Philip: the Final Portrait

 

I was very excited for this book, since I was such a big fan of Prince Philip's, until I started reading it and realized it was basically "Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage", which Brandreth published almost 20 years ago. Had I known going into it I wouldn't have been as disappointed. While it was updated a bit, it seemed a slapdash sort of thing: the text talked about Philip in the present tense, especially in the footnotes, but occasionally in the past tense. One footnote referred to a list of Prince Philip's titles on page 420, but because of the added material the list was actually around page 460 or so. Not a huge deal, but things like that bug me. Doesn't anyone proofread anymore? 

All in all, I felt like Prince Philip deserved a little better.

The Ultimate Evil

 

I didn't know much about the Son of Sam case. I knew David Berkowitz was caught after he got a parking ticket at the last crime scene and that he claimed his neighbor's dog was possessed by a demon that commanded him to kill. 

Maury Terry got involved in 1977 after the last murder. He was an investigative journalist (he passed away in 2015) and something about the official story of the crime scene didn't sit right with him, so he started digging. He came to the conclusion that Berkowitz did not act alone and kill all the victims, he wasn't the only "Son of Sam".

I'm willing to believe that. The composite sketches taken at various crime scenes are different. The police tried to explain it away by saying Berkowitz wore a wig, which is why sometimes he had long, dirty blond hair. Some of the victims and their family members didn't buy it either. 

Here's where things went a bit off the rails for me. Terry tried to make the case that Berkowitz was part of a nationwide, if not worldwide, occultist group that was responsible for murders all over America. He tried to loop the Manson murders into the whole thing (apparently Sharon Tate was a practicing witch and Abigail Folger used to date Charlie, plus Rosemary LaBianca was a well known supplier of drugs to the cult). Ted Bundy was part of it and killed for them. And on and on.

I think Terry truly had the very best of intentions. He knew Berkowitz was guilty of some of the Son of Sam crimes (he was) but he also knew he wasn't the only one. I think Berkowitz is a pretty intelligent guy, and he took advantage of Terry's eagerness to solve the case to mess with his head and got the poor man chasing his tail. Terry was seeing witches under the bed. Everything that happened was linked to this occult group. He tried *so hard* to make it seem believable, but I think he got to the point where he couldn't see the forest for the trees. I really felt bad for him. The first half of the book was very interesting, but once he got into the occult stuff I had a hard time following along and finishing it. 

Russians

 

I'm fascinated by Russia. I've been trying (not very diligently, I must admit) to learn Russian for a decade now. 

One of the things I find so interesting about a lot of my fellow Americans (not all, but some): they seem to think the rest of the world thinks like we do. They can't fathom people not being in favor of democracy and rights for everyone and freedom to criticize the government without fear of retaliation. It's so bred into our DNA that it's very difficult to understand that it's not the case for the entire world. People are different. We've been raised differently, in different cultures, and with different values. 

Feifer's mother was Russian, his parents met when his father was in Russian doing research for a book he wanted to write. Feifer was able to visit Russian in the early 90s, right after the fall of the Soviet Union, and he's visited quite a few times since. He talks about how ordinary Russians think and feel and do business. How they look at their leaders. One of the things I really liked about this book was that he didn't tar everyone with the same brush. He talked about the fact that some people like things the way they are and others don't. He talked about how some things have changed and yet others have not. A lot of folks miss communism and consider Stalin a great man. It was very interesting. And I promise, someday I will know more than just how to say "goodbye" and "vodka" in Russian :)

The Sound and the Fury

 

I haven't reread "The Sound and the Fury" in ages, I was long overdue. Hands down one of my favorite books, a brilliant masterpiece. It's a good thing I have a lot of nonfiction on deck, trying to read fiction after TSATF is always disappointing. Nothing can touch it. 

Told in four sections, TSATF follows the Compson family of Jefferson, Mississippi. The first section takes place in 1928 and is told by Benjy, the thirty-three year old youngest son who is intellectually disabled. It was a bold move on Faulkner's part to start the book out with such a confusing narrator, I know it turns a lot of folks off this book since it's not straightforward. Benjy jumps around in time, often in the middle of a sentence, and it can be daunting to stick with it. Well worth it, though. Benjy was very close to his older sister, Candace, known as Caddy. He keeps searching for her, day after day. 

The next section goes back in time to 1910, and is told by Quentin, the oldest son. Quentin's parents sold a pasture to send him to Harvard. Quentin was in love with his sister but couldn't bring himself to commit incest and the fact that his sister had to hastily marry a man she didn't know because she was pregnant with another man's child haunts him to the point where he kills himself. 

The third section is back in 1928 and is told by Jason, my favorite character. Jason was the third Compson child (after Quentin and Caddy). His brother went to Harvard, his sister got married, and Jason was supposed to get a job in a bank Caddy's husband owned, only he divorced her when he discovered she'd tried to trick him into giving her bastard child a name. Caddy sent her daughter, named Quentin after her brother, back home for her parents to raise. A year later her father died, leaving Jason to try to raise her with the help of his mother, who suffers from severe martyr issues, and Dilsey, the Negro cook. I have to admit, I feel sorry for Jason. He got screwed. Dilsey and his mother won't let him discipline Quentin at all, even though she needs it, so she runs wild. Of course Jason does obsess a little, trying so hard to catch her sneaking around. Oh, and he's been stealing the money Caddy sends for her upkeep, so there's that. Still, poor Jason.

The fourth and last section is told by an omnipotent narrator (it's frequently referred to as the Dilsey section). It's Easter Sunday, 1928, and Jason has discovered that he's been robbed. Someone broke the window in his room and made off with his money and Quentin is missing. Not hard to put two and two together on that one. While he's running around, trying to get the sheriff involved, Dilsey takes Benjy and her grandson, Luster (who is Benjy's current minder) to church. Dilsey reluctantly allows Luster to drive the carriage so Benjy can have his once a week outing, but when Luster doesn't turn the right way Benjy freaks out in the middle of the square. Jason sees it and comes running over, appalled that his brother is acting out in public. He rights the carriage, going the correct way and Benjy immediately calms down. All is right in his world again. And that's the end :)

Years later, Faulkner wrote an appendix which sort of tied some things up. A librarian finds a picture in a magazine of Caddy, in Europe with a Nazi officer. She shows it to Jason, who doesn't care, and then tracks down Dilsey in Memphis at her daughter's house, but Dilsey is nearly blind and can't see the picture. Caddy was always doomed, right from the start. We learn that Caroline died in 1933 and Jason shipped Benjy off to the state hospital in Jackson and sold what was left of the family house, moving into town. And thus ended the Compsons. 

Killer by Design

 

Dr. Burgess was an integral part of the beginning of the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI, working alongside profilers like Robert Ressler and John Douglas. Together they studied serial killers and helped local law enforcement catch others, like BTK and the Unabomber. It was interesting to see Ann's approach (from a more clinical point of view) versus books by John Douglas that I've read. And that was one of the points she made in this book, about why it was so important to have a team of profilers: everyone came at the problem with a different viewpoint and together they were stronger.  

Slewfoot; Ever Fallen In Love

 

I really enjoyed this one! How have I never heard of Brom before? I came across it completely by chance in the receiving room at my library, saw it on the cart and went "ooh, that looks like fun!". And it was.

Set in 1666 in Connecticut, Abitha, who is recently widowed, is trying to save her husband's farm, working the land herself. Her brother in law, Wallace, is trying to sabotage her at every turn so he can take the farm for himself. Abitha meets a creature called "Father", a half-man, half-goat beast who seems like a Godsend. He keeps her safe and helps her tap into the magic inside herself. With Father's help, her crops grow and she is able to pay off her debt to Wallace. This ignites his anger and he has Abitha arrested and tried as a witch. It was super creepy and tense. 

I bought this book thinking it was more a traditional biography about Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks, but it was actually a series of interviews Pete did with Louie before he passed away in 2018. Louie (not related to Pete) was apparently a *giant* Buzzcocks fan (she tried to make the case that Buzzcocks were better than the Beatles--quite a stretch, but I give her credit for her effort!) and asked Pete about the origin of each of the songs from Buzzcocks' earlier albums, before they broke up in the early 80s. I don't know if she would have gotten to their newer material if she'd had more time to interview him. It was a shame she didn't, because their 2003 album is my favorite. For hardcore Buzzcocks' fans, this book is a treasure. For a more casual fan like myself who doesn't have their entire catalog memorized, it was a bit boring. Still, Pete seems like he was a nice, intelligent guy and it's a shame he passed away so young. 

Great Circle

 

I really loved this book--at least the first half or so.

It had such a great beginning. Switching back and forth between Marian Graves, a female pilot in the 1930s and 40s who disappeared and was presumed lost after attempting to circle the globe from pole to pole, and Hadley, an actress in present day Hollywood, attempting to save her career after some major mistakes, who is cast to play Marian in a biopic. 

Marian and her twin brother, Jamie, were sent to Montana to live with their uncle Wallace after their mother vanishes and their father is sent to prison. Marian and Jamie pretty much raise themselves (Wallace is a gambler prone to drinking too much, a nice enough guy, but definitely not parent of the year material). Marian develops an early interest in flying and catches the eye of a bootlegger named Barclay. She has no interest in Barclay, but she does accept his offer of paying for flying lessons, with the caveat that she can run illegal booze in from Canada for him once she's able to fly on her own. 

Hadley's parents were killed in an airplane crash when she was little and she too was sent to her uncle Mitch, who was a lot like Wallace. She got into acting early and landed a plum role on a teen show, then as the lead in a series of supernatural romance films (I'm guessing a "Twilight" meets "Fifty Shades of Grey" sort of thing based on the description). She gets booted from the franchise for "not protecting the brand" (daring to have a life of her own) and is intrigued by her neighbor's suggestion that she audition for the role of Marian. Hadley read Marian's book when she was a little girl and felt draw to the pilot. 

And then we come to the second half and it felt like I was reading a completely different book. The first part was so richly detailed and the second part just felt glossed over and rushed. It was disappointing, considering it was almost 600 pages long. The balance could have been better, I think. And the ending was so clichéd it was almost painful. It's too bad, after such a great start, by the time the book turned I had invested too much time not to finish it. 

Boys Enter the House

 

I *really* wanted to like this book. I read Tim Cahill's "Killer Clown" about John Wayne Gacy years ago, not long after I read "Helter Skelter". I was horrified by the idea that he buried the bodies under his own house, with his wife and stepkids living there. He really led a double life, playing the clown on the weekends to sick kids in the hospital, murdering young men at night. Very creepy stuff. 

That being said, I didn't like this book. I loved the idea of putting the focus on the victims rather than Gacy. These young men had lives, families, friends, people who cared about them and worried about them when they didn't come home, searched for them for years, and mourned them when their bodies were pulled out of the muck under Gacy's house. Unfortunately, Nelson's writing style was very confusing. There were almost three dozen victims, and without a single picture to help put a name to a face, it was nearly impossible to keep everyone's story straight. It didn't help that a lot of these young men knew each other, grew up in the same neighborhood. I think the simple addition of pictures of each victim would have gone a long way to helping me. Nevertheless, I'm glad he told their stories. Such a tragedy. I just wish it would have been done a little bit better.