Godfather

The Godfather by Mario Puzo, 479 pages

The Godfather tells the colorful story of mob boss Vito Corleone and his children - volatile eldest son Santino, gentle middle child Fredo, unfortunate daughter Connie, and rebellious youngest son Michael, who turns out to be the most ruthless of all.  With the films being the cultural touchstones they are, the basic tale will be well known to most, although there are some differences between page and screen.  The book includes details of Vito's rise to power that were used as the basis of his story in The Godfather Part II, but does not include any of Michael's parallel story from that film.  The book fleshes out a number of supporting characters to varying degrees, notably Joey Fontane and Lucy Mancini, and although their subplots have little to do with the main narrative, they do explore the way the Corleone empire of influence operates.  On the other hand, with the book ending where it does, Fredo is almost a complete nonentity.

Mario Puzo had a long and successful career as a pulp writer, and it shows here, in his crude effectiveness or effective crudity.  All of the lyricism of the films is absent from the novel, replaced with a fixation on sex and genitalia, especially male genitalia.  There is also a great deal of artless repetition - the narrator tells us exactly what Woltz paid for his prize racehorse, for example, only a few pages before Woltz tells us himself.  If this artlessness has an unexpected positive side, it is that it strips the central themes naked.  The confrontation between the values of the Family and the values of America is presented with a minimum of subtlety.  Bonasera wanted to leave behind the obligations of the traditional patron-client relationships for the rootless freedom of his adopted homeland.  The movie producer Woltz uncomprehendingly ponders the values of men who would destroy a six hundred thousand dollar thoroughbred just to send a message.  Michael only grows to understand his father by being involuntarily immersed in Sicilian culture.  The novel is, if anything, less confident that bourgeois morality will prove superior to the feudal ethic, a lack of confidence highlighted by Kay's arc.

The Paragon Hotel

The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye   432 pages

In this beautifully written novel, the Paragon Hotel is based on Portland, Oregon’s, Golden West Hotel, which was a haven for people of color, mainly African Americans, from 1906 to 1931. Author Faye says in the Historical Note that the descriptions she uses of the hotel is as accurate as she can make them. She did a great job, as I felt I knew the place inside out.

At the core of this novel is racism. I found is horrifying to learn that in the 1844, prior to statehood, Oregon’s Legislative Committee did its best to make the territory exclusively white. History shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. Oregon was “the only state of among the fifty ever to explicitly deny blacks the right and live and work there.” Since the NOW sections of the novel take place in 1921, this denial is most apparent. The THEN sections of the story provide the backstory that helps the reader understand the blacks’ plight.

Alice “Nobody” James is on the run from the New York Mafia with a bullet wound in her side. She boards a train bound westfor Portland. She is very sick by the time she arrives. She befriends Max, the black porter who takes pity on her, and takes her to the Paragon, a haven for “small and increasingly besieged black population.” The fact that Nobody is white makes them uneasy. Most of the residents like, or at least interested in Nobody, but not everyone.

 

Still, Nobody fits right in. That’s her super power, to be able to remain totally forgettable no matter what situation she finds herself in. She makes friends with most of the residence, especially cabaret singer Blossom Fontaine, who reminded me a lot of The Lady Chablis from “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”

As Nobody heals, a young boy goes missing. As the search progresses more and more dirty little secrets come to life.

This book is complex with its dualing timelines and threads of  mental illness, the Mob, racism, love, friendship, secrets, romance---all set against the backdrop of a hotel exclusively for people pf color. Faye has a wonderful writing style. Nobody’s language is dead-on for a gun moll. It isn’t forced whatsoever. Faye has the ability to take tired old clichés and similes and make them new and bright. I wish I had marked some of them.

 “The Paragon Hotel” receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Jaws 2

Jaws 2 by Hank Searls, 244 pages

"Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..."

The small town of Amity, New York, is still recovering years after a series of deadly shark attacks gave it an unfortunate reputation with the summer tourists it depends upon to survive.  The town's hopes are now pinned on legalized gambling, with a real estate developer already beginning construction on a new casino in anticipation of Albany's consent.  Police Chief Martin Brody, the man who killed the killer shark, is also recovering after his traumatic experiences, as is his older son, Mike, who saw a man eaten alive mere feet away from him.  At least there isn't much police work in the quiet town, until an ornery vacationing cop shoots a seal on the beach, and Brody ends up with a wounded baby seal convalescing in his garage and an angry cop cooling off in his jail.  Brody's stubborn unwillingness to drop the case leads to trouble with the state authorities, endangering the casino deal, and this concerns some shady characters who provided some of the developer's financial backing, the kind of men who are willing to take drastic measures to protect their investment.

And, also, a shark is eating people.  

The film Jaws 2, sometimes derisively referred to as "Jaws the 13th" for its aping of slasher movie tropes, is a very different beast from its novelization.  The movie largely rehashes the first film's plot, with Brody recognizing the danger and fighting to take the necessary precautions against the resistance of the mayor and town council, who fear the financial disaster that will result, all while the shark picks off victims a couple at a time.  In the novelization, Brody doesn't even know another shark is out there until three-quarters of the way through, just in time for the climax.  The involvement of organized crime in the Amity real estate market, which is the real focus of the novelization, was alluded to in the original novel Jaws, and was apparently part of an early script for Jaws 2 before being dropped, leaving behind the vestigial character of Len Peterson, the real estate developer who is Ellen Brody's boss in the film (but not the book).  Although Searls deserves credit for not merely repeating what was done before, he negates that goodwill by reducing the killer shark to a mere subplot, especially when his main plot is not particularly interesting.

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

 

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans by Gary Krist    448 pages

I’ve always been fascinated with New Orleans. It’s such a contradictory city, with a touch of evil hovering over it, and an unsavory feel that often makes me nervous to visit. Yet, the foods that come from that part of the country are unparalleled.

Until I read Gary Krist’s nonfiction piece, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans, I had come to believe that the debauchery of the 1960s through the ‘70s was at its height there. To me, and what I knew about the city, New Orleans made Las Vegas seem like a night out for nuns and priests.

Krist focuses on a scant thirty years, from 1890 to 1920. When I first realized that the book 448 and that 105 of them were the bibliography, notes, and index, I was a little overwhelmed, afraid that the writing would be too deep for me to sink my teeth into. However, Krist’s has written an easy-to-read narrative that held me attention from the beginning.

I enjoyed reading/learning about such characters and places as Storyville (where the city tried to coral its vice) and Tom Anderson (its unofficial mayor). There were the madams like Lulu White and Josie Arlington. There were the saloons and gambling houses. There was the immigrant population---Italians, whom too seemed to be in the same mess today’s illegals are in. I ws mesmerized by the corruption that ran rampart from the slums to the highest echelons of state government. Old Huey Long was a saint compared to some men back then; they make today’s politicians looks like humble old ladies.

I knew that New Orleans was a port-of-entry for many Italians, and they lived in slums and ghettos that reminded me of New York’s tenements. And I had learned of “Little Sicily” from a PBS special, The Italian-Americans.

There are three areas in the book that I really enjoyed reading: First, of course, are the jazzmen. Guys like Robert Charles, Buddy Bolden, Jellyroll Martin---how they created the music form that we now know as jazz, and how hard it was a musician wanted more than a gig in a whore house.

Second, was the Mafia or the Black-Hand. Krist could have delved into that more in my opinion, but still the rise and fall still fascinated me.

Third, the serial killer, The Axeman, seemed to target the Italians.  Brutality knows no generation.

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans is an easy read that I highly recommend. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.

White Trash Zombie tetralogy

My Life as a White Trash Zombie, Even White Trash Zombies get the Blues, White Trash Zombie Apocalypse, and How the White Trash Zombie got her Groove back by Diana Rowland, 320, 312, 311 and 328 pages (1271 pages)

I had to Google what a four part series is called and websites insisted that tetralogy was the proper term. I guess if it is not people will certainly let me know in the comments.

I am not quite sure how I came across this series. I think that it was a recommendation based on what I had read and again I think that Alice in Zombieland is what triggered the recommendation. I could link my review of that here, but you can find it I am sure.

Basically Angel Crawford is a zombie. Not the kind that is shuffling around aimlessly trying to hunt down someone and eat their brains but the kind the looks just like you and me. Well as long as she has had some brains in the past week or so, otherwise she will start to rot. Luckily she lands a job working at the coroners office and has access to all the brains she needs.

But things start going horribly wrong when other suspected zombies start showing up beheaded. Then there is the zombie mafia, boyfriends, and trying to hold down a job while trying not to rot away.

I like the direction this series takes with the classic zombie idea. In White Trash Zombie world it is a parasite that makes you a zombie. Since this parasite lives in its human host it give that host speed, strength and regeneration abilities simply to protect itself. The downside is it needs brains to survive. This scenario seems a lot more plausible than other zombie fiction and helps make it more believable.

On the whole this series is pretty good. I was not a fan of the titles and I think I got some weird looks reading these books on the bus, but it was worth the read.

Despite the fact that I have caught up with the author, I don't think this series is quite done yet, and certainly has many more possibilities to explore if it wants to.

Little Blue Lies

Little Blue Lies by Chris Lynch, 217 pages

Oliver would be heartbroken when Junie Blue breaks up with him except for the fact that he refuses to accept it.  He continues to call her and show up at her house.  Her father, Ronny, who never liked him anyway, takes delight in tormenting him with tidbits but no real information about June.  June, one of the strongest characters I’ve ever seen in a book, doesn’t mind O hanging around, except when she does, and then she tells him to buzz off.  Because O is no fool, he goes away when he’s told.  O’s biggest problem is that he’s pretty sure that June still loves and needs him, and he also suspects that she may be in trouble but he isn’t sure how to help, especially when she’s pushing him away.  This is a good romance for teens, told from the perspective of O, so it might have some appeal to boys too.