Girl Detective

It occurred to me as I settled down on the basement couch to watch TV last night that I have two types of shows I watch: ones I look forward to and must watch ASAP, and ones that can linger on the Tivo. As time has grown more scarce, I’ve given up the “maybe it will get good again” or the “it’s pretty good, sometimes” shows.

Two shows I left behind this year and never looked back on were House and The Office.

Shows that I like but can postpone include How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock, At the Movies and Top Chef Masters. I’m a little sad to note that both Project Runway and Top Chef original recipe are both in this category, too, as they used to be in the next one.

But the can’t-wait shows, the ones I know will be on Facebook and the internets within minutes of their ends? First and foremost, Breaking Bad, then in chrono order, Glee, Modern Family, Community, Parks & Rec, and Dr. Who.

How about you?

Renting 25th Hour, a Spike Lee film from 2002, was harder than I thought it would be. One of my favorite film critics, A.O. Scott of The New York Times and At the Movies, picked it as one of the top ten of last decade. (His original review is here.) Our library had only one copy and it took months to reach me. When it did, the dvd was so mauled that it was unplayable. When I returned it and reported its condition, the librarian hooked me up with an interlibrary loan, so I did finally get a copy last week.

Edward Norton is a drug dealer busted by the DEA, and this film takes place on the last day before he goes to prison. He has to find a home for his dog, meet up with his two childhood friends, played by Barry Pepper and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, say goodbye to his father, and continue to try and ignore the nagging question of whether it was his girlfriend, played by Rosario Dawson, who sold him out.

Filmed in 2002 NYC’s still-raw aftermath of 9/11, the city plays an important role. But the film centers on Norton, and though he’s an excellent actor, I never quite felt him in this role. I loved the music of the movie, the shots of the city, and many of the scenes, but the film never came together for me as a whole.

Dan Chaon’s 2009 novel Await Your Reply, was on several year-end best-of lists, including Entertainment Weekly, New York Times, Washington Post, and Publisher’s Weekly. Thus it took rather a while for it to work its way down the queue to me at the public library. At which point I tore through it in 3 days.

The novel is told in alternating chapters from three unconnected points of view: Ryan, a college dropout; Lucy, an orphaned 18yo from Ohio; and Miles, who has spent the majority of his adult life searching for his schizophrenic, brilliant, obsessed twin brother Hayden. Though it ranges as far afield as Africa and northern Canada, the book and its characters are decidedly midwestern US, where the characters were raised or are living: Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois. Early on, I flipped back to Chaon’s bio. His description of central Ohio, where I grew up, was so uncannily accurate I knew he had to have a connection there. Sure enough, he’s a professor at Oberlin College.

Each of the characters is struggling with identity, in both real-life and theoretical senses. Ryan, Miles and Lucy struggle to figure out who they are, especially in relation to others around them.

It pulled me in immediately, and kept me engaged all the way through:

We are on our way to the hospital, Ryan’s father says.
Listen to me, Son;
You are not going to bleed to death.

Ryan is still aware enough that his father’s words come in through the edges like sunlight on the borders of a window shade. His eyes are shut tight and his body is shaking and he is trying to hold up his left arm, to keep it elevated. We are on our way to the hospital, his father says, and Ryan’s teeth are chattering, he clenches and unclenches them, and a series of wavering colored lights–greens, indigos–plays along the surface of his closed eyelids.

On the sea beside him, in between him and his father, Ryan’s severed hand is resting on a bed of ice in an eight-quart Styrofoam cooler.

It’s a thriller about identity theft in the information age. But it’s also excellently written, deeply characterized, well-plotted literary novel. This reminded me of Big Machine by Victor Lavalle, one of my favorite books from 2009, and Memento, the film by Christopher Nolan. Highly recommended.

On previous randomly (to them) designated important-to-me days, my boys, 4yo Guppy and 6yo Drake, have not really gotten on board the whole “be nice to Mom” thing. Night wakings, early risings, yelling, hitting, screaming and the occasional sickness have been the norm. Earlier this year on my birthday, that changed. And yesterday, Mothers Day (US) was similarly lovely.

The boys woke late-ish (about 7:30am), we had a family snuggle, then they brought me juice, coffee and pastry in bed. I read several chapters of my book, then we all got dressed and went to a Bull Run Coffee Shop and Rustica Bakery, then to Kitchen Window to purchase a mug that Guppy had picked out for me. (Love it!) Then to brunch at the Red Stag Supper Club, where the boys devoured the smelt fries. Later that afternoon, I went on my first long bike ride, the first one, too, that was riding for the enjoyment of riding, not to reach some destination. (Though I did figure it was time to turn around when I saw the Welcome to Fridley sign).

Supper that night was baked salmon wrapped in prosciutto, and salad with pears, cranberries and smoked almonds. THE BOYS ATE THIS! Or, most of it. But what a huge improvement over the olden days, when they would refuse anything mixed up (like a salad) or foreign (like fish and prosciutto).

All in all, a lovely day with a good mix of family time and quiet time.

It had to happen eventually, and after 2+ years it did. I’ve been cataloging my books read at Library Thing. I liked their site, interface and especially their widgets that allow me to have the last several books I’ve entered in my sidebar to the right, here.

But they only allow 200 books free, and apparently I squeaked in one over before they gently reminded me it’s time to pay the piper, um, the book site. Now, it’s only $10 per year. But there are other sites, notably Good Reads, that are free full stop.

Additionally, I’ve been keeping my books on Visual Library on Facebook, so could continue to do just that.

What say you, fellow biblio geeks? Pay Library Thing? Join Good Reads? Just do Visual Library? Do you like and have you used the LT widget on the left with the books?

I found myself in a bit of a pinch a few weeks ago. I’d instigated a 15 books in 15 days with 15 blogs challenge, but still had to read Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese for my book group (and while it wasn’t exactly my pick, it had been one I’d suggested. So I was responsible for me having to read it.) I was lucky to be able to borrow it from a friend, as the library queue was ridiculous. But at 670 pages, and with the 15 challenge going to April 30 and my book group the first week of May, I was feeling a little pressed. Fortunately for me, it was a fast read, and a good one, too.

The story is narrated by Marion Stone, a twin born under curious circumstances in an Ethiopian hospital.

After eight months spent in the obscurity of our mother’s womb, my brother, Shiva, and I came into the world in the late afternoon of the twentieth of September in the year of grace 1954. We took our first breaths at an elevation of eight thousand feet in the thin air of Addis Ababa, capital city of Ethiopia.

He and his brother grow up learning third world medicine while the political climate shifts unpredictably and often violently. More of a summary than this might spoil it. This is a sprawling tale that crosses the world, with romance, betrayal, intrigue, and magical realism. It had elements of soap opera to it, and elements of 19th century coming-of-age epics, like Great Expectations. Often lovely, frequently sad, this isn’t a light read, but it is an involving, fast-moving and deeply satisfying one.

After I read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, I looked up reviews. I sometimes do this after I finish a book to try to better understand it. Nearly every review of Wolf Hall mentioned the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons. Wolf Hall’s main character and Renaissance man was Thomas Cromwell, while Thomas More was something of a narrow-minded nuisance. The film, in contrast, presents More as the upstanding Renaissance man, and Cromwell as a grasping, ugly little man.

A Man for All Seasons won 6 Academy awards, including Best Picture, and Best Actor for Paul Scofield who played More. But it was the too-brief screen time of Orson Welles as the ailing Cardinal Wolsey and a silent Lynn Redgrave as the lovely Anne Boleyn, that made the bigger impression on me. The film was good, skillfully made and acted. But I wish it had been less earnest, and a little more fun.

I’ve lived in many places over my life: Columbus OH, CT, Akron OH, Bethesda MD, Guam, Richmond VA, Worthington OH, Granville OH, Washington DC, Philadelphia. I’m coming up on my 12 year anniversary of moving to Minnesota; I’ve never lived so many consecutive years in one place.

My husband and I still have family and friends in OH and PA. But we’ve made Minneapolis our adopted home. And lately, it seems we’re getting all sorts of reminders of why we do.

The most recent news is that local chef Alex Roberts, of Restaurant Alma and Brasa, was just named Best Chef Midwest by the James Beard Foundation. Last year it was Tim McKee of La Belle Vie.

Local food writer and wine author Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl was nominated for Beard awards for a food and a wine article; she won for Best Wine Writing in the Country.

Andrew Zimmern (who I used to watch on a local morning show before work) won a Beard for best television personality.

Local pastry chef Michelle Gayer (who baked my birthday cake this year) of The Salty Tart was a finalist for best pastry chef in the country, though she didn’t win. This year.

The Trylon was just named one of the country’s 10 coolest movie theaters cinemas.

My neighborhood was picked as the best of the Twin Cities this year, and the neighborhood Thai place got the nod as well.

Local author Neil Gaiman won the Newbery Medal last year for The Graveyard Book. Kate DiCamillo won it in 2004 for The Tale of Despereaux.

I feel like I’m forgetting some other kudos, but you can see it’s a good place for food, writing and movies. So it’s really no mystery why this feels like home.

I was upstairs in the bathroom, my two boys, 4 and 6yo, were downstairs playing, when I heard a man’s voice saying something to them about donuts.

I raced down the stairs to see my dear friend John K handing a bag of Sarah Jane’s donuts to my younger, Guppy.

So, a friend, and we’d left the front door unlocked.

“What would you have done if it had been a stranger?” I asked the boys.

“Ignored him?” asked 6yo Drake.

“I don’t know,” whispered Guppy, with his hand aside his mouth, even though I was across the room.

“Not quite,” I said. “Try again.”

“Kung Fu skills?” asked Drake.

I bent over laughing. The kid really enjoyed Kung Fu Panda recently.

“Not quite,” I said again once I recovered. “How about yelling, ‘Mom! Help! Strange man! Or you could call 911.”

“Or press the button on the alarm box,” said Drake.

“Exactly,” I said.

Then a friend of mine linked to this article on teaching kids about strangers. I’ll do a follow-up lesson later today.

I’m not sure how to break it to Drake that he doesn’t really know kung fu, though.

I did it! I finished 15 books in 15 days! Woot! And for those of you attempting this folly with me, thank you. For those of you reading along, thank you. For my family, who were even more neglected than usual, thank you.

I encourage everyone who participated in this project to comment. By everyone, I mean those who read 15, those who tried, those who considered it, and those who just read the reviews. What was your favorite, or least favorite? How many books did you move off your TBR shelves? What’s the biggest insight you take away?

And now, last but definitely not least, #15: Asterios Polyp. David Mazzuchelli was the artist/collaborator with Frank Miller on two of my favorite superhero graphic novels, Daredevil: Born Again, and Batman: Year One. Both are classics, and good examples of superhero books for those who dismiss superheroes. Asterios Polyp is Mazzuchelli’s first solo work, and it’s a masterful one. Having just finished it, I look forward to reading it again. It also made me want to read The Odyssey; few books have that power.

Asterios of the title is an Updike-ish architect. Recently divorced, his apartment building is struck by lightning. He grabs three items and his wallet, and takes a bus to the middle of nowhere. The story alternates between the present, where he works as a mechanic in a small town, and the past, his marriage to the artist Hana. Throughout, the art and story focus on duality, yet together they achieve something that transcends either/or.

The art is highly stylized (formalistic, the reviews call it) as is the use of color, playing with variations on cyan, magenta and yellow. Each character has their own font, as well as their own art style. The many layers of artistic variation are dizzying but exhilarating.

Asterios Polyp was just awarded the first-ever LA Times Book Prize for Graphic Novels. For more reviews, check out those from

New York Times
Scott McCloud
Entertainment Weekly
The Comics Journal

And, to sum up my 15/15/15 reading: In Other Rooms, Other Wonders; Shakespeare Wrote for Money; Eats, Shoots and Leaves; Mercury; Chocolate War; Unwritten; Ex Machina: Dirty Tricks; Buffy: Retreat; This is Water; Desperate Characters; Borrowed Finery; The Slave Dancer; Stitches; The Catnappers; Asterios Polyp.

favorite book read: can’t pick just one! Asterios Polyp, Stitches, Catnappers, Slave Dancer, Chocolate War
least favorite books read: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Retreat and Ex Machina: Dirty Tricks
# of books out of 15 moved off TPR shelves: 14, 5 of which had been there over a year
lesson learned: do this in winter next time–late December or early January
next book: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
book on deck: Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
next book project: Baroque Summer

Inspired by two of my fellow travelers on the 15/15/15 challenge, Farheen and Jessica, I took a Wodehouse book, The Catnappers, off the shelf. I’ve watched the Jeeves and Wooster series, but never yet read the stories or books. It was past time. I chose The Catnappers, which my friend Queenie lent me ages ago, because it was the shortest one I had. This was the last Jeeves and Wooster book, so I worried I’d miss something, but continuity is not important.

“Jeeves,” I said at the breakfast table, “I’ve got spots on my chest.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Pink.”

“Indeed, sir?”

I don’t like them.”

“A very understandable prejudice, sir. Might I inquire if they itch?”

“Sort of.”

“I would not advocate scratching them.”

“I disagree with you. You have to take a firm line with spots.”

A doctor tells Bertie to rest in the country. He retreats to the village of Maiden Eggesford, but finds anything but peace. Lovers are torn apart, then brought together. Mistakes happen, and are compounded upon. Bertie is gallant but dim. Jeeves is unflappable and clever. Aunt Dahlia is imperious. Other people are odd and crazy.

This was a very cheering read, especially given the dark nature of some of my more recent books. I’ll have to remember that for the next time I’m feeling blue; Jeeves and Wooster would be great antidotes.

As I barrel on in my 15/15/15 project, I finally picked up Stitches, a comic-book memoir by David Small, reviewed as one of the best graphic novels of last year. David is six when the story begins. There’s a lovely, long series of tracking illustrations through Detroit into David’s living room where he’s drawing, then we meet his family. Each expresses emotion without words. Mother bangs pots. Father hits a punching bag. Brother bangs a drum set. And David? He gets sick.

At six, David has sinus problems. His radiologist father treats him with X-rays, not uncommon at the time. At eleven, David has a lump on his neck. Surgery is recommended, but somehow the family puts it off for three and a half years. The aftermath of the surgery, and the series of revelations that follow are terribly sad and often horrifying.

Small’s minimalist art and black and white watercolor palette help make this tale not only readable, but engaging. There are many powerful wordless sequences from a child’s perspective, some true, others imaginary. Like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, with which this book shares more than a few similarities, the existence of the book and the ability of the artist to write it point to hope and redemption in the face of a harrowing family life.

For those of you following along in the 15/15/15 challenge, my 12th book was Paula Fox’s Newbery Medal winning The Slave Dancer. I hadn’t intended to read it again, but after Desperate Characters and Borrowed Finery, it just made sense (plus it’s really short).

I first read it a few years ago and was stunned by the power of the writing and story, and disappointed that I hadn’t read it as a child. I later read an online review by someone who wrote not only did they not like it, they thought it was poorly written. That assessment has nagged at me ever since*, so I wanted to go back and see if my opinion of the book had changed. It hasn’t.

Jessie Bollier is a 13yo boy in 1840 New Orleans, kidnapped into service on a slave transport ship because he knows how to play a fife. As he gets his sea legs, Jessie gets to know the crew, and in the process begins to see his first glimmer of how complex human nature and relations are. Purvis, who kidnapped him, is funny and helpful with advice. Another man, Stout, is superficially kind, but inconsistent. Once the ship reaches Africa and takes on its live cargo of slaves, Jessie’s awareness is pushed even further, as he’s forced to play his fife to “dance” the slaves as they get periodic exercise on the ship.

The truth came slowly like a story told by people interrupting each other. I was on a ship engaged in an illegal venture, and Captain Cawthorne was no better than a pirate.

At first, these hard facts had been clouded over by the crew’s protestations that the sheer number of ships devoted to the buying and selling of Africans was so great that it canceled out American laws against the trade–”nothing but idle legal chatter,” Stout remarked, “to keep the damned Quakers from sermonizing the whole country to death.

The slimness of the book belies the heavy themes it holds. Fox’s clear, spare writing conveys Jessie’s terror, horror and dawning knowledge of the depths of human cruelty. There are certain things–the occasional kindness of others to Jessie, beautiful days at sea, moments of connection with others–that keep the reader from drowning utterly in the frequently gruesome history this book relates. Highly recommended for adults and older children.

*As I read more, and write more, and read more writing about reading, I find no books universally loved or hated. I often have disliked very popular, well-received books. But the line between “I didn’t like it” and “It isn’t a good book/It’s poorly written” is a big one to cross. I’ve dared to sometimes, and regretted it later. I’ve also learned, for myself, that sometimes if I don’t like a book, I’m not yet a skilled and discerning enough read to get it. To borrow a phrase, I’ll keep coming back, and perhaps have another, different experience with that writer or book in the future.

What have you read, and what did you think of it?

Book 11 in my 15 project was by Paula Fox, like yesterday’s. Soon after her adult novels came back into print, Paula Fox wrote a memoir of her girlhood, Borrowed Finery. Having read some of her books, I wasn’t surprised to find her childhood wasn’t a happy one. Fox writes with a minimalist style that manages to convey the emotion of a child and the insight of an adult. Her writing is seemingly effortless, crafted in such a way that it’s easy to read, yet echoes long in the head and the heart.

Fox is abandoned by her parents as a baby:

By chance, by good fortune, I had landed in the hands of rescuers, a fire brigade that passed me along from person to person until I was safe…

For a very short period of my infancy, I had belonged in that house with that family…

I was five months old when the minister, hearing of my presence in Washingtonville and the singular way I had arrived, an event that had ruffled the nearly motionless, pondlike surface of village life–and knowing the uncertainty of my future, for the Boards, like most of their neighbors in those years, were poor–came by one Sunday to look at me. I was awake in the crib. I might have smiled up at him. In any event, I aroused his interest and compassion. He offered to take me

Her description of early childhood with the minister, whom she called Uncle Elwood, is idyllic, and marred only by the periodic correspondence of her parents. Later, out of guilt, duty, or a combination, Paula meets her father, then her mother. Over the next dozen years, she is bounced from them to relatives and friends and around again from NYC to Cuba to Florida to California. Throughout, her mother is a chilly presence, and her father is a maddening one, “part ally, part betrayer”.

Fox’s tale is a fascinating one, including frequent brushes with celebrity. Underneath, though, is the tragedy of a girl with rootless, careless parents who rarely gets a dress of her own, instead always surviving with hand-me-downs. Sparingly written and evocative, this book captivated me to the end, where she gives up a child for adoption*, and reminded me of Mary Carr’s excellent memoir The Liar’s Club.

(This overview of Fox’s work and life, includes the startling fact that the daughter Fox gave up for adoption went on to have a very famous daughter, Courtney Love.)

4yo Guppy is far less trying than he was at 3.5, for which I’m very thankful. That doesn’t mean, though, that he’s a walk in the park.

Last week, he grabbed the orange metal lid to the French-fry pot and ran around shouting, “I’m fighting dragons! I’m fighting dragons!” (as in How to Train Your…)

We had friends over for supper. Dessert was creme brulee. The grownups were in the dining room; the kids on the porch. When the sounds of glee rose to alarming heights, we went to investigate. Guppy and his 3yo friend Bitsy were throwing custard at each other–walls, windows, floor, table–it was everywhere. I found some on the refrigerator later that night.

This morning, 1:35 am, I hear Guppy shout, “Drake, Drake, wake up!” and see the light shining in the hall. I go into their room and find Guppy and Drake wide awake, out of bed, and fetching books from their closet. I told them it was the middle of the night and to go back to bed. They didn’t listen, and for the next hour they ran around, used the bathroom, read books, and generally kept G. Grod and me up.

Fair warning to all new parents: not sleeping through the night is not exclusive to babies.

For those of you reading along in the 15 project, my 10th book (yay, 2/3 done!) was Desperate Characters by Paula Fox, which has been on my shelf since March of 2002, according to the receipt inside it. I think I’d just read Fox’s Slave Dancer, winner of the 1974 Newbery Medal, and been blown away by its story and the skill of the writing, and wanted to check out her writing for adults; Desperate Characters had just come back into print.

Otto and Sophie Bentwood are a 40ish childless couple living in Brooklyn in the late 60’s. Their neighborhood is covered in trash, and their backyard overlooks the slums. They don’t like or understand the children of their friends. On a Friday night, before a party, Sophie tried to feed a stray cat, and is bitten for her trouble. The bite and the pain of it carry through the weekend, and this close-up snapshot of a particular place and time.

Fox’s prose is amazingly crafted, and conveys much with few words.

When Otto came home, he discovered Sophie off in a corner of the living room, sitting in a formal chair no one ever sat in, stippled with light and shadow. Her silence and the dining room table set for dinner, which he glimpsed through the living room doors, looked like a set piece arranged for some purpose that had subsequently been forgotten. He had the impression she was weeping without sound, and that perhaps the elements of this forlorn scene had been contrived for his benefit, a domstic lesson that was to elicit from him an apology. (93)

This is a beautifully written book, full of metaphor and portents, that delves deep into its characters. Otto and Sophie are among the desperate characters of the title, yet they’re complicated–not entirely pathetic, yet not entirely likable, either. It’s not a cheerful read, but neither is it a dire one. It is, though, quite rewarding.

Moving along in my 15 project has suddenly gotten harder. One of my book groups is reading Cutting for Stone, which _I_ recommended, while not knowing it’s 650 pages, and that it would overlap the 15/15/15 project. Plus a long-awaited and probably not-short book has finally arrived at the library. D’oh. So I find myself needing to read more than one book at a time if I’m to finish the book-group book and still keep up my book a day. Oh, these self-imposed boundaries.

Book 9 was the slight but powerful This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Signficant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life, a graduation address given by the late David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005.

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?”

And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories.

The story thing turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre…but if you’re worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don’t be.

I am not the wise old fish.

It’s a book to give a graduate, or anyone who is making a big life change, or anyone feeling very depressed. Like all of Foster’s work, it’s smart, moving, real and full of human kindness. It’s also terribly, terribly sad. There are three different pages that touch on avoiding suicide, which Foster in the end couldn’t manage. He died in 2008. I miss him.

For those reading along in the 15/15/15 project, the 8th book means we’re more than halfway there! My 8th book was a huge disappointment. It’s the 6th graphic novel collection, Retreat, of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book series, which has been written sometimes, and overseen always, by Joss Whedon, who referred to it as season 8.

I’ve tried hard to like it, and to find the good things about this series, because I have a huge affection for the Buffy television series, even if I thought seasons 6 and 7 were poorly executed (barring “Once More with Feeling”, the notable exception).

The comic-book series posits that there is now an army of slayers, spread around the world, training in unison against the forces of darkness. There’s also a big bad, named Twilight, who’s gunning for Buffy and her army of slayers. In “Retreat” the Twilight army keeps getting closer because they can track magic and power. Buffy and the Scooby gang head to Tibet to look up an old friend who might have something to say about using less magic and less power.

Penned by Jane Espenson, a Buffy scribe from the later seasons, this story was a mess. The humor was infrequent and unfunny. The art was hard to read; I often couldn’t tell which character was which, and if it wasn’t a close-up, the details were, literally, sketchy. The threats weren’t threatening, the relationships didn’t have depth, and while it ended on a mysterious cliff hanger, the bottom of the page had the audacity to read “The End”. I don’t care to find out what happens next. I’ll leave the character of Buffy in mid air (really) and be done with this series.

Sorry for the delay in posting this; I had it scheduled for 12:01 am, and instead saved it as a draft? Ah, well, I was tired from staying up for the Project Runway finale.

For those joining me on the 15/15/15 Project, book 7 was the graphic novel collection Ex Machina: Dirty Tricks.

I stopped reading the Ex Machina comic book monthly because the story moved too slowly for me. Even waiting for the graphic novel collection didn’t help here. Ex Machina is about Mitchell Hundred, who had an accident that enabled him to communicate with all machines. He used that to fight crime, then retired and ran for mayor of New York. This collection, the 8th in the series, is about a former fan of his who turned copycat. The art is provocative, and felt cheap and salacious. The story didn’t move the series forward in any significant way. This is the penultimate collection of the series. I will definitely buy the last book to see how it ends, but this one was disappointing.

What did you read, and what did you think of it?

For those joining me on the 15/15/15 Project, book 6 was the graphic novel collection Unwritten by Mike Carey, illustrated by Peter Gross.

Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity is the first collection of a new comic-book series, recommended by C and my friend Blogenheimer on a recent trip to the comic shop. As Bill Willingham, the author of Fables, writes in his laudatory introduction, it’s part of a relatively newish movement in comics to something he calls the LAF triumvirate: Literature-based, Animal, and Fairy Tale fantasy. This new book sits squarely in the company of Willingham’s own Fables, as well as Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. For this geek, that’s a good thing.

Tom Taylor is the son of a famous fantasy writer, Wilson Taylor. Wilson wrote 13 books about a magical kid named Tommy Taylor. (All similarities to Harry Potter are deliberate.) Most fans assume that Tom was the model for Tommy, and it’s he who makes the fantasy convention circuit, as Wilson disappeared, or perhaps deserted Tom, many years ago. Tom wants to be a regular guy, but the shadow cast from his father’s book is long. It gets longer when Tom’s identity as Wilson’s son is called into question. Things get stranger when he’s kidnapped by someone claiming to be Tommy’s nemesis from the books.

Unwritten explores the boundary between what is story and what is real, and the relation of writers to their stories. There’s fascinating stuff going on here–postmodern literature, fantasy, and horror. This first volume lays the foundation for what feels to be a big, complex, sprawling story. I look forward to the next installment, and am not sure I’m going to wait for the collection; I may need to buy the individual issues.

As for the 15/15/15 project, it’s turning out to be harder than I’d hoped it would be to read and blog each day. I enjoy it, but it’s requiring some creative prioritizing as I go.

What did you read, and what did you think of it?