Am I literary?
Over the past week (I read fairly slowly), I’ve been reading the late author Martin Booth’s final novel, A Very Private Gentleman. It was not a smash hit upon its release nearly ten years ago so likely you know of this book, if you know of it at all, by the film that was adapted from it: The American, featuring George Clooney.
I saw The American a few weeks ago — and I promise, I will get around to reviewing it, really — and enjoyed it for what it was: a meditative exploration of a lonesome man who just happens to be an armorer for assassins. I was intrigued enough by the movie that I sought out the source material, if only to see how much The American‘s sensibility was informed by the prose.
As it happens there’s not a tremendous amount of crossover between book and film. There is some, and the basic outlines of the story remain intact in the translation, but probably the most notable similarity comes not from plot and character, but from the storytelling method itself. The American is a drama that happens to be about a man who leads a life of shadowy criminality and it “reads” that way on film. The filmmakers may have amped up the overt action bits somewhat as a sop to audiences, but for the most part it remains on a slow, steady course through a very quiet, introspective story. A Very Private Gentleman takes much the same tack.
If someone were to ask me what genre A Very Private Gentleman falls under, I would say it’s literary crime, with the emphasis on literary. It’s crime fiction only in that it features a criminal and some criminal happenings occur, and the rest of the tale is purely personal.
[REVIEW] Underworld: Awakening
Considering that I haven’t liked any of the Underworld movies going all the way back to the 2003 original, it’s kind of bizarre that I’ve watched them all, sometimes more than once. Heck, I even own a copy of Underworld (special collector’s edition!) and have spun the disc in my DVD player many times, including once when I listened to the commentary track in order to glean as many tidbits of trivia as I could. Mine is a sad case.
I took me forever to see Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, despite the presence of Rhona Mitra, for whom I have a strange affection. I had been burned more than was typical by Underworld: Evolution and wasn’t sure I wanted to dive into that blue-tinted world a third time. But once they announced a fourth film, I was all aboard. What’s up with that?
It’s tough to say what I expected of Underworld: Awakening besides more of the same. There’s always been something vaguely unsettling about the amount of attention paid to the films’ own mythology and the second film practically drowned in it. The third film was likewise an exercise in telling us a bunch of stuff we pretty much already knew, so what could a fourth installment offer but still more convoluted back-story and a mindless, blue-tinted violence.
Lest there by any suspicious that I’m about to call Underworld: Awakening a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, let me clear that up right away: what you have here is a movie that is better than the second, somewhat less irritating than the first and on par with the third. If I had to put a letter grade on the movie, I’d give it a solid C. It is not a case of overreaching in the manner of Underworld: Evolution and it is not beleaguered by unflattering comparisons to the roleplaying setting, The World of Darkness. Underworld: Awakening is instead a unabashed action vehicle that happens to have vampires and werewolves in it and is, of course, appropriately tinted blue most of the time.
USA! USA!
As has happened before and will happen again, my official Facebook page has relayed news to my readers ahead of the blog. I really do encourage you to visit the page and “like” it so you, too, can be a part of the conversation.
What’s the news? The Dead Women of Juárez is coming to America!
This is something I’ve been clamoring for ever since the book was released in January 2011. While the book-buying/reading audience in the UK has been nothing but good to me — reviewers have been especially kind, I’m happy to say — I’m an American and consequently I want other Americans to be able to obtain and read the novel without having to buy an import. At the very least it will allow me to stop linking to the Kindle edition of the book and point everyone toward a physical copy, which is the format I prefer. You can’t donate a Kindle ebook to a library, or trade it at a used-book store, and that means to me that the item has less intrinsic value, though I will say that I plan on releasing a couple of ebook exclusives this year, at which point everyone can call me a hypocrite.
As pleased as I am with the news that The Dead Women of Juárez will finally be available to Americans, I must admit some level of trepidation. The United States is a big market with an extremely diverse reading base and I am but a small author with a couple of books to his name. I understand that the US publicist is going to go full throttle promoting this thing, so that’s a positive, but I live in a country where the overwhelming majority of readers are women who like to read books that speak to their experiences. I will not dismiss their preferred reading material as “chick lit,” because there are many, many fine female authors writing books of substance, but I cannot overlook the fact that male authors writing crime fiction are not first on the book-buying public’s preferred-reading list.
I guess it may help some that The Dead Women of Juárez addresses a women’s issue, though I was (rightly) taken to task in one UK reviewer’s critique for talking about that issue strictly from a male perspective. That may turn some readers off. Not many, I hope, but we’re entering deep waters here and I don’t know what to expect.
[REVIEW] Haywire
I know a guy who says the only sport he watches is MMA. As unlikely as this seems, it’s not totally outside the realm of possibility, as the world of mixed martial arts is an extensive and ever-growing one, with mainstream acceptance being the next little step it has to take. A lot of folks still don’t get the broad strokes of cage fighting, let alone the nuances. Once MMA has settled into a groove like boxing, where the object and methods are widely known and understood, it will become just another in the array of popular sports.
Though I have been known to watch a decent amount of MMA, I do not in any way consider myself an aficionado. I understand what a sprawl is and I can identify various holds and such, but the names and faces of the fighters themselves are a blur to me. A few I know, but most are just interchangeable parts in the machine. Like many, however, there is one woman I definitely know, and that’s Gina Carano.
The daughter of a former Dallas Cowboy, Gina Carano is often called “the face of women’s MMA,” and I guess that’s true. Though she suffered a pretty ignominious defeat in her last bout — and hasn’t fought since, which is a couple years now — she remains popular and MMA fans want to see her fight again. Well, that possibility just got further away due to Carano’s new career: acting. She is the star and main attraction of the movie Haywire, a film crafted by director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Lem Dobbs specifically to showcase her natural athletic talents, as well as some practical application of MMA techniques.
In Haywire, Carano plays Mallory Kane, a former Marine who has found a new career as a special operative for a private military contractor. She’s essentially a badass secret agent for hire, working for her former lover, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor). The beginning of the movie finds her on the run, however, following some Very Bad Things and we gradually come to understand how she got to this place through judicious use of backward storytelling. If you don’t like flashbacks, you’re probably going to be frustrated with Haywire. I have no problem with the technique, though I will admit it robs some of the tension from sequences that might have been better served with some mystery as to how things will turn out for our heroine.
It’s IEP time again.
It’s been another year, and so tomorrow we face the firing squad at a meeting to hammer out our son’s IEP. An IEP, for those lucky enough to have children who do not need one, is an Individualized Education Program, basically a blueprint for how the standard educational process will be modified for a disabled person, in this case my son.
Nemo has had many IEPs over the years. They start in pre-K and continue throughout an individual’s educational life. It’s a lifeline to essential services, particularly if you’re like my wife and I and cannot get those services outside the school setting. We’re talking about things like Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy and psychological examination/support. Nemo gets all of these things at his school, which is associated with a hospital for mentally and physically disabled children, and it’s proven to be a life-saver over the years. I do not know what kind of a child he would be if he did not have this small army of specialists working so hard to help him develop as a human being.
I should mention, for those who don’t follow this blog often, that my son has autism. For a few years he was diagnosed as Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified, or PDD-NOS. When he was about seven that diagnosis was revised to autism, which opened up a whole new can of worms, services-wise. I won’t say that it’s been smooth sailing, as every year we are called upon to justify the time and expense spent on Nemo’s education and welfare.
Things got a little more ominous recently with the news that autism may be redefined in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). It will be much harder for any child to receive the diagnosis of autism, even if they are clearly disabled like Nemo is, and will likely mean lots of children with go without the services they need in order to thrive as people. I don’t know how much these pending changes will affect the attitude of the woman from the county who comes every year to oversee the ratification of Nemo’s IEP.
I worry, too, that the people at Nemo’s school have been too successful in their work with him. With some exceptions, he doesn’t have the terrible rages that used to consume him on a daily basis and his academic performance has improved. He’s doing better with people, though he is far from “normal” when it comes to his interpersonal skills. In general he’s doing much, much better. What if the county decides he’s “well” enough to be transferred to a school where he doesn’t have all the supports he now enjoys? What will happen to him then? He succeeds because of what the school provides, and without it he would be lost.
