The world is a good place. There are enough excellent writers around to keep us happy. Some of them even write for movies and TV! LOL.
I have mentioned the excellent books of Bill Bryson in a previous review. Here’s another writer who will give readers some hearty belly laughs.
Sh*t My Dad Says, More Sh*t My Dad Says and I Suck at Girls by Justin Halpern. What a funny, funny dad! He’s an outrageous version of “Life With Father” by Clarence Day Jr.. Does anyone remember Day’s book or the TV show? Clarence Day Sr. was a funnydoodle bumbler of a dad who seriously believed he was the only rational soul on the planet.
Sam Halpern is a rougher cut, even though he’s a scientist and a professor. He doesn’t care if he’s a bumbler. He doesn’t care what people think about him. He doesn’t care about reading parenting books or going easy on his kids’ teachers. And he totally embarrasses his young son, Justin.
For example: “On Using Protection: I’m gonna put a handful of condoms in the glove compartment of the car . . . I don’t give a shit if you don’t want to talk about this with me, I don’t want to talk about this with you either. You think I want you screwing in my car? No. But I’d much less rather have to pay for some kid you make because there ain’t condoms in there.”
Another example: When Justin is sentenced to his bedroom and complains about being imprisoned, Sam says: “Oh spare me. Being stuck in your bedroom is not like prison. You don’t have to worry about being gang-raped in your bedroom.”
These books are memoirs, but probably better than memoirs. Nobody could be as funny as Sam Halpern without some creative memory thrown in.
Turning to the serious side of life, there’s Prince Edward by Dennis McFarland and A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci. Both concern the aftermath of integration laws in the South. Both books show that laws don’t mean the end of problems.
In “Prince Edward,” for example, the aftermath of Brown vs. Board of Education results in most of life going on the same for Benjamin Rome, the 10-year-old son of a white chicken farmer in 1950s Virginia. White people are busy creating their own school to escape the integration law. Black people are wondering how their children can get educated in public schools that have closed down for lack of support and teachers.
Ben is caught between his best friend, Burkhardt, who is black and being raised by his grandmother, and the complicit opinions of his family who simply go along with the racial turmoil because they have their own problems to worry about. Ben is confused. He knows that Burkhardt lives in a house with 40 books. That makes his grandmother a literary genius in Ben’s world. Black folks aren’t supposed to be able to read. White folks simply don’t read.
Prince Edward refers to the county in which the story takes place. It is a metaphor for the place we all live, where the status quo is hard to undo because prejudice is more than skin deep.
“A Calamity of Souls” also takes place in Virginia but in the late 60s. A black man and his wife are accused of murdering an elderly man and his wife. They are innocent, but the authorities aren’t willing to investigate. A white lawyer, Jack Lee, is assigned to the case. He is reluctant to take the case but he’s more or less forced to serve. He is joined finally by a black, civil rights lawyer from Chicago, Desiree Dubose. Their styles are completely different, but they agree on one thing: In the political climate, they will have to find out who really committed the murders or their clients are doomed — doomed by prejudice. The courtroom action is worth reading on its own.
What to Do When Someone Dies, by Nicci French. This suspenseful mystery is a real page-turner. It starts with this twist: A happily married woman, Ellie Faulkner, answers the doorbell and learns that her husband Greg has been killed in an auto accident along with a female passenger whose presence suggests they were lovers. Ellie is devastated by grief and anger. Her friends consider her demented as she proceeds to investigate the accident and the identity of the strange woman. Along the way Ellie becomes convinced that Greg’s death was not an accident, and, incredibly, she becomes a suspect in her husband’s murder. It is a tangled web of suspense that involves assumed identity and an unbelievable ending. Whew!
The writing by this husband-wife team Nicci French is superb. Not a wasted word. The reader is on the edge of the seat the whole time.
1 Comment
What you’ve done here is more than simply write; you’ve crafted an experience. Every idea is presented in a way that feels not just intelligent, but alive, as though each sentence has a pulse. This is the kind of writing that invites the reader to not just understand, but to feel.