God's Pocket (1983) by Pete Dexter

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

God's Pocket (1983)

by Pete Dexter

Devil's Pocket, South Philadelphia Pennsylvania 

Pennsylvania: 2/27

       Still finishing up the last chapter in print, but I'm on to the next chapter in Audiobook, and I actually enjoyed God's Pocket, which is about a South Philadelphia construction murder who is murdered on the job (deservedly so, many would say) and the consequences in its aftermath.  Pete Dexter is a newspaper columnist turned novelist, most known for winning the National Book Award in 1988 for his novel Paris Trout.  His last novel was published in 2009, and I'm guessing he is retired given his lack of recent publishing activity.   The most interesting aspect of this book for me is the character of the urban newspaper columnist- a role which had quite a run in the 20th century as an arbiter of urban intellectualism in many US cities but which has (sadly?) fallen by the wayside. 

      I thought God's Pocket would be a good Audiobook because of the working-class, Philadelphia accents, and I was not wrong.  At a little over six hours, it made for quick listen and it gave me the thought to go look up the 2014 movie, which starred Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Disturbance (2020) by Phillipe Lançon

 Book Review

Disturbance (2020)

by Phillipe Lançon

  Phillipe Lançon is a French journalist who was injured during the Charlie Hebdo Islamicist shooting.  Basically, he had the lower half of his face shot off.  Disturbance details his recovery. I actually hadn't heard about Disturbance until I read Houellebecq's latest novel, Annihilation, which involves a similar kind of situation with a severe facial trauma.  Houellebecq's narrator/protagonist references Disturbance repeatedly and after finishing Annihilation it occurred to be that Disturbance might well be the better book and indeed, it was. 

   Lancon narrates his excruciating tale with the kind of sang-froid and aplomb that a reader expects from a member of the French intellectual class.  Yes, he had the lower half of his face shot off by an Islamicist angry about a cartoon but that won't stop him from thinking and philosophizing his was out of his situation- close to a year of surgery and rehabilitation often in circumstances of constant, excruciating discomfort.  A typical reader could only imagine, but thanks to Lancon, they do not have to. Rather, you get every detail- and Disturbance is not a short book- along with equally contemplative musings about the people around Lancon- his girlfriend, his ex, his family, the surgeon. 

Polostan (2024) by Neal Stephenson

 Audiobook Review

Polostan (2024)

by Neal Stephenson

   Neal Stephenson is probably my favorite author of popular/genre fiction.  He doesn't aspire to literary fiction status, but he is a genuinely inventive writer of  popular fiction, whether it be in his science fiction past or his thriller/dystopia/historical fiction present.   The thing about Neal Stephenson novels is that the reader is never bored by the ideas or the action, even when his books extend to lengths well beyond what is standard in the book industry.  Cryptonomicon, his representative on the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list, has a 40 hour plus length Audiobook edition.   Unfortunately, someone has gotten wise at his publisher because Polostan arrives as a clearly marked "Volume 1" of something called the "Bomb Light" cycle.   I'm assuming that the entire cycle is centered on the protagonist of Polostan: Dawn Rae Bjornsen, a plucky with a capital p early 20th century Communist/Anarchist of mixed Russian/American ancestry.  

   This book essentially sets up her backstory:  An early childhood in post-Revolutionary Russia, girlhood in America with her Russian-agent Dad during the Great Depression and then back to Russia after a series of adventures as a young woman.  The "present" of volume 1 finds her held captive by Russian intelligence as they evaluate her potential use as an agent.  Polostan uses a series of flashbacks as Dawn is vetted by the predecessor of the KGB.   Even knowing this going in, I wasn't angry, since it is, indeed, a chore to take on a thousand page novel, as is usually the case with Stephenson.  

  It's hard not to consider the impact of English writer of speculative fiction China Miéville, who is well known for introducing Marxist-Leninist/Communist/Anarchist themes into his speculative fiction, on Stephenson's choice of theme.  Stephenson is firmly in spy/espionage/thriller territory here, there isn't a single whiff of science-fiction in this book.  A reader might be advised to wait for whatever film/tv edition this series generates before reading the book.

The Origins of the Irish (2013) by J.P. Mallory

 Book Review

The Origins of the Irish (2013)

by J.P. Mallory

  I was in Ireland over the break and finally, on my third visit, made it to somewhere outside of Dublin (Cork and Belfast).  That got me thinking about the origins of the Irish people.  It's an interesting subject largely because of the status of the Irish language as one of the linguistic fringes of the Indo-European family of languages, which covers pretty much every language between India (Hindu) to Ireland that isn't Arabic.  Most laypeople could tell you that the ancient Irish were "the Celts," but as Mallory, a Professor in linguistics with a specialization in the roots of Indo-European languages, frequently opines, "the Celts" don't really mean anything in scholarly terms. 

   Historical genetics has also taken a huge leap in the years since The Origins of the Irish- Mallory mentions this in two post-scripts to the revised version which was published in 2017, but even since then advances have been made.  Mallory, who spent his professional life at Queen's University in Belfast, marshals the archeological evidence in chapters that make up most of the book.  After archeology he turns to genetics, then "self-reported" evidence from the Irish themselves before wrapping up with linguistic evidence.  

   He reports that archeologists pinpoint a transition between the mesolithic (stone age/hunters and gatherers) and neolithic (farming) populations, that tracks with changes found across Europe.  Specifically, that a population flowed from Anatolia through Southern Europe and Spain up to Ireland, and that this population genetically displaced the previous population.  This second group also began to build monumental architecture (think Stonehenge) and introduced prestige burials to the area.  Mallory observes that this group is genetically significant to Ireland but that the time horizon doesn't match up with any evidence supporting the language of Irish, so it is unlikely that the neolithic immigrants were "Irish" in that sense.

    Rather, Mallory posits an introduction of the Irish language to the growth of "hill-forts" which are also found in parts of central Europe during early Celtic migration periods.  He also argues that burials and objects found that are linked to horses and chariots are likely to support the introduction of the Irish language, probably from Scotland or the area surrounding the Isle of Man.  He concludes that the introduction of the Irish language is not linked to any genetic shift in the population, but either represents a linguistic shift brought about by a new elite or by a group that was genetically similar to the earlier, non-Irish speaking population.

Let the Dead Bury the Dead (1992) by Randall Kenan

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Let the Dead Bury the Dead (1992)

by Randall Kenan

Tim's Creek, North Carolina

North Carolina: 16/20

   Let the Dead Bury the Dead is a book of (inter-connected?) short stories set in the fictional town of Tim's Creek, founded by an escaped slave on the model of the "Maroon" communities of Jamaica.  The final story in the collection gives some historical context, and this isn't the first book of short-stories in the 1,001 Novels project to be set in a similar environment.  Despite having stories with fantastical elements- the first story features an infant who can tell the future-  Let the Dead Bury the Dead has a realist vibe even when the subject matter is more like speculative fiction.  

  Probably the most unusual aspect of Let the Dead Bury the Dead is the LGBT themed story- rare for the rural south and even rarer for rural African-American communities, though editor Susan Straight has gone out of her way to include those viewpoints in the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  Kenan was known as a member of the LGBT community before his death in 2020. 

A Crooked Tree (2021) by Una Mannion

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

 A Crooked Tree (2021)

by Una Mannion

Valley Forge Mountain, Pennsylvania 

Pennsylvania: 1/27

   New Year, New States!  I've run out of easily available Audiobooks from the last chapter (Maryland through South Carolina) so I'm moving forward on two fronts- back north to Pennsylvania and continuing south through Georgia and Florida while I try to polish off the Ebook/physical book portion of the prior chapter.   The first book from Pennsylvania is A Crooked Tree by Una Mannion.  This novel is from the most common category of the 1,001 Novels project:  A bildungsroman written from the POV of a adolescent girl in difficult socio-economic circumstances, sub-category white, sub-category debut novel.  Like almost all of the books in this category we've got a narrator who is trapped in her family home, in the middle of nowhere (played here by someplace called "Valley Forge Mountain.")

  Here, our narrator is Libby, an awkward 15 year old girl living with her single mom and three siblings (one older sister, one older brother, two younger sisters.)  Driving home from school at the beginning of the book, her younger sister angers her Mom to the point where mom abandons younger sister on the side of the road, forcing her to walk home.  Sister is picked up and mildly assaulted by the sinister "barbie man" an albino type dude with long blonde hair.  Sister jumps out of barbie man's moving vehicle to escape and reaches Libby's weekly babysitting gig, promising her to secrecy so that their mom doesn't get in trouble.  Events move forward from that point in somewhat predictable fashion- I was surprised at the number of reviewers who expressed enthusiasm at the plotting in A Crooked Tree but it might be a function of my day-to-day experience in the criminal justice system.

     The world of "the mountain" is well-depicted, but I wasn't particularly enthralled by Libby or her troubled family.

The New Jim Crow (2010) by Michelle Alexander

 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (New York Times)

The New Jim Crow (2010)

by Michelle Alexander

#69

    The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is the 55th of the 100 books I've read from the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list.  As a criminal defense attorney who has spent over 20 years practicing in state and federal criminal court,  I am intimately familiar with every argument that Alexander made AND which of those arguments have succeeded AND I also have opinions about her arguments have harmed the Democratic party in recent national elections.   Alexander presents a blue-print for the racial justice portion of the post-George Floyd era and personally, I'm pretty convinced that some of the arguments in here helped Trump to victory.

   Alexander's main thesis is that the mass incarceration that followed the declaration of the "war on drugs" is the New Jim Crow: A race based system of government sponsored control aimed mostly at young, African-American males.  It's an argument that should sound familiar, because it has won the day here in California and made inroads at the Federal level.  Both the California state government and the Federal government have adopted many of the easy fixes that Alexander proposes.   However the deeper cuts of Alexander's arguments expose how (and I say this as someone who supports and agrees with much of what she says) very Un-American the structural underpinnings of her arguments can be.

  I'll share two examples.  The first is the argument that she makes late in the book that the success of Barack Obama and his election as President is harmful to the cause of racial justice because it promotes racial exceptionalism and allows racists to claim that there isn't a race problem in the United States.  Even if Alexander is right, that is a terrible argument to make in support of her many common-sense policy positions.  Can you imagine trying to argue to a swing state voter in suburban Philadelphia or semi-rural Wisconsin that the success of individuals like Barack Obama is a problem that needs to be addressed?  You'd sound like a lunatic.

   The second example is Alexander's lengthy explanation of how the racism of the criminal justice system operates despite the explicit bar to overtly racist laws in the United States.  I'm not saying she's wrong, only that this is a terrible argument that has helped Donald Trump win over potential democratic voters.   It's a bad argument because like many arguments inspired by Marxism, it attempts to convince the listener/reader that the truth is the exact opposite of what the reader believes to be the truth.  It's a heavy tactic in Marxist inspired persuasion that goes right back to the beginning, or close to it, specifically the idea of "false consciousness" i.e. the idea that the duty of Marxist intellectuals to convince the working-class/proletariat that everything they believe about their lives under capitalism is wrong.    Think of how that dovetails with the failed Democratic attempts in the most recent Presidential election to brow-beat swing state voters into fearing Donald Trump as an existential threat to democracy.   Liberal, wealthy democrats telling middle and working class white Americans what to think is never going to win.

  Alexander also obscures a broader, more succesful theme that Trump himself has impressed- which is that law enforcement is petty and vindictive and over-reaches all the time.   This argument is present in Alexander's facts, but she is more interested in the racists implications of over-policing instead of focusing on how over-policing sucks for everyone, poor black guys in the South and Donald Trump as well.  Get the cops off our backs is a winner.

1,001 Novels Chapter Five: Blues & Bayous, Deltas and Coasts

 1,001 Novels Chapter Five: 

Blues & Bayous, Deltas and Coasts

Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida

   I'm running so far ahead on Audiobooks vs. Physical books that I thought it made sense to open up the next two chapters at the same time to take that into account.  Chapter five is distinctly the Southeast.  I'm surprised that Chapters Four and Five aren't reversed, since it makes sense to finish off the Atlantic United States before moving inland, which is what editor Susan Straight did.  I think that there is a strong argument for an alternative arrangements which would have gone from Chapter 2, New York/New Jersey to Chapter 3, Pennsylvania/Delaware/Maryland/DC instead of doing Delaware/Maryland/DC/Virginia /North Carolina/South Carolina.

  Besides stops at the Miami airport, brief trips to the Atlanta area to see family as a child and a post-graduation college road trip that saw a stop in New Orleans (where I got food poisoning and spent all night throwing up), I have no experiences with any of these states.  During visits to Nashville I've pondered a drive to northern Alabama, home of Muscle Shoals and NASA, but that is a tough sell.  Similarly I've thought about driving south from Nashville to Mississippi and non-New Orleans Louisiana but it doesn't seem likely to happen in my current lifetime. 

   Maybe this chapter will change my mind!

1,001 Novels Chapter Four: Mountain Home & Hollows, Smokies & Ozarks

 1,001 Novels Chapter Four:

 Mountain Home & Hollows, Smokies & Ozarks:

Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas

   I have finished all the available Audiobooks for 1,001 Novels Chapter Three (Delaware, DC, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina).  Now I'm opening up the next chapter, which covers Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas.  It's the first chapter in the 1,001 Novels: A Library in America project that doesn't feel organic.  Chapter one was New England, chapter two was New York/NJ and chapter three handles the Southern Atlantic up to Georgia.   Chapter four, on the other hand, blends the Northeast Urban center of Philadelphia with the heavy Appalachian vibes of West Virginia and Kentucky and then appends Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas.  On the map, it makes sense, I guess but culturally it seems far from distinct.  Looking ahead I do see the very first repeat author- Tobias Wolff, who represented New Jersey with The Final Club and remerges in Pennsylvania with Old School.  It is hard to figure how Wolff would be the first and not Colson Whitehead or Philip Roth, but here we are.     

  I don't have very strong connections to any of these locations.  Both my parents come from St. Louis, Missouri, so I travelled back there a decent amount as a young child but only twice since college.  I've been to Nashville escorting my partner, who had a client there for close to a decade.  As part of that experience we've rented a car and driven around the area, up to and over the Kentucky border.  I went to Philadelphia as part of my junior high trip to the Washington DC area, then we drove through Amish country on the way to DC, but that is the extent of my experience in PA.   I have never been to Arkansas.  I have a plan that involves a trip to Arkansas and Oklahoma via flying into Dallas, but I'm not sure I'll ever make it.

  It looks like the Audiobooks are going to be running months ahead of the physical books, so it makes sense to expand in two directions at once.

The Looming Tower (2006) by Richard Wright

 New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century(#55)

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006)

by Richard Wright

   The Looming Tower is a non-fiction account of the "road to 9-11."  It landed at #55  on the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list and unsurprisingly it isn't a very popular Audiobook.  I did find the story interesting, specifically the way Al-Qaeda arose from a bunch of stuff that had literally nothing to do with the United States- the Egyptian repression of Islamists that led to the further radicalization of the incarcerated, the history of Saudi Arabia and the role of Bin Laden's dad in developing the infrastructure of that country and of course the fervent US support of the very same Jihadis who became our worst enemies after 9/11 but were our friends during the war in Afghanistan.

  Another theme that emerges is just how kooky Bin Laden and his obsession with hitting the United States were in the context of the global movement for jihad.  Many of Bin Laden's own people thought he was out to lunch and other US targets:  The Taliban and Saddam Hussein to name two, were only peripherally involved and on-board with Bin Laden's dramatic plans.   The other side of the coin is Wright's investigation of the failure of United States intelligence to disrupt and prevent 9/11.  Here, I was reading as a criminal defense attorney who knows a lot about law enforcement and I finished The Looming Tower with the conviction that, yes, more could have been done particularly in the area of collaboration between the FBI and CIA which was prevented for some reason I still don't understand.  On the other hand, it's hard to prevent an attack that no one had even conceptualized before it happened.   Wright is able to point to scattered foreshadowing but there really was very little to hone on before the attacks occurred.