Blood & Whiskey #7
Dear friends and readers…
So, you know what else is a good excuse for lots of reading? (besides Seattle’s rain and f*&king daylight savings, that is...) Hernia surgery!
Doc’s post-op orders (no running, swimming, yoga, lifting) led to many guilt-free hours in an Eames knockoff in front of a fake-log fire, turning the pages and sampling beverages. Thankfully, the lifting of spirits was permissible.
The Cellist (Harper) — Daniel Silva
Unnervingly relevant and timely, Silva’s umpteenth Gabriel Allon thriller features deadly nerve agents, Russian oligarchs, money laundering, troll factories, and efforts to influence US elections — “putting their thumb on the scale.” Trump isn’t mentioned by name, but he’s all over this book, as is Putin, plus a stand-in for Deutsche Bank, called Rhine-Bank: “the president’s primary lender,” as one character tells Allon. Despite the length (nearly 500 pages) it’s fast and fun and shockingly contemporary. There’s even a taste of the not-quite-peaceful transfer of power earlier this year. But there’s also a nagging sense that, despite the fictional entertainment, much of the story could be (or is) all too real… Russian election meddling and Putin’s street-thug determination to stay in power (and mess with the power of others), plus the complicity of an international banking juggernaut… it casts a pall of doom over an otherwise escapist Euro-thriller featuring a beautiful cellist turned banker turned spy.
Those Who Walk Away (Grove Atlantic) — Patricia Highsmith
Inspired by the publication of Highsmith’s diaries and notebooks (a few samples of which I included last month), I snagged this 1967 novel from Elliott Bay Books and devoured it. Set in Venice, it’s the story of Ray Garrett in the aftermath of his wife’s suicide, and Ray’s pathetic efforts to prove to father-in-law Ed Coleman that he wasn’t at fault. Ed is obsessed with Ray’s culpability, and determined to get revenge, triggering a psychological game of cat and mouse game as Ray seeks a clear conscience and Ed seeks vengeance. Every page is packed with perfectly edgy dialogue. Everyone is a little mad, guilty, drunk, lustful or jealous, and nearly every conversation is a confrontation. It’s masterful — cable-tight and buzzing and gorgeous and frightening, with jobless ex-pats mingling with rich benefactors and hangers-on, roaming from the hotel to the bar to back alleys, criss-crossing the canals by bridge and boat. Most of the characters are unlikeable, nursing unresolved gripes. As Highsmith says of Ray, “He was afflicted by a constant feeling that he was not in the mainstream of life.”
We Begin At The End ( Henry Holt) — Chris Whitaker
Published earlier this year to much acclaim, Whitaker’s third novel is both a small-town mystery and a big sprawl of an ambitious tale. Set mostly in fictitious Cape Haven, California, whose cliffside homes are sloughing off into the ocean, it’s the story of childhood friends wrecked by — and connected by — tragedy. Primarily: Vincent King, about to be released from prison after serving 30 years; Sheriff Walker, known as Walk, Vincent’s best friend since childhood; and Star, a single mother to Duchess and Robin. Vincent has been in jail since 15, accused of killing Star’s teen sister. Star is a singer and an addict: “Hollowed out but beautiful, beaten down but her eyes still shone. She wore a pink apron like she’d been baking. Walk knew the cupboards were bare.” But the real star here is 13-year-old Duchess, angry and foul-mouthed, who strives to survive her crappy childhood while caring for her little brother, Robin. She confronts a motley cast of locals, some bordering on the cartoonish, like the weight-lifting neighbor who mostly works out his right arm. There’s a lot to unpack: gentrification, old wounds and old loves, secrets and revenge and forgiveness. Also family. And murder. The final chapters take their time resolving the predictably unhappy ending, but the characters stuck with me long after. I admired Whitaker’s careful attention to language and landscape, plus a fair number of zingers. Here’s Duchess, confronting a menacing drunk in a bar: “I am the outlaw, Duchess Day Radley. And you are the barstool pussy, and I’ll cut your head clean off.”
The Memory Police (Vintage) — Yoko Ogawa
This one was recommended by Karen at Elliot Bay Books, a Booker Prize and National Book Award finalist and editors’ favorite from two years back. It features a novelist on an unnamed island, where everyday objects disappear: hats, birds, perfume, photographs. For most people, memories of these objects fade. Those who maintain their memories are targeted by the Gestapo-like “Memory Police.” There are obvious comparisons here to 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, but for me this strange, slow-paced novel gave me that Murakami feel: a sense that I’m underwater or on drugs, everything moving through gauze. It’s beautiful and soulful and very sad. Do memories live on when their sources are erased and forbidden? I’m not sure what the allegory means, exactly. Something about trauma and what lies deep in our “sleeping soul.” As the narrator puts it, after the roses disappear: “If it goes on like this… the island will soon be nothing but absences and holes.” It’s an odd experiment of a story, weird but well executed.
Shoot The Moonlight Out (Pegasus) — by William Boyle
More squarely in the Blood & Whiskey wheelhouse was the latest from this Brooklyn-born writer about lives twisted out of shape by a single, stupid act. In 1996, in a gritty section of southern Brooklyn, a rock thrown by teenaged Bobby Santovasco and his dumb-ass friend Zeke causes the death of a high school girl, Amelia. Five years later, we see Bobby working (sort of) for a milk-chugging con man; Amelia’ s father, Jack, as a hollow-eyed, jobless shell of a man; and Bobby’s former step-sister, Lily, back home after college, teaching a writing class in a church basement, where her most promising student is Jack, writing about his dead daughter. Lives intersect and characters do stupid things. Some are unlikeable, and a couple decisions seem far-fetched. There’s guns and drugs and a bag of cash and a body in a trunk, but I found Boyle to be at his best in quieter moments, letting characters take their time, speak their minds. He's strong on time (2001) and place (the streets of a Brooklyn far from Park Slope) — churches, bowling alleys, day drinkers — with loving depictions of seediness and decay.
Up next…
The Dark Hours (Little, Brown), by Michael Connelly
The Overstory (Norton), by Richard Powers — not really a Blood & Whiskey type book, but I’ve been wanting to get to this one for a long time.
+ What my wife is reading: After reading an older Gabriel Allon saga, Silva’s The Other Woman from 2018, Mary dove into Amor Towles’s latest, The Lincoln Highway. (Amazon’s editors just named it their #1 book of 2021.) Says my spouse: “A great big adventure story with a bunch of young characters facing their future. I will never forget them. This one is on the top of my list.”
+ What we’re watching: Spiral! I didn’t think any show could compete with my love for The Bureau, but this 8-season gem (dating back to 2005) comes close. We just finished season 2, and we’re hooked. It’s built around a female police captain in Paris and it’s full of flawed characters. I don’t say this lightly, but it’s got a hint of The Wire to it. [Note: not for the squeamish, though - this show loves mutilated corpses.] We also tried the Irish series, Love/Hate, which is brutal and really good, though we neededd subtitles to understand the Dublin accent.
+ What are YOU reading? Tell me what book you loved this year and I’ll list a few readers’ picks next month. Email or DM me.
See below (*) for info on buying books mentioned in Blood & Whiskey.
Cocktail of the Month…
This month’s drink comes from author Michael Koryta, whose latest book, Where They Wait, was published last month, under the newish pen name, Scott Carson. (Stephen King called it “mesmerizing.”) Koryta shared his favorite non-whiskey cocktail, made with tasty barrel-aged Tom Cat gin…
Says Michael: “Here's a nice autumnal cocktail for you:”
1.5 ounces Barr Hill Tom Cat gin (excellent stuff)
1.5 ounce Laird's apple brandy (bonded -- more like a whiskey than applejack)
a little raw honey
dash of orange bitters
cinnamon stick
Then light a fire.
+ reader, we tried it — and it’s good…
Playlist of the Month…
This month I decided to snag the playlist William Boyle created for Shoot the Moonlight Out, featuring the song that inspired the book title and others mentioned in the novel, including Sade, Joni Mitchell, Springsteen and, most haunting of all, The Cranberries… The band’s poster still hangs in a dead girl’s bedroom; five years on, and her father can’t bring himself to change a thing.
Giveaway…
Winner of the galley copy of my forthcoming The First Kennedys is Beth Hayden, from the great state of Colorado. Coincidentally, I got to know Beth years ago when I was trying to create a newsletter. You can find Beth at bethhayden.com.
The First Kennedys will hit the bookstores on 2/22/22. Meanwhile, Publishers Weekly and Kirkus just came through with nice reviews:
“Thompson is especially good at evoking the hardships [Bridget] Murphy endured and placing them in the context of the 19th-century Irish experience. The result is an engrossing, real-life rags-to-riches tale.” —Publishers Weekly
“Thompson provides solid historical context about the plight of Irish immigrants, roiling national politics, and changing demographics. A lively biography of an iconic family before it became famous.” —Kirkus
In closing, I thought it couldn’t hurt to remind readers what I’m doing here… Having rediscovered my love of crime fiction during the pandemic — and having been separated from friends and family — I created Blood & Whiskey (title inspired by a Tom Waits song - see below) to connect with those who share similar interests… books, bourbon, music. If you haven’t officially “subscribed” please do so by clicking above. Feel free to send feedback or suggestions. And please spread the word to friends and family.
Till next month….
-Neal
Find me on Instagram; sometimes on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Goodreads
And it's a battered old suitcase
To a hotel someplace
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, the perfume is on
An old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey…
-Tom Waits, “Tom Traubert’s Blues”
(*) Books mentioned in Blood & Whiskey can be found on my online list at Bookshop.org (which shares a cut of each sale with independent bookstores), or at Amazon.com. I encourage you to shop local. You can find a store near you with Bookshop’s store locator tool (HERE) or the IndieBound store finder (HERE).