No Good From A Corpse

The best thing about this book was its cool cover. 

I have to be frank that part of the reason why this review is delayed is because I had a hard time getting through this 200-odd page book. If it hadn't been written by Leigh Brackett, I probably wouldn't have finished it. Brackett, of course, was one of Howard Hawks' favorite screenwriters and has an origin story that can't be beat: upon reading No Good From A Corpse, Hawks supposedly said, "Get me that Brackett fellow!" to finish the script for The Big Sleep. When I heard this anecdote years ago, I immediately had respect for this woman who wrote like a man, who impressed Hawks enough to get hired as a scriptwriter, and who could transition back and forth from sci-fi to hardboiled without breaking a sweat.

Then I actually read the thing.

And suddenly everything I had prematurely admired about the book struck me as awful. Let's start with the most two most salient: the easy transitioning between genres and the whole "writes like a man" thing. Well, the more I read this book the more I felt that Brackett had written it on a bet. Like she said, "I've read a few Chandlers, I bet I can bang out a hardboiled in two weeks." I haven't found any evidence to this effect but reading the book, that's certainly what it feels like. The whole time I was reading the thing I just felt like I was sliding over surfaces; there were no real points of entry into anyone's head, nothing felt urgent, just rote. The detective, Ed Clive, has his moments, particularly his childhood reminiscences about Arcadian, unspoiled Los Angeles, but overall he just seemed sketched in.

As for the gender thing, well, Brackett has some issues. She tries way too hard to come off masculine, to the point of peppering the book with casual misogyny ("A woman driver pulled onto the road, blocking traffic on all lanes") and general tough-guy posturing. This just strike me as kind of sad, like those women who claim they don't like other women. Or -- and I hope this is closer to the truth -- Brackett was taking the piss out of tough-guy hardboiled detectives. For her sake, I hope so. Anyway, I just found all the posturing a little tiresome.


There just wasn't nearly enough going on in NGFAC to make me want to churn through it, and even the little asides about LA's oil-spoiled beaches weren't enough. Though the plot wasn't particularly hard to follow, many parts of this book felt opaque because characters and events were just dropped in without context or explanation -- I'm all for making the reader work a little, but to be honest it was a bit extreme, so much so that I often felt like I was reading a sequel or a second installment in a series.

What say you, other readers? Am I being a priss? Was this a hardboiled masterpiece and not a little bit of pastiche?  Did the sassy dialogue make up for the fact that it wasn't always clear what was happening to whom, or why? Did anyone else find Ed Clive to be a bit of a hollow man? Argue with me! I can take it -- I'm smart and tough, and really not like a girl at all.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

I've just finished book three in the Beach Noir Book Club, and it's, well.... you know how they say certain hardboiled writing is like a punch to the gut? Well this is more like if your own mother punched you in the gut while your father hit you over the head with a tire iron. If you find that image a little bleak, then you have an idea of the utter unremitting bleakness of this book. My god, the bleak!

So we all know the plot -- a marathon dance contest, the Depression, a girl named Gloria who hates herself and wants to die, a protagonist named Robert who dances because he doesn't know where his next meal is coming from.... almost no one in the contest does. Most of them are literally dancing for food and shelter. Things happen, people move in and out of the contest. The participants and organizers are revealed to be liars, cheats, adulterers, murders. And at the end of all... well, may god have mercy on your soul.

The first thing that struck me about Horses was the uncanny similarity to certain aspects of The Hunger Games, which I also read this year. I mean, they even have sponsors in the contest, who provide dancers with things like clothes and shoes. And they're hungry... soul crushingly hungry.

The other thing that hit home was the seediness of the beachside pavilion. Beaches are amazingly dark places and they turn on a dime -- one minute, sunny and glorious, but watch your back when the sun goes down. Then beaches are loci of murder, dumping grounds for bodies as the sea takes back her dead. And have you ever seen a beach town when it starts to rain? People running off the boardwalk with towels over their heads? It already looks like a crime scene....

They Shoot Horses is unforgettable. The imagery of the seedy seaside danse macabre in the darkest days of the depression is forever etched onto me. The swiftness, the unsentimentality of it is shattering. Characters are only sketchily drawn, because they are barely human. Gloria is a wounded animal, snarling. Robert drifts through the book because he has nowhere else to go. There's an amazing scene where he talks to one of his heroes, Frank Borzage (Robert is an aspiring film director, with great taste) and at the end of their conversation, nothing happens. No one is going to pick you up and carry you off and make your Hollywood dreams come true.

Like I said: bleak.

So, book club geeks -- thoughts?

Beach Noir Book 2 -- The Zebra-Striped Hearse

This was my second go-around for this book (I blogged about it five (!) years ago, here). I couldn't remember any of the details and it's funny that in my earlier appraisal I complain about there being one coincidence too many. I didn't notice that at all this time. No, this time I was absolutely swept away. I have to agree with the anonymous commenter in my earlier post that this might be one of the -- if not the best -- detective novels ever written. Coincidence? No. A slow, steady, thorough chase, methodically picking up the pieces. A tacked-on last chapter? No. A final twist that makes one unloved character all the more tragic. Hearse is a perfect book and has a permanent place in my pantheon. What's more, the prose is sublime. Who else but Ross Macdonald would compare a cobblestone street to a dry riverbed.... and have it mean so much?

One added bonus: I found this Anthony Boucher review tucked inside my book:

Totally agree on all counts Unusual subtlety and distinction indeed. And there's something so much more poignant about non-professionals mixed up in crime. Human life is bungling exercise, and the amateur in the mystery novel is the best expression of that -- of the mistakes we make that we cannot cover up. I think that's what makes this novel, and all of Ross Macdonald, so devastating.

On a side note, I'm convinced that one minor character in this book is based on Manny Farber. He lives in Southern California, he's an art critic, and his name is "Manny Meyer." The suspect is a painter and Archer takes photos of his paintings to Manny Meyer to judge whether he's a good artist or a total fraud. His art is deemed excellent. I won't spoil it for you and tell you whether that makes someone more or less likely to be a murderer. I'll just let you ruminate on it.... but I will reveal that the man is, in fact, rather amoral. There's only one thing artists really care about, as Lew Archer says: "A good north light, and money to buy paints." How much paint they need, and what they're willing to do for it, remains the mystery...

The Little Sister

The first installment of the Beach Noir Book Club kicks off with Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister.

I'll be posting my thoughts about it here, and I welcome others to join in. We can also continue the conversation on Facebook, if that turns out to be a better conversational forum. We're just sort of figuring this thing out as we go and, like Calvinball, the Beach Noir Book Club has no actual rules.

Now that the admin is out of the way, let's get to the book -- no! Let's first discuss the cocktails we drank while reading the book! Yes, that's much better. As I understand it, book clubs are actually just excuses to get together and drink, so it seems appropriate. What did you drink whilst reading this particular Marlowe tale? Did you go classic with the gin gimlet? Scotch? I admit I went for expediency and just drank whatever was on hand. Fortunately for me, in my house that means excellent beverages like Founder's Centennial IPA, which I'll go on record as saying is the best IPA I've ever had. As I write this I realize I'm not aware of many fictional private detectives who are big beer drinkers. It makes sense though. You wouldn't have to pee on all those stakeouts.

Speaking of peeing, this may be the only Marlowe book I've read in which the detective gets peed on. I might be wrong but it's the only one I can think of. He gets peed on by a studio exec's dog, which pretty sums up the way Marlowe feels about Hollywood.

Marlowe cuts a pretty bitter figure in The Little Sister overall. It's 1949 and he's weary. He's been wearing out shoe leather for a decade, and he's pushing forty. He makes a lot of references to being "pre-war" and just seems goddamn exhausted. The book is filled with gripes against L.A. and Hollywood people in general, with plenty of digs against "Bay City" thrown in as well. The action starts off with Marlowe alone in his office, swatting a fly. The rest of the plot follows a typical Chandlerian trajectory, which is about as logical as the flight-pattern of said housefly. I won't go into plot details but let's just say it involves gangsters and starlets. I will say though that the no-good girl who shows up in Marlowe's office is spectacularly crazy and her name -- Orfamay Quest -- was so unusual as to be simultaneously distracting and utterly believable in a Bible-belt sort of way.

At this point I want to throw a question out there for my fellow book clubbers: were you distracted by the name Orfamay? What was he driving at with that appellation? Discuss.

Orfamay, and every other woman in the book, throws herself at Marlowe. This started to become comical to me after a while. In fact, much of the book felt like a catalogue of detective cliches -- not necessarily in a bad way, but in an (again) slightly exhausted or mocking way. Chandler draws attention to it himself, repeatedly, mentioning the clunkiness of the dialogue in a self-referential manner. Between the weariness and the repeated ocean references, I was frankly starting to worry about Marlowe a little bit. Keep the lights on the pier boys, I think I spot a jumper.

Not only did Marlowe seem extremely tired of life in general, he also seemed to be incredibly isolated and, more than once, his rambling monologues betrayed a tortured and fevered mind.  Take for example his reverie in chapter thirteen, as he drives alone of an evening. Though he says "there was nothing lonely about the trip," I didn't quite buy it:

"Tired men in dusty coupes and sedans winced and tightened their grip on the wheel and ploughed on north and west towards home and dinner, an evening with the sports page, the blatting of the radio, the whining of their spoiled children, and the gabble of their silly wives... Behind Encino an occasional light winked from the hills through the thick trees. The homes of screen stars. Screen stars, phooey. The veterans of a thousand beds. Hold it Marlowe, you're not human tonight..."

Poor Marlowe! (Side note: That passage also reminded me of the SNL sketch The Californians: "I drove east on Sunset but I didn't go home. At LaBrea I turned north and swung over to Highland, out over Cahuenga Pass and down on to Ventura Boulevard, past Studio City and Sherman Oaks and Encino...")

The water imagery, despite making me fear for Marlowe's mental health, was one of my favorite aspects of the book. Chandler writes sentences like, "It was as full of meaning as the ocean is of salt," "She looked at me as if I had just come up from the floor of the ocean with a drowned mermaid under my arm," and "They had the eyes cops always have, cloudy and gray like freezing water," and so many countless others I stopped keeping track after a while (but never stopped loving them). Though the plot of The Little Sister is a bit thin, Chandler's turn of phrase doesn't disappoint. Like when he spells out Orrin Quest's last name for a slow-witted receptionist: "Quest. Q as in quintessential, U as in uninhibited, E as in extrasensory, S as in subliminal, T as in toots." For that sentence alone, it was worth reading this book.

Finally, one last fun thing I noted in The Little Sister that I don't think I've seen before: I think at one point there's a masturbation reference: Marlowe apparently took "29 minutes" to leave his office after Orfamay sashayed outta there. Marlowe is truly alone indeed.

We had a few really awesome responses to this book; you can find them in their entirety in the comments section, but I've lifted a few gems for you:

From Flicker:

"...Reading this book, I had a decaf iced vanilla latte. It's kind of like coffee. Just like the LA of today is kind of like Marlowe's LA.

Thoughts on the book... definitely not Chandler's best. I've read it before and it was a bit of a slog to read it again. I do like Orfamay, though. The name -- Orphan? Orpheus? Orifice? I have no idea.

One question: in chapter 15, Marlowe says to Orfamay: "You said Orrin wasn't the black sheep in your family.... And when you mentioned your sister Leila, you sort of passed on quickly as if the subject was distasteful."

OK, I caught the black sheep reference when Orfamay made it, but I cannot for the life of me find any mention of sister Leila before Marlowe brings it up. Where is it? [Anyone? Ed.]

The weirdest bit of this book, for me, is Chapter 30, when Marlowe is hanging out with a cop -- or is he? It's such a dreamlike chapter, I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a dream. And then the guy vanishes. The end of Chapter 31 has the same weirdness.

From Mike:

Chandler whips out some of his most funny, vicious, mean writing, like a punch to the face. It got so nasty, but with that same crackling dialogue that translated so well to Chandler's screenplays. My favorite example:

“I don’t have any idea of raping anybody.”
“No?”
“But I’m sure as hell working up to it.”

In fact, coming right on the tail of Chandler's brief Hollywood dalliance writing DOUBLE INDEMNITY and THE BLUE DAHLIA, his intense disdain for actors and studio execs really gets an airing (although I notice screenwriters escape unscathed).

There’s one of those funny moments where I read a line and realized it had been lifted by a favorite songwriter of mine for one of their songs! Chandler writes, “looking up at the pale sky stars which know enough to keep their distance from Hollywood”, and in the Nick Cave song “Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!”, Cave sings of the resurrected Lazarus, “he thought even the pale sky stars were smart enough to keep well away from LA”! Whether as a swipe or homage it’s a killer line and greatly repurposed.

Towards the end there’s this kind of languid nostalgia for “Old LA”, when it was just dust and sun and modest people eking out a living. I think it’s appropriate that Marlowe has come to so fully define what we would consider to be “Old LA” that Marlowe’s world is the one that excites us – even if our vapidity is largely unchanged from what he is raging against almost 70 years ago…

Just like Andrea and Flicker I was fascinated by the Steinway-playing cop in the holding tank – I’d like to think he’s a phantom, that the game he’s playing with Marlowe is really Marlowe’s brain working out the hand he’s been dealt…

 ******

So -- we all agree, a very surreal addition to the Chandler canon, especially the dreamlike card-playing scene. And I love the insights re: Nick Cave. It's always good to know one's on the same page as Nick Cave.

To all those out there in the ether: how's your beach reading going? What's your take on The Little Sister? Is the Beach Noir Book Club beginning to make life seem like one vast, unrelenting ocean of despair? And is the ocean starting to look like a good place to hide the corpses? What did you make of Bay City -- haven't beach towns always seemed inherently slightly seedy? Chime in, won't you?

And I'll see you back here on June 22nd for The Zebra-Striped Hearse. In the meantime, check out our Facebook page for updates and to follow the conversation. If you have any questions about how to join, where to buy books, etc., you can always drop me a line at bourbonandtea [at] gmail [dot] com.

Beach Noir Book Club

Under the heavy influence of this article, I've decided to form a Beach Noir Book Club.

The rules are simple. Should you decide to join, you just have to read one Noir-ish book every two weeks. The books should come from the list as follows, and ought to be more or less in the same order, otherwise I think it kind of defeats the purpose of a book club.. right? I don't know, I'm not really a clubby person, normally. I'm a lone wolf, like Christopher Marlowe (I guess).

Generally speaking, the list will be heavily left coast, dealing mostly with Los Angeles area beaches and cities. If anyone wants to suggest any East Coast Beach Noir, please feel free! I'd be happy to include it.

After each book is done, I'll invite readers to weigh in with their opinions via this blog. (I'll likely post my thoughts so you can either leave comments, or you can email bourbonandtea [at] gmail [dot] com if you've just thunk a whole lotta thoughts about one particular book or another.... obviously good grammar or even an above-average grasp of the English language is not a requirement to blather on Spinster Aunt, so don't feel intimidated or anything. Seriously. The bar is low here, and surveys show that 99% of this blog's readership is drunk 88% of the time.)

So, here it is, the BEACH NOIR BOOK CLUB READING LIST, and the dates we'll finish each book:

June 8 -- Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister
June 22 -- Ross Macdonald, The Zebra-Striped Hearse
July 6  -- Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
July 20 -- Leigh Brackett, No Good From A Corpse
August 3 -- Dorothy B. Hughes, In A Lonely Place
August 17 --Kem Nunn, Tapping the Source
August 31 -- Don Winslow, The Dawn Patrol

I'm also going to read Los Angeles Noir, the short story anthology edited by Denise Hamilton, whose article inspired this idea. If anyone out there wants to partake but is too busy to commit to reading seven novels, by all means you can read this anthology and join in for short story discussions if that's easier for you.

And, finally, I am open to cocktail/drink suggestions and pairings for each book. Obviously we'll start with gin gimlets for the Chandler, and then we'll take things as they come.

Happy reading!

SA

Bourbon. Beer. Pie. Cheese.

Hello All,

It's been a while since I updated my blog but I wanted you to know some amazing new stuff is in the pipeline (it may involve princesses somehow, and murder).

For those just wandering by, or stopping by for the first time, I don't want my mean review of The Raven to be the first thing you see.

So please don't judge me for watching shitty movies. Maybe read a good book instead. Or watch The Big Heat. Or click on some other links that may be about pie.

If you're really bored, you can check out a Vintage Spinster blog post about ghost stories.

In conclusion, I will always love you. The Dolly Parton version. Sorry, it's just better.

XO,

SA

Mini review: The Raven (2012)

"Yeah... sorry guys."

"EMILEEEEEEE!"

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha HA!

Now that I've gotten that out of the way... oh, fuck it, let's laugh some more! (Short interval. Extended laughter.) OK, but seriously folks, The Raven. The Raven!

For those who haven't seen it, the above "EMILEEEE!" refers to a memorable scene in which John Cusack screams out loud the name of his beloved. He's with a crew of police officers and they've all been instructed to call her name among the brick-walled catacombs of Baltimore's underground waterworks. Without waiting a beat, Cusack screams out the aforementioned name, as though demonstrating. Or something. I don't know. Frankly, I'm not sure what was going on there or, for that matter, throughout most of the film. The only thing I can think of is that something went horribly wrong in the editing room. How else to explain what I saw?

Yup, an extreme editing-room debacle is the only way to explain the bizarre lack of pacing, set-up, tension, and characterization demonstrated in this film. Perhaps a rough cut was screened and it was so bad the original editor committed suicide; then they tried to re-cut the film but there was so much blood on the celluloid they couldn't quite make it out so they just hacked away at little bits and pieces and voila, The Raven. It's the only possible explanation.

I can't quite recall when I've ever seen a film with less atmosphere. Truly. The Raven seems to want to open in medias res but it only succeeds in cutting short any opportunity we might've had to get to know Poe. Not that it matters, because this is an entirely fictional Poe, completely divorced from any biographic reality. Which would be fine -- I get it, it was an artistic choice -- but... why? Have you read any biographies of this guy? His life was nuts! Why wouldn't you want to throw a little bit of that madness in there? Oh sure, they toss off a perfunctory scene in which Poe tries to get wasted at a local bar and acts like an a-hole and has no money. But that's it. From then on, "Poe" bears no relationship to Poe. Too bad. Because his real life -- not sure if I made this clear -- was fucking insane. Interesting, even. Might've been a GOOD THING TO PUT IN YOUR MOVIE YOU STUPID A-HOLES!

Whoa, sorry.

Moving on.

So Poe really seems to have no drinking problems or money problems to speak of after that little episode in the bar (he does seem to teach some sort of poetry seminary for bourgeois ladies, which no doubt was highly lucrative, so he's got that going on) nor is he in any way very EXTREMELY HEARTBROKEN BECAUSE OF HIS DEAD WIFE! Pardon, I did it again. So sorry. But I mean REALLY. Virginia died while drowning in POOL OF HER OWN BLOOD not two years before and it merits only a casual mention! Casual! Why? Because "Poe" has a new girlfriend! Some horse-face named Emily!

And yes, I did just call Alice Eve a horse-face. Like Egaeus, I could not help but obsess over her teeth. Those two looong, equine front teeth. What were they doing there? Why were they taking up her whole face? Why were they taking over the movie? Why couldn't anybody stop those TEETH?! AHHHHH!

I stared at them all through the riveting scene in which Alice and Edgar declared their love for one another (how did I know they loved each other? The dialogue. "I love you," Alice said. "I love you too," Edgar replied. I realize I am conflating Emily and Alice's names here but you know what? I don't care. Fuck you, The Raven!).

I just can't go on. I cannot bear to think about this movie any longer. John Cusack, you weren't bad. You kind of looked like Poe and it's not your fault the editor got blood all over the celluloid. Guy who played the Inspector, you were trying really hard to be in a cool movie, and I get that. Same with the fat old guy who played Emily's dad and the other guy who played the newspaper editor. And the minor character who literally had ONE SPEAKING LINE and turned out to be the killer? I'm sure your best scenes were left on the cutting room floor, awash with sinew and membrane. I'm sorry. I really felt like you all were trying your best and I don't fault you.

I suppose I can only blame the writers and the director for the hideous accident that was The Raven. Why you took an amazing character like Poe and turned him into the bland denuded "Poe" we saw on screen I cannot fathom. Perhaps you thought any connection to reality would upset the sophisticated modern moviegoer. Perhaps you envisioned us screaming, "I didn't ask for a bio-pic, motherfucker!" and then tearing the movie theater seats from their floor-bolted moorings. That if you had, say, used Sarah Elmira Royster in place of "Emily Hamilton" we'd slash the screen with switchblades and set fire to the place. I'm not sure why you thought this.

But alas, we cannot change the past now. We cannot, say, have the film open with young Virginia Clemm choking on her own blood and pulmonary fluids, in a frigid, wind-slashed, practically unfurnished cottage. We can't then follow Poe as he descends into mourning, madness, alcoholism and crushing poverty, wandering up and down the east coast, desperately plying his acquaintances and childhood sweethearts with pleas of marriage if only to save him from going mad and/or dying of starvation. No, we couldn't follow him to Baltimore where in his delirium we -- and he -- are unsure that he is not himself the killer, where the police bribe him with food and drink to help them solve the crime. No, better to have some stupid, toothy blonde be his motivation. And throw in a pet raccoon while you're at it.

Why I love Kenny Cosgrove

I just watched this Sunday's Mad Men and a stunning realization hit me: I think I love Ken Cosgrove! I've always suspected it, but frankly I was a little too lost in Don's eyes. It's hard to compete when that guy's in the room. But I'd always had affection for Ken. I mean, he's totally cute in that tall, blonde way that is on no level unattractive, and he modestly humblebrags about his cute little short stories. Plus the whole farm-boy-from-Vermont thing? Yes. Mama like.

But then from out of nowhere he's publishing this weird, dark sci-fi shit about rebellious robots under the all-too-adorable pen name "Ben Hargrove"? I'm intrigued. Out of my way, Cynthia. You're plain. You go now. Ben Hargrove -- or should I say, Dave Algonquin -- is mine!

So -- to recap. Why I love Kenny Cosgrove.

1) Tall. Blonde. Farm boy. Unassuming. Humble. Yes. All of the above. We've been over that. But it's a factor.
2) Judging from Cynthia's synopsis of "The Punishment of Robot 4X" (was that what it was called? I was already thinking about boning at that point) he's a badass writer. We could read each others' genre fiction in bed. He will critique me and I WILL LIKE IT.
3) Since he writes sci-fi he's clearly a nerd and we all know nerd sex is the best sex. (I don't think I'm the only girl in the world who took one look at George McFly and said, "Come to me you gangly, tenderhearted shut-in." Am I?) If you don't know the whole nerd-sex thing by now you are not, as Marilyn once said, worthy of the name woman.
4) He's nice to Peggy. He's not a dick to her just because she's a girl! Extra points, KC! You're so down-to-earth....

And finally, I would like to conclude by remarking that I am not the only woman to become recently aware of KC's devastating adorableness. At least three woman -- and one man -- have remarked on my recent Facebook/Twitter updates ("OMG I HEART KENNY FROM MADMEN 4EVER!!!") with positive feedback, and apparently some dorks on Tumblr also agree with me or something, I don't know. All I know is I will be covering all my notebooks with "Mrs. Andrea Cosgrove" from now on. And that my husband has suggested that he thinks Ken is probably gay.

Sigh.

Downton is my Bookshelf Dollhouse

By now everyone in the world has finished watching Downton Abbey, so I can safely blather on without fear of spoiling anything for anyone. I think my general impressions of the show align, more or less, with everyone else's: it's soapy, rather stupid, and eminently delightful. I am especially fond of Lord and Lady Grantham's extremely reliable facial expressions; you can always count on Lady Grantham's mewling Cheshire cat smile and Lord Grantham's range of shocked/indignant/shocked-again furrows. I'm also fond of the repetitiveness and glacial forward momentum of the story lines, from Anna and bloated Mr. Bates' "we'll-get-married-we-can't-get-married-we-must-get-married" ad infintum to Matthew and Lady Mary's version of same. Mr. Bates, it must be said, is one of my most hated characters, second only to human qualuude Lavinia Swire, and I admit to yelling loudly at the television during his trial, "Die! Die and join Lavinia in boring person heaven!"

I am as fond as everyone else of the Dowager Countess, a.k.a The Chicken Lady, and, also like everyone else, wish fervently I had a Carson of my own. And, like the rest of the masses, I am amazed, absolutely amazed, that the timeline of the story world encompasses an incredible eight years during which practically nothing happens. I induced my husband to watch exactly two episodes and during the finale, when Matthew was about to propose to Lady Mary, he said, "She's not going to New York. Nobody is. Nobody ever leaves that house! It's like The Exterminating Angel!" To date this is the single best summing-up of the series I've heard.

But I'm not here to talk about what I think of the show. Everybody else has already done that. I'm here to talk about how strikingly the plots of Downton Abbey resemble the Barbie games of my childhood. Because this is very important stuff.

To begin: the manor house. As a child, my sister and I had a large, white bookshelf in the bedroom we shared at our dad's house. We thoroughly cleared all books off this shelf -- where we put them I can't recall -- for the express purpose of turning it into a doll house, diorama-style. It was a three-story house, with a convertible rooftop/fourth story, depending on need and circumstance. A roof was always good to have, because you never knew when you'd have to stage a suicide, so we generally kept that space empty for trysts, pacing widows, and lonesome jumpers.

The grand white bookshelf was all but bedecked with Corinthian-capped columns in our imaginations and its furnishings -- Kleenex box settees, facecloth bedspreads -- were absolutely magnificent in our own minds. For some reason, though we had an enormous collection of Barbie dolls -- around twenty or so -- we never had a single piece of Barbie furniture. Which was fine by us, really, since pink would've been out of place in the heavy, claret-colored damasks (red facecloths) our manor house demanded.

A grand house demands a grande dame, and in our world that role was filled by Darcy -- or possibly Darci. I'm unsure of her provenance, manufacturer, or country of origin (if anyone knows, do drop me a line). I'm not sure where we got her from. But she was a good inch taller than Barbie, and had impressive snow-colored hair. Due to her dignified tonsorial coloration, she was the family matriarch and her word was law on the estate -- our Cousin Violet, if you will.

There were always several bickering sisters, all pretty (sorry Lady Edith) and always scheming. Well, there was generally one plucky, virtuous sister (usually played by Sindy, a doe-eyed British doll) who would of course be Lady Sybil, and one unrepentantly evil sister -- Lady Mary, obviously. The evil sister invariably pushed people off the roof, destroyed her other sisters' chances of marriage and happiness, and never knew her own heart.

War was of course a prerequisite for any game, as it was the only reasonable way to get rid of all the men. Again, despite owning several Barbie (and Barbie-type) dolls, we failed to ever acquire a single Ken. I think we knew even then that Ken was ridiculous. Well, we did have one Ken, given to us by our stepmother; he was a vintage specimen, and relatively dashing, given his absence of a puffy '80s mullet. Unfortunately he came to us clad in nothing but a pair of red swim trunks, which we promptly lost. (They must be somewhere in small accessory heaven, along with untold pairs of shoes.) In the name of decency, my sister and I colored a replacement pair of swim trunks right onto his nether regions in a most unfortunate shade of blue.

Ken was generally away fighting one war or another, and when he did come home he was always wounded and maimed -- which didn't prevent the sisters from fighting over him. The only other male creatures we had were two hand-knitted clown dolls with terrifying faces. These generally played the role of deserters, who would prowl around the house until Darcy took up her gun and shot them. So Ken got the bulk of the action, perma-swimtrunks notwithstanding. The obvious Downton analogue here is Cousin Matthew, who was briefly wheelchair-bound until Hey! he could walk again. Another storyline lifted straight out of my childhood Barbie games, I might add. Ken was invariably resurrected to full manhood by the miracle cure of the good sister's kiss, though generally his amnesia made him think the bad sister did it and then he'd propose to her and no one could stop their wedding except the noble Darcy who had seen everything and sang like a canary.

As in Downton, our manor house was full of eavesdroppers.

And so, this season, while other Downton viewers wrote inane yet highbrow articles about history and cultural necrophilia, I just laughed and reveled in the nostalgia of seeing my old Barbie games brought to life with human action figures. If I am right, Cousin Patrick will make a reappearance next season, hopefully with a brand new, handsome face.

Millard Filmore died to make this possible

I recently did a Boroughs of the Dead giveaway on Goodreads and was surprised to see I got over 700 entrants. Needless to say, there were many more people who did not end up with a book than who did. So I decided that, in a sort of Presidents' Day Sale, I'd sell, for one week only (wait for it), the Kindle edition of BotD for a mere 99 cents! 99 cents! You can't get anything for 99 cents! Well, you can get a small plastic cat wearing an apron that says "I Love Grandma" at the Ansonia Pharmacy on 7th Avenue, but that's it. Other than that you really, honestly can't get anything for 99 cents. Not even Boroughs of the Dead on Kindle. Except for the next week, during which I tear a hole through the fabric of space and time to make this possible for you, my loyal readers.

You're welcome, America.

Charlotte Canda

My obsession with Charlotte Canda is well-known by readers of this blog or of my book, Boroughs of the Dead: New York City Ghost Stories. Charlotte Canda was a Victorian-era debutante who lived in New York City. She died in a tragic accident on February 3rd, 1845: her 17th birthday.

According to the historians at Green-Wood Cemetery, where she is interred,

The story of Charlotte Canda and the creation of her monument is a true Victorian drama, filled with tragedy, symbolism and beauty. Charlotte was the only daughter of Charles Canda, a Frenchman who had served as an officer in Napoleon’s Army and later emigrated to America.

On Charlotte’s seventeenth birthday, as she was returning home from her party in a storm, she was thrown from a carriage when the horses bolted. She died in her parents’ arms shortly after the accident.

Her tomb is an exquisite "richly carved Gothic Revival structure in the form of a tabernacle [and] an open, arched canopy flanked by two slender spires contain a portrait statue of the young woman wearing a garland of seventeen rose buds representing the years of her life," though when I look at it it seems more to resemble the bed of a Sleeping Beauty in a fairy tale than a tabernacle. I can imagine her slumbering there, frozen in time. (She'll never wake to her lover's kiss, though; in a sad post-script, "her fiance Charles Albert Jarrett de la Marie, a French nobleman, took his own life out of the grief of losing Charlotte. He is buried in the adjacent plot marked by an elegant headstone bearing his coat of arms.")

Victorian-era New Yorkers were quite taken with the tragic tale of the beautiful Charlotte, and her grave became a major tourist attraction. I can certainly understand why; her story is captivating and the monument itself is arresting. Most incredible of all is the designer of her monument: Charlotte Canda.

Yes, that's right. Charlotte Canda designed her own grave.

The artistic Charlotte had been designing a monument for her recently deceased aunt and had sketched the ideas for it on paper. Her father adapted the design concept and personalized it for Charlotte by adding her initials, musical and drawing instruments, books, sculptures of her pet parrots and other symbolic details. The concept featured a niche containing a portrait statue of Charlotte with a star above her head symbolizing immortal life.

When I first read this, I was so taken with the concept of the pretty girl who made her own grave that I decided to immortalize her in a story. I did so in "A Fitting Tribute," a ghost story of Victorian New York. Since today is February 3rd, I'd like to offer the free story as a gift to my readers in tribute to Charlotte, who will not be forgotten as long as obsessive writers live next to Green-Wood. The real story of Charlotte will linger in your mind. (My fictionalized version is scandalously inaccurate, but don't let it fool you.)

Happy birthday and seventeen pink rosebuds to you, Charlotte.

BotD Book Giveaway!

Yes, friends, you read that right! Enter to win your own copy of Boroughs of the Dead! Details below.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Boroughs of the Dead

by Andrea Janes

Giveaway ends February 13, 2012.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Updates on my brain PLUS! Bribery!

I just finished my YA novel. How triumphant! How enriching! How... much work I still have left to do!

Sweet balls there's a lot of it! Polishing the damn thing, to begin with. Then shopping it 'round to all the likely agents and bracing myself for the 6 million inevitable rejections while I twaddle my thumbs and play the waiting game. This greatly benefits my blog-reading audience (hello mum!) because I'll finally have time to sit down and transcribe alllll those brilliant thoughts I've been having while also updating you on all the literary news here in New York City -- because I've got my ear to the ground and my finger on the pulse of this city! (Putting your ear on the ground helps your finger hear the pulse better, FYI. That's kind of common knowledge in the Industry.)

Obviously I've descended into a kind of madness (see nonsensical metaphor, above) so this should be a lot of fun for you people. I hope to have links to more of my very public ramblings here soon, as well as a few private ones for the six readers of this blog. Cheerio!

A.

P.S. The bribery! I almost forgot! Like my book's Facebook page and I'll send you a PDF copy of my book OR a handwritten thank you note! Really!

Janus is indeed a two-face god

January is a double-edged sword isn't it? You're terribly inspired to get out and do things and see thing and achieve things, and yet you're flat-ass broke from your piggery over Christmas. What's a modern spinster to do? Perhaps we can borrow a page from Newyorkology and see what illuminating cultural-type things are cheap and/or free.

Free hours at NYC museums, zoos and gardens

New York City’s museums are in a state of flux with some undertaking major renovations (such as the Cooper-Hewitt and the Museum of the City of New York;) price changes (such as the Met Museum’s increase to $25 from $20 and the Fraunces Tavern Museum’s decrease to $7 from $10;) and others struggling to stay open (such as the mostly closed Seaport Museum and the down-sized American Folk Art Museum.)

Many museums have slowed the pace of new exhibitions and others have cut suggested-admission or free hours. Among those making cuts is the Brooklyn Museum, which last month reduced hours and canceled a high-profile graffiti exhibition. However, the museum is keeping its free First Saturday programs and suggested-admission policy at all other times.

“We are always grateful to visitors who can contribute the full admission price,” Sally Williams, the public information officer for the Brooklyn Museum, said of the suggested $10 admission price. “These difficult economic times have had an impact on most non-profit institutions, like the Brooklyn Museum, as they have for our visitors,” she told NewYorkology via email.

Twice a year, NewYorkology surveys the free and suggested-admission policies at the city’s museums, zoos and gardens. The following day-by-day list is for museums that offer free or pay-as-you-like hours only on a weekly or monthly basis. It complements the lists of always-free NYC museums and the always suggested-donation ones.

Image source: Brooklyn Museum’s work of Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917). Pierre de Wiessant, Monumental Nude (Pierre de Wissant, nu monumental), 1886, cast 1983. Bronze, 78 1/4 × 44 3/4 × 36 1/2 in. (198.8 × 113.7 × 92.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the B. Gerald Cantor Collection, 86.310

More reviews for Boroughs of the Dead!

Two great new reviews for BotD just came out in the past week, from Fangoria and The Horror Zine respectively. Here are some choice words:

"Janes can write—and this package is not [just] a zombie book. Sure, it has the odd ghoul, but also a few choice ghosts and other dead things. BOROUGHS contains 10 tales of Gothic, Penny Dreadful-esque dread and classic terror, some set in contemporary times, some in the haunted past, all taking place in different neighborhoods in New York City. Like the best of the pulps, the narratives are creepy, darkly comical and elegantly composed, with lovingly detailed descriptions of place and an ample whiff of lurid decay." - Chris Alexander, Fangoria

"[These] stories end entirely differently than what the reader expects. And that is the brilliance of Andrea Janes’ work: she doesn’t play by the rules. She teases you with one idea and then twists the knife, sometimes literally, into an entirely different direction. There is nothing sub-standard in Boroughs of the Dead. Each story is unique and exciting, and her writing style is absorbing." - Jeani Rector, The Horror Zine

"It's not often you come across a fairytale cottage complete with witch's cat."

Archeologists in Lancashire, England have discovered the ruins of a 17th century witch's cottage!

From the article:

"Historians are now speculating that the well-preserved cottage could have belonged to one of the Pendle witches.

The building contained a sealed room, with the bones of a cat bricked into the wall.

It is believed the cat was buried alive to protect the cottage's inhabitants from evil spirits."

Horrid! And wonderful!

Ghosts of Christmas Past Walking Tours!

This Saturday December 17th and Sunday December 18th, yours truly (me!) will be giving guided walking tours of Manhattan's East Village, in collaboration with Ghosts of New York.
Here is a description of the tour:

New York's Ghosts of Christmas Past

December 17th, 1 pm; December 18th, 1:00pm & 3:30 pm

Join us for a festive holiday walking tour of New York's Ghosts of Christmas Past! Follow us through the East Village as we discover New York City's special connection to Christmas and its vital role in many holiday traditions, from Santa Claus to Christmas trees. We'll show you where Charles Dickens read A Christmas Carol on his 1865 American tour, invoke the ghosts of the old Dutch Colony, and tell tales from when the East Village was Kleine Deutschland. Along the way we'll treat you to shiver-inducing stories of East Village Ghosts, from Washington Irving to Gertrude Tredwell, then finish at Tompkins Square Park's Greenmarket where you can warm up with a hot apple cider, or at a local pub where you can warm up with a hot toddy.* A festive variation on our classic East Village Tour, Peter Stuyvesant and His Ghostly Friends of the East Village.

* The 1pm tour on Sunday ends at the Greemarket and are suitable for all ages; all others end at pubs and are for guests 21 and older

Please visit Ghosts of New York to book your tickets!

Christmas Ghosts Update

New post up today, this one all about Santa!

Follow the link!

XO,

SA

"Christmas Ghosts" is back!

For those of you with long memories, you will recall I started Christmas Ghosts some time ago, and posted many a ghost story of my own there. These stories have been subsequently yanked as they were sold and reprinted elsewhere, but the blog is back, with a slightly different slant.

My aim now is nothing less than to single-handedly revive the tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve! I'm also going to post lots of general fun, fact-y, Christmasy tidbits as well as ghost stories, so there ought to be something for everyone! And, because I am always scheming, there is an extra, added, as-yet secret bonus to top it all off. So stay tuned....

And Happy Holidays to All!

Love,

SA

New York Ghosts: Mark Twain

Today marks the 176th birthday of Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Twain lived in various locales throughout New York City for much of his adult life, from the West Village to Wave Hill in the Bronx. He often claimed his favorite residence was 14 West 10th Street, located between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, on one of the Village's most picturesque blocks. It is perhaps no wonder, then, that he still haunts it now.

Twain lived at this address from 1900 – 1901 and if you visit it you will see a small bronze plaque in his honor. The beautiful 1830s townhome already had a reputation for being haunted at the time he moved in. Twain, though, was an inveterate skeptic who mocked the idea of ghosts and refused to believe in the unexplained. He even expressed his disbelief in a short story appropriately called "A Ghost Story" in which a ghost haunted his own fake corpse. Even the sight of a truly unexplained phenomena couldn't shake Twain's skepticism. One night he saw a piece of kindling wood moving by itself near the fireplace; he grabbed a pistol and shot at it. The kindling fell to the floor, where Twain saw a few drops of blood. No intruders, human or animal, were ever found to explain the event, though Twain sniffed he was sure it was a rat and still refused to believe that what he had seen sprung from supernatural sources.

These days, Twain's ghost is said to appear to current residents of 14 West 10th Street on the first floor and at the lower level landing of the staircase. Some say the house is haunted by no fewer than twenty-two spirits, the ghosts of people who formerly lived and died in the house. Perhaps Twain does take his place among this cavalcade of shades, or perhaps it is merely wishful thinking on the part of those who spot the spirit – after all, who doesn't love a good celebrity ghost?

One former resident who attested to Twain's presence at the townhouse was Jan Bryant Bartell. Bartell was an actress and writer who discovered she had a touch of the second sight when she moved into the neighborhood. She began to see and experience different psychic phenomena when she moved in to the house next door (16 West 10th Street), hearing noises, seeing visions, and generally feeling oppressed by dread and foreboding. She ended up moving next door (to number 14) but still felt the presence of ghosts, including a very strong feeling that Twain was still there. One day she inquired of the superintendent if he had ever noticed anything strange in the building.

"The super before me, he had some stories to tell," the super replied.

"What kind of stories?" asked Jan.

"About that fella Clemens."

"Has he been seen here?"

"Yes ma'am, twice that I know, and by two different folks," the superintendent continued. "On the ground floor, back in the 1930s. A mother and daughter, a young widow woman, were sharing the apartment. The mother, she comes into the living room one evening before the lamps are lit, and she sees a man with white hair, wild-like. He's sitting in a chair looking out the window and she says, 'Who are you and what are you doing here?' and he says, 'My name is Clemens and I got problems here I gotta settle.'"