The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant

I finished reading The Last Days of Dogtown last week sometime but was having trouble thinking about what I wanted to say about it. I was that impressed.

I might have liked it a little better if it hadn't seemed like a bunch of short stories strung together and passed off as a novel. In fact, if it was presented that way in the first place, I probably would have skipped it. I'm not a fan of short stories.

It was about ... um ... okay, it was about the death of a town. It used to be a nice place to live and then nearly everyone left. I found the back jacket description to be very appealing: "Set on the high ground at the heart of Cape Ann, the village of Dogtown is peopled by widows, orphans, spinsters, scoundrels, whores, free Africans, and 'witches'". It takes place after the War of 1812 and spans, I don't know, twenty years.

The stories were sort of related but not enough to make me happy. Some of them were set years apart. It just didn't have a smooth transitional feel -- not for me, anyway.

Ruth Diamant wrote The Red Tent which I know many people loved. If I'd liked this one more, I would have gone on to read that one but I think I'll pass.

The Last Days of Dogtown is in these challenges:

The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan

Some time ago (I can't remember which year) I read a book by an author TB and I met, Don Massey. The book was called A Matter Of Degree and it was about the Ringley Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus fire in Hartford, CT in July 1944. The book focused on investigator Rick Davey's research into the cause and his drive to identify a child who died in the fire, identified only as Little Miss 1565. One thing that surprised me was that there was so little information about such a devastating event. My curiosity was stirred and I found another book about it, bought it and didn't get around to it until recently.

What a compelling book! The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan is a recounting of the fire, the aftermath, the investigation and about what happened to the people involved. Sometimes I cringed at the details of the victims' injuries. I was very moved by the stories. Some had happier endings, many did not.

Little Miss 1565 was eventually claimed and identified as Eleanor Cook but there's a lot of controversy about that. Some of the evidence contradicts the details about the little girl. It was a fascinating, absorbing read.

The Circus Fire falls into these book challenges:

Blaze by Richard Bachman/Stephen King

I wasn't sure which author to credit since they're one and the same and they both appear on the cover! I'm also not sure how I'd classify Blaze. It's definitely fiction but it's not horror. I wouldn't call it a psychological thriller. I'm dithering because this is Stephen King and I'm so accustomed to his books of the macabre and terror.

King himself mentions Of Mice and Men in his foreward so I guess it's okay for me to do that too. His main character has a certain kind of charm. He's a brain-damaged con man with a heart of gold, how's that? His name is Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. but everyone calls him Blaze. Blaze was horribly injured by his alcoholic, abusive father when he was just a boy. Now he can't function on his own and needs the help of best buddy and fellow con, George. Or does he?

George and Blaze long planned a caper that would let them retire rich. It seems so simple and all the details have been worked out.

I guess that's as far as I'll go with that. In between, details about Blaze's sad childhood come out and all I could think was, gee, poor guy, what tough breaks he's had all his life. Still, I knew he was not making good choices by going with a life of crime.

Is the caper pulled off? Does Blaze retire rich or from the criminal world? I'm not telling!

This is Stephen King. It may not be his best work but it's still very engaging and moves very fast.

Blaze fits these challenges:

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

Now that I'm out of high school and have fulfilled all my lit requirements in college, I haven't had to read any classics. I committed myself to doing so, however, because there are so many fine works out there that are just "old" and difficult to read but definitely worth the time spent doing so. Still, I've been nervous about picking up the earlier classic books I choose to read.

I'm amazed at Moll Flanders. Daniel Defoe published this book in 1721. Was it considered "racy"? I don't know enough about the time period except to say that my belief about that time is that people were shocked and did not want to talk about prostitution. They would not look favorably on an author who had a prostitute as the "heroine". Well, maybe I'm wrong.

Moll Flanders is a prostitute. She didn't start out that way. Born to a convict mother, she was given over to foster care when her mother was deported. She might have had a terrible life but she didn't. She always wanted to be a lady. The thought of being a servant was abhorrent to her. She's pretty clever in the way she managed to avoid that fate.

Moll leads a very colorful and interesting life all right. I think that's why amazed me so much. I wouldn't want to give away too much of the story but some of her marriages (there are five) and situations she gets into are ... well, shocking.

It took me longer than usual to read the book because of the language and style. Once I got used to it, though, I was able to pick up speed. It really was a pretty good book!

Reading the book fits into these book challenges:

A Fractured Mind by Robert B. Oxnam

A Fractured Mind by Robert B. Oxnam has been on my "to-be-read" shelf for at least four years! Some of these books have become buried and forgotten because I have so doggone many books and it's a real shame. This was an excellent book!

I've always been fascinated with books about multiple personality disorder, especially once I learned it's brought on by severe trauma in childhood. I read Sybil and When Rabbit Howls. This is the first time I've read about this disorder in a man. I know that it happens, it's just that there weren't many books about it.

I hadn't heard of Robert B. Oxnam before. Apparently he is a renown scholar and used to be the president of the Asia Society. It's amazing that he was able to carry himself in a way that no one suspected he had eleven different personalities. How could this have happened to him? He didn't seem to have experienced any trauma in his life and yet he struggled with alcoholism and depression. It took a very skilled and dedicated psychiatrist to help get to the root of it all.

One unique thing about the book is that the personalities speak. Some voice more strongly and more often than others and I found that fascinating. It was also fascinating to get such an up-close-and-personal look at how the personalities communicated with each other.

I won't say what happened to Oxnam and whether or not the personalities became integrated. Anyone who's interested won't be sorry to read the book and find out.

A Fractured Mind falls into these challenges:

Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs

I'd heard of the TV series Bones but have never seen it nor was I aware it was based on Kathy Reichs' character, Dr. Temperance Brennan. Dr. Brennan is an archaeologist/accidental sleuth in a series. This is book #9, the first one I've read. I'm usually not a fan of serial mysteries because they follow a formula. I enjoyed much of this one though.

First of all, Dr. Brennan is a woman. I didn't have to put up with the terse, wise cracking, hard drinking male sleuth lead type character. Unfortunately, the story did follow the usual formula in a couple of different ways. There's the terse lines and attempts at wit. For some reason, there's always some talk about what the characters are eating. There's always an estranged loved one and a new romantic interest already going on or in the wings. There's always some obligatory conflict going on there. Yawn.

The first two thirds of the book held my interest. I was surprised when they made their arrest about fifty pages before the end of the story. Still, there had to be a danger scene or two thrown in there and a curve ball about that arrest. Was it the right guy or not?

In the end, as usual, all's well that ends well.

It was better than 90% of serial mysteries I've read.

Break No Bones falls into these challenges:

Cane River by Lalita Tademy

Thursday Thirteen

I just finished Cane River by Lalita Tademy this morning, just in time for Thursday Thirteen. I didn't have a theme idea for today so this really comes in handy!

Thirteen Thoughts about Cane River

1. Based on her family history, Lalita Tademy wrote the book as fiction.

2. Writing the book that way was a great idea so that she could fill in details and conversations without spoiling the integrity of real-to-life history.

3. Cane River spans a period of over 100 years, beginning in 1834 and ending around 1936.

4. The book focuses on four incredibly strong women in the family: Elisabeth, Suzette, Philomene and Emily.

5. Each of the women was born into slavery.

6. The lives of slaves were pretty harsh and brutal--especially the fact that they were human beings and had no say over their lives. A white master could take a female slave and she would not be able to stop it.

7. Set in and around the Cane River in Louisiana, I learned that there were gens de coleur libre. They were well-to-do people of color who owned small farms, plantations and ... yes, slaves! They looked down their noses at the slaves. It boggles my mind that not only white people did this but so did this group!

8. There was a "bleaching" of the family line that went on almost during the entire span of the book. That meant the women bore children by white men.

9. Each mother hoped her children would be better off but it didn't work out that way.

10. The Jim Crow laws are/were sickening. Children could be robbed of their inheritance and birth rights and they could do nothing about it.

11. I learned people in the area spoke Creole French almost all the time, not English.

12. Night Riders (the Klan) could be brutal to other white people as well as black people.

13. This was an engrossing book. You learn a lot without being stifled with dry facts.

Cane River is in these challenges: