The Big Door Prize - M.O. Walsh

 

I have to admit right up front that the main reason I bought The Big Door Prize in the first place was because the first thought that popped into my head when I read its title was that hilarious country song "In Spite of Ourselves" sung by John Prine and Iris Dement. (I should add that the book was on sale in a Dollar Store I go into about twice a year for $1, too, so I didn't have a lot to lose by taking a chance on it.)

Well as it turns out, The Big Door Prize is a lot of fun.

The book opens with a short prologue that leads with this question:

How can you know that your whole life will change on a day the sun rises at the agreed-upon time by science or God or what-have-you and the morning birds go about their usual bouncing for worms?"

 For the little town of Deerfield, Louisiana it all begins on the day a mysterious new machine appears in the local grocery store, a machine that promises to use your DNA sample to tell you exactly what you are best suited for in life. For the paltry sum of two dollars you can find out what you are destined to be if you only have the courage to go for it. Soon enough, a surprisingly large segment of Deerfield's citizens have decided to go for it, and the town is unlikely ever to be the same again.

The townspeople are abruptly quitting their longtime jobs to become cowboys, musicians, magicians, survivalists living off the grid, and athletes. One woman even believes it is her destiny to marry into one of the world's royal families. Within just a few days marriages are threatened, lives are put in danger, and everyone seems happier with themselves than ever. But now the real question is where did the DNAMIX machine come from and who is behind it?

The Big Door Prize may not be the deepest novel in the world, but it manages to combine fun and humor with an exploration of the conflicts involved with remaining forever true to oneself if that comes into conflict with family and community responsibilities. There is also a much darker side plot interwoven throughout the novel that adds another reason to keep turning the pages of The Big Door Prize. If you're in the mood for something a little different, you might enjoy this one a lot. 

Listen carefully to the lyrics of "In Spite of Ourselves" and you'll see why the book title led me directly to thinking about one of my old favorites. 

She Wants to Be a Transhuman (courtesy of the BBC)

 Just a year or two ago, this would have seemed as ludicrous as a lot of the things we now take for granted. This YouTube video is from a BBC television show set in the near future. It's a heart-to-heart talk between a young woman and her parents about what she intends to do as soon as she can afford to transform herself into a "transhuman." 

It's clever, maybe even funny, but who knows how far away something like this might really be. Nothing much surprises me anymore. Don't give up on the video...it's really well done, I think.

Reavis Wortham & Joe Lansdale: In Conversation

I'm about halfway through Reavis Wortham's Burrows right now, and I'm enjoying it just as much as I enjoyed reading The Rock Hole, the first book in Wortham's Red River Mystery series. But that got me to wondering just who Reavis Wortham is and how I managed to miss his books for so long. I knew that Reavis is from North Texas, but that was about it...so I was pleased this morning to find this conversation that Wortham had on YouTube in January 2021 with another of my favorite Texas writers, Joe Lansdale. 

If you've read neither of these writers yet, you don't know what you're missing. Granted, I may "get" them more easily than someone who didn't grow up in Texas in the mid-twentieth century, but both these guys are such brilliant storytellers that I think you really need to take a look at their work. I'll be surprised if you don't fall in love with their writing. 

Lansdale is best known for his Hap & Leonard series (and the fairly awful TV series made from the books), but my favorite of his is a standalone called Paradise Sky. 

I've been reading Lansdale since the early eighties, but Wortham is much newer to me (his first novel was published in 2011) so I was surprised to hear him talk about a second series he already has into its fourth book. Lansdale is one of the more prolific novelists out there, and it looks like Wortham's output is adding up quickly. If you have the time - and patience - to listen to these guys until they get wound up, what they have to say about writing, publishing, their influences, etc. is really interesting. 

Tip: Around the 40-minute point of the conversation, the guys discuss the "woke culture," censorship, racism, realism, honesty, etc. 

Universal's "News of the World" to Be Released on December 25

 One of my all-time favorite books is 2016's News of the World by Paulette Jiles. I've mentioned it several times before here on Book Chase, but my enthusiasm (evangelism?) for the book has not lessened one little bit over the last four years. I was thrilled to hear that Universal had a movie version in the works starring Tom Hanks, and now it looks as if that movie will be Universal's Christmas gift to the world. 

I'm saddened, though, that it had to come along in the middle of this COVID-19 mess because that means I won't be experiencing its debut on the big screen. That said, here's a look at the trailer dropped by Universal ten days ago:

I understand that Westerns are not for everyone...but please don't cheat yourself out of enjoying the novel and the movie because of that. 

Trailer for New John Belushi Showtime Documentary

 

I remember March 6, 1982 like it was yesterday. That's the day I heard that John Belushi had died of an overdose, the day I cursed the drug culture out loud for claiming yet another of my favorite entertainers. Now, all these years later, Showtime is ready to debut a new documentary on Belushi's life - and death. 

Many of the people who knew him best participated in the film, so I'm hoping that it will be an honest, no-holds-barred, look at the man and the reckless lifestyle he and his friends were living in the early '80s. Among those who shared cocaine with Belushi on the last night of his life were Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, but they are barely the tip of the iceberg. I've read some of the books about Saturday Night Live and others about Belushi's life, but somehow, seeing Belushi in a documentary makes it seem even more real to me. 

I'm not a Showtime subscriber, so I may have to time a 7-day free trial just right in order to get a look at this one. 

This is the way I like to remember John:

"I give so much pleasure to so many people. Why can I not get some pleasure for myself?"  - John Belushi

At Least No One Is Scaring the Kids Half to Death Right Now

As bad as this whole Covid-19 pandemic seems to be (and really is), here's a reminder of what life was like in the 1950s when people my age were in elementary school. We were learning all about, and practicing, our "Duck and Cover" techniques every week so that we might survive a nuclear bomb if the Russians decided to drop one on us.

Take a look at this video aimed at children of that period in our history. I have no idea how this didn't scar us for the rest of our lives. Come to think of it, maybe it did.

Feeling Mortal

I have admired Kris Kristofferson's songwriting as long as I can remember. Kris is one of those bigger than life people who always strike me as living life pretty near the edge, and frankly, I never expected him to be around as long as he has. But as a fan, I am ever so thankful that the man has lived a long, productive life. 

This song, "Feeling Mortal," from about seven years ago is one of my favorite Kris Kristofferson songs ever. If Kris was feeling mortal in 2012, I can only imagine how he must be feeling right now (Kris is now 83 years old). 

And tonight, for obvious reasons, the song seems to fit perfectly the mood a lot of us are in.

Without Expiration - William R. Hincy (Book Trailer of the Week Series)

I have been a fan of well-produced book trailers for a long time, and I've been featuring them here on Book Chase since sometime in early 2012. Book trailers, I think, are an asset whose value is all too often underestimated by publishers and authors. In numerous cases, it was only because I stumbled upon a book trailer that I even became aware of the book's existence at all - and some of those serendipitous discoveries went on to become favorites of mine instead of forever remaining under my radar. 

The trailer below is in promotion of William R. Hincy's recently released paperback Without Expiration: 

Without Expiration is a collection of twelve of the author's short stories. I have not read the stories, but they appear to share the theme that personal mistakes do not come with expiration dates and that all of us are flawed - it's only a matter of degree - in one way or another. Or as the trailer puts it, "Are we bad people who sometimes do good things, or good people who do bad things?" 

And, in the long run, does it much matter?

William R. Hincy is a Los Angeles area writer whose work is described this way on his Amazon.com author's page: "...Hincy aspires to use literature to connect society on an emotional level through characters who no longer create messes but have instead become the mess." That may be a little too dark for some, but as a fan of noir fiction, I find it intriguing. 

And it all started with a book trailer.

New "Emma" Movie in 2020

Looks like there's another new Jane Austen movie coming out in February 2020, but that's not really why I'm sharing this new trailer for Emma today.

What really caught my attention is how cleverly this particular trailer is edited, and just generally so well done that I would now love to see the movie itself. It perfectly captures the sense-of-humor on display in the novel and leads me to believe that this one could really be fun. What do you think?

Motherless Brooklyn - The Book Is Now a Movie

It's time for another "Movies for Readers" post, this time on the soon-to-be-released film called Motherless Brooklyn. This one is based on an award-winning 1999 book of the same title written by Jonathan Lethem.  

The movie stars William Dafoe, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, and Edward Norton, but Norton was really the driving force behind getting the movie made. Norton started developing the novel into a film sometime in the early 2000s, and both Willis and Baldwin are said to have practically done the movie for free because of their friendship with Norton. Norton wrote, produced, and directed the movie.

1999 Book Cover and Author Jonathan Lethem

Shooting of the movie began in early 2018 but was halted because of an apartment building fire that started in an apartment being used as a movie set. A New York fireman was killed in the fire, and the fireman's widow (along with many residents of the building) ended up filing a lawsuit against Norton and his production company. Norton filed his own suit against the building owner, claiming that the man's negligence caused the fire and let it get out of hand before firefighters arrived. (It appears that this is all still ongoing - at least, I haven't been able to find any information regarding any kind of settlement of the suits.)

The story is set in 1950s Brooklyn and the main character of this hardboiled crime thriller is a private detective with Tourette Syndrome. I really like the look of this one, and it makes me want to go back and find the book, another one that flew right by me back in 1999 when it was published. I'm a big fan of Edward Norton and Bruce Willis, and I have generally been impressed by William DaFoe's work (and I can just about tolerate Alec Baldwin's acting) so this is one I want to see.

The Killer Bs - Bluegrass, Books, and Baseball!

I had every intention of driving to Austin this weekend to attend the 2019 Texas Book Festival. Then I started looking into the various sessions and came to the realization that everyone I most wanted to see required a "Friends" pass costing something like $100 - a ploy I find both distasteful and annoying. And then I started looking into the remaining sessions and found way too many of them featuring authors pushing a book with a political agenda (and this is Austin we are talking about, so I'll let you figure out which political agenda that is all by yourself...it's easy). Even some reporters from The New York Times are there with a session of their own about how the country has gone to hell and it's all my fault for not voting for Hillary in 2016. It just didn't look worth the 300-mile roundtrip and two nights in a hotel at the inflated Festival weekend rates to come away from the experience in a worse mood than I arrived with, so I opted to stay closer to home.

Just ten miles up the road is a little community called Tomball, and on the last Saturday of every October the town presents a little bluegrass music festival that I always enjoy. Since my video camera batteries were all charged up and I had the cameras packed in the trunk of my car anyway, I decided to make this a music weekend rather than a book one.

Here's a little taste of the great music (the bluegrass-uninitiated will have to bear with me on this one) that I enjoyed today:

Emily Dickinson as Farce

I don't have Apple TV, and I don't know anyone who does, but I'm hoping that someone can tell me (after this premiers in early November) if their Dickinson series is as weird as it appears to be from this trailer. It is kinda-sorta based on the life of Emily Dickinson, but her story is shown through what some publicist calls "modern sense and sensibility." I just can't believe that this will really work. Is it an atrocity or will it somehow get the Millennials out there to at least recognize Emily Dickinson's name when they hear it? I'm tending to think "dud" more than "atrocity." (I hope I'm wrong and this turns out to be good comedy, but based on what I see here I'm not holding my breath.)

I know they are not aiming this one at anyone even close to my age, but just what audience are they going for here? 12-year-old-girls-on-the-bookish-side seems to be a pretty small niche audience to be shooting for. Good luck with that, Apple TV.

The Bookshop - Movies for Readers

We have both Prime and Netflix in this house, and over time I have come to appreciate how unpredictable and surprising the movies on Prime can be compared to those on Netflix. And today, it is one of those Prime movies that has made my day: The Bookshop starring Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson, and Honor Kneafsey. The film is based on the supposedly well received novel of the same name by Penelope Fitzgerald (a novel I am completely unfamiliar with).

The movie had a very limited showing in the U.S in August 2018, and it is worth searching for on Prime or on disc. Just take a look at this trailer, and you will see what I mean:

Number 32 in the series "Movies for Readers"

Louise Penny and Inspector Gamache No. 15: A Better Man

I was very slow in discovering Louise Penny's wonderful Inspector Gamache novels, and I still haven't read the entire series. I'm not even sure what caused me to pick up Bury Your Dead back in December 2010, but that has to be one of the most rewarding book choices I made during that entire year because it opened up a whole new world to me. Penny's fictional village of Three Pines is so real to me that I feel like I've been there, and I always look forward to my annual visit there via her latest Gamache crime novel. I hope she keeps them coming for a long, long time because Gamache, even when he's in retirement or semi-retirement, is one hell of a cop.

The video below is a CBS Sunday Morning report from July 2017, but it offers some insight into Penny and the relationship she has with her devoted fanbase. I got to thinking about her this morning while at Barnes & Noble because her fifteenth Inspector Gamache novel, A Better Man, will be available next Tuesday (August 27), and I want to grab a copy early on even if I don't immediately read it. Am I the only one who sometimes put my favorites away so that I can enjoy the anticipation of reading them? It's almost like I know I have some extra money in the bank. Weird, right?

One of my more hopeless book projects is to put together a hardback collection of all the Gamache books, so I jumped all over the two that I found on a B&N remainders table this morning: A Great Reckoning and Glass Houses. And then over lunch with a friend, the subject came up and he went out to his car and retrieved a pristine copy The Brutal Telling that he gave to me (some things are just meant to be). I already had an ARC of that one, but the hardcopy does give my mini-collection of Gamache books a little more consistency, so I was happy to get it.

And next week, I plan to add the new one. Life is good.

Bookstores I Wish I Had Visited Before It Was too Late

I make a habit of visiting any interesting bookstore that I run across while traveling, but there are so many wonderful stores that I will never get to that it makes me a little sad to think of what I'm missing. Here's an example of a bookstore that I will never see other than through this wonderful YouTube video.

Brooklyn's Community Bookstore seems to have closed its doors sometime in 2016, but what an adventure it would have been to spend a day shopping there. It had to have been a sad day for the neighborhood when this one closed its doors for the final time. But time moves on, and the 69-year-old owner of the store just couldn't keep up the pace anymore, so another unique bookstore bit the dust.   But don't feel too sorry for owner John Scioli because after doing business in it for thirty years, he sold the building for $5.5 million. (Location, location, location.)

Remembering Toni Morrison - A Video Tribute from the New York Times

This New York Times tribute to Toni Morrison, I think, gives us a good feel for how much Toni Morrison achieved during her time on this earth and how she perceived herself toward the end of her life.  She was a truly remarkable woman.  There is an awful lot packed into this video of just over four minutes.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Finally a Movie

I read a review copy of Where'd You Go, Bernadette? back in 2012 (can't believe it's been almost seven years) and I've been hearing speculation about a movie version for what seems like forever.  Well it looks as if the movie is finally going to be released in August and will star Cate Blanchette, Laurence Fishburne, and Billy Crudup, among others.  I'm a bit surprised that the official movie trailer reveals so much detail about the plot, but I have to admit that it looks really good.  Honestly, I'm just thankful that studios are still making movies for adults; I suppose that all those computer-generated comic book things are subsidizing what I consider to be the good stuff.




In case you are interested in reading the book before its movie version is released in August, I'm re-posting my September 2012 review below to help you make up your mind as to whether or not this one is for you.

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No one in Seattle really knows much about Bernadette Fox.  And that it is precisely why the other mothers at her daughter's prestigious private-school love to gossip about her so much.  Oh, they know that her husband is one of the stars on the Microsoft campus, and they all like her bright fourteen-year-old daughter, Bee, just fine.  But Bernadette has committed the cardinal sin among the private-school mother set: she refuses to "volunteer" for any of the little jobs that take up so much of their time.  

Bernadette does not even pretend that she wants to be involved.  Not only does she not speak to them in the school drop-off zone, she doesn't even notice when she runs over the foot of one mother insisting to speak with her.  Something is wrong with this woman; they are sure of it, and they are going to make her pay for it.

Elgie knows that something is going on with Bernadette but his top secret project for Microsoft, and the huge amount of money he brings home for managing it, allow him to ignore the problem - or, at least, postpone dealing with it.  Things do seem to be going well enough, after all.  Bernadette is managing the home front efficiently (although with help he knows nothing about), and Bee is doing so well in her studies that she has qualified to claim her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica.  

Then all hell breaks lose, Bernadette disappears, and, after a while, Bee seems to be the only one still looking for her.  

Believe it or not, serious as all of this sounds, Where'd You Go, Bernadette is the funniest novel I have read this year.  The book, a satirical look at the whole Microsoft/Seattle lifestyle, is filled with laugh-out-loud moments that will have the reader wondering just who the "crazies" in the story really are.  But, although it sometimes borders on slapstick, the novel does offer some touching reminders and insights into the relationship between mothers and daughters.  It will be young Bee, after all, who refuses to give up the search for her missing mother - even when others are certain that she is lost forever - and the precocious teen is determined to go to the ends of the earth to find her.  

Among the memorable "little moments" in the novel, is the scene in which Bee discovers the wonder of Abbey Road, the 1969 Beatles album that was to be the last the band ever recorded.  Bee's shock and embarrassment when her mother sings along with every one of the songs - in perfect sync with the recorded vocals - is a smile-inducing reminder that children find it impossible to believe their parents were ever young enough to be "cool."  Even Bee, a girl who considers her mom to be her best friend, cannot quite make that leap.

Adding to the fun, Where'd You Go, Bernadette is very cleverly structured to tell its story largely via a series of email messages, handwritten notes, transcripts of conversations, and the like.  This places the reader inside the heads of a variety of characters who reveal more about themselves than they want to reveal - probably even to themselves.  This one is hard to put down.
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And as a bonus, here's the video that first caught my attention:

Favorite Novels: News of the World - Paulette Jiles

I met Paulette Jiles at the San Antonio Book Festival in 2016 where I heard her speak about her upcoming new novel, News of the World. From the beginning, the premise of the novel intrigued me, and when I found out that it was all based on real life Texas characters, I knew I had to read it. It was only when I went to buy a copy from Paulette that I realized that the book was not yet for sale. After a few minutes of conversation about the book and history of that part of our state, Paulette graciously offered me a review copy of the book, and it has been one of my favorite novels ever since.  

I said it in July 2016 when I wrote the review shown below: News of the World is a beautiful novel, and it deserves to find a huge audience.  I re-read the book a few weeks ago, and I feel more strongly than ever about that...but let Paulette herself make the case that this is a very special novel.

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What could possibly be more intriguing a main character in a book about Reconstruction Era Texas than a seventy-year-old retired Army captain who makes his living as a traveling “professional reader”?  Perhaps a ten-year-old little girl who has spent the last four years of her life as a captive of the band of Kiowa who butchered her parents and little sister in front of her might just do it.  And then if you have these two characters cross paths, as Paulette Jiles does in News of the World, you have the makings of what is certain to be one of the most memorable novels of 2016. 

People in north Texas are hungry for news, and they will pay to hear it.  Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd is only too happy to bring it to them as he travels from town to town reading articles aloud from the latest East Coast newspapers he can get hold of – all for the price of one thin dime per listener.  It is, in fact, the kind of solitary existence that Captain Kidd much prefers at this stage of his life.  But that all changes one trip through Wichita Falls when Kidd reluctantly agrees to transport a little girl back to the aunt and uncle she has not seen since being captured by the Kiowa.  The 400-mile trip from Wichita Falls to near San Antonio will prove to be a dangerous one, one that will forever bind the old man and the little girl together.

Paulette Jiles

There is plenty of old fashioned western action in News of the World: threatening Indians, shootouts with bad guys who want to steal the little girl for their own purposes, rising waters and dangerous river crossings, big-hearted women of the evening, etc., and all of it is well handled by Jiles.  But what makes the novel special is the relationship that develops between Captain Kidd and young Johanna as they steadily make their way southward.  Johanna has forgotten everything about her life before the Kiowa took her.  No longer does she speak English or German; she has forgotten how to use a knife and a fork; and she considers the idea of wearing a cloth dress to be a ludicrous one.  She is now, and in her mind forever will be, a Kiowa Indian.  White men – and women – terrify her, and she wants nothing to do with them.

But Johanna senses something in Captain Kidd that calms her, a level of trust that moves her to call him “grandfather” in her own language.  Soon, though, their relationship has gone way beyond merely honoring the Captain with a title, and Johanna begins thinking of Kidd as her grandfather in the truest sense of the word.  And perhaps surprising even himself, Kidd grows so fond of the little girl that he would willingly give his own life to save hers.

News of the World is a beautiful novel, and it deserves to find a huge audience.

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

"What It's Really Like to Be a Book Nerd"

From Barnes & Noble:

"What It's Really Like to Be a Book Nerd" - and it's only slightly exaggerated.  Lots of truth here, guys.

Paul Williams Proves He Still Has It

Just time to take quick advantage of hotel wifi access (while it lasts) to post one of my favorite performances from last night's MACC 2016 sets from up here in Columbus, Ohio.

This is Paul Williams, a man who has been in the bluegrass music business for a long time and who had the good fortune to be a key member of some of the most influential bluegrass bands in bluegrass history.  He is, of course, a tremendous mandolin picker, but for me it's always been about that great high tenor voice of his. This is Paul proving that at 81 years of age his voice is as strong as it has ever been. 

This is his version of the post-World-War-II country classic, "Fraulein."