Sparky and the Dipshit – “Having a Big Brother”

Sparky and the Dipshit

Rod Russell-Ides

Fireside Publishing

284 pages, $17.95

I love the title of this book, Sparky and the Dipshit. I wish it were mine. As a matter of  fact I do have a movie review site that is pretty damn close. It is: www.SpankyAndJohnGoToTheMovies.com.

Can’t believe this is Rod’s first book, though he admits to help from his writer wife and editor (plus others). He baits the hook then allows us time to squirm while he spins a drama-building back story (his doctor father was a philanderer, his mother somewhat alcoholic, and, of course, there is the Midwest vs. the East Coast dynamics which people like me, from Wisconsin, love). Yet certain chapters, like the one on the death of Uncle Marion, are very moving.

I admit to having had an older brother, and therefore connected with the story line immediately. But there are elegant passages, too, that put real meat on the bone:

Exploring the abandoned dreams of Kansas farmers, I discovered a harsh land. It seemed some lives lead nowhere, dried up with the wind that harried the grasslands, leaving traces of something having come this way and passed on. In one old house, I found clothes still on hangers in a closet. A broken doll. Old letters held together with yellowing string.

This book is a product of the publishing revolution. Why should we wait twenty years for someone (like us) to tell a story we want to hear (our story). Sure a lot of the Kindle and publish-on-demand stuff is crap, but so is 90% of everything else.

This book did find a traditional publisher and thank god, a reader (me) who is inspired by it. As Rod Russell-Ides says he is a true believer in “the mystery right side the door.”

Way to go, Dipshit!

Order directly from Amazon, click: Sparky and the Dipshit

Cocktail Waitress – “Bad Title, Good Book”

Cocktail Waitress

by James M. Cain

Hard Case Crime Novel

270 pages, 13.44 hardback

It’s easy to skip over this last, and previously unpublished, novel by James M. Cain (best known for Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice

THE TWENTY YEAR DEATH – “She was beautiful. He was damned.”

The Twenty-Year Death, Publisher: Hard Case Crime,  Hardcover $25.99, Kindle $7.79, 700 pages 

This Kindle book has an unusual form. There are three connected crime stories and each part is written in the style of a famous mystery story author. The first one was suppose to be that of Georges Simenon (to be honest I found it tiresome). The second is Raymond Chandler-ish. And the last owes much to Jim (The Killer Inside Me) Thompson.

The first part brings in someone new at the end of the book who is responsible for the death of French prisoners found dead outside of a prison. The second, has a murdered who is the deranged son of the head of a movies studio. Again, we don’t get real scenes with him and don’t much care because we’re not personally connected with the central character. The last story is the one that works, we care about the narrator and the resolution fits the crime (he accidentally killed his estranged son).

REX AND THE CITY – “To the Dogs”

Rex and the City

by Lee Harrington

Villard (June 26, 2007)

272 pages, paperback $11.88

This is a book you will love if you have a dog and won’t bother to finish if you don’t. But using how a dog is treated by each member of a couple is a wonderful metaphor for their relationship.

THE CAT’S APPRENTICE – “A Cat Is Trying to Murder Me”

The Cat’s Apprentice 

by Wednesday Lee Friday

StoneGarden.net Publishing

180 pages, 2008, $9.95

This is a totally original book that works. We start with two women who distrust each other at a high school reunion, follow their disastrous lives…then see a resolution through the eyes of metamorphosed cats.

It is a totally confusing jig saw puzzle that all fits together in the end (and by the end I mean the last page). Just when the hippie-witchcraft stuff starts to lose you, we are back to a real-life drama with surprising ramifications (ram-i-fi-cat-ions).

THE MUSEUM OF HAPPINESS – “Not Quite”

The Museum of Happiness by Jesse Lee Kercheval

Terrace Books, U of Wisconsin Press

278 pages, 2003, $17.95

This rather involved book of romance, lost and found, ends with the invention of television. At first this seems to come out of nowhere, but in fact TV is metaphoric of the book’s organization, slipping from location to location, present to past (not just in the telling of the story, but in the characters’ own minds). I remember reading Marshall McLuhan in college. He categorized television as a “cool medium” because it took more participation by viewers to match the intensity of novels, movies and even the theater. We may be less personally involved with any one character but can see a wider range – like happens with this book, seeing the young boy Roland as well as the adolescent and adult.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FILM NOIR – “It’s always night.”

The Philosophy of Film Noir by Mark T. Conrad, 2006

244 pages, The University Press of Kentucky, 27.99

 

 

The emphasis is on “philosophy” but some of the essays, such as, “The Darker Shade: Realism in Neo-Noir” and Jerold J. Abrams take on the different kinds of mazes and how they are reflected in various stages of Noir make for insightful reading. Plus there are the endless titles that will send you to your library’s on-line catalog.

Here’s my own take:

To order this book driectly from Amazon for $24.95, click: The Philosophy of Film Noir (The Philosophy of Popular Culture)

LIFE ITSELF: A MEMOIR BY ROGER EBERT – “Aren’t They Those Two Guys?”

Life Itself: A Memoir by Roger Ebert, 2011

448 pages, Grand Central Publishing, 27.99

Usually our “butting heads” approach to books is pitting one of them against another, but in the case of this Roger Ebert autobiography, we thought it might be interesting to invite our movie review critics, John and his dog. Spanky, in from the other room to get their take.

JOHN: Well this long book has some ups and downs, mainly because I think a reader goes to it for some specific interest (behind the scenes on his relationship with Gene Siskel or Ebert’s take on famous movie directors) and then

HOT ROD MAGAZINE – “Baddest”

Hot Rod Magazine, All the Covers by Drew Hardin

Motorbooks,  2011

256 pages, $35 (hardback)

It is hard looking at this to not remember those days, years ago, standing in a drugstore, reading car magazines for free. Fantasies of revved up cars are as close as most of us ever got to hot rods. Though I did know one guy who sold his Harley Davidson a few years ago to buy one—it never left his garage.

Skimming over the hot rod’s history, it all seemed to begin on those dry lake flats. Then it was the phantom-like Mercury and Lincoln customs, muscle cars, and finally…automobiles became too expensive to mess with. They were no longer every boy’s dream, but rather family vans.

Forget all the hot roadsters and hopped-up engines, the magazine cover from May 1952 embodied every young man’s ideal. It is a pointed breast co-ed crossing the street in front of two guys in a souped-up red, V8. This was sex appeal. If you were of those teen-age years then you might get a kick of this retrospective (there’s even a cover of Dragnet’s Jack Webb admiring the engine of a “big rod”). But times changed (even though they launched a swimsuit edition long before Sports Illustrated).

I dunno, maybe we grew up.

Buy this directly from Amazon for $23. Click: Hot Rod Magazine All the Covers

MURDER IN LASCAUX – “Sorta Bland”

Murder in Lascaux by Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden

Terrace Books (University of Wisconsin Press), 2011

284 pages, $26.95 (cloth)

This is the kind of book that you are glad when it is finished. Not because it isn’t good—murder in prehistoric caves, hidden French/German collaboration, endless meals and a cooking school—but because you’ve had enough. The cast of characters is OK and it is interesting how a book written by a couple focuses on the perspective of the female character.

Let me add that the parallels between modern family members and those of the past give the reader some first- hand involvement. And the last sentence of the book is one of the best I have ever read.

Thoroughly researched, I would recommend this for those attracted to historic writing or writing about place. Though there are surprises to keep you wondering, the story lacks a dramatic arc. I fault the fastidiousness of the authors. Had they played even a little looser with events Murder in Lascaux might have proved a more exciting journey.

Order directly from Amazon for $17. Click: Murder in Lascaux