Book Review: “Secret Identity” by Alex Segura

Secret Identity by Alex Segura

Segura has written comics and crime novels, and in this story he does the Noir thing around the comics biz, circa 1975.  Write what you know, write what you love.

The titular secret identity points to the hidden and suppressed contributions of women and gay comic artists and fans.  Carmen Valdez loves comics, wants to write comic, and is thrilled to get to work in the biz.  But there are few women in the game, and no chance that she will get to write comics as she has dreamed.  Still—she dreams.

In the chaos of crumbling NYC circa 1975, things get very Noir.  Events conspire so that Carmen contributes to a new comic series, featuring a female character not unlike herself.  It is brilliant work, but, naturally, her name is removed.  It’s like she has a ‘secret identity’, except there isn’t really a sexy upside to erasure in real life.  No one knows.  That’s hard.

Then her cheating collaborator is killed, and other bad stuff happens.  Really bad stuff.

Carmen is suspected of murder, and then risks her own life trying to figure out what’s going on.  People get hurt.  It’s bad.

Worst of all for her, the series is assigned to talentless hacks, who put out awful dreck. 

Along the way, Carmen keeps meeting attractive women who seem attracted to her.  She’s gay, but not very confident of what that should mean.  It is a bit hard to watch her fumbling along, possibly missing opportunities for love (and adventure).

And, by the way, Carmen’s ex girlfriend is up from Miami, and shee appears to be even crazier than ever.  What does she want, and just how far will she go?

NYC in 1975 was pretty damn Noir in real life, and Segura gives a loving depiction of the bad and the good. Being from Miami, For example, Carmen simply sneers at what New Yorkers consider to be “big” cockroaches.  :  –  )  On the positive side, Segura takes special joy in Carmen happening upon ‘unknown’ music acts, including the Ramones and Patti Smith.

Myself, I’m not a Segura-level fan of comics though I have plenty of friends who are.  For that matter, I’m not in love with NYC, in 1975 or any time.  Even so, I enjoyed this story quite a bit. 

I guess it’s a case of, “relax…it’s just comics, it’s just Noir”.  Go with it.

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1. Alex Segura, Secret Identity, New York, Flatiron, 2022.

Sunday Book Reviews

Book Review: “You Dreamed of Empires” by Álvaro Enrigue

You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue

Enrigue fantasizes on one of the great “what-ifs” of history:  what if Hernán Cortés had not been so insanely lucky in 1521; so that the native states of Mexico survived and resisted Spanish incursions much longer?

The book is based on much that is known of the real conditions in Mexico at that time, plausible versions of the psychology and politics of the key players, and a generous amount of imagination.  The first two make the story exotic, the last makes things fascinating.

This story is self-described as “Borgesian”, a “vision of the past” (p. 221).  This is entertainment and poetry, not history.  Naturally, that makes it all the truer, and also exquisitely beautiful.

In addition to the gorgeous word painting of pre-Colombian Mexico, this is the story of cultural encounter.  Nobody really understood what the others were up to; in fact, pretty much everyone thoroughly misunderstood the other guys.  It all would be comical if the results hadn’t been so tragic.

If you want a symbol of just how nuts this expedition was, Cortés employed a slave woman (courtesan) gifted by the Mayan court, who could translate between Nahuatl (spoken in Mexico) and Maya.  He also employed a ransomed Spanish castaway priest to translate between Spanish and Maya.  

Every communication was a game of telephone, translated twice on the way; and, as Enrigue suggests, the loyalties  and motives of the translators were questionable. 

What could possibly go wrong?

This aspect of the story must surely have amused Wimmer as she translated on into English.

On the other team, the empire was in turmoil from rebellions, factions, and the eccentricities of emperor Moctezuma.  Large armies of rebels quickly allied with the invading Spaniards, but what were they all seeking to achieve?   The Spaniards themselves claimed to have a message from their leader, the “Emperor of the Whole World”, as well as news of their own religion.  What was all that about?

Enrigue makes this awful mess both entertaining and sympathetic.  We can’t help but empathize with all the parties in the crazy dance, and wish everything could come out well for all of them.

Of course, that’s not what happened in our own time-space continuum, which makes this story so sad. 

What if?  What could have been? 

Sigh.

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1. Álvaro Enrigue, You Dreamed of Empires. Translated by Natasha Wimmer, New York, Riverhead Books, 2024.

Sunday Book Reviews

Book Review: “3 Shades of Blue” by James Kaplan

3 Shades of Blue by James Kaplan

This is a biography of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the making of the incomparable recording, “Kind of Blue”, and what happened ot them after.  As such it is the story of jazz in the 1940s, 50s, through the 80s. 

There is a lot to tell, because these artists lives intersected with so many other artists, and with culture and politics. 

Mush of this story is hard to read because playing and creating jazz was a hard life.  If hardship fosters great art, we should be unsurprised at the great music that emerged from Black America in the twentieth century.

Kaplan has an advantage over contemporaneous commentators and fans of the time, in that he has a ton of information about the historical context to fill out the picture; a picture of American racism, sexual behavior, and drug use.  So much of the life of a jazz player in those years was taboo, it was impossible for most people to really know about and understand what was happening.  Of course, we have our own perspectives now on sex and drugs and hitting women, not to mention racism and sexism.

In principle, this is a story of our culture and the high artistic ambitions of these musicians.  But as often happens, what seemed at the time to be urgent questions, conflicts, and artistic goals; are opaque to us.  Worse, with the perspective of time, some things that seemed important look like trivial rabbit holes—especially when drugs were in the driver’s seat.

For example, I’m not sure what the titular “Empire of Cool” was supposed to be, but its so “lost” now its just words.

For that matter, the status of the focal work of the book, Kind of Blue, is itself ambiguous.  KoB is a great recording, which is widely admired and has sold zillions of records.  It influenced untold numbers of musicians, and probably continues to do so. 

But, is it “jazz”?  What does that question even mean, anyway?   (For the record, I myself do not know, nor do I even care about, the answer to that question.)

This history begins in suffering and winds up in irony.  Whatever popularity “jazz” had as America’s musical art form, it was blown away in 1963 by the supernova that was “Rock and Roll”.  The British invasion was an amplified echo of what kids heard coming out of American bases, which included a lot of jazz.  Ka-boom.

Whatever else jazz accomplished, it booted up a new musical culture, like it or not, and thereby ended its own cultural dominance.  Welcome to the 60s, folks!

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I don’t generally like to read about music or the lives of musician—music is to be experienced, not talked about.

But, of course, there is always an exception to prove the rule. 

I actually liked this book, even though it is long and detailed and is trying to talk about jazz, which is an extremely non-verbal topic.  Kaplan’s long fan letter to Kind of Blue and the people who made it is readable and worth reading. 

For one thing, he is really on the side of his subjects; Miles, John, Bill and their circle.  Which isn’t easy, because they had very messy lives. 

I should say that, if I don’t necessarily enjoy reading about music, I really hate reading about using drugs. But this story can’t be told without the drugs.

For another thing, Kaplan really likes jazz and the music these guys made.  This is evident on every page and gives the book a narrative theme. 

I don’t know if these musicians actually were thinking and striving in the way that Kaplan portrays them, but Kaplan’s version makes their chaotic lives seem deeply meaningful and their achievements truly important.

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1. James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool, New York, Penguin, 2024.

Sunday Book Reviews

Book Review: “A Grave Robbery” by Deanna Raybourn

A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn

This is apparently #9 in series which I haven’t read.  It was perfectly fine as a stand alone, so no worries.

Raybourn continues to have rollicking fun with Veronica and Stoker, her intrepid Victorian adventurers, investigators, and lovers.  I gather that earlier episodes have taken them all over the world, but this case is restricted to London.

A wax figure of a young woman comes their way, destined for their patron’s vast collection of curiosities.  They are shocked to discover that this isn’t a reproduction, it is the actual body of a woman.  Not cool. 

She is uncannily well preserved, which expert taxidermist Stoker and expert lepidopterist Veronica are well qualified to determine.

Who is she?  What happened to her?  How and why was she preserved in this way?

In other words, “the game’s afoot”!

Veronica and Stoker are off on the investigation which takes them out of there extraordinarily eccentric home base to visit a number of eccentric locales in Victorian London, with a cadre of their eccentric friends.

It’s all light and absurd and a pleasant enough read.  Which is the whole point.

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1. Deanna Raybourn, A Grave Robbery: A Veronica Speedwell Mystery, New York, Berkeley, 2024.

Sunday Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Other Profile” by Irene Graziosi

The Other Profile by Irene Graziosi

This story portrays the life of internet “influencer.”  It’s an awful, awful depressing tale, far too realistic to be fun.

The most depressing part is that the psychology of these young women is so ghastly.  They have empty lives, which become internet performances, enabled and driven by advertising revenue.  Young lives thrown away is never pretty to see.

Influencer Gloria is good at the game.  She has thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers.  She has money and lots of stuff.  She is famous.  She makes appearances.  She has published books of poetry, fer goodness sake!. 

This isn’t good for a child.

Gloria has no personality, she is just posing, all the time.  Posing with products that pay her to pose. Posing with people who are posing.  Or just posing because she doesn’t know how to do anything else.

Shallow doesn’t begin to describe it.

“Why are you always smiling?”

“The more you smile the happier you become.  When you see someone else smiling it makes you happy, and so you create a chain of smiles and positive energy.”

(p. 50)

As Gloria turns 18 and graduates high school, she hires Maia (age 26) as an “image consultant”—basically to be Gloria’s friend and older sister.  Maia is tasked with helping Gloria figure out what she will do now.

In this role, Maia tries to figure out Gloria and Gloria’s life.  Of course, Maia herself has a troubled past and a dubious present.

Helping Gloria do her Internet thing soon brings Maia to a personal crisis.  To be fair, Maia’s problems weren’t created by the Internet, but the Internet sure makes things worse.

The whole story is awful.  It’s bleak.  It’s sad.

Worse, Graziosi doesn’t give us much hope or even understanding of how things could be better, either.

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1. Irene Graziosi, The Other Profile. Translated by Lucy Rand, New York, Europa Editions, 2023.

Sunday Book Reviews

Book Review: “Corey Fah Does Social Mobility” by Isabel Waidner

Corey Fah Does Social Mobility by Isabel Waidner

This story is contemporary, though the location is unidentified and much of the history of the protagonist is inscrutable.  The author lives in London, so perhaps that is the inspiration for many of the situations, I dunno.

Recognizably contemporary, but, no, not realistic.   I mean, the key plot element is some kind of worm hole, along with the strange entities that traverse it.

The titular Corey Fah is a writer who as been awarded a prize for “Fictionalization of Social Evils”, whatever that might mean.  There is a trophy, but it seems to be sentient and wormhole traversing.  Corey spends most of the book trying to claim his big prize.

The rest is a hallucinogenic shaggy dog story, through multiple timelines and many strange situations.  Corey is remarkably unfazed by all this.

It is possible that the author is making one or more points about contemporary culture and media.  But I can’t tell you what they might be.  I haven’t a clue what it all means, nor do I care.  It’s not really interesting enough to worry about.

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1. Isabel Waidner, Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, Minneapolis, Graywolf Press, 2023.

Sunday Book Reviews

Book Review: “Lighting Rods” by Helen DeWitt

Lighting Rods (2011) by Helen DeWitt

I missed this novel when it was first published, but it was recommended as one of  “22 of the Funniest Novels Since ‘Catch-22’”.  We’ll set aside the question of how amusing Catch-22 was or is–I could use a laugh.

The premise seems timely enough.  This is the first person story of an entrepreneur’s disruptive innovation:  in order to proactively prevent sexual harassment and resulting problems, he deploys employees with an additional assignment to anonymously service high testosterone male employees.  These “lightning rods” are paid to take one for the company, draining off the damaging build up of uncontrollable lust in the workplace.

Part of the joke is that, in the story, this preposterous concept actually works.  Complaints goes away, morale improves, productivity improves.  It’s worth every penny to the company.

DeWitt also makes fun of corporate gobbledygook, not to mention office culture and gender politics.

But honestly, it’s not really that funny.

For one thing, it’s grievously out of date.  Written sometime before 2011, it’s not only pre-Trump, it’s pre-Internet, fer goodness sake.  So much of it makes absolutely no sense today.  Behavior that was once secret and shameful, if ubiquitous; is now openly performed as political theater.

For another, gender politics have become w-a-a-y more complicated.  The whole concept underlying the Lightning Rods is so-o-o twentieth century.

In short, this is a novel of ideas, and the ideas are so anachronistic as to render it stupid rather than ironic.  Sorry.

And please let me short-circuit the Elons of this world who like to propose this kind of “innovation” in order to “own the libs” by advocating the stupidest possible behaviors.

I feel obligated to point out that the fictional procedures are so silly they could never be implemented.  But if you could implement them, they wouldn’t work anywhere near the way it does in the story, because this isn’t how people actually behave.

Sexual harassment has nothing to do with excess libido, and providing Lightning Rods would most likely increase inappropriate behavior rather than decrease it.

So don’t try this at home.

Overall, if you missed this novel, you didn’t miss much.

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1. Helen DeWitt, Lighting Rods, New York, New Directions, 2011.

Sunday book Reviews

Book Review: “Cahokia Jazz” by Francis Spufford

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

This dark Noir piece should have been titled ‘Cahokia Blues’. 

In our time line, Cahokia is the abandoned site of what was the largest city in North America 1500 years ago.  By the Colombian invasion, the people were gone, there was nothing but ruins left.

In Spufford’s alternative history, Cahokia survives to become a state in an alternative United States.  In this alternative 1922, the USA is the roiling cauldron of racism we all know, with some intriguing curveballs.  Two states are dominated by native Americans (Cahokia and Denesh). 

During the Civil War, the nation of Cahokia captured Vicksburg and occupied the confederate state of Mississippi.  This key victory was leverage in their negotiations with Lincoln to enter the Union as a state on their own terms—especially, keeping traditional communal land ownership.  Cahokia also helped establish and maintain a Black majority state government in Mississippi, which survived reconstruction.  Thus, in this 1922, there is a Black migration from all over the South to Mississippi, rather than out of the South up  into Northern cities.

The story unfolds in Cahokia city, which is a controlled by the native majority, but has many Black and white residents, and is integrated into the wider US economy, not least by the native owned Cahokia Pacific Railroad. 

Joe Barrow is a police detective, and he is called out to a horrible murder.  The bloody scene appears to be an invocation of an “Aztec” ritual sacrifice.  But that’s nonsense, of course. Newspapers notwithstanding, this display has nothing to do with any actual “native” practices.  Most likely, this is a show intended to whip up fear and trigger a coup attempt by the Klan and other outsiders.

These are deep waters for a city PD detective.  And Joe himself is not necessarily all that great of a policeman.  He really should be on the road playing Jazz piano.  He’s really good at that.

Barrow is an orphan who has no knowledge of his presumed native heritage.  He’s going to get a really fast education in how things really work in Cahokia, and of the deep social and emotional currents that hold this nation together.  This experience brings out his romantic streak, and his  own longing to belong.

All in all, Barrow has a hell of a week.  He gets beat up.  He gets fired and rehired.  He meets “the Man”, who is the “Sun”,  the unofficial prince of the city.   And not one, not two, but three attractive women make a play for his attention.   And it’s only Tuesday.

Then the feared coup explodes, with Joe literally right in the middle.

No wonder he’s decided to head out of town to join a band touring Mississippi. If he really can let go.

This story is a great piece of Noir, with lots of gritty tension, including nasty 1920’s era racism.  Which, unfortunately seems very contemporary.

The alternative history adds a nice touch to the Noir. The alternative histroy both contrasts and highlights our own history. 

For instance, this is a big city run by an American tribe, with both a White Council (the peace time government, run by men) and the Red Council (war council, run by women).  That’s exotic.  But the urban poverty, violence, and corruption is all too familiar, regardless of the unexpected elements.

The race relations in alternative Cahokia  are both more equitable and no better than other parts of America. The native Americans run the state, Black Americans run Mississippi, and there is no official Jim Crow in these places.  On the other hand, the rest of America is just as racist and segregated as it was in our time line.   Maybe even more so, since there are real non-white powers, who are surely scarier than imaginary threats.

Similarly, the state of Cahokia has complex, non-patriarchal gender politics overlaid with a Jesuit influenced Catholicism.  But European immigrants and former slaves have their own gender traditions, and Cahokia is still part of very Protestant-oriented America.  Which makes the status of women highly contested.  Sound familiar?

One regret I had reading this is the lack of a sound track.  Because the alternative history includes alternative Jazz and Blues songs, which I wish I could hear.

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1. Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz, New York, Scribner, 2023.

Sunday Book Reviews

Book Review: “What You Are Looking For Is In The Library” by Michiko Aoyama

What You Are Looking For Is In The Library by Michiko Aoyama

This book is a charming collection of slightly overlapping stories, set in contemporary Tokyo (set just before COVID, I think).  The protagonists range just out of school through retirement, and all face challenges of modern life, including loneliness, dead end jobs, and meaninglessness.   

While we all can relate to these characters, these stories are unmistakably Japanese.  One theme throughout is the way that work defines your status and identity.  Since almost no job is a complete or accurate reflection of anyone’s identity, practically everyone is dissatisfied. 

Aoyama advocates for switching jobs (which I suspect is more controversial in Japan than where I live), and extols the joys of having a side hustle.  These ideas are at the heart of the plot in each story.

The titular “library” is a rather amazing local library, with a very magical and somewhat scary librarian.  The librarian asks the troubled seeker, “what are you looking for?”, and then her recommended list of books includes a weird, non-obvious selection—which turns out to be exactly what is needed to completely change your life.

I don’t know about Tokyo, but I don’t expect our local reference librarian to have psychic powers! 

In all, these stories are pleasant and charming, with lots of life in Tokyo detail. 

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1. Michiko Aoyama, What You Are Looking For Is In the Library. Translated by A. Watts, Toronto, Hanover Square Press, 2020.

Sunday Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Book of Love” by Kelly Link

The Book of Love by Kelly Link

I’ve been reading Link’s distinctive short fiction for many years now, so I was definitely ready for a longer, bigger story from her. 

And, wow!  We certainly got what we wanted and expected.

If you’ve read Link, you know her stories are usually supernatural, yet very, very human.  And so, so beautiful, in the dark Linkian mode.

In this story, three kids—barely out of high school—have to negotiate a baffling magical threat.  Dangerous supernatural beings want something from them, though these powerful beings don’t bother to actually explain what is going on.  Sigh.

As the title suggests, this complex mess of a tale is infused with love.  Love among families, friends, lovers, and even immortal antagonists.  

As the mystery unfolds, we come to love each of them, as well as their wonderful families. 

Which makes the stakes even higher.

I’m not going to spoil anything, so let me be brief:  read this book, says I.

If you don’t love it, then you probably deserve to turn into a bear rather than a unicorn.

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1. Kelly Link, The Book of Love, New York, Random House, 2024.

Sunday Book Reviews