Dirty Drinks

[This story was written for Monday Mixer, a weekly Flash Fiction contest.]

Let’s play Spot My Murderer.

Anyone in this taproom could have a knife in their garter or a gun on their hip. A sea of black fedoras and slick hair welcomes me. Some here know my business. Too many.

I sit with my back to the wall.

The bartender cocks a derisive eyebrow. I order a Scotch on the rocks; I’ve been watching the bottle. If the bartender poisoned me, he poisoned at least three other hard-knocks.

A microphone leans against the wall. It looks like a cosh. A bass case lies on the floor— a coffin. My hand shakes. I swig the scotch. My mouth burns but the liquor calms my nerves.

Or… it should.

The burning spreads throughout my whole body, the shakes give way to convulsions. From the floor, I see the face of victory.

It was him after all. His weapon: a stash of tainted ice.

Book Review: THE TELEPORTATION ACCIDENT by Ned Beauman

WHY I PICKED IT UP: I requested this title through NetGalley because the description intrigued me. Also, though I usually read and review YA, I like to touch base with what's new and available for adults.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: First of all, it's been fun seeing what other sites have tried to say about this book in summary. Often the synopses are misleading, but I can sort of see why. So I'll do my best to put it in my own words - ones that are meant to paint an honest picture rather than a purposefully enticing one.

This is the story of Egon Loeser. It's the story of a man who conveniently escapes WWII-era Germany because he chases a woman around the world. It's the story of a man consumed by his need to get laid, who manages to lose dear possessions on a regular basis, who is so self-absorbed that he stumbles into others' games with each other until he stumbles out of them. It's the story of a man whose existence is like a prolonged sigh in a world that's always a little tilted to the side.

And then sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's about an ex-pat "confidence man" or a professor's life as a boy. The ties are still to Loeser, but the focus is elsewhere. The running thread through it all is the "Teleportation Device" by an artist named Lavicini, which is said to have killed a dozen people in a theatre accident.

Eventually -- as in, 57% of the way through the novel -- there are murders.

THE POSITIVE: 
THE NOT-SO-POSITIVE:

I can't break it down into these categories like I usually do. The author consistently uses devices that are interesting - some worked, some didn't, but most were both at the same time. His bizarre humor throughout? Worked. The sudden breaking away into characters that weren't Egon Loeser? Sort of worked. His first sentence? ... ... ...

I have much to say on the first sentence.

The first sentence of this novel is a rambling metaphor - or rather, a series of metaphors, acknowledged as metaphors. It hooked me. But it also established an air of pretentiousness that persisted like a smog. Suddenly the pages were inundated with characters, historical references, and so much telling going on that I couldn't get more than 2% through the novel. It felt like reading a 1930's hipster's journal as he observed these events, were a contemporary hipster to use the titular device to actual travel to that era.

But after I did get past that initial part, the other 98% flew by.

Sure, there were other rambling metaphors. There were philosophical tangents. Twice (before the ending, which breaks the book to pieces in an alternate way), the chapters suddenly become about some other minor, impossibly interesting character who crosses paths with Loeser, as though the author got bored with the dichotomous personality that is his quirky-yet-gloomy protagonist. But this book had me laughing out loud. It kept introducing fascinating, disparate characters -- one of my favorite being Colonel Gorge, whose hosting abilities are reminiscent of the Mad Hatter. I wouldn't want to befriend Loeser, but he was interesting and human enough that I liked following him around. And the writing style feels fresh, despite its historical placement.

It's the kind of novel where you're not sure what its trajectory is. There's a basic goal - find Adele, the subject of Loeser's lust - but he's so sidetracked ("derailed," more like) that this storyline becomes a mere subplot. But honestly, I enjoyed the novel most when it wasn't about Loeser's sex life.

Know what surprised me about this book? It wasn't romantic or moralistic but it managed to have some really touching, genuine moments. It made comments without being preachy and it showed an interesting perspective of World War II that was unsentimental yet tasteful -- until it takes a somber, quiet turn that arrives in the form of a nostalgic conversation, which was still woven into the story with grace.

And I must say, the very last paragraph still has me laughing. Which means the final sentence more than made up for the faults of the first.

OVERALL RATING: Well gosh. I want a hard copy of this book now and it comes out THIS MONTH on the 26th (my birthday, it so happens - coincidence? yes. yes it is). Its target audience is really 18+, but I strongly recommend this novel for anyone who likes a nice blend of quirky humor, mystery, and historical fiction-- as long as you can get past the minor segments of mechanical and redundant eroticism (or descriptions of the lack-thereof). But seriously, give it a shot. Just... make sure you read all of Part 1 before you give it up, if you're tempted to. I'm sure glad I stuck with it.

Review in Haiku
Sure: it's pretentious.
But it's complex and unique,
And it made me laugh.


~Tome~

Thank you to Ned Beauman, Bloomsbury Publishing, and the admins at NetGalley for lending this title to me for review.

Something is Wrong with the Ellsly Brothers

[This is a flash fiction piece written for Monday Mixer.]

Rumor had it that something was strange about the new Ellsly Brothers Mortuary. A bold widow wrote a letter to the Raintown Gazette stating that her husband’s funeral was missing something. But she couldn’t say what.

The paper sent a reporter, Maggie Underworth, to write about the Ellsly Borthers’ process of preparing the dead. When she arrived, Rick Ellsly was removing the cloche from a new fern and Humbert Ellsly was stitching up a coffin’s satin lining with crisp, sedulous movements. They greeted her. They were perfectly nice. Something was off.

Maggie observed their preparation methods. She spent four days with them. On the fourth day, a vacuum cleaner caused a power surge. The brothers exchanged stoic glances.

Rumors aside, Maggie published a factual article. She left out her scruples, since she could not place them.

After all, the brothers had not been anything other than perfectly, precisely, robotically nice.

BOOK REVIEW: "A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend" by Emily Horner

WHY I PICKED IT UP: The description mentions a group of young adults writing and putting on a musical by themselves, which is something I did at school last year. Will Grayson, Will Grayson aside, I feel like there aren't many books of kids writing their own musicals, and it's so relatable that I always snatch up a title when I see that's what it's about.


WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Cass Meyer's best friend Julia has just died in a car accident, leaving her feeling totally alone. All of her friends now seem only like Julia's friends who Cass just sort of attached to. The novel flips between Cass's lone cross-country roadtrip (with Julia's ashes) and months later when she's helping Julia's theatre clan put together a performance of "Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad," a musical Julia wrote before she died. Biking across America is hard, but facing your middle-school nemesis who has returned to star in the magnum opus of your dead best friend? That's going to push Cass to her limit.

THE POSITIVE: 

*I'll be honest: I was totally not expecting this book to be about sexuality. Much of the story is about Cass trying to figure out if she loved Julia like a friend or if she secretly wanted to be something more. This book handles that in a tactful way.

*Cass's changing relationship with Heather, Cass's former bully, really threads the story together.

*The flipping between past and present was done tactfully, and she always revealed something that she had once alluded to.

THE NOT-SO-POSITIVE:

*While the book was sweet and well-constructed, the novel did not leave a deep impression. There was nothing gut-wrenching or very surprising about it.

*A few characters (Cass, Heather, and a young woman Cass meets on her trip) were well-rounded, but the rest remained somewhat flat and forgettable, besides a few attempts at stronger characterization. This includes Julia's boyfriend, who seemed a little all over the place and popped into scenes as a force only when he needed to strike a blow.

OVERALL RATING: Recommendable for ages 13-17 because it can help support people who are struggling with sexuality or the idea of homosexual relationships. Older readers might not find the substance the desire, though.

~Tome~

AHH WHY iT's 4aM: Why Tome Should NOT BE AWAKE DOING STUFF NOW

So I'm trying to catch up on NaNoWriMo.

Absolutely determined to finish it this year because I don't have any decent excuses to not do it. If I could complete NaNoWriMo as a senior in high school, and no I don't remember how that happened, then surely I can do it now.

Yesterday I was like, OK: just 3600 words per day and I'm golden. Not hard. I can do 5000 on a day if need be. 3600 is nothing.

Eh. It's not nothing. And now it's after 4 am.

Here's the thing about 4AM. Not only are you in a constant state of typos and inconsistencies (I'll leave the ways I've typed "4 a.m." so far in their original forms so you can see what I mean), but you start to feel more strongly about things. Especially nostalgia and obsessive anxieties over big life questions that suddenly pertain to you. Also, things are more hilarious. Here's what my night has been like so far:

-Typed out breakdown of wordcount goal, interspersed with Adventure Time episodes that fit perfectly into my 500-word-chunks.

-Followed through on this pretty darn well until OH WAIT ONE EPISODE LEADS TO ANOTHER, I'LL JUST WATCH THAT TOO
-But that episode. It was hilarious. And so good. And like... I think this show is so groundbreaking. Like... I want to write like that. Or just be in that writer's room. Can I get coffee for those writers? Please?

-Clicked around Youtube because it was open from the Adventure Times and... that was a mistake.

-Wound up on http://charliemcdonnell.com/ because he wrote a moving blog post in response to a moving video about how he's afraid of his audience because of his desperation to please them and ahhhh you really feel for the guy, seriously check it out because suddenly there's SO MUCH EMPATHY, like No dude! Don't be afraid, we all love you, you're awesome! Even though we all feel that too! Except without the already-successful part! But yeah! Ahh why! and then you see the response videos and you want one big group hug but all these people are like... very not present, and very not-knowing-who-you-are. And you're just wrapped in a blanket in your room at 4Am.

-Watched a couple seconds of many of the responses to Charlie's video, especially one by Hank Green who postulated that "all people create" and are terrified and I was like that's me except perpetually in the process of creation, which reminded me of--

-MS Paint Adventures, mainly Homestuck [the it's-really-more-than-a webcomic], because that's a still-being-created/completed-as-it's-created work that I admire so so much to the point of obsession. So I clicked on that and wow it updated, and lately all the updates are reminding me that it's ending in April I think, which made me just so sad. Do you ever wonder when the next time something will come up that you're really into? Like the next song you'll have on repeat, or the next fandom you'll be a part of?

-Decided to blog about this experience, which began about three four hours ago. Why am I blogging about it? Well it occurred to me that I haven't posted much personal stuff lately (I do try to be a book/writing blog after all and the personal stuff gets long [see: this post]) but also it has to do with Nanowrimo, insecurities, ends of eras, procrastination... if those aren't relatable to the people probably coming across this post, I don't know what is. [PS why is "relatable" not considered a word? Am I spelling it wrong? I really thought it was a word.]

I know this is long but it's a post that needs to happen probably more for myself than anyone else. The chocolate covered espresso beans might partially account for my 4am ADD and why everything is suddenly a big deal (side note - when I was writing in NaNoWriMo about a dad I was suddenly like I MISS MY DAD so I guess this started after midnight). But I should not be awake now.

I have 655 words left to meet my goal. Funny how I stopped when I was so close.

GOOD LUCK FELLOW WRIMOS! YOU CAN DO IT!

~Tome~

BOOK REVIEW: "Fall for Anything" by Courtney Summers

WHY I PICKED IT UP: Courtney Summers' This is Not a Test was one of the most highly-anticipated YA releases of the summer. While waiting for it to come into the library, I perused some of her other titles, and this summary caught my eye. Mysteries in photographs? The suicide of a loving father? I needed to know what the answer to this interesting scenario was.



WHAT IT'S ABOUT: The description on the book (and consequently on Goodreads) is kind of misleading so I'll break this down in my own way. Teenager Eddie and her mother are suffering from the sudden, unexpected suicide of her father, who was a brilliant photographer-turned-partial-recluse. And things keep getting worse. Her best- and really only - friend Milo is suddenly hanging out with his ex?-girlfriend again, deepening the chasm that's been forming between Eddie and him. Her mother's best friend Beth, who is in total denial about getting older, has moved in and decided to control Eddie's life. And suddenly there's Culler Evans, a private student that Eddie's father had but never told anyone about.

Culler might not be all bad, though. In fact, he seems pretty cool - and maybe the only one who understands what Eddie's going through. Together, Culler and Eddie try to get to the bottom of the suicide by using a set of artful, but nondescript, photographs left behind.

THE POSITIVE: 
*Summers' writing style shows why the story can only be told in first person. There is so much voice. You aren't just reading Eddie's thoughts, you're reading her thought processes. It's engaging.

*The dialogue between characters, specifically Eddie and Milo, feels very real. Sometimes I would think "Hey- I know these people!" because they speak like my friends.

*Her setups from chapter to chapter kept me very enticed and turning pages quickly. This book flew by.

THE NOT-SO-POSITIVE:

[Warning: I'm going to be as vague as possible but there will be some allusions to later points in the book.]

*Some of the boy drama feels forced and I was kind of confused about how Eddie felt. She seemed to say she wanted some things at one point and then completely brushed them off later when opportunities arose.

*There is, in the last quarter of the book, kind of a feeling of pointlessness. The clearest resolutions are ones to problems that were not at the forefront of my mind, and I was not even sure how they came about, exactly. Too many question marks still remain. This is something that can be done, if done correctly, but I didn't feel like it was.

*I'm not convinced that Eddie changed by the end of the novel, something that is unusual for protagonists and only really works if it's acknowledged, like this lack of a change was done on purpose or shed light on the meaning of things. But I felt like the whole story was focused on Eddie and her dealing with things, but the last few chapters didn't really say much about her.

OVERALL RATING: It's a great example of style and voice for YA realistic fiction, but plot-wise, disappointing. Maybe others have deciphered more meaning from the text, but I felt it lacked power, given the strong setup and style that it presents otherwise.

I had to return This is Not a Test before I finished it but that was a lot of fun so far (I started it during a power outage - great time for zombie apocalypse reads!), so by no means will my less-than-enthusiastic take on Fall for Anything keep me from trying out her latter works. Have you read any of Summers' books? Was this review helpful? Let me know!

~Tome~

Eternity Knocking: Tome's Monday Mixer 3 Entry

[This post is written for Jeffrey Hollar's Monday Mixer flash fiction contest. You should go check it out!]

There is a little town you have never seen alive. Slanted on the side of a hilltop, layer upon layer of abandoned storefronts mask the home of a man who stands hunched and bald on the peak, for his head scrapes against the low, greasy ceiling. On this night, we find the man criss-crossed on the floor, elements and configurations and books scattered like autumn leaves around his knees. His sagacious eyes gleam with a metallic sheen not unlike the vitriol he swirls in the tube, two elements becoming one, many molecules dancing with more grace and ease than the man had otherwise witnessed.

And then…

Perfection.

“The Elixir of Life!” the man cries. “Behold me, Thoth, your equal! Look, Flamel— my victory!”

The man places the vial to his lips.

The dimness of his room, abandoned despite its occupant, overtakes the man’s spirit.

Life, for what?

Glass becomes dust.