A Clown in a Cornfield

 

I wanted to read something silly, since I'm in the middle of a bunch of big nonfiction books, and I thought a YA horror might fit the bill. 

It's pretty hard to sum it up without some spoilers, so for the two people out there who read my blog, you've been warned. 

In a small midwestern town, the town elders (who are my age, by the way, so Gen X) are so disgusted with their teenagers' liberal, progressive beliefs that they decide there is only one thing to do: kill them all.

Okay, let me pause for a second here. I'm willing to suspend disbelief, especially in the case of horror books. And sure, maybe some people feel the only thing to do with someone who disagrees with you is brutally murder them, but I'm pretty confident those folks are few and far between. Convincing AN ENTIRE TOWN of adults to murder their kids just seems like a bit of a stretch. There isn't one adult who is not a right-wing fascist? Not a single teenager who isn't woke? No. Okay then. 

So, putting that aside, the adults dress up as the town mascot, Frendo, (a super creepy clown, hence the title) and go after the kids as they're partying in (you guessed it!) a cornfield. The super hilarious ironic thing is that the pro-hunting teen with the truck full of guns ends up saving the day. 

I don't think the author intended for it to be so hysterically funny, and yet, it was so on the nose I couldn't help it. And not only that, but he talked one of the girls who was really anti-gun into arming herself and she turned into a total killing machine. I guess guns are okay? Is that the message? I'm not sure (I am being a touch sarcastic 😂). Anyway, had the premise not been so insanely ridiculous I probably would have enjoyed it more, but I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes and shaking my head. And laughing at all the wrong places. At least it was a quick read!

The Shards; The House without Windows: Kitchen Confidential; Capote's Women

 

I wish Ellis published books more often. This was magnificent. 

Supposedly autobiographical (it isn't really), Bret is a senior at the Buckley Academy in L.A. in 1981. He and his group of super pretty, super rich, super drugged out all the time friends rule the school. A new student, Robert, joins them. Bret recognizes him from a movie theater almost a year earlier (Bret thought he was good looking, so he remembered him) but Robert denies he's been in L.A. that long. Turns out Robert has some disturbing secrets. But then again, so does L.A.: young women are disappearing, being brutally mutilated and murdered. The press has dubbed the killer the Trawler, and Bret gets it in his head that Robert has something to do with the Trawler. 

Almost no one does unreliable narrator as well as Ellis, and the ending left a lot to interpretation. It was so well told and so creepy. Loved it. 

The story behind "The House without Windows" is actually more interesting than the book itself.

Barbara Newhall Follett was only 9 when she wrote the original manuscript, which ended up being destroyed in a fire. Barbara lovingly rewrote it (it was supposed to be a gift for her mother) from the ages of 10-12. Her father, who was an editor, was so impressed with her prose that he was able to show it off at Alfred Knopf and the book was published to critical acclaim. Barbara became a bestselling author and published another story about her adventures sailing. "The House without Windows" is about a little girl named Eepersip, who leaves home to live in the wild. It was a very sweet love letter to the great outdoors and her descriptions were quite vivid without being over the top.

Now the super interesting part: Barbara vanished at the age of 25, never to be seen again. Her husband failed to report her missing for two weeks, but he was never seriously investigated for her disappearance. Her body was never found. What a sad ending to a promising start, a budding talent in the publishing industry cut tragically short. 

I've read a few biographies about Bourdain over the last few months, and they made me nostalgic for his own kind of storytelling, so I decided to reread "Kitchen Confidential". I read it when it first came out and was blown away by his tales (the bride in the very beginning definitely has sticking power, but so do a lot of his stories). It was just as much fun as I remember it. The world really lost something when he left, far too early. 

And finally, "Capote's Women". I've been trying to read this book for years (off and on) and never getting very far. It's an easy one to put down and move on to something else. It was mostly separate biographies of each of Capote's "swans", the gorgeous New York café set that Truman was able to infiltrate. Everyone wanted Truman as a dinner guest: he was witty and charming and men weren't intimidated by him since he wore his sexuality proudly. 

Capote committed the cardinal sin of exposing his swans' secrets in print in 1975, and was shunned by all except a few who were spared his poison pen. Why he chose to hurt the people who were so good to him for so long is a mystery. I think he thought he was so likeable he could get away with it, that they would forgive him, but he was very mistaken. Truman spiraled in his last years, becoming a drunk and a drug addict, and died in Joanna Carson's spare room. A sad ending for such a promising beginning. 

Down and Out in Paradise

 

I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this one just yet. It wasn't bad. Nothing really new. Leerhsen has a snarky, sarcastic sort of tone that normally I enjoy but for some reason it rubbed me the wrong way in this book. Maybe because Bourdain is dead and isn't here to defend himself? I'm just not sure. It mostly made me want to reread "Kitchen Confidential" and rewatch "No Reservations". 

The Big Bundle

 

I love Collins' Heller books. This one was great. 

The first part takes place in 1953. One of Heller's business associates (a legitimate one), Bob Greenlease, calls Heller for help: his six year old son, Bobby, has been kidnapped. Bob has been doing everything by the book with the kidnappers, trying to meet their demands. Including rounding up a $600,000 ransom. But the instructions the kidnappers have given so far have been vague and they haven't been able to make the drop. He wants Heller to see if he can use his underworld connections to find out who these guys are. Heller does, and unfortunately the news is bad: the kidnappers killed little Bobby Greenlease the day they kidnapped him. There was never any hope of Bob getting his son back alive. Half of the ransom money is recovered, which leads to the second half of the book. Five years later, Bob asks Heller if he can find out what happened to the other $300,000. He doesn't care about getting the money back, he's just sick at the idea of someone making money off his son's murder. Heller once again dives into the seedy underbelly of Kansas City and justice is finally served in the sad case of little Bobby Greenlease's kidnapping.   

Pulp; Patriot Games

 

One of my colleagues and I were chatting about Mickey Spillane a few weeks ago and he recommended this book to me. It's a total spoof of the Mike Hammer books. 

Nicky Belane is a down on his luck PI in L.A. who is asked to find the Red Sparrow, find out if a man who hangs out at a local rare book shop is a famous French author who was rumored to have died, catch a wife whose husband suspects she's cheating on him, and help out a man who has been brainwashed by an alien. Somehow they all tied together. The book was pretty hysterical and a super quick read. 

I started reading "Patriot Games" a few months ago as an eBook in Libby and my loan ran out. I literally had ten pages left to go, too. Luckily I had a copy of the book at home in print, so I finally read the last little bit. It was good, I really enjoyed it!

Jack Ryan, his wife Cathy, and their daughter Sally are in London on vacation when Ryan foils an attempted kidnapping of the Prince and Princess of Wales (it takes place in the early 1980s). The Windsors take them in and shower them with appreciation, even knighting Ryan. When the Prince and Princess come to America a few months later, they have dinner with the Ryan family. Another kidnapping attempt from the same faction of the Irish Republican Army ensues, and the group flees on a boat. The Marines, local police, and sailors from the Naval Academy all get involved in the chase and capture of the terrorists. It was really thrilling, and I loved the mental image of Prince Charles driving a boat and firing a gun.