Book Review: The End of the World As We Know It

 Edited by Brian Keene and Christopher Golden

• Pub Date: 2025

• Genre: Short Stories 

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books & Coffee, Covington, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: A group of writers bring us up-to-date on what happened after The Stand, perhaps the best of all of Stephen King's books. 

• Bookmark used: Books are Freadom

******

 

      Truth be told, I debated with myself before actually buying this book. No, it wasn't its length of 779 pages, kind of in the middle of King's oeuvre. It wasn't that I feared it was a rewrite (it's not) of my favorite of King's books, one that I have read several times. It's not that it was a long collection of short stories (I like short stories), written by authors who are mostly unknown to me (that's never stopped me before).

    As it turned out, none of my arguments against the book persuaded me. So I plunked down the 35 dollars (47 dollars Canadian) for the hefty tome.

    I'm still debating whether I liked it, and its goal of showing us the future, some 40 years after Captain Trips, Mother Abigail, and Randall Flagg first came to our attentions.

    It begins with one of King's wonderfully witty introductions, in which he explains why he is now allowing this book to be published, after he rejected the concept for many years. (The Stand first came out in 1978. I own an original copy of the Signet paperback -- then just $3.95 -- as well as a vintage, first trade edition of "the complete & uncut edition," a hefty, 1,153-page monster that is King's longest novel, and cost $24.95 [$29.95 Canadian] in 1990.)

     I also got a kick out of King's explanation of why even he thought his ending -- in both versions -- kinda sucked. As he was working through the unabridged edition, he says, he had some additional Stand stories in mind, but that "the book was already long enough, and I could imagine the critical reaction to what would be seen authorial self-indulgence if I lingered even long."

    Ya think?

    Anyway, this collection is hit and miss. Some of the stories are specific in time and set shortly after the events in The Stand; some are years or decades after. In some, it's unclear when they occur because time had not re-established itself yet, or it no longer mattered.

    Many include specific references to the characters and stories in The Stand, and knowing the details of the book is a must for anyone contemplating this one. If you don't know who Mother Abigail or Randall Flagg are, or would be confused about the references to the hit song, Baby Can You Dig Your Man?, maybe this book is not for you. (Perhaps read The Stand first. Then come back to this one. You'll be glad you did.

    Some of them are quite violent -- explicitly so -- and some sexually violent.  A few are almost unreadable. The first, Room 24, is downright creepy. It's about about a man in the aftertimes who continues his work as a policeman, although his department no longer exists. He takes on investigating cases and fantasizes about them.

    Other are mundane. My notes on one say simply, "about a boy and his dog." For a second one, I wrote: "don't care."

    But several are compelling. My favorite is "The Story I Tell is the Story of Some of Us." It's about a guy who chose to go with neither Mother Abigail nor Randall Flagg, When upbraided by another about not joining the fight against evil, the first man argued philosophically.

    "I'm choosing a third option," he says, "which is to reject both of you, to reject any further demands for a blood sacrifice." 

    Another intriguing one tells the story from the perspective of the animals that escaped from the place that caged them. The African Painted Dog, by Catriona Ward, is narrated by a pair of dogs wandering around, looking for food, looking for their mates, and wondering where all the humans and the noises have gone.

    

Book Review: King of the Armadillos

 By Wendy Chin-Tanner

• Pub Date: 2023

• Where I bought this book: Irvington Vinyl & Books, Indianapolis 

• Why I bought this book: It's about Chinese immigrants in the Bronx, and it has a great title.*

 *******

    Hansen's disease has been around at least since Biblical times, and it's always been seen as a nasty, frightful, and stigmatizing sickness. It attacks both the body and mind, with painful skin lesions, muscular weakening, growths on or swelling of the nerves or skin, and potential blindness. 

    Formerly called leprosy, those afflicted had been damned as lepers. It was believed to be caused by sinful actions, wrongly thought to be highly contagious, and, more recently, to be spread by people from China.

    That last part is particularly meaningful to this novel, which tells the story of an immigrant Chinese boy who contracts the disease in 1950s New York.

    This self-enclosed novel takes places in that period, and oftentimes brings in the characters' pasts to explain their actions and choices. And those choices matter, whether immediately or sometime in the future. And while time goes by, we see the results and longer term implications of those decisions. 

    Victor Chin is the young boy who emigrated from China to New York with his father, Sam, and older brother Henry. Sam's wife and the boys' mother, Mei, stays behind in their  Chinese village of family obligations. She writes often, and everyone plans for her to one day join them in America.

    Sam works in and later buys a Chinese laundry. There, he meet Ruth, a Jewish woman who soon becomes his lover, and a maternal figure to the two boys.

    But their lives are turned upside down when Victor contracts Hansen's and is sent to a sanatorium in Carville, La.

    It is here where the story begins to move quickly. Victor finds friends, perhaps love, continues to write (never mentioning his disease) to his mother in China, and finds a new relationship with Ruth. He also exhibits a growing independence from his family in New York, and a love and genius for music.

He'd never been exposed to much religion, ... but Victor thought there might be something spiritual about what music made him feel. Maybe that was what people meant when they said they felt the presence of God. A feeling of not being alone, a feeling of being safe. A feeling that there, in the temple of sound he visited when he listened or played, he could let go of what he'd been holding on to so tightly.

    This is the strength of the tale, the heart and soul of the story. Victor begins to find his place in the world, and while knowing that his family may always be there, knows he must take control of his life. We learn more about the background of the other characters, and where they come from.

    Now, it is Victor's turn to stake out his life, to grow up, to come of age as a Chinese immigrant in American.

    The writing here is superb, and the story is about a life -- making decisions, growing and learning, not knowing what the future may portend, but willing to move forward while holding on to the memories and places and people that helped make you.

---------------------------------------------------

    *He considers himself the King of the Armadillos and takes them as a mascot after learning they are one of the few mammals, beside humans, who contract Hansen's disease.

Book Review: Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta

 By James Hannaham

• Pub Date: 2022

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books & Coffee, Covington, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I liked the optimistic title

******

    

    Carlotta Mercedes is a transwoman getting out of the joint in upstate New York after 20 years behind bars. 

    In her first couple of days of freedom, she has to return to her family's home in a changed Brooklyn, reintroduce herself to her son, Ibe -- who last knew her as his father, Dustin -- figure out the intricacies of the parole system, find a job, and stay on the straight and narrow path. All of this happens during the July 4th weekend, while her family is holding a combination holiday party and wake for a man she doesn't recall knowing.

    We hear her frustrations, her joys, her confusion, her anger, her bitterness, and her dreams as she explores Brooklyn and her old stomping grounds, the gentrified Fort Greene section.

    It's a new world for Carlotta, who last roamed the streets in the late 1990s, partying, dancing and listening to the latest music, while exploring and questioning her sexuality and gender identification. Then she got caught in her cousin's robbing of a liquor store, and wound up testifying against him but still getting a 20-year sentence because her cousin shot the clerk.

    So, in this award-winning novel, she talks about the hellhole that the state prison system is, a world of bartering, suffering, and danger. She is raped by both the inmates and the guards. She spends time in solitary, which for her is torture. She does find a lover, but wonders if he is worth it because he's unlikely to get out.

    All of this is told in flashbacks, in a long-winded, almost stream-of-consciousness style. We also hear her rambling about her current situation, wondering how she can get through the weekend, fix her problems, and still follow the parole rules. She is ill-equipped to do so.

    This is a story of transitions: Her gender transition. Her move from prison back to the streets, her youth now gone, but her mind still back in her early adulthood. The changes in her neighborhood, and her lamentations about all her friends who died too young over the years, including the rappers who helped make the neighborhood famous.

    Still, we can easily root for her, despite her flaws. She is in some ways not a good person, but she tries, and often her heart is in the right place. The book shows how the system isn't made for the likes of Carlotta, almost forcing her to break the rules that seem rigged against her.

    The book is her voice. Hannaham does a fine job of representing her, catching the cadence and rhythms of her language.

Book Review: Highway 61 Resurfaced

  By Bill Fitzhugh

• Pub Date: 2005

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books & Coffee, Covington, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I love old Dylan tunes

*****

    If you're going to call your novel "southern noir," it appears you should have the following themes or characters involved.

    * A kinda shady private investigator who performs the job as a sideline to his first love, which is in a dying profession that never was a lucrative life. 

    * A drugged out, wild-eyed killer who isn't very bright.

    * A rich, old, antebellum family that once ruled the roost in its small town, but since has fallen on hard times. If some of them are racist, all the better. 

    * A slightly pathetic, somewhat mangy, but still lovable pet. 

    * The plot must be convoluted and involve music -- particularly traditional, down-home music.

    * It must -- must. mind you -- have a racially-motivated injustice from long ago that is ripe to be avenged.

    * It should have guns. Lots of guns. And, if possible, a shootout.

    This sharp and sometimes comic mystery novel contains all of that, and more. Much, much more. 

    In short, the plot involves a 50-year-old murder, some lost tapes of a supposed blues recording from long ago, and a disc jockey-private investigator trying to make sense of it all. Rick Shannon, a radio DJ in the mode of Harry Chapin's W*O*L*D, has landed back in Vicksburg, Miss., at classic rock station WVBR-FM. To supplement his income, he opens Rockin' Vestigations to find missing personsand skulk around cheating spouses.

    That's how he gets involved in a case that includes several murders, lots of history and music, and the LeFleur family. The action takes him around the sweltering Delta of Mississippi, and Fitzhugh, Mississippi born-and-bred, describes its people and places well. 

    The writing is good and solid, moving the story along with ease. That story is complicated, but Shannon's steady, structured investigation, following one clue to the next one, pieces it together well.

    The result is a fun and easy read that could be used to train real investigators.

Book Review: Daisy Jones & The Six

 

•  Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I read another book by the author, and my daughter recommended this one

*******

    The faux oral history style is a wonderful way to tell this story. It was like reading a long, detailed magazine article about a defining moment in the history of rock and roll. A friend of mine said after reading the book, she googled the band to learn more about it.

 

    Yep, it seems that real.

    Of course, it's nothing of the sort; rather it is the imaginings of a creative mind who took a tale and ran with it.

    Part of the fun of the book is trying to figure who, if anyone, the characters are based on. Daisy, of course, has shades of Janis Joplin in her soul. But Billy Dunne, the founder and lead singer of The Six? Well, I am far from being an expert in the history of '70s rock, but every time I thought of someone he might resemble, I shook my head and moved on. Maybe a little? I thought. But whom am I leaving out, if not most of the era's rock stars?

    So I took the tale as it was, an overview of a band that started slow, pulsed and throbbed for a while before it hit the big time, and then moved on. It's a good story, done well. The almost realism gives it a special glow.

    Of course, the tale of a big-time rock band leaves little out of the mixture: drugs abound, talent and fragile egos go hand-in-hand, a rock-solid spouse holds things together. But morals come into play -- deep down, despite their problems and failings and weakness, these are generally good people.