright, with The Slab Boys (1978), which deals with his life before getting into art school.   Byrne's fictional persona is Phil McCann, who is 19 years old in 1957 and working in the colour preparation department ('Slab Room') of Stobo & Co, Carpet Manufacturers.   His oppo is George 'Spanky' Farrell and their mutual victim Hector Mackenzie.   All are smitten with the comely Lucille, who shows no interest whatsoever in any of them.

It is a play of coming-of-age at a time when tides were turning.   It is a vivid evocation of the industrial life where young lads had very little to do and therefore indulged in high jinks.   It was notably successful around the UK in the late seventies and two follow-ups ensued, Cuttin' a Rug (1979), which takes place the same evening, at Stobo & Co's Christmas bop, and Still Life (1982) set ten years on, in 1967, and then five years later in 1982.

Cuttin a Rug, I have to say, didn't do it for me.   It was originally a radio play, The Staffie, then it became a stage play (Threads), then The Loveliest Night of the Year and finally this.   On radio I can see it working well.   On stage and on the page it reminds me too strongly of Willy Russell's Stags and Hens, one of very few creative works which I actually despise.   The problem is, it is all action 'off'.   The dance is going on in the ballroom and from time to time we are meant to hear what is going on.   The action we see, however, is in the gents and ladies' cloakrooms (Act One) and then the terrace where revellers go to do whatever.   It is, frankly, overwrought.   Ironically, given it is supposed to be the coming of age of the Slab Boys, the standout characters are tea-lady Sadie and the frustrated spinster Miss Walkinshaw.

Still Life, on the other hand, is much more successful.   Phil is now a working artist, albeit unsuccessful.   Spanky is still at the carpet factory but is trying to make it as a musician.   Spanky has married the divine Elaine and they have a baby daughter.   The setting is the Paisley cemetary.   The funeral that brings them together is for poor Hector, done to death with a brick by a man he was having sex with in a cubicle at the swimming baths.

Hector had episodes of mental illness and was sectioned for a time.   Phil's mother had lifelong mental issues (as did Byrne's mother, and with reason - Byrne believed he was the product of incesr between his mother and her father), which gives Phil a reason for attending.   Spanky has simply seen it in the paper.  The narrative thread of Slab Boys was, will Phil get accepted at the art school?   The thread of Still Life Act One is, will Spanky's upcoming appearance on Juke Box Jury lead to better things?

It does, and in Act Two we are still in the cemetery but Spanky is just off a plane from the States where he is a major rock star.   Phil is still a jobbing painter but now he is married to Lucille and has adopted her daughter with Spanky.   He is back in the cemetery to see the memorial stone for his mother.   The play works well.   The jokes are dark but the main characters have all mellowed and the ending is upbeat. 

It should be noted, there is a fourth instalment, making it a tetralogy - Nova Scotia (2008), which I have got hold of but haven't yet read.   Menawhile, surely someone is planning to revive The Slab Boys?  A great play should never die.

Are Snakes Necessary? - Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman

 Another cracker from Hard Case Crime.   I wondered, as I read, how much was De Palma (director of Scarface, Carrie, etc) and how much was co-writer Lehman?   I got to the end and all was clear.   The storyline was definitely De Palma, complete with Hitchcockian twist, and the writing was probably mostly Lehman.   This was far from a bad thing.   One is a visual artist, the other word-based.   They come together beautifully.

It's a story hung around a brief affair twenty years ago, between stewardess Jenny Cours and politician Lee Rogers.   A casual encounter today leads nowhere in itself but has massive consequences down the line.   Jenny's daughter Fanny, a student videographer, gets herself attached to Rogers' re-election campaign.   This causes headaches for Rogers' fixer Barton Brock.   But first Brock has to strongarm a quick separation for a Las Vegas millionaire, Bruce Diamond, and his drop-dead gorgeous latest wife, Elizabeth.   Elizabeth has had an affair with photo-journalist Nick Sculley - they sat next to one another on the plane - but leaves him high and dry in Vegas and starts a new life as an online agony aunt who she sits next to on the bus.   Nick, heartbroken, accepts a gig as onset photographer for a remake of Vertigo being shot in Paris (I did say it was Hitchcockian, right?), where Fanny Cours also shows up, having been booted from the Rogers campaign.

Actually, it's more complicated than that.   Gloriously so.

Even the structure is cinematic.   Short chapters, one or two pages mostly, jump cutting between storylines, all written present tense.   Another, very unusual twist: Are Snakes Necessary was originally published in France, in French, in 2018.   There is apparently a second novel stuck in works. 

Maigret Sets a Trap - Georges Simenon

 Maigret Sets a Trap dates from 1955, the year I was born.   It is vintage Maigret, written when Simenon was at the height of his power.   Women are being attacked in Montmarte, their clothing slashed, their throats cut.   The police haven't a clue to work with - until Maigret gets chatting with a psychiatrist, Professor Tissot, at dinner one evening.

Simenon's great contribution to crime literature was the pschological angle.   Here, Professor Tissot develops an early version of a criminal profile, diagnosing the kind of man who would be most likely to commit such a series.   He also hazards an equally ahead-of-its-time geographical profile.   The killer must know Montmarte like the back of his hand.   If not living locally, he must certainly have spent considerable time there.

Maigret is thus able to track down his suspect.   He does this via a single jacket button, snatched from the attacker's suit.   But while Maigret is questioning the suspect at the Quai des Orfevres another woman is killed up in Montmarte.   Maigret remains convinced that he has the serial killer in custody.   So the latest killing must be a copycat.

Having set a trap to catch the suspect, Maigret (or Simenon, typically playing with our expectations) sets another to catch the copycat.

I'd forgotten how great Maigret can be.   It must be twenty years since I read one.   I'm glad I read this.

Superstition & Science - Derek Wilson

 Wilson provides a terrific introduction to the development of Western Thinking between the Reformation and the Age of Englightenment - roughly 1500 to 1800.   He covers all the well-known thinkers and adds as many that I, for one, was either unfamiliar with or had not explored.  Wilson provides well-considered summaries to their individual contributions and relationship with one another, without ever losing narrative drive essential to the book's success.

Personally, I suspect the discovery I will taken away is the Wesley brothers, John and Charles.   I was brought up as a Methodist, albeit an Independent Methodist, and have long been an atheist.   I remember the Wesleys, Charles especially, from the hymnbook at Sunday morning service.   I stopped attending a month after my twelfth birthday and never considered them again.   Now Wilson has given me fascinating insights to their ideas and their lives.   For instance, I knew nothing whatsoever about their missionary work in the US.   I can't help but wonder, why Georgia.   And I know full well I will have to find out.

Original Sin - Peter Gill

 Having rediscovered the work of Peter Gill, who was big when I was a drama student first time round, with The York Realist, reviewed below, I was keen to read more.   I picked up Original Sin, first produced at the Sheffield Crucible in May 2002.   This is, in fact, the edition published to accompany the premiere.

Original Sin is Gill's take on Frank Wedekind's Pandora plays, Pandora's Box and Earth Spirit, which I had tried to find when I was originally a drama student and couldn't find.  I still haven't read them but they are now on my must-read lisr.

Pandora, of course, is famously Louise Brooks in the Pabst movie.   Gill shifts the timeframe back to the era of Oscar Wilde.   Gill's object of desire is Angel, who has risen from the gutter to be the adored idol of society.   He has been raised by newspaper magnate Lionel Southerdown and is now being painted by society artist Eugene Black.  From there, everything falls down.   Black kills himself for love of Angel and Southerdown manipulates Angel into shooting and killing him.

Angel flees to France with his adopted brother, Henry Southerdown, now his lover.   Henry is ruined in a Stock Exchange scandal and Angel ends up touting for trade in a Whitechapel slum, where he shares the ultimate, gruesome fate of Wedekind's Pandora.

Gill's play is epic in length, scope and achievement.   Everyone around Angel is motivated by sex and money, yet Gill is such an expert in characterisation that Angel is absolutely no angel.   I kind of always knew his ultimate fate (I might not have read Wedekind's original but I have read a good deal about it) but was intrigued to discover how it came about.   That's the whole point.

I was impressed by The York Realisr.   I was extremely impressed with Original Sin.

The General - Alan Sillitoe

 Sillitoe's second novel couldn't be more different from his first, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.  One thing they do have in common, I suppose, is the compressed timeframe.   Aside from the unnecessary thirteenth chapter, The General (1960) takes place over three or four days.

A war is raging in an unspecified part of Europe.   A symphony orchestra has been sent by train to entertain frontline troops, only to be ambushed and taken prisoner by the enemy.   The enemy do have a name, the Gorsheks, and they seem to me to represent the Russians - the initial capture is by Cossack-style cavalry who are gunned down for taking prisoners by a middle-ranking officer.   The officer takes the orchestra to the General, who delays their mass execution.   Standing Orders dictate No Prisoners.   The General enquires about making an exception.   The reply is machine-like and unequivocal: execute them immediately.   But still the General delays.   He gets the orchestra to play for his officers.   He searches for a way out of his dilemma.

The General is a parable, rather than a character study.   It is about the incongruity of war and art, the battle between logic and sentiment.   It is well done and quite entertaining.   Apparently Sillitoe wrote many more novels over his lifetime, none of which I have ever heard of (save, of course, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner which is a novella and also something of a parable).   I'm guessing he continued in the mode of The General, not Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

The Last Office - Geoffrey Moorhouse

 Moorhouse's specialism is the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace and its context, the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Thomas Cromwell on behalf of Henry VIII.   In this study Moorhouse focuses on Durham Abbey, which was unique in many ways.   It was part of the fortress of the Prince Bishop who was technically also the abbot of the abbey; in practice, the Prior was the head of the religious.   The Bishop, meanwhile, was the King's deputy in civil and legal matters in the whole of the North Country and held court in the castle adjoining the abbey.   When Henry VIII made himself Supreme Head of the Church in England, his bishop, Cuthbert Tunstall, found himself in a dilemma.   Fortunately for all concerned, Tunstall was a lifelong equivocator and Durham Abbey was neither in the forefront of dissolutions nor, in the end, resistant to its fate.

Moorhouse is a great source on the Dissolution and in particular its forerunner, the Visitations of 1535 and the Valor Ecclesiasticus, the monetary appraisal that sealed the fate of all religious houses.   No value, of course, was put on their service to local communities, which became ever greater the further they were from London.   They provided hospitals and hospices, alms and alms houses, shelter for the homeless, the orphaned, and the mentally ill.   They drove and underpinned local economies, providing work for local labourers and artisans.   All that was wiped away in less than a decade.   That, not love of supersition and mystic ritual, was what the Pilgrims rose up for.

Moorhouse feels obliged to continue his narrative post-Dissolution.   Given that Durham's transition was peaceful and measured, I personally lost interest.   Notwithstanding that, I find Moorhouse indispensable to my research into the English Reformation. 

The Colorado Kid - Stephen King

 In 2004 the creators of the yet-to-appear Hard Case Crime imprint wrote to the greatest living US writer to see if he would be interested in maybe a couple of quotes for their noir reprints.   The reply came from King's agent.   Would they like to publish his short mystery novella The Colorado Kid?   Oh yes they would, and publishing a major writer - as major as it is possible to get - gave Hard Case instant credibility.   King continues to publish with them.  Joyland is reviewed on this blog and Later sits on my to-be-read pile.

Mine is the 2019 reprint, which includes Charles Ardai's introduction, which is great, and illustrations which are variable.   The story itself ... I called it a novella above, because of its length, but in tone it is a long short story.   It is essentially an account of a 25-year-old mystery (thus set in 1980) told by two old geezers who run a smalltown newspaper in Maine to their twenty-year-opd summer intern.  Back in 1980 two teenage runners found the body of a forty-year-old man lying on the beach.   Naturally this drew the attention of the then middleaged newsmen.   The police weren't interested as there was no obvious foul play involved - the man died because some steak got stuck in his gullet.  But other elements of the case intrigued the journos.   Why did the man carry no wallet, no ID?

Eventually another intern, who was working with the police back in 1980, comes up with a clue to the man's identity, which only reveals more odd facts.

Killers of the Flower Moon - David Grann

 This is the book from which Martin Scorsese made his latest movie.   It's easy to see what attracted Scorsese.   Grann has unearthed a long-forgotten story about the abuse of a Native American tribe, the Osage. who purely by chance became incredibly rich when oil was discovered beneath the worthless land to which they had been displaced.   Briefly, those who could claim tribal rights became briefly some of the richest people on earth, with vast homes, fleets of cars and household servants, some of them white.   That was never going to be tolerated in early 2oth century America.   First came the bandits to steal Osage property, then financial advisers to shepherd the poor lambs into handing over their wealth, then came the men of business, notably William Hale, a middle-aged former champion cattle roper and failed business man who rapidly became the Friend of the Osage people and King of the Osage Hills.

Then the Osage started dying, by the bucketload.   Grann focuses on Mollie Burkhart, whose sister Anna is abducted and murdered in May 1921.   One of the Mollie's sisters has already died young.   Her mother soon succumbs, then her first husband, then Mollie herself starts to decline.   Mollie, of course, has become the heiress of her sisters and mother.   If Burkhart sounds an odd name for an Native American woman, she got it from her second husband, Ernest Burkhart.   Ernest is only important because he was the nephew of none other than William Hale.

Then the Mollie's final sister dies with her husband when their home is blown up.   Even the lacklustre law enforcement of the US West at that time cannot ignore this.   Even J Edgar Hoover, young leader of what was yet to become the FBI, becomes interested.   He sends agents to Osage County, Oklahoma, led by a tenacious Texan called Tom White.  White comes from a law enforcement dynasty.   He is a former Texas Ranger.   We find ourselves in a world of paradox where cowboys are protecting Native Americans from former cowboys.

White's pursuit of the truth is protracted.   It takes him several years.   But he gets there - and the scandal he uncovers almost defies belief.   Grann handles it all extremely well.   His measured journalistic prose carries us through revelations that otherwise might seem preposterous.   He also lets us empathise with both both the hopeless and the heartless.   It is a major work of revisionary US history.