Ken Bruen (ed): Dublin Noir: The Celtic Tiger vs. the Ugly American

My husband got me this book for - oh God, it was either my birthday, which would make this late blogging of it REALLY embarrassing, or else Christmas, which is only a little bit embarrassing. It's a collection of short stories by mostly NA authors, written as you can tell in the noir genre and with Ireland as the subject theme.

My poor husband was on to me for the first few weeks to find out if I liked it, but I didn't read it straight away (this is unusual for me) because I wanted to save it as a back-up book for times of drought. By the time he'd given up I did start reading it, and frankly wasn't too enamoured with it so it got pushed to the side for a while. I finished it this month anyway (by this month I mean March, the time of writing), and have been left with a resounding impression of Meh.

Dorothy Sayers: In the Teeth of the Evidence

I'm home sick today, so it's BLOGGING DAY my friends, bloggetty-bloggetty blog! I have six (6) empty posts in my draft lists that are waiting to be filled with content. All I have to do is type like a madwoman for a few hours (with intervals for the Book of Face, random surfing, making extensive watch lists on Ebay and Tradera), then set the posts to be published at regular intervals - and hey presto, it once again looks like I'm a Real Blogger™.  This draft is the oldest, so I'm starting here. Also it's the easiest post to write I think, I probably don't even have to locate the book (a near-impossible task since that ill-fated attempt to organize the shelves alphabetically), since I've read it several times and should remember it anyway.

Alice Munro: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

Alice Munro has totally flown under my radar all these years. I might have heard the name, but that's it. I certainly wouldn't have been able to place her as a Canadian author, for example. Now, my book club decided to read Alice Munro, and the week after that it turns out that a woman who wrote what was, I believe she said, the first ever dissertation about L. M. Montgomery's books goes to my pilates class and is generally a bit of an expert in Canadian literature, so another woman there asked her if she could recommend Canadian books for her book club who were considering having Canada as a theme for a while, and they mentioned Munro "obviously" (I was like, Atwood - now that's obvious). So there you go, coincidences make up the weave of life and so on.

Ray Bradbury: The Machineries of Joy

I used to love love Ray Bradbury in my teens. His dreamy and sentimental worlds were just the thing for my lonely disposition. Apparently we don't own any of his books though (I was so sure I did?) except for this collection of short stories. I read it because I wanted to read some science fiction and because I haven't opened a Bradbury book since aforementioned times - that would be sometime in the last century then, folks. This is, I don't feel, strictly speaking a collection of science fiction stories though, although a few fit the bill. And frankly, they were mostly the better ones. I was disappointed re-reading this. I didn't remember Bradbury as being quite so sentimental and, well, almost maudlin. Somehow though the bite comes through, the edge that makes him a classic writer still, a social commentator, one of the greats. Especially in the later stories (they are collected from a decade or two of writing) it seems that he can get more explicit, maybe more dirty. Maybe he self-censored in the 50s, making his work a bit dreamily clean and wholesome.When he gets gritty it really gets good.

I've read several things since reading this, so I can't remember what my favourite story was, I'm afraid. I might update the post some time. Yes, I am ashamed to the core that my first post on such a classic writer, that meant a great deal to me personally, to boot, is so devoid of content! Uncool, man. Some other time.

Far Horizons – short story collection

I’m experiencing a bit of a science fiction and/or fantasy craving at the moment (escapism, me want escapism!), but since I’m choosy there isn’t much to borrow at the library. As far as I know – and continuing my reasoning I therefore borrowed this collection of short stories. Admittedly, mostly because Ursula LeGuin has one in it, but I also thought that maybe I’d get a line on a new author I might like.


Ha.

A Classic English Crime – short story collection

I had time to kill before my pilates class last week, and nothing to do since the shops had closed. I hadn’t eaten, felt depressed and sorry for myself, so went into the library to feel worse, since I then had cause to yet again feel mopish about the library's lack of comfort reading for me. No unread LeGuins, Ngaio Marshes, Loveseys, Hares or Dickinsons … all very tragic. I went for the short story collections and picked out one science-fiction (more on that later) and one crime. In the large print section. To make me feel (unfairly) just that little bit more geriatric.

Miranda July: No One Belongs Here More Than You

This is for my first and original book discussion club. I understand that she is quite a popular author this July character, but this was my first encounter with her. She writes short stories that are at times too Carveresque for me to take them seriously as original works. I can see her talent, but to be honest I didn't go wild over this.Most often it almost felt calculated, but there were a few stories that tugged at my core. Unsure of this. Will be interesting to discuss it next week.

Ellery Queen's Book of Mystery Stories by 25 Famous Writers

I found this secondhand aaaaages ago - in the summer? BEFORE the summer? Long ago, anyway. Like it says on the tin, it's a collection of stories by authors normally not associated with crime fiction. I decided when I bought it (for a pittance, by the way) that it would be fun to jot down a few notes after reading each story, and then posting everything on the blog. Ha ha. What followed was that I read 3/4 of the book and then got tired of taking notes, so left the book "to rest" for a good few months. Also, I suspect that the notes are not that thrilling to read. But it has the bonus of me listing ALL the authors and ALL the stories, and that may be of some historical interest. Perhaps there's a desperate Googler out there just waiting for this blog entry, who knows. In my recent determination to have a crime fiction spree I've finished this now, so here goes.

Sinclair Lewis: The Post-Mortem Murder
Pearl Buck: Ransom
Nobel Prize? First one rather dull. Overly dramatic delivery of lines. Buck better, but v. fanciful - Grey Squad from FBI etc. Strong silent men etc. Wtf? [I later happened to see a TV-programme on Hoover, and learned all about how he promoted the educated FBI agent that popularly became known as a G-man, and that became an almost super-hero figure, including comic books. So that explains the Grey Squad in the short story and the hero-worshipping.]

Somerset Maugham: Before the Party
V. good.

Edna St. Vincent Millay: The Murder in the Fishing Cat
From a time when Americans could write in French and assume they'd be understood.

John Galsworthy: The Juryman
Depth, moving, well described. Man more involved with status and material comfort learns that empathy and understanding more important, and that his marriage is empty if they cannot talk really talk about such things. He feels admiration for her but they are not close.

John Steinbeck: The Murder
Most impressed by Jelka Stepiz - those where the days when an American author could write diacritic signs and get them printed. Now US gets special edition of Harry Potter so US kids don't have to wonder what a jumper is.

William Faulkner: Monk
Quote the bit in §1! [I have no idea what I wanted to quote now. Introduction to story mentions several books I have to read though.] Monk name of criminal - is the tv series a joke?

Rudyard Kipling: The Limitations of Pambé Serang
True to imperialist form, but he is a great story-teller.

Louis Bromfield: Prime of Life
"Really American story" [according to introduction] - maybe so, v. good story-telling.

Ernest Hemingway: The Killers
Terse and hard-boiled.

Charles Dickens: Hunted Down
Curiously disappointing. Starts off well, but finishes bla bla bla all the tension gone from story.

Willa Cather: Paul's Case
Pulitzer prize winner deservedly. Example of American writing. Little gem. Imaginative boy unable to accept ordinariness, ultimate escapist - perhaps all criminals are?

Mark Twain: The Stolen White Elephant
Stolen elephant. Humorous but not really my thing.

Aldous Huxley: The Gioconda Smile
Flirty ladies' man accused of poisoning wife. Mostly about his inner workings, crime by the bye. Not bad.

Guy de Maupassant: The Hand
Funny how an Englishman plays pivotal role in French detective story - set in Corsica, no less. After all typically English genre. Almost Poe-ish.

C.S. Forester: The Letters in Evidence
Wife abuse. A little chilling at first but the endearments start to feel silly. Letters. Clever.

Ring Lardner: Haircut
Friend of Fitzgerald. Barber tells customer the tale. Interesting.

Walter de la Mare: An Ideal Craftsman
A bit too long and too intent on conveying in minute detail some sort of gothic feel. Less is more. Doesn't describe the boy's reasoning terribly well?

James Thurber: The Catbird Seat
Nice! English in flavour, mildly humorous.

R.L. Stevenson: Markheim
Moralistic. Reminds me of Poe, but less goffik.

H.G. Wells: Mr Brisher's Treasure
What's a taproom?

Damon Runyon: Sense of Humour
Cute funny mob story - must have inspired lots of people. Twisted macabre ending.

Frank Swinnerton: The Verdict
3 women discuss a friend's death. Liked! But odd ending? Good but not sure I get it.

James Gould Cozzens: Clerical Error
V short story on blackmail. Ok.

Fannie Hurst: Guilty
Another writer v popular in her day. About heredity of mental illness. In bits excellent, but author has annoying mannerisms like writing . . .  at end of sentence. Super descriptions of way of life. [Read the short Wikipedia article! What a woman. And now all but forgotten.]


I can't tag the post with all the authors' names, which irks me, but there you are. Hopefully all my hard work will benefit some curious soul some day...

Each short story has an introduction of the author at the beginning, and often those introductions are the bits I find most interestingin this type of book, since they praise authors now forgotten and mention in passing those that have now become cult classics. I wish I had the energy to type in lots of examples, but I don't because a) I don't, and b) I'm writing from work (have Internet access of sorts!!!) and haven't got the actual book here now. But I reoommend this heartily for any crime aficionado!

Ellery Queen's Double Dozen

This is a collection of short stories by various authors, edited by Ellery Queen and part of his (can you say "his" when there is no real Ellery Queen but instead it's a pseudonym for two people?) series of Mystery Annuals. I'd love to get hold of more of these, sadly I don't think the library has many. Most, if not nearly all, of these stories are forgotten now, but so many of them paint a lovely little picture of what was in at the time. I even kept little notes while reading this so I wouldn't forget my favourite bits, because I'm thinking I need another few labels on the blog to help me find the reading tips I leave for myself. However, I've lost the scrap of paper I was writing on. (Whereupon she takes a break to look for it.) (And doesn't find it.) I'll just ad lib then. Well, there's an L.E. Behney who has three stories set in rural or lower-middle-to-working-class America. They are quite moving and good. I especially liked the first one, about a woman in an abusive relationship who has had enough. There's an interesting one by George Summer Albee about a US agent in Algeria, trying to find a Communist spy. It sorts of precedes the whole current Iraq situation in a way. Disturbing in how it assumes the right for foreign powers to meddle in certain foreign affairs, I thought, but it wasn't my favourite in terms of pure enjoyability. A really clever one was A Paper for Mr. Wurley, by William Farrell, about a young boy who gets caught up in a murder on his way to school and writes about it for his school assignment. Keeps you kind of guessing to the end. There were, in short, many good ones, even though a few were only so-so.

Crime from the Mind of a Woman

The time before last at the library I noticed this collection of short stories, edited by Elizabeth George. It's nice and thick, and looked like it would last me a long time, especially if mixed with sudokus, which I'm sadly becoming addicted too. (If they're simple. Otherwise I throw my toys all out of the pram, thankyouverymuch. And they'll never be as much fun as a good crossword.)

It's a rather impressive collection. I have to admit I was a bit surprised, since I personally don't think that highly of Elizabeth George's own books. She writes well enough, I suppose, but her characters are a little trop for my taste. They've never grabbed me, in short. However, if she'd had a hand in choosing the stories for this collection she shows good taste and quite a bit of intelligence. The book contains 26 stories from different authors, and each story and author is introduced with a short text by someone called Jon L. Breen, who seems to know his stuff. I googled him, and he appears to be a writer himself, of pastiches among other things, but also a literary critic. I suspect he's had a large hand in choosing in other words, but Elizabeth George gets author credit, so she must've been involved. I sincerely hope so, anyway!

The collection limits itself to women crime writers of the 20th century. "Crime writer" is apparently a loose term, to be applied to someone who writes of crime. I quite like that, as it's sort of my idea of the genre too. The appealing thing about the frame of "crime fiction" is that it provides you with a linear movement ahead in time, to the solution of the mystery, but it's no good at all unless it's also literature, right? So, we find Nadime Gordimer's short story of the affair between the white land-owner's son and the black girl from the farm here (Country Lovers, a classic), aswell as more classic detective stories. Several authors were completely new to me, and now I'd love to find more of their work. It'll probably be hard though... Some were old favourites, like Marcia Muller, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, Christianna Brand, Sara Paretsky (I'd read the story though). I was interested to see a story by Antonia Fraser - the name rang a bell, and the story note said she was married to the writer Harold Pinter; aaahhhh, of course, the (now) Nobel Prize winner! This tickled me. I was even more tickled when I didn't like the story much... I'm wicked.

Now, here I'm just going to list all the new (to me) authors and stories I found particularly interesting. So I can check for future reference. It doesn't get cleverer than that, I'm afraid.

Susan Glaspell: A Jury of her Peers - nice feminist story from 1917. A woman appears to have murdered her husband, but the sheriff can't see a motive. However, the neighbouring ladies think they can, but they are being ignored.

Shirley Jackson: The Summer People - a thriller-esque piece with an open ending; we don't know if anything will happen to the couple, or if their imagination is running away with them. From 1950.

Charlotte Armstrong: S:t Patrick's Day in the Morning - interesting, maybe not great. From 1959. Armstrong wrote several stories that were later filmed, I'd like to check out more of her stuff. The twists in the plot reminded me of Hitchcock.

Dorothy Salisbury Davis: The Purple is Everything - cozy, about a woman who accidentally steals a Monet. 1963.

Nedra Tyre: A Nice Place to Stay - very good. Tyre was, among other things, a social worker. This story is about how poverty can drive a person to crime. Must find more of Tyre's work. 1970.

Joyce Harrington: Sweet Baby Jenny - another American writer writing about what poverty can do to a person. Sweet Baby Jenny is much smarter than people give her credit for though, and she'll take revenge in her own sweet time. 1981.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: The Young Shall See Visions, and the Old Dream Dreams - wins prize for longest title... Rusch writes science-fiction too, so I'd like to find more of her work, it appears to be sort of cross-over. Nice story in which an old woman remembers her past.

Carolyn Wheat: Ghost Station - woman alcoholic police officer. Need I say more? Original enough just there. Not bad, and Wheat seems to know her background. Wouldn't mind reading more.

Wendy Hornsby: New Moon and Rattlesnakes - a sort of noir tale of a woman running from her oppressive (abusive?) marriage, and taking revenge. Nice. Me like.

Gillian Linscott: A Scandal In Winter - a rather clever Sherlock Holmes story. Linscott is smart enough not to fall into the trap of trying to emulate Conan Doyle, but rather writes her own story using the well-known characters. Not bad.

The Recipe, capital R, from The Best British Mysteries

Well, I haven't finished this short story collection (ed. Maxim Jakubowski, Allison & Busby 2004) yet, but I simply have to post this recipe already. It's from the very first story of the book (and I've been thinking about this tart while reading all the rest...), Martha Grace by Stella Duffy.

She will make him a deep tart of black berries and melted chunks of bitter chocolate, imported from France, ninety per cent cocoa solids. She starts early in the day. Purest white flour mixed in the air as she sifts it with organic cocoa so perfect that her pastry is almost black. Then the fruit - blackberries, boysenberries, loganberries, blackcurrants - just simmered with fruit sugar and pure water over the lowest of heat for almost two hours until they are thick syrup and pulp. She skims the scum from the surface [...]

And then she adds poison, obviously. This is crime fiction.

She leaves the thick fruit mix to cool. Melts the chocolate. Glistening rich black in the shallow pan. When it is viscous and runs slowly from the back of her walnut spoon, she drops in warmed essences almond, vanilla [...] She leaves the pan over hot water, bubbling softly in the cool of her morning kitchen. Lays the pastry out on the marble slab. Rolls it to paper fine. Folds it in on itself and starts again. Seven times more. Then she fits it to the baking dish, fluted edges, heavy base. She bakes the pastry blind and removes from her oven a crisp, dark shell. Pours in warm, thick, liquid chocolate, sprinkles over a handful of flaked and toasted almonds, watches them sink into the quicksand black. [...] When the chocolate is almost cool, she beats three egg yolks and more sugar into the fruit mixture, pours it slowly over the chocolate, lifts the tart dish and ever so gently places it in the heated oven. [...] She cries, one slow fat tear every fifteen seconds. When there are one hundred and sixty tears the tart is done.

My friends, how fabulous is this? Pretty much a lot! Had to look up what loganberries are to find out they are a cross between raspberry and blackberry. Souds damn delicious anyway, dahlinks.

On the whole this is an good collection of short stories. Some are meh, some are very enjoyable. Anne Perry goes on and on for pages, Val McDermid is snappy and to the point, Peter Lovesey also impresses. Simon Brett is amusing. Would be great to bring on a trip. And I'm going to read more Stella Duffy, if possible. And brush up on tart noir.