Oh yeah, remember the chick lit?

The ones I was going to read in the hospital?

Well, I did start one while there, and finished it after coming home. I've previously read two books from Elaine Viets's Dead-End Job series, and I thought they were cute. Not very well written at all, but with some funny points. These two new ones I found at church are from her Mystery Shopper series, featuring Josie Marcus - a single mother who works as a mystery shopper because the flexible hours allow her more time with her daughter. And OMG, I hope there wasn't as much sex in the one I let my daughter read. She's not reading this one, which is about Josie busting shoe fetischists. Anyway, this series is far less cute and funny IMO. It was just that much duller to read.

Dags att komma ikapp?

Okej, till att börja med läste jag för ett bra tag sedan (dvs pre-Minimus) Tarzans tårar av Katarina Mazetti. Min syster lånade mig den för länge sedan, och nu höll jag på att ge tillbaka den oläst för jag tyckte den verkade lite meh, men syrran sa att jag borde läsa den för den var lite lagom feel-good sådär. Så då läste jag den, och det var den. Jag kan inte påstå att jag helt och fullt förstår alla karaktärernas motiv och personligheter, men svagheterna på den punkten uppvägs till viss del av charm och ett rätt bra sidoporträtt av den schizofrene barnafadern.

I've also read a lovely Peter Dickinson, The Yellow Room Conspiracy. This is Dickinson showing some of his best sides, a complex tale which is sometimes almost epic in character, yet really quite limited in time and space. The story is told in 1992 by two people, the lovers Paul Ackerley and Lucy Seddon, née Vereker. In 1956 a man died in the Vereker family home, and the whole place was destroyed in a fire. All these years Paul and Lucy have suspected each other of murdering him. His death was also the start of the revelation of a huge political scandal involving Lucy's then husband Lord Seddon.

So the question of the death makes the story a whodunnit, but it is, as always with Dickinson, more a story of Britain during the war years and just after, how people worked, thought, acted. There are class and race issues, and the beginnings of sexual freedom. I liked it a lot, but found the ending perhaps a little rushed. On the other hand, I kind of skimmed the last few pages in the maternity ward.

Here's the baby!

Meet Minimus, our latest family member. Here he is, chilling on his eldest sister's lap, 3 days old.

If I ever say anything like "well, giving birth isn't that hard really", which I was wont to do after last time (ten years ago), feel free to kick me hard. I was in SUCH pain people, because things moved too swiftly for pain relief to be much good at all. Also, Minimus decided that 4,5 kg was a good birth weight - I beg to differ, young man. My vagina doesn't appreciate being stretched beyond the 4 kg mark. Your sisters were much kinder to me.

Although I suppose I should be grateful that the process took about 3 hours in total. Never again, I say.

Raus! Bitte.

Still no baby. I am as of today a week overdue. *zzzzz* My father is annoying the hell out of me by ringing every other day to see if anything is happening. No, we did say we would ring when there is news. Ergo, e contrario.... I've taken to checking who's calling.

Well, last week I stopped by our local library branch and browsed. Picked up a few detective stories I thought I hadn't read, but discovered I had. Well, I'd read 2 out of 5. No matter, I didn't remember much of them.


Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian

I've read one Block before, and although I found it rather fun, that was all. I never blogged properly about it. In any case, this one was much better. Characters felt both more real and more detailed. It was cheekier and funnier, and had a less silly storyline. The end was so confusing with a myriad of Mondrian paintings real and false that I'm not sure it all fit together, but let's assume it did. Block's books are not easy to stumble across here in Sweden, but I'm going to keep an eye open for them. Apparently (I now learnt from the inside of the cover) he is astoundingly productive and just churns 'em out. Who knew?


John Dickson Carr

I got three books, and I'd read two of them before. All three are from the late 1940s (well, the youngest was published 1950), so the setting is an England during food and fuel shortages, with plenty of references to the war. The oldest was Till Death Do Us Part from -44. In the small village of Six Ashes the writer Dick Markham is told that his fiancée, of whom he knows virtually nothing, is a dangerous woman who has killed two husbands and a lover with poison. The police could never prove anything, since the deaths appeared to be suicides inside locked rooms (Dickson Carr's favourite theme). The next day the man who tells him this is found dead by the same means, and Gideon Fell makes an appearance on the scene. It's not a bad example of its type, but not brilliant. Then comes He Who Whispers from -46. Miles Hammond, who recently has inherited a library, a house and a lot of money, is invited by Gideon Fell to a meeting of the Murder Club. The subject of the evening will be a murder of an Englishman that took place in France just before the war. However, once there there are no members at the dinner, only the speaker and another female guest, so the story is told to Hammond and the woman alone. The next day Hammond discovers that he has just hired the prime suspect of the murder to work for him, cataloguing his library. Etc. Again, sort of interesting, not brilliant. Over-dramatic, with lots of hints of dark sexuality and so on. Below Suspicion is the youngest, and a most farfetched tale including Satanists and underground nightclubs filled with vicious Cockneys. Our main character here is an extremely self-assured Irish-born lawyer, who successfully defends a young woman accused of murdering her employer, even though he believes her guilty. I almost laughed out loud at the Satanist bits. Hum hum.

Unable to concentrate

I borrowed Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White, a brick of a book of 800 pages or so. I figured I'd have something to read at leasure during my maternity leave, while waiting for babba to arrive.

But I CANNOT concentrate enough to get into a Victorian novel about prostitutes and sex and whatnot. And babies being fed booze to shut them up? - not the best thing for me right now. So I'll be taking this back. I need something more light-hearted. Those chic lit detective stories I bought are being saved, and anyway my eldest daughter took them to read. I'm trying not to think about how age-inappropriate they probably are... this is how desperate I am for her to read something, anything!

Ooops, forgot one

Jack Faust by Michael Swanwick: A novel we've had lying around for aaages. The undertitle (ehrm, or whatever it's called...) always put me off: "The devil has all the best tricks..." I mean, really. But when desperate... it seems much better than the title when you read the cover blurb after all.

Faust lives in Nuremberg at the turn of the 15th century or thereabouts. He is disillusioned with the so-called science of the time, because he has come to the conclusion that it is all based on lies. While burning his books in anger he opens his mind and begs for any higher power to help him find the truth, and he is contacted by Mephistopheles. This is an artificial creature from an alien world, a different dimension maybe?, whose creators hate humans because their life span is longer then theirs (or something to this effect). Anyway, Mephistopheles will give Faust all the knowledge he desires if he will promise to always listen to him, because he knows that this will end with the destruction of mankind. He shows Faust this, but Faust chooses to enter into agreement with him nonetheless. Now Faust is given knowledge galore, and the world rapidly makes jumps into the 20th century and is industrialized, while keeping mediaeval laws.

Sounds pretty good, right? Sci-fi-promising? Well, it wasn't really. It's not badly written, I just couldn't give much of a toss about any of the characters, and it was too much about (base) sex, all cocks and cunts and blah blah blah. I totally skimmed the last bits. I think it kind of ends with Faust becoming a sort of Hitler with nuclear weapons (implied), and thus mankind will be ruined. Hm.

Aaaahhhhhh maternity leave...

No baby yet, but I'm off work now. Excellent. Let's just hope my baby turns out as cute as Frida's, eh? I've had naps. I've cleaned the microwave, and sliced up my finger on the sharp edge underneath it - be warned! Then I didn't clean anymore. At church today I found two chic lit crime novels by Elaine Viets in the second-hand book box, so I got them to read at the hospital. Let's keep it simple, that's my motto!

White Teeth by Zadie Smith: Well, since I've read the others I might as well read the début I thought, so I lugged this brick of a book around a few days in my bag. It's a trifle more epic in character than her later work, i.e. it spans a greater amount of time, but essentially the style is the same, and the underlying themes also. I did like it, but I haven't found it as memorable as I thought. I haven't really carried any of the characters with me after reading it. It's a great début though, I can see why it was a hit. She does command her language.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters: I was recommended Sarah Waters, and have waited a while for it to be available at the library. The book is set in the late 19th century, and tells of two girls, one wealthy and living with an excentric and unpleasant uncle, and the other an orphan who grows up with fingersmiths, i.e. petty thieves. "Their fates are entwined", as the cover puts it. They are tricked into attempting to trick each other, despite the attraction they feel for each other. The story has a good few twists and turns, and I was surprised by it. However, essentially I found it quite dull, to be honest. I found myself skimming the last few chapters towards the end, I didn't really care. Tremendously disappointing, I had such high hopes! I might try another one, otherwise Waters is just not for me I'm afraid. :(

Ellis Peters: The Heretics Apprentice

I hadn't read this one, so nice surprise to find it! A classic Cadfael story. The "twist" this time is that we have a small inquisition to deal with, and thus get some theological arguments - nothing I'd call particularly deep though.

A Shrewsbury native, who years ago went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, returns in a coffin with his faithful servant who has travelled with him the entire time. There is some hesitation as to whether he should be allowed burial in the abbey, as was his wish, since he might have held heretical views, but this is soon resolved. However, the servant appears to hold similar opinions, and must stand to answer for them. He also brought a dowry for the dead man's adopted daughter, which makes members of the household see their and her future in a new light...

Pretty story, and I liked the angle.

Zadie Smith: The Autograph Man

In the ardour of my new-found love of Zadie Smith I read The Autograph Man, a story about four Jewish men who have been friends since boyhood and have different views on their religion and life. The main character is Alex-Li, a half-Chinese Jew who makes his living selling autographs and other memorabilia. The book starts out from the perspective of his father, Li-Jin, who takes his son and two friends to a wrestling match (where they meet the fourth member of the group of friends) on the day when he dies (from a brain tumour he's kept secret from everyone. Then it moves on to Alex-Li, twenty-something years later. Alex is obsessed with the actress Kitty Alexander, who is a recluse and hasn't signed an autograph for, like, ever. After an acid trip in an attempt to reach Kabbalistic understanding he has an autograph, and while his friends (Adam the black Jew, his sister Esther (also Alex' girlfriend), Rubinfine the rabbi and Joseph the insurance salesman) all think he forged it while tripping, Alex thinks it's real. And then he gets another one in the post, thus proving him right. So on a business trip to NY he looks Kitty up, to thank her.

The book is at times hilariously funny, and also very moving. The bit where Li-Jin, wearing nothing but a t-shirt, breaks down in tears at his own mortality in front of the BBC test screen, using a turkey sandwich as a hanky, is both ridiculous and so tragic it tore my heart out. In my opinion it petered out a bit towards the end, since it felt almost too slapstick in mood - there's only so much of Alex-Li getting drunk that can be funny after all. I'd still recommend it as a good read though. Smith has a lovely turn with metaphore, I like that.

Kinsey v. Maisie

First I read S is for Silence by Sue Grafton. I've been reading a few Graftons lately, but the early ones, since the library are stocking up on their collection, so this became an opportunity to see the difference between the early books and the later ones. S is for Silence is not written exclusively from Kinsey's perspective, instead Grafton switches between Kinsey-chapters (in the present, i.e. 1987) and historical chapters (set in 1953 when the crime takes place), written from the perspective of alternating lead suspects/other characters. It works well, and gives her scope to develop more fully even side characters.

The story is simple enough - in 1953 Daisie's mother Violet disappeared, and now she feels she needs closure. Kinsey reluctantly takes on the very cold case, since Daisie is a friend of a friend. Naturally her prodding gets her results, and the book ends with a spectacular bulldozer chase (please, never film this), which somehow works in the Kinsey genre but is really very OTT. An easy read, and Kinsey seems less boxy and set in her ways than I remember from P and R.

Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear once again features Maisie Dobbs, who here turns out to be almost a bit clairvoyant. Or "sensitive". Or something - I really can't take to this blend of suffragism (is that a word?), Eastern guruism (that definitely isn't) and Afterlife. Anyway, Maisie takes on some cases that take her back to France and all the bad memories that come with that. I do enjoy a WW1 theme, but Maisie Dobbs is too OTT a heroine for me to truly enjoy myself. If this were filmed it would end up some preposterous mix of Lara Croft and Florence Nightingale. With less action, and more long gazes.

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.

A Shanghai Baby and Fahrenheit Twins

Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui is a book I'd heard of, as an example of "new Chinese literature". I accidentally spotted it in the library and borrowed it on a whim. It's semi-autobiographical, according to the author. The main character and narrator, Nikki/Coco, is a young woman who has published a collection of short stories that has been both acclaimed and denounced as decadent. She meets a young man, Tian Tian, who wants her to write the great novel he is convinced she is destined to write, a novel for their generation. Nikki and Tian Tian live in a spacious flat, absorbed in their love for one another. However, Tian Tian is impotent and Nikki starts an affair with a married German named Mark, for the sex - though she later starts feeling emotionally involved too. Tian Tian becomes more introvert and starts doing drugs more seriously, as Nikki tries to finish her novel.

I'm not sorry I read this book, but I'm not quite sure I like it that much. Possibly something gets lost in the translation, so I don't feel like I really understand the motivation behind people's actions. The cover says that this is a story of "self-discovery", and Nikki talks about how she is discovering herself, but I don't really see it, to be honest. The setting and mood is interesting though, a sort of fin de siècle feeling, but with a bit more hope all in all.

Then I read Michel Faber's collection of short stories, The Fahrenheit Twins. Now again, I can't say I didn't like it... but he does have a tendency to an open-ended finish that gets a trifle annoying. In the manner of "She gazed out the window of the train as it moved across the country. She didn't know where she was headed." That sort of thing (that wasn't a quote by the way, merely an example). It bugs me a bit. Some of the stories are excellent though, and I remain very impressed by how well he can write from a woman's point of view. One of my favourites is the one about the former heroin addict who is now reaccquainting herself with her young son under the supervision of a social worker. Several of the stories remind me of Ray Bradbury, in the slightly fantastic settings and moods he evokes. Strange things happen, but we're not on Mars, we're still on Earth. I also thought of Michael Ende - I have one of his collections of short stories.

Not Babes in Beijing.

Shanghai Baby. Good lord, memory like a sieve. But I suppose it's understandable considering the similarity...

Sue Grafton and Michel Faber

D is for Deadbeat (by Sue Grafton) has Kinsey accepting a job as messenger - a man asks her to find a teenage boy named Tony and deliver a check for 25 thousand dollars to him. Kinsey accepts, but when the client's retainer check bounces she goes to find him instead. He turns out to be bad news, an alcoholic just out of prison. He also turns up dead, and now his daughter hires Kinsey to find out if and by whom he was killed. Middling, I'd say - one of those where I'm not 100 % in on what makes Kinsey tick. But the end is quite good, when she tries to talk someone suicidal off a roof.

Faber is a new one for me. I was recommended him on a forum I hang out on. The library had The Courage Consort and The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps, so I borrowed them. They have one fault - being too short for a full day at work. Quick reads, but good ones.

TCC was my favourite. The Courage Consort is the name of an a cappella group dedicated to modern composers. Courage is also the name of the group's leader, Roger, and thus of his wife, the wilting, severely depressed Kate. She lives her life in the shadow of the dominant man who has shaped her, contemplating suicide daily. Faber's description of how Kate's depression controls her is excellent - in no space at all he sketches a portrait of someone in thrall to despair. Now the group is headed for two-week rehearsal in a chateau in the Netherlands (I didn't know they had chateaus in the Netherlands!), forcing them into closer contact than they have ever been before. The quiet atmosphere, exposure to the other members and the strange cries she hears in the night start to draw Kate out of her shell. I really liked this. It was moving, funny, succinct and realistic.

T199S was not bad, but I just didn't like it as much as TCC. Again we have a female main character, Siân, who is trying to overcome depression - in this case perhaps not as severe. The book is set in Whitby, where Siân is working an archaeological dig, plagued by nightmares in which she is murdered. She meets an attractive man with an even more attractive dog, who shows her an old letter he inherited from his father (the man did, not the dog. Obviously.). Carefully Siân opens the damaged scroll to read the confession of a man who did something terrible more than 200 years ago. My only gripe with this book really was that it felt a bit short and unexplained somehow, like the ending came too soon and suddenly. It's an absolutely beautiful little book though, with gorgeous photographs of Whitby throughout. I'd love to go there - mr Bani has been and really liked it.

I've borrowed The Fahrenheit Twins now, a collection of his short stories. Looking forward to it. I imght read Babes in Beijing first though (palate-cleansing, as it where).

Food inspiration from books

Am reading D is for Deadbeat (I know, like a fecking dog with a bone I am). Kinsey visits a soup kitchen where they are serving apple sauce sprinkled with cinnamon for afters.

So guess what I had for afters. With cream.

Andrew Taylor: The Sleeping Policeman

Another one featuring William Dougal, the publishor/editor cum private investigator. He is hired by the youngish GP Hanslope to find out who is blackmailing him. Hanslope has a fiancée, a mistress (his fiancées stepmother) and a girlfriend, and does not want to turn to the police. There's a lot going on in the little community where they live - burglaries, two teenage girls who are perhaps too close to each other, a neighbourhood snoop, Hanslope's sexual escapades... Things start to escalate, and there is murder done. It's quite a well-crafted little story, all the loose ends are tied up at the end. The first chapter ends with the readers being told that the whole affair will end with a tragedy at a London tube station, and it does. Very abruptly, and then there is no more. It's quite typical of Taylor's style. I like it - it's not fantastic literature, but it's clever detective fiction, with a good, varied array of characters and a likeable and not-too-perfect hero. Sadly, they don't seem to have more at the library than the two I've read now, perhaps one or so.

I'm going to have to branch out. I was recommended Michael Faber, so he's next, and also Sarah Waters, who was not available. Fingers crossed.

Oh, and a sleeping policeman is apparently what you call a speed bump on the road. Who knew? I certainly didn't. Took me two pages to cop on, I thought there WAS a sleeping policeman somewhere.

Sue Grafton: C is for Corpse

Kinsey is recovering from the injuries she sustained in B is for Burglary (I presume), which I've read but can't recall precisely at the moment. I think there was a shoot-out in an office. Anyway, so she's working out at the gym when she befriends a young man also in recovery. Nine months ago is was in a bad car accident, which killed his friend and left him badly hurt and with memory losses. Only money and effort has gotten him out of the hospital bed. He confides in Kinsey, saying that he can't remember precisely why, but he is sure that his accident was a deliberate murder attempt, to keep him from revealing something he knew. He hires Kinsey to investigate. Four days later he is dead, in another car crash. Etc, Kinsey investigates, etc she finds the villain. And also saves Henry the landlord from a golddigger.

The ending is a bit lame-ish tbh, but there are several good Kinsey moments in the book. Not a favourite, however. Though I was thinking while reading it that this earlier Kinsey is more mellow and human than later on. Possibly some time when I'm on maternity leave I'll re-read one of the later books to see what I'm after. After all, I haven't read S, and then I must expect T-Z before Grafton is done....

Just added labels!

This new Blogger thing is a right lark for a computer ignoramus like myself! However, if I'd been smart I'd've done them surname first. *doh* I only thought of that half-way through (had to add them all manually), and then I couldn't be arsed. No no no. Nevertheless, I quite like this list.

I've got a problem though - since converting it seems like the quotes I write (have written?) turn up in white writing. That's not good. They're not secret. I'm not sure why this happened, or how to fix it. Hm. *baits possible smart readers*

I shall now label this post as miscellaneous. *smirk*

Jess Walter: Land of the Blind

I don't know if it's actually considered a genre, but in my mind there seems to be a particular kind of American novel dealing with growing up in the 60s/70s. Something about the way the author is both nostalgic for that time of comparative innocence, yet often writes very bluntly about childhood cruelties and emerging sexuality.

The frame for the novel is once again the Spokane police department, and once again Caroline Mabry (as in Over Tumbled Graves). It isn't a part of a series though, I like that, it stands alone ad does it well. A man is taken in to the police station saying that he wants to confess, and, at a loss, Mabry gives him pen and paper and lets him start to write. He writes and writes, and tells the tale of growing up poor in Spokane, of the most-bullied kid in school who eventually becomes his friend, of loyalties and sex, of wanting to be rich and looked-up to. Mabry begins to suspect that possibly he really has killed someone, and starts looking for this someone while he is still writing.

I think Walter really managed the balance between novel and crime fic frame well here. Towards the end there is a heightening of pace, as we begin to anticipate a violent act, and instead of feeling disappointed when it fizzes out I felt like it was appropriate. It wasn't a thriller. In the end it's just Mabry and the confessor, Clark Mason, waiting for sunrise. I liked it.

I was going to write some quotes, but I'm a little too tired. I recommend it anyway.

In other news, today I tried to buy books for friends and failed. I find it soooo hard to buy books for others, I don't know why. I kind of know what I'd like to get them, but what if they don't like it? Indecision, indecision....

I'm the worst eejit.

Remember this post? Yet, only two posts ago I had forgotten I'd read Andrew Taylor. God help me anyway.

The doctor prescribed me a very mild sedative to help me sleep. I think I need it.