This is not a review. It's a reaction. There are spoilers. If you want a review, here it is: Wait is a worthwhile novel from an interesting mind, that will make you think about your soul, and the state of it, and the reasons why your soul may be in that state. It will make you look around your life with a new, healthy suspicion, and try to imagine your spouse with a gun in his hand, standing there blankly, ready to pull the trigger. So there's your review. Go get the book, and read it, and come back here and talk to me about it.

Frank Turner Hollon has written the life story of Early Winwood, a guy you might pass on the street without noticing, a character you might not think was worthy of having a novel written about him. A regular guy. The difference between Early and most regular guys is that right in the middle of the book, after living through a few dozen unremarkable years, Early does something very remarkable: he kills a man. Then, later, he kills another one.

This book is telling me one of two things. No, there are no other interpretations:

1. The narrator is unreliable. The book is psychological study that takes us deep under cover in the mind of a murderer, to show us how he, twisted and inhuman as he is, sees himself as normal, fitting snugly into the fabric of society. I have two bits of evidence for this interpretation. First, the ambiguity of his relationship to Kate Shepherd, and the fact that this drug user turned model citizen at one point tells the court he is a kidnapper and a stalker. The second is the way the murders really fail to haunt the guy, at least fail to haunt him to the extent that a murder would haunt me. Or maybe a murder wouldn't really haunt me that much, which brings me to possibility #2.

2. Early is a murderer, and Early is an average guy. Both. One does not preclude the other. Murder is closer to you than you think it is, reader, and only a thin hair of opportunity and impetus stands between you and the act itself. Looking back on the book, this explanation seems more elegant. It is as if the whole plot of this man's life was constructed to be a doughy, bland container for that one act of violence, so that the blandness leaks into the violence, and makes it ordinary, all part of the whole.

I don't know which one is the correct reading but I hope it's two. It's not that I agree with him, in fact I don't like the idea that we're all base, we're all murderers, we're all that low, as vile as the least of us is vile. I don't agree. But I think that makes the more perfect novel, and I've never read a book constructed like this, with so much fire-retardant wadding packed around a fuel cell on fire.

The book fails me in a couple of ways -- the second "murder" doesn't seem to fit either of my explanations, and it blurs the lines of what's a reasonable excuse to commit the crime. I was disappointed also a little bit in the lesser characters, in Early's fake son and fake daughter. I never knew what lens I was seeing them through, and Early's take on it seemed more suspect when he was describing these relationships than it did when he was talking about Kate.

Ultimately, a very interesting book and a book that worked my brain. I will have to try another by this author.

Labels: book reviews, frank turner hollon, reviews, wait

There are two fine lines that Abbott had to navigate when writing Sin in the Second City, a historical account of the Everleigh Club, the fanciest and most infamous brothel in Chicago at the turn of the century.

The first line is between two moral positions.

Abbott has two heroines here: Minna and Ada Everleigh, the jewel-encrusted madams who elevated their little corner of the vice district beyond the dirty dance hall and onto a level of elegance and sophistication that attracted millionaire visitors and international attention. Minna and Ada are characters that the author clearly loves. As we follow their story from a mysterious lowly past to their glorious position as quiet, powerful queens of vice in a vicious city, we are invited to fall in love with them as well. There are pimps and madams that we can scorn, lesser characters who live down the street from the Everleighs, who run shitty dives and beat their girls, drug their customers and stick to their own floors. But the Everleighs are a different breed: smart, ethical, pure.

If the Everleighs are the heroes, then the villains must be the reformers, the demonstrators and politicians who were trying to eliminate the vice district and "save" the girls who had "fallen" there as prostitutes. Among the characters on this team are pastors and evangelists, pious ladies, and also city officials trying to look good and crack down on crime. The problem with villainizing this side of the fight is that they actually did have a point. The danger with making a madam your hero is that there actually was a lot of horrifying stuff going on in these houses, stuff you don't want to cheer for, and can't fall in love with.

So, as a writer, do you position yourself with the madams, and giggle and titter your way through the book, pretending it's all so naughty and wry, and those stuffy old reformers are just party poopers? Or do you position yourself with the reformers, and spend the book pushing out that really new and interesting concept that prostitution is bad? Maybe there's a third solution, to just report what happened, be historically accurate, and educate us all so we can make... oh, wait, I just fell asleep while suggesting that as an option. So, none of those are books that I would want to read.

Fortunately, Abbott is smart. Very smart. And her smart book can present all these possibilities simultaneously. This is not an expose of the horrors of segregated vice in turn of the century Chicago. Nor is this a blushing homage to all those fabulous madams and the sexual excesses of the times. No one is exempt from criticism here. Abbott tells the stories of those vainglorious preachers and the hypocritical politicians, but also shines an unforgiving fluorescent light into the depths of vice: the strip-and-whip fights where girls lashed each other bloody for an audience, the girl's palm rotting from syphilis while still performing its handjob, the lies, the greed, the corruption, and all of it.

No one is exempt, that is, except the Everleighs themselves. In understanding this, I began to understand where the moral compass of the book truly points. I believe that Abbott would say that the sins of the vice district were black enough -- the sins of the white slavers and the opium dealers and the lower madams operating their 50 cent dives. The Everleighs, however, weren't doing anything very wrong, and in shutting down their clean, sophisticated, elegant club, where the men were treated fairly and the girls lined up to get a job, where the health and well being of the harlots was a priority and the customers were treated like customers, not sinners, the authorities threw the baby out with the bathwater. That is, I think, the way the book gets out of its predicament.

This moral subtlety allows the book to transcend that "choice" between the whores and the reformers, and allows the story of the characters to flourish without the weight of a judgment or the tension of the absence of judgment.

The second line that Abbott dances down is a literary one. She is, of course, telling the true story of actual people, and the research that went into this book is amazing. One look at the bibliography and your jaw will drop. However, there are things that cannot be known from research. The biographer's job is to tell the story in an engaging way that will live on the page, without embellishing the facts too much, to navigate between too strict a focus on reality and too fanciful an elaboration. Abbott accomplishes this brilliantly. Everything in quotation marks, in the book, was actually said by the real Everleighs, or other characters, and recorded in court documents, journals, or letters. But Abbott's story goes beyond the bare facts and delivers a prose that reads like fiction. None of the "we can't possibly know" or "it's unclear" but loads of vibrant descriptions, delightful details, and a narrative sense that really brings the landscape of the levee to life.

Sin in the Second City exploded my expectations. You know I loves me some violated dichotomies, yo. By defying the obvious choices, and creating her own rules, Abbott pays the Everleigh sisters great honor by putting them in the context they deserve.

Labels: book reviews, books, karen abbott, reviews, sin in the second city

Without any fanfare, the Golden Globes are on! No musical number, no host, no montage, just presenters trying to shut up the diners guzzling champagne at their big round tables. Jennifer Lopez takes the stage in a golden diaper. Dear J-Lo, when you broke out in the Grecian goddess look the first time, we all applauded. The second time, we thought, hey, cool, it's her thing. Now, many years later, gazing upon your slicked back hair and your draped pelvis, we're tired of it. Maybe you could do something else. I suggest high tech. Hey, the Golden Globes are in HD! It's awesome! Amy Adams looks completely perfect and adorable and dewy. She looks about 12!

Best Supporting Actress, Movie: I pick: Amy Adams, and I swear she said she was 17! Winner: Kate Winslet. Kate Winslet is aging beautifully. She also looks completely buff and thin. She reads well from a white piece of paper. Her husband is hairy in the face, and looks like he realizes how lucky he is. Oh my goodness! I didn't realize she was married to Sam Mendes. She addresses her children, and it's cute.



Sting is introduced as a composer and social activest. He is similarly hairy in the face. Dan says, "It's Grizzly Sting."

Best Original Song: I pick Bruce Springsteen. Winner: Bruce Springsteen. Bruce and Sting awkwardly hug and Bruce giggles. Is that Mickey Rourke in a pimp costume? Mickey Rourke is wearing, and I am not kidding, purple satin and sequins, nails filed into points, and blonde streaks on nutbrown hair. Mickey Rourke has lost his mind.

Best Supporting Actor, TV Comedy: My pick: Anyone but Jeremy Pivens. Winner: That British guy that always plays the dad in stuff, for his portrayal of Thomas Jefferson in some TV movie. You remember him, he was Mr. Dashwood.

Best Supporting Actress, TV Drama: My pick: Anyone but that girl from Treatment. Not Diane Wiest, the other one. Winner: Laura Dern. Laura Dern takes the stage in a really pretty and modest homecoming dress, hair as fabulous as a kindergarten teacher at lunch. I mean, seriously, I think she has a scrunchy in her hair.

You know what? Burn After Reading was not that great. Brad Pitt's surprise violence was the highlight of the movie. Not to give things away but when a man's face getting punched and shot is the bright spot of a film, you are one step ahead of a fart movie.


Tonight, there are two types of neck. Those adorned with nothing but the modest sweat of a proud female whose earnest work has paid out in honor, and those thick with massive ropes of jewelry. The jewels are IN. We want big chokers, drizzly Egyptian style necklaces. Beyonce Knowles' necklace is like a big diamond daisy with her head being the slick, fruity stamen, and we LOVE IT. Steven and Marty agree, okay? We are over the "economic downturn" look. Except for you, J-Lo. You need to step away from the body shimmer.

Best Supporting Actor, TV Drama: My pick: Anyone on earth but Gabriel Byrne. Winner: Gabriel Byrne. I'm so sorry, people but I freakin' hate that show. Treatment, you know what you did, and I hope you're sorry. Gabriel Byrne isn't even there to pick up his award for looking emotionally constipated. What a blow to the art of film-making.

Best Actress, TV Drama: My pick: Whichever one is not in the audience and therefore cannot speak. Winner: Anna Paquin. I've never seen any of these shows. Now I have been bored into a coma by Anna Paquin's navy blue "gown" and her refusal to wear neck jewelry. Nothing is working for her -- the shape of her head, the kindergarten-picture-seagull eyebrows, the gap in the teeth, the weirdly orange "gold" cuff bracelet.

Um, I just saw Drew Barrymore in the audience. She looks like an angel wearing a cloud. Drew, I love you.



Outstanding Animated Feature: My pick: Wall-E. Winner: Wall-E. So deserved! Wall-E was awesome. Not to say that I didn't deeply enjoy Kung Fu Panda. I did. But Wall-E was beautiful. The director says, "I love you to my family and my kids. You inspire every emotion that I try to capture on screen." That's kind of nice!

Best Actress in a Comedy Movie: Wow, Johnny Depp looks young again. I guess he is over the haunted meth addict look. Emma Thompson looks rather radiant too. She is probably still on the meth though. You know Emma. I'm so distracted by Johnny Depp's youthful appearance that I forget to make a pick, but that girl from Happy Go Lucky wins it. She seems delightfully pleased. She's wearing a giant skirt with one of those meshy leotardy tops. Everyone's makeup looks so wonderful; I love the HD! Also the very close, strange, realistic sound. Emma Thompson looks beautiful and happy in a nice shawl. Marisa Tomei looks hectic in a sort of cardigan.

Jake Gyllenhaal has no blood in his face. He looks like he shot someone and he's scared we'll notice. Go home, Jake. Hide the body.

Wow, Drew Barrymore is now presenting. She looks completely fantastic. I think she's presenting something about TV, but the misty blue layers of her dress, so fluffy and yet so fitted, are too beguiling. I cannot care or notice what she's saying. There does seem to be some kind of skeletal husk, maybe a future echo of her own dear self, but clad in black and with more veins on her forehead, standing beside her. It speaks occasinoally. Tom Hanks accepts an award.

Look! It's Demi Moore! We all know now that this is a dress that made Rachel Zoe die. She dies, right? It's so bananas that she died. Do you die? She died, because Demi killed it. There's a kind of leash wrapped around her throat with grommets in it. I fail to die. I'm sure it looked better on a giraffe in fashion week.

Best Supporting Actor, Comedy: Heath Ledger wins. And he is dead. I'm sure he will appreciate the standing ovation. I know I do. Everyone loves honoring a dead guy with an award. It makes the whole thing seem so damn meaningful. Here's my cold confession: I didn't think he did that great of a job as the Joker. Sorry, it had to be said. The person accepting the award said, "After Heath passed on, you see a hole ripped in the future of cinema." Okay, yes, Brokeback Mountain. But also... A Knight's Tale. Okay? Some of us do remember.

Hi! It's Tom Brokaw!

Hi! It's Maggie Gyllenhaal in a chiton made out of blue leopard print. I am not even kidding. I wish I could say that it was not chiton made of blue leopard or that she did not have robin's egg blue eye shadow on or some kind of grapes dangling from her ears.



Laura Linney has won something. She is firmly in the Drew Barrymore camp of gauzy and fitted floaty gowns. Hers is butter yellow. She looks actually completely awesome. The other one who looked pretty darn young and radiant was Catherine Keener.

Best Screenplay: Dr. Dorian's girlfriend is presenting from the "jeweled choker, yo, economy bite my botts!" camp. She's wearing a faux chenille gown with a corset top. Totally gross. But she has one of those lovely plastic-looking cleavages. I have to say I'm completely impressed with how great everyone looks in HD. For the record, I completely don't know what any of those movies were or who won.

AMY POEHLER IS PRESENTING! You can't spell presenting without REPRESENT! Okay, well, you can, but I love her.

Best Actor, TV Comedy: Nominated are Alec Baldwin and Steve Carrell and David Duchovny and two other dumb guys. ALEC BALDWIN WINS! AND BEATS MONK! Alec Baldwin absolutely should have won, this was fairness on a biscuit, if only for that scene where he plays all of the family members of Tracy Morgan, all at the same time. That scene was my super fave.

Renee Zellwegger presents, wearing a Morticia Adams style gown and a spiderweb on her head. No, we will not take you seriously as a goth. It is not stately. It is not glam. Rethink it.

Best Actor, something something: Apparently, this "Recount" movie was really big. Super. Yet Paul Giamatti wins for playing John Adams. Was this some kind of miniseries or something?

Best TV Series Comedy: Glenn Close is presenting in a gold brocade Japanese top and gold pants. It's like if Jennifer Lopez' outfit went off to the senior center to have a swim and some clever seventy-year-old amazed all her teeth-clacking friends by sewing it into a pantsuit. Winner: 30 Rock. Tina Fey looks like Liz Lemon would look. Tracy Jordan speaks for the show, announcing that Tina Fey agreed to make him the show spokesman if Barack Obama won. He sounds like Tracy Jordan would sound. Oh, it's all so just.

I feel like I want to take a break and watch something else for a while. I mean, are we really discussing the relative charms of Mamma Mia and a movie about the Holocaust? Pierce Brosnan is completely drunk. Too drunk to read. Meryl Streep does a cannonball into the ocean.

Best Soundtrack: Slumdog Millionaire. Wow, people are standing! Who is this guy? He looks so small, and yet, he causes such a stir. Sorry, small Indian man, but pulling out an index card makes me push fast forward.

Best Actress TV Comedy: Christina Applegate is wearing a beautiful, beautiful, amazing necklace. It's flowers, in a chain, irregularly sized, assymetrical, and kind of gold/silver. Beautiful. You know whose hair I want? I want Mary Louise Parker's hair. I wonder how long it takes her to get that just-fought-a-war-in-the-wind look? I love it. Tina Fey wins, and now has to speak. She's wearing a dress cut down to her waist with a shawl collar around the back that looks like a robot part. She is a funny lady.

I fell asleep for a moment and missed something. Someone directed something, but look! Here is Sigourney Weaver. She has very stiff, very purposefully frayed bob, and she's wearing a dress like you might wear to a museum luncheon, except it's two feet too long.

Best Actor Movie Comedy: Sandra Bullock wears a faux chenille chiton in white. No neck jewels. Colin Farrell wins. He's holding onto the kitten head hairdo with both hands, people. It may have gone out with 90210 but he's never giving in.

Penelope Cruz is wearing taupe. Hey, hold on. Can you think of one person, one measeley little feeble person who wore an actual color tonight? It's all about the cream, the white, the black... can we we find any color in the crowd?

Best Picture Comedy: Winner: Vicky Christina Barcelona. Congratulations Woody Allen! Hey, Woody Allen directing that huge airgun guy from No Country for Old Men -- I have to see this movie. Javier! You slay me! It looks like I want to see Slumdog Millionaire too.



Best Actress Movie Drama: Well HELLO Cameron Diaz in pink! A warm pink, even rose. Who cares that her hair looks blue/grey! She presents with Mark Wahlberg. Winner: Kate Winslet. How nice! She hugs her hair husband and cries. Does this mean she won the best supporting *and* the best actress? No one can believe it! Her nose is turning red! No, don't cry! Read your little paper! Ooo, when she was mentioning the other nominees she forgot Angelina Jolie and then said, "Oh, God, who's the other one!?" Hahaha. Now she's telling Leonardo DiCaprio how much she loves him. It's all very breathless.

Best Somethingorother on TV: Madmen! Never seen it, no idea what it's about, don't care. Someone wearing red is onstage though -- red tulle no less. Oh, it's Zoe Bartlett! How pale of her. Well, I shouldn't complain. I did ask for color. Good for me -- I got it in the freakin' eye.

Best Actor Movie Drama: Hold me, they're showing Mickey Rourke again! Oh, CRAP -- he won. I'm trying to stuff myself under the sofa at this point. He literally FELL up the stage. Fell as in drunkenly, folks. Okay, now if we must, we can truly analyze the outfit. Black sequinned scarf. Purple satin lapeels on a velvet sport coat. Amber plastic glasses. Greasy hair with blonde streaks. Moustache and tiny goatee. Faux tan. Brown silk pocket square. He is using bad grammar on purpose. And the chisel that split my skull was one of those wallet chain things, attached to his belt buckle and winding around to his ass. Oh, the pain. The pain of it all. He keeps saying "balls" and "son of a bitch" and referencing his recent down-and-out status. We get it. You've been through the wringer and you came out in purple and black sparkles. Glorious.

Best Picture Drama: Slumdog Millionaire.

END. I have a few images embedded above. For more, go see the official gallery.

Labels: golden globes, movies, recap, television