RIP Tom Wolfe, The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw, Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher, How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran, Puddin' by Julie Murphy and How To Stop Time by Matt Haig

Tom Wolfe was that rarest of beings, a writer's writer who could write non fiction that read like the greatest fiction, and fiction that was snappy, smart and a wonderful read. If you didn't love his amazing prose, you were losing out. I read my first Wolfe book in high school, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, and I was transformed, transported by his glorious prose....I didn't know that non fiction could be so engaging. I immediately sought out everything he'd written, and read Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and Bonfire of the Vanities. I loved his non fiction, which was brilliant, more than his fiction over the years, but I always admired his wit and sense of style. He was our 20th century Oscar Wilde, and the world will never see his like again. RIP Tom Wolfe,and thank you from a journalist whose career you inspired.

Tom Wolfe Dies: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/obituaries/tom-wolfe-pyrotechnic-nonfiction-writer-and-novelist-dies-at-88.html

Via Shelf Awareness:

Tom Wolfe

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz37042279,

a legendary journalist and novelist "whose technicolor, wildly

punctuated prose brought to life the worlds of California surfers, car

customizers, astronauts and Manhattan's moneyed status-seekers in works

like The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, The Right Stuff

and Bonfire of the Vanities," died May 14, the New York Times reported.

He was 88. Beginning in the 1960s, Wolfe's "use of novelistic techniques

in his nonfiction... helped create the enormously influential hybrid

known as the New Journalism."

Describing him as an "unabashed contrarian," the Times wrote that Wolfe

"was almost as well known for his attire as his satire. He was instantly

recognizable as he strolled down Madison Avenue--a tall, slender,

blue-eyed, still boyish-looking man in his spotless three-piece vanilla

bespoke suit, pinstriped silk shirt with a starched white high collar,

bright handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket, watch on a fob, faux

spats and white shoes. Once asked to describe his get-up, Mr. Wolfe

replied brightly, 'Neo-pretentious.' "

From 1965 to 1981, Wolfe produced nine nonfiction books, including The

Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak

Catchers, while continuing "to turn out a stream of essays and magazine

pieces for New York, Harper's and Esquire. His theory of literature,

which he preached in print and in person and to anyone who would listen

was that journalism and nonfiction had 'wiped out the novel as American

literature's main event,' " the Times noted.

Bonfire of the Vanities, his first novel, was a runaway bestseller, but

"divided critics into two camps: those who praised its author as a

worthy heir of his fictional idols Balzac, Zola, Dickens and Dreiser,

and those who dismissed the book as clever journalism, a charge that

would dog him throughout his fictional career," the Times wrote. Wolfe

published three more novels: A Man in Full, I Am Charlotte Simmons and

Back to Blood.

"What I hope people know about him is that he was a sweet and generous

man http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz37042328'New-Journalist,'-dead-at-88"Michael Lewis told the Associated Press. "Not just a great writer but a

great soul. He didn't just help me to become a writer. He did it with

pleasure."

Gay Talese noted: "He was an incredible writer. And you couldn't imitate

him. When people tried it was a disaster. They should have gotten a job

at a butcher's shop."

  

I've been procrastinating on my reviews, so I have 5 books to get through in a short space.

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw is a surprisingly sophisticated YA paranormal romance. The book takes place in a small coastal town in Oregon, where, 200 years ago, three young women were drowned by the townspeople for being witches, mainly because they were beautiful and seduced many of the local men, married or not. They vowed vengeance, of course, and cursed the town, so that every year on June 1, the three sister's spirits would inhabit three young women in the town on June 1, and then the possessed young women would drown at least three boys from the town before releasing the girls bodies two weeks later and going back to their watery grave for another year. No one seems able to find out which women are possessed and stop them from killing innocent boys, so oddly enough, the town seems to have embraced this horrific event and turned it into a local festival called "Swan Season" after the Swan sisters. Tourism is brisk for this morbid fortnight, and the local young people hold a bonfire on the beach and dare all the young women into the water to see who will become inhabited by the sisters spirit. Utterly bizarre, but having visited Oregon more than once, not actually out of the realm of possibility.  Here's the blurb:

Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic meets the Salem Witch trials in this haunting story about three sisters on a quest for revenge—and how love may be the only thing powerful enough to stop them.
Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow...
Where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town.
Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under.
Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into.
Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters.
But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.

This book should have been titled "Swan Season," because the Wicked Deep doesn't really give you an idea of the weirdness of the story or the depth of the excellent prose and the engrossing plot. I literally couldn't put this book down, and read it all in one day. That said, anyone who couldn't see the "plot twist" about Penny a mile away is an idiot. The love conquers all and ending the curse requires a sacrifice were also inevitable, though well-wrought here so as not to make the reader squirm with embarrassment. I'd give this YA novel that reads like a juicy folktale reboot an A, and recommend it to anyone with an interest in witches and curses and romantic ghost stories.

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher is another one of her slender, hilarious autobiographical books, this one detailing just a small segment of her very troubled, yet privileged life as an actress and daughter of Hollywood royalty, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. I picked it up at the library because Carrie Fisher recently passed away, just days after her mother's death, and after seeing her latest and last Star Wars movie, I was missing her zingy wit and "unsinkable" style. Here's the blurb:

Finally, after four hit novels, Carrie Fisher comes clean (well, sort of ) with the crazy truth that is her life in her first-ever memoir.
In Wishful Drinking, adapted from her one-woman stage show, Fisher reveals what it was really like to grow up a product of "Hollywood in-breeding," come of age on the set of a little movie called Star Wars, and become a cultural icon and bestselling action figure at the age of nineteen.
Intimate, hilarious, and sobering, Wishful Drinking is Fisher, looking at her life as she best remembers it (what do you expect after electroshock therapy?). It's an incredible tale: the child of Hollywood royalty — Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher — homewrecked by Elizabeth Taylor, marrying (then divorcing, then dating) Paul Simon, having her likeness merchandized on everything from Princess Leia shampoo to PEZ dispensers, learning the father of her daughter forgot to tell her he was gay, and ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed.
Wishful Drinking, the show, has been a runaway success. Entertainment Weekly declared it "drolly hysterical" and the Los Angeles Times called it a "Beverly Hills yard sale of juicy anecdotes." This is Carrie Fisher at her best — revealing her worst. She tells her true and outrageous story of her bizarre reality with her inimitable wit, unabashed self-deprecation, and buoyant, infectious humor. There are more juicy confessions and outrageously funny observations packed in these honest pages than most celebrity bios twice the length...With acerbic precisions and brash humor, she writes of struggling with and enjoying aspects of her alcoholism, drug addiction and mental breakdowns. Her razor-sharp observations about celebrity, addiction and sexuality demand to be read aloud to friends." — Publishers Weekly

I've read a couple of her other books, like the famous Postcards from the Edge, which was made into a movie with Meryl Streep, and even her fiction was really thinly disguised autobiography, which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes seems almost pathetic, as if she has a pathological need to complain about her lonely childhood and her narcissistic parents. It made me wonder if Carrie Fisher had been born into a "regular" family, if she still would have become an alcoholic and drug addict, and if she would have become the iconic Princess Leia in the famous Star Wars film franchise. Yet underneath the wit and humor is an ocean of pathos and depression, sadness and yearning for something real, something that isn't all glitter and make-believe. I don't know if she ever found it, but I wish her peace in her final soul's rest. This slender volume deserves an A, and a recommendation to anyone who thinks being famous will bring them happiness. 

I've tried to read Caitlin Moran's  How To Be A Woman a couple of times in the past, and I just couldn't get into it. That's surprising because witty feminist memoirs are something I usually enjoy. But for some reason, the Welsh Moran and her grubby childhood and struggles to become a music journalist didn't engage me the first two times I tried to read it. I gave away my first copy and sent the second back to the library unread. However, third time's the charm, and last week I read through the book in two days. Moran's prose is darkly amusing, sort of old-school Goth, and I found that you have to be willing to wade into the grimy bits to get to the good stuff when you read this autobiographical treatise. Here's the blurb, via Publisher's Weekly: Part memoir, part postmodern feminist rant, this award-winning British TV critic and celebrity writer brings her ingeniously funny views to the States. Moran’s journey into womanhood begins on her 13th birthday when boys throw rocks at her 182-pound body, and her only friend, her sister Caz, hands her a homemade card reminding her to please turn 18 or die soon so Caz can inherit her bedroom. Always resourceful—as the eldest of eight children from Wolverhampton—the author embarrasses herself often enough to become an authority on how to masturbate; name one’s breasts; and forgo a Brazilian bikini wax. She doesn’t politicize feminism; she humanizes it. Everyone, she writes, is automatically an F-word if they own a vagina and want “to be in charge of it.” Empowering women is as easy as saying—without reservation—the word “fat” and filling our handbags with necessities like a safety pin, biscuit, and “something that can absorb huge amounts of liquid.” Beneath the laugh-out-loud humor is genuine insight about the blessings of having—or not having—children. With brutal honesty, she explains why she chose to have an abortion after birthing two healthy daughters with her longtime husband, Pete. Her story is as touching as it is timely. In her brilliant, original voice, Moran successfully entertains and enlightens her audience with hard-won wisdom and wit.

Moran's prose is funny, but in an acidic and gritty way, as if she can't keep herself from attempting to shock the reader with coarse language and dirty references. That said, once you get past the rough childhood bits, the book moves at a swift pace. While I agreed with most of what Moran says about fighting misogyny and sexism, her account of how she handled sexual harassment in the workplace was disappointing at best. She seemed to think it was inevitable but allowable because all men are stupid and can't help themselves. The Me,Too movement has put paid to a lot of sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace for women, and while that is taking place now, long after this book was written, from all her other ballsy moves in the book, I expected more boundary setting and whistleblowing from Moran, to pave the way for the women who came after her, so their struggles wouldn't be as difficult. Still, I'd give the book a solid B, and recommend it to anyone who wonders what feminism "across the pond" looks like. 

Puddin' by Julie Murphy is the sequel to her famed novel Dumplin' which is being made into a movie. I read and loved Dumplin' which was about a fat teenager in Texas named Willowdean who entered a beauty contest with her band of misfit friends and changed the rules for the entire pageant. I reviewed it, so if you want more, you can do a search under the title on my blog. At any rate, this novel takes on the story of the runner up in the pageant, Millie, who is a fat girl with style and a very optimistic, naive nature. Here's the blurb:

The irresistible companion to the #1 New York Times bestseller Dumplin’, soon to be a major motion picture starring Danielle Macdonald and Jennifer Aniston!
Millie Michalchuk has gone to fat camp every year since she was a little girl. Not this year. This year she has new plans to chase her secret dream of being a newscaster—and to kiss the boy she’s crushing on.
Callie Reyes is the pretty girl who is next in line for dance team captain and has the popular boyfriend. But when it comes to other girls, she’s more frenemy than friend.
When circumstances bring the girls together over the course of a semester, they surprise everyone (especially themselves) by realizing that they might have more in common than they ever imagined. Publisher's Weekly:Clover City High School in Texas has a clear social hierarchy: football on top, dance team members next, then everyone else. Junior Millie Michalchuk, who also appeared in Murphy’s Dumplin’, may be a lifer at fat camp, but that doesn’t mean she buys into how the world sees her. Callie Reyes dates a football player and is on course to become dance team captain. The girls’ paths rarely cross. Then the dance team loses its funder, a gym owned by Millie’s uncle, and its members break in and trash the business. When a sulky Callie starts working at the gym, Millie models not just friendship and forgiveness, but also tough-love examples of how to treat people. Through the girls’ alternating perspectives, Murphy develops their aspirations and struggles: Millie isn’t sure how to pursue her dream of being a TV anchor; Mexican-American Callie experiences stereotyping and yearns for friends, not frenemies. Murphy convincingly and satisfyingly portrays how their one-step-forward-two-steps-back bonding process helps them go for what they want rather than what others think is possible.

Though we do get to hang out with Willowdean and the others from Dumplin, the book revolves around Millie and her relationship with Callie and her budding romance with Malik. Millie is almost a cliche of the "happy go lucky," sweet and optimistic fat girl who seems oblivious to the sexism, racism and cruelty all around her. (Callie is also a cliche of the cheerleader/drill team pretty popular girl who is cruel and sexually manipulates her wealthy popular boyfriend). Having experienced constant bullying and harassment in junior high and high school, I know what it feels like to be the preyed upon for being fat and different. That said, I don't believe for one moment, even 40 years after my high school years, that it's possible to stop a bully from making "oinking" noises and hurling insults and jokes about weight at you by simply turning toward him, as Millie does, and saying "Good Morning! How are you? Have a great day!" Any bully (or group of bullies, as I was usually subjected to in high school) worth his salt would have relished the opportunity to throw spitballs (or just spit) at me, continue to make fat jokes or hurl insults and invective, and, in my day, shoving or tossing apple cores or gum into my hair, kicking or hitting me were ways to get roars of approval and laughter from the crowd that were not to be missed. Merely attempting to be nice and polite would not have 'thrown' them at all, nor would it have stopped them from harassing me. I can't believe things are any better in today's school environment, especially now that there are computers and cell phones so that bullies can cyber-stalk and humiliate their victims for days on end. But here,Millie manages to make kindness and courtesy prevail, as she shows callous Callie how to be a friend, (and how not to be a shallow b*tch), Malik how to be a boyfriend and her mother how to be accepting of who you are and who your daughter has become, a confident fat girl who wants to be a TV anchor/journalist,despite the prejudice inherent in a business that hires it's talking heads for looks, not for journalistic chops. Millie shames the dean of students into letting her into a broadcast journalism summer camp, and while I laud her for being persistent, having had a husband who worked as a behind the camera journalist at a local TV station, I can tell you that the General Manager of said station told me outright that there are beauty clauses in every anchor/weather person/on air reporter's contract. These contracts force them to remain a certain size, and pays for them to have dental work, plastic surgery, wardrobes, hair color/cuts, etc, so that they will look good enough to present the news or weather on air.The contracts are specifically more draconian for the women at the station, as they're not supposed to show signs of aging at all. Many are fired or put in positions behind the camera once they hit middle age, while the male anchors are allowed to show some gray hair and even gain a little weight. They still have to look "good" though, and they can't have any handicaps that come with aging, so if they develop a hearing problem, it's bye-bye anchor job. But I appreciate Murphy's hopeful attitude about changing the television news environment to be more representative of real women, who come in all shapes and sizes. That hopeful attitude, plus the bright prose and zippy plot make me want to give this book an A, with the recommendation that any teenage girl who is fat or different take a gander at this novel. It will fill you with hope and inspiration.

How To Stop Time by Matt Haig (the illustrated edition) took over a month to get to my mailbox, for some odd reason, but after picking it up, I found it was well worth the wait. I'd assumed it was going to be a kind of "Benjamin Button" novel (which I read and watched the movie with Brad Pitt), but this book actually went deep, and moved beyond the physical aging/not aging problems into the questions of what makes life, any life, worth living? the prose is stalwart and strong, and the plot veers left when you think it will go right. The illustrations are beautiful and creepy, and keep the atmosphere of the book timeless. Here's the blurb: 

 “She smiled a soft, troubled smile and I felt the whole world slipping away, and I wanted to slip with it, to go wherever she was going… I had existed whole years without her, but that was all it had been. An existence. A book with no words.”

Tom Hazard has just moved back his to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him. But Tom has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.
Unfortunately for Tom, the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.
How to Stop Time tells a love story across the ages - and for the ages - about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live. It is a bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

What the blurb doesn't mention is that the Albatross Society CEO (who is older than anyone and obviously insane) demands that Tom get all immortals to join the society, and if they do not, he's required to kill them so that the world will not find out about the immortals and those willing to experiment on them to uncover their secrets. What is interesting about the immortals in the book is that they really aren't immortal, just very long lived. They can get to be around a thousand years old, before they expire naturally from old age and a body that is worn out. They can also be killed by accidents or guns or fire or anything that isn't bacterial or viral, which they're immune to. So while regular humans, called "Mayflies" by the Albas, age each year, the Albas age only every 15-25 years, and then only slightly. What this book boils down to, in the end, is love is the only thing worth living, or dying for. The rest is all noise. I can't say I disagree with that, either. I'd give this book an A,and recommend it to fans of Neil Gaiman and Alice Hoffman. Also, fans of history will enjoy the flashbacks to what history was really like for those who lived it.