Literary Life and L.A. Noir

Larry McMurtry's second installment in his planned trilogy of memoirs, "Literary Life", was about as disappointing as I expected it to be, especially after last year's "Books". It was incredibly short and didn't discuss his writing career at all, really. It was mostly disjointed ramblings about people he knew whose names I don't recognize. The one thing I took away from it was that he thinks "Duane's Depressed" is a better novel than "Lonesome Dove". Really, Larry? Really? That's the strangest thing I've ever heard in my life. It's really a shame because he has been around so long and has led such a fascinating life that his memoirs would be sure to be a hoot and a half, if done properly.
"L.A. Noir" by John Buntin was amazing--history brought to life. I was really looking forward to this one after reading "A Bright and Guilty Place", and it didn't disappoint. He boiled down the sprawling urban center that is Los Angeles by telling the more intimate story of two of its most interesting and polar opposite residents: former police chief Bill Parker and notorious gangster Mickey Cohen. The story of how Parker took what was arguably the most corrupt police department in America and turned it into his own vision of military precision and elitism is fantastic, and the anecdotes about the colorful Cohen are charming. Great read.

30 Days of Night

The graphic novel the movie is based on, "30 Days of Night" by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, was kind of sparse compared to the movie (which is really awesome, by the way), but I liked it. It was gritty and angry and moved at a quick pace and the artwork was very grotesque.

Another Faust

I read a review of David and Dina Nayeri's "Another Faust" and it seemed like a really interesting idea: a group of five very talented teenagers move to New York with their beautiful governess and quickly take over an exclusive private school. Each one of them is uniquely "gifted" and talented beyond belief. Now, I don't criticize books very often, I really don't. Even if I don't like them a whole lot, I can usually find some redeeming quality to mention. There were none with this book. It was awful. The writing was over the top unbelievable (and this from the girl who loved "Twilight", mind you). The storyline was full of holes and loose ends that never got tied up. At one point one of the characters asks another one "What's going on?" and that pretty much summed up the whole book for me. I had no idea what was going on and I didn't really care. Why I stuck with it for four days and finished it, I don't know. It was a complete and utter waste of time.

Billy the Kid; Touch of Dead

"Billy the Kid" by Michael Wallis presented the facts, scarce as they are, about the man who came to be known as Billy the Kid, Henry McCarty, later Henry Antrim. Over the years there has been so much speculation and so many mangled facts about the Kid that Wallis set forth to debunk, and he did a good job, not only of explaining about the Kid but really painting a vivid picture of what life was like during that time. I will never, ever believe that Pat Garrett shot and killed him at Pete Maxwell's ranch, though. I'm much happier believing he lived a long life, hidden in plain sight :-)
"Touch of Dead" by Charlaine Harris had a bunch of short stories featuring Sookie Stackhouse, her telepathic waitress. I enjoyed them, and I'm not normally a big short story person. It was just a fun, light, quick read that filled in some backstory to some of the books.

Fordlandia; The Road Out of Hell

Two very different nonfiction titles, but both were very good in their own ways. First up, "Fordlandia" by Greg Grandin. Interesting how ahead of his time Henry Ford was in a lot of ways, such as paying above average wages (this was before unions) and providing free health care to his employees and their families. With the price of rubber so high, he embarked on a grand adventure to build a sort of automotive manufacturing utopia in the Amazon named Fordlandia to grow rubber trees to produce latex. While an excellent idea in theory, it wasn't put into practice very well and he ended up hiring people who had no idea how to go about setting up a plant in the Amazon, let alone anything about growing rubber trees.
"The Road Out of Hell" by Anthony Flacco was a disturbing true crime book about a true sicko--Stewart Northcott, who held his nephew, Sanford Clark, hostage on his chicken ranch in Wineville, California (now Mira Loma) in the late 1920s. He abused the boy, put him through some real horrors, and made him help clean up after his murders. Uncle Stewart liked to kidnap young boys and kill them, including young Walter Collins (the recent Angelina Jolie movie "The Changeling" was about Walter's kidnapping). Poor Sanford felt so responsible for his part in his uncle's awful crimes, even though he was truly a victim as well, that even though he spent the rest of his life doing good in the world, he never was able to forgive himself. It broke my heart when his son described how, on his deathbed, he told his dad he loved him and his dad's last words to him were "Why?". Oh! Poor man. There's a special place in Hell for people like Northcott.