2019 March 22 • Friday
Well, here's an unusual book. The Big Love by
Florence Aadland is the author's account of her underage daughter's
affair with Errol Flynn in the late 1950s.
It's kind of a car crash of a read: thoroughly unpleasant
but fascinating. Aadland herself isn't a reliable narrator,
apparently lying about her age and also coming across as delusional.
She insists that everything that happened to her (and her daughter
and to this other guy who kills himself) was preordained. If this
is something you genuinely believe, then it follows that nothing
that happens can be your fault or responsibility.
She also casually mentions that she joined the Rosicrucian
order, "made a detailed study of life and the universe", "obtained
all the Rosicrucian degrees", "studied science and telepathy
and learned as much about the human nervous system as a doctor does"
and "learned about psychic phenomena and discovered by experiments
that I myself was an excellent psychic subject".
This is all pretty intriguing. And it sounds like a lot
of this knowledge and these skills and abilities
could be very useful in life. But strangely, none of it
ever comes in handy at all. Aadland doesn't share what
these experiments might have been and at no time does she
seem to have any special insight or foreknowledge other than
her vague assertion that everything was already written
by destiny.
She's the proudest of proud mothers, constantly declaring
that any quality her daughter Beverly might possess is
the most superlative such a quality can be. She doesn't
mention that Beverly's initials are the first three letters
of "beauty" and this seems out of character, though perhaps
crosswords and such aren't her line.
While this is her book, it's presented as "told to" Tedd Thomey,
a writer who delivered a book called The Loves of Errol Flynn
as well as novels with names like Homicide Honeymoon and
The Sadist.
According to Big Love, Errol Flynn violently raped
Beverly Aadland when she was fifteen years old. And, also
according to Big Love, it was true love.
Florence doesn't hear about this for a while and when
Beverly finally tells her about it, at which point
she and Errol are very much a thing, Florence is able
to get angry at her daughter but somehow never finds
the right moment to tell off the rapist.
When Errol Flynn attacked Beverly Aadland, Beverly
apparently "hit him", "told him not to" and "tried to
get away". She "cried and cried" and "was petrified
with fear". "And after it was all over she ran out of
there, ran out of the bedroom to get away from him."
Later we learn about some advice Florence had
given her daughter. It seems bizarre to me.
|
Because she was such an unusually attractive child,
I taught Beverly the facts of life very early.
When she was only two years old, I tried to get it
across to her that she should never let any strangers
touch her or pick her up. Later, when she was old enough
to understand, I told her what to do if she should be
molested.
>"Don't get panicky," I said. "Don't say anything
foolish like 'Let me go or I'll tell Mama!' That's the
worst thing you can say. It just makes a man like that
act crazier and wilder. The best thing is just to act like
you don't notice what he's doing. Talk to him calmly
about something else and you'll probably get away
without any trouble." |
It's a strangely compelling story, adapted both for
the stage (with Tracey Ullman) and as a movie (with
Susan Sarandon).
You'll learn that Errol Flynn didn't use underarm
deodorant and had a vasectomy. I think there are at
least three times when he screens his own movies
at home for guests. (Was this a common thing? It seems
kind of nuts to me.)
Florence Aadland tries to portray herself as
a kind of chaperone but it's hard to believe she was very
effective since Errol and Beverly can just take off
to Jamaica for a few weeks and leave Florence behind.
Tacked onto the end of the book is a reprint of a
fairly snarky article from the August 1960 issue of
Master Detective magazine. It's called
"Beverly Aadland — Precocious Femme Fatale" and is
written by Chris Edwards, who paints a much more sordid
picture but also doesn't seem like the most reliable
of authorities.
The Big Love is dedicated "To The Swashbuckler, Himself,
With All Our Love" and the first line is "There's one
thing I want to make clear right off: my baby was a virgin
the day she met Errol Flynn".
2019 March 20 • Wednesday
There are many books about the British TV show
The Prisoner. I know this because I collect them.
One of the most recent and most entertaining is
I Am Not a Number: Decoding The Prisoner, by filmmaker Alex Cox
of Repo Man fame.
A few things make Cox's book different from the rest. The
first and most obvious one is that this might be the first
such book written by a filmmaker, and Cox is a particularly
interesting filmmaker whose imagination and eye are easily
aligned in sympathy with the restless and critical vision
that Patrick McGoohan struggled to realize in The Prisoner.
And so while Cox isn't the first author to
give each episode of the series a close reading,
his perspective includes substantial knowledge
of the realities of film production: and while The
Prisoner was a television program it was
produced as a series of short films shot in 35mm.
Which brings us to the next point. Cox insists
on examining the episodes not in their broadcast order
but in their production order. This makes sense,
considering what the production was actually like,
alternating filming on location in Portmeirion, in Wales,
and on an MGM soundstage in London. Work on one episode
would begin before the previous one had finished.
There
are various writers and directors for each episode
and perhaps only two people with a unifying idea for the
series, and those two people, George Markstein and Patrick
McGoohan, had differing ideas and inevitably grew to be
more in conflict with each other.
Alex Cox has been around and seems to have compassion for
everybody involved. He's also quite witty:
|
As an actor, McGoohan
seems to have two speeds, like my old Chevy Impala: low,
in which he is entirely credible, low-key,
and frequently charming; and high, in which his voice
suddenly leaps in pitch, he often shouts, and he tends to smash things. |
This is followed by Patrick McGoohan saying much the same thing
about himself. Elsewhere Cox is persuasive in his deductions
about why McGoohan made certain choices and decisions
and since his tone is consistently positive and lovingly
critical, it's a pleasure to go along with him.
Going along with him is not the same as agreeing with him, though.
His astute analysis and puzzle-piecing of the series
grants him an entirely reasonable and defensible
alternative theory as to the identity of The Prisoner's
main character and the enigmatic "No. 1", but it
didn't dislodge my previous, admittedly messy and inconsistent
ideas about same.
The show itself, after all, is wildly
inconsistent, as Cox acknowledges, and I suspect
that it started as one thing and ended as another.
Following a trail of textual breadcrumbs to
arrive at a conclusion that was intended from the
beginning might not be possible. But Cox's analysis
and interpretation are, I think, the best I have ever come
upon, and his book is a delight.
Among those delights are his spotting what has been
previously overlooked. Had anybody before drawn our
attention to the vital role played by casting director
Rose Tobias Shaw? Or to a possible connection with the CIA's
psychedelic drug experiments and the death, possibly murder, of
Frank Olson?
Cox is an erudite guide who can suggest
a connection with Jean Cocteau's Orphée on one page
and with McGoohan's starring role in a 1958 episode of
a television anthology drama on another.
I do think, however, that he makes an
error of judgement in calling
Operation Mincemeat "obscure", since it was the subject
of a successful 1956 movie (
The Man Who Never Was,
which was even parodied on
The Goon Show as
The Was Who Never Man), and was
a very well known World War II story, possibly
even better known in the U.K. in the late '60s than it is today.
Cox's thesis depends on The Prisoner's not being
a continuation of Danger Man and McGoohan's
character not being a spy. To support this, Cox points
out No. 6's lack of tradecraft. As a "spy", at least as
a fictional spy in the fictional spy world of
1960s pop culture, which probably involved some small amount of
overlap with real-world espionage of the time,
Cox makes the case that No. 6 is surprisingly bad
at being a spy appearing to lack both knowledge and experience.
This is fine as far as it goes but it would be more convincing
if supported by counter-examples. Going by the same standards,
John Steed and Emma Peel
are probably pretty lousy spies too, I think. Though they aren't really
spies. They aren't really anything. The vagueness of their
identities is part of the charm of The Avengers.
But what of Napoleon Solo and the others we might encounter?
What of George Smiley and Harry Palmer? How does No. 6
compare to them? I honestly don't know but here's an opportunity,
perhaps, for Cox to strengthen his argument.
Nothing exists in a vacuum, and Cox's book delicately
addresses how much has changed since McGoohan's series
first aired. In his analysis of the episode "Hammer
Into Anvil" he writes:
|
The apparent 'bomb plot' references contemporary events.
The 1960s and 1970s saw a series of bomb explosions, set by
the IRA, to undercut support for English control of
Northern Ireland. We all grew up with the possibility of
bombs, and with bomb threats, but we got on with out lives
regardless: the media-stoked paranoia, imprisonment without
trial, and armed troop deployments which we know today
would have been unthinkable in England in 1967. |
Later, in an epilogue, the final episode of the series
brings forth this observation:
|
Anyone who visits Parliament today, with its bomb-proof
crash barriers, surveillance cameras, security guards and
armed police, can see where the Imperial Project has led
us over the last fifty years. A few years back I and a small
crew were stopped and cautioned by the London police for
pointing a video camera at the Houses of Parliament from
across the Thames. In 1967, McGoohan, McKern and company
just showed up, without permission, and shot The Prisoner's
closing sequence there.
|
And:
|
Freedom of movement, freedom to point a camera, freedom
from detention without charge, freedom to enter a building
without being pushed, filed, indexed, stamped, briefed,
debriefed and numbered by uniformed security sentinels, all
this and much more has been swept away. What is London today
but The Village, surveilled, monitored, under the watchful
eyes of private security companies, the police, MI5,
GCHQ, NSA, and all the other acronyms which give us limited
permission to function according to their terms? |
That's certainly one of the strongest impressions
left by the conclusion of this remarkable
television program. Patrick McGoohan wasn't
a perfect person and The Prisoner not
a perfect creation, but there is much in both worthy
of our respect and consideration.
Respect and consideration are certainly due also
to Alex Cox and this book of his. Be seeing you.
2019 March 18 • Monday
François De Roubaix's music for
Daughters of Darkness is the 561st
Soundtrack of the Week.
The main theme, a waltz with dabs of fuzz guitar, haunts the score, returning over and over to
maintain the proper spectral mood. The melody is played on an instrument with a strange watery
sound, perhaps guitar through some kind of effect though it could be keyboard.
“Love on the Rails” is another theme that the composer gets a lot of mileage out of. It’s
deceptively simple, with a relaxed backbeat and a spacious, restrained voicing on top with
some subtle accompaniment by horns.
“Red Lips” is the main theme in a different key and with what sounds like a zither taking
the melody at some point with acoustic guitar in the background. The same watery instrument
plays it, as does violin. You can hear accordion in there too. There are a lot of textures
going on.
There seems to be some Bernard Herrmann influence in “Arrival at the Manor”, particularly
in the Psychoish writing for strings.
It sounds like solo keyboard is responsible for the contrapuntal calliope sound of
“Countess Bathory (Halo)”, a short but pretty track.
“Ballad in Bruges” is another take on the main theme but this time as a bittersweet
accordion-voiced number with some assist from cymbalom and an unexpected freak out
ection at the very end with piano and electronic noises.
A mixture of short statements from cymbalom, fuzz guitar, harp, celeste and other
instruments introduce another variation on the main theme in “The Countess and the Inspector”.
Male and female voices wordlessly crooning a descending line with choir-like harmonies
kick off “Tale of Torture and Vampires”, which is otherwise familiar from what we’ve already heard.
“Valerie, Ilona and Stefan” brings back the mellow backbeat we heard before but has some
different guitar and string parts.
The harp gets featured in “The Dunes of Ostend, Flagellation”, a hypnotic piece of music
that eventually reprises “Love on the Rails”. You hear this again as “Pursuit on the Dunes
of Ostend”.
A very eastern European-sounding version of the main theme describes “The Countess’s Kiss”
while “The Countess’s Bite” is a sparser arrangement of “Love on the Rails”. This comes up
again as “Accident and Cymbalom”.
After a brief string introduction “The Phantom Organ and Piano” does deliver on the promise
of its title, a reiteration of the main theme.
Strings and crickets kick off another visit to our main theme in “Daughters of Darkness (Ending)”,
a typically mesmerizing, moody, atmospheric and romantic conclusion to this haunting and
beautiful score.
And then there are some bonus tracks.
“The Bruges Band” is presumably source music and while not the cheeriest music you’ve
ever heard it sounds quite peppy in comparison to the other cues here.
One of the most interesting tracks on the CD is the reverb-drenched electric guitar-driven
“Dracula 68 Woodstock (Of Fish and Men). Besides the guitar there are a wooden flute and
some minimal hand percussion. It’s as bewitching and mysterious as its title.
And then there are a few remixes of the original tracks. Not sure what this is all about
but they’re kind of cool.
“Ilona’s Jazz” is like an electro acid jazz piece that took a bunch of valium and
features trombone and synth.
“La nuit sous la mer” and “Le rap des lèvres rouges” are both fairly groovy and have
French lyrics.
Finally there’s a bonus song called “Vampire” that’s clearly based on the main theme
and also has French lyrics.
2019 March 15 • Friday
Loafing around Paris for a few days is hard work. Fortunately
Paris Jazz Corner is there to take the edge off.
I hadn't been to Paris in almost twenty years
and I was thrilled to find this wonderful store still
going strong.
I was even more thrilled to find this
fairly obscure record from 1958: Lee Shaefer and Jim Hall:
A Girl and a Guitar.
Lee Shaefer was a folk singer and this is an album of
a dozen folk songs sung by her and accompanied by Jim
Hall on guitar.
And that's it. Just the two of them doing these songs.
No band, no soloing, just intense, haunting, intimate
music that casts a spell.
Anybody interested in Jim Hall should hear this record,
as it might be unique in his discography. I don't think
I've ever heard him play like this, dancing outside
of genre borders or at least creating some kind of
jazz folk blues rock and roll hybrid.
His guitar's lowest
string is tuned down on several of the songs but I can't
tell if the tuning has been altered beyond that.
Shaefer's voice is the perfect instrument
here, clear and dynamic with perfect feel and phrasing.
It's really an amazing duo and a recording that deserves
to be much better known.
The liner notes acknowledge how Jim Hall's work
in the Jimmy Giuffre 3 provided him with some
experience playing folk music and blues. This won't
come as news to most people.
More remarkable is Hall's referring to his playing
on "Jacob's Ladder" as his "Mildred Falls background",
Mildred Falls being the piano player for Mahalia Jackson.
So Jim Hall listened to Mahalia Jackson, and with
enough time and attention to absorb influence at least
from her pianist. This was news to me.
2019 March 13 • Wednesday
Here's a magazine I never heard of
before, called Sofilm. I always like
to take a look at newsstands in other countries,
for comics or interesting magazines. Since this
had Robert Mitchum on the cover, it was an
immediate purchase.
Inside is what appears to be a decent feature on Mitchum,
with some lesser seen photographs and even a couple of his
poems (in English and new French translation).
There's a cute play on words in one of the headers:
"Bob et le flambeur", a twist on the title of the famous
Melville movie Bob le flambeur.
The magazine is nicely designed and the content
looks like it might be rewarding, though of course
I don't actually know much French.
There's a feature on the Yellow Vests, an interview
with James Caan and a brief
editorial that looks like it quickly and unfussily dispatches
as silly and wasteful
the tedious monstrous "art" thing
called DAU.
I mean really, talk about unambitious. Of course
the whole thing is on a huge scale but it's really
the least challenging thing you could ever decide to do.
You want to get a bunch of money from a Russian billionaire
to recreate an oppressive totalitarian environment
so you can shoot over 700 hours of abuse and misery and boredom?
The DAU guy did it.
But that's easy. This is torture porn on a Mount Rushmore scale.
Not good, or new, or well done, or meaningful, just large.
Suppose they'd gone the other way? What if they wanted
to spend three years with an immersive cast living
on set and in character 24/7 but create the opposite
of one of our real world nightmare states?
What if they created a world in which
everybody was taken care of and fulfilled and free
to live as they wanted to in a community that was designed
to benefit everybody?
That would be a lot harder to pull off, and probably
a lot less appealing to most billionaires, considering
the lack of sadism and abuse of power.
And even if such a project were only partially successful,
it would be dangerous in a way that DAU could never
be, by presenting ways in which every society could change for the
better.
Instead we just have jumbo-size torture porn and dull
misery, some faked, some real, all pointless.
Which reminds me, I have a new modern art piece that's
even bigger and longer running than DAU. It's an
installation but it's also "found art". It's called
The Mall of America. Maybe Brian Eno can make some Muzak for it.
2019 March 11 • Monday
The 560th
Soundtrack of the Week
is Patrick Gleeson's music (and a song by Alan Price)
for the movie The Plague Dogs.
The Plague Dogs opens with the song “Time and Tide” by Alan Price.
He begins with just solo voice: “I don’t feel no pain no more / I don’t
feel no pain no more / I’ve left this cruel world behind / And I’ve found
my peace of mind / I don’t feel no pain no more”.
A mixture of electric and acoustic instruments of different timbres then
create a musical flurry that provides a transition into a straight,
mid-tempo piano ballad. Halfway through it goes into a double time
country feel, complete with steel guitar. Then there’s a flourish of
Hammond organ and the song morphs into an even brisker gospel number.
He’s still not done, though. The song slows way down again for kind
of a big rock musical number. It’s very well done!
This is a hard act to follow but Patrick Gleeson nails it immediately
with a mysterious and entrancing cue called “Freedom” which combines
strings and horns with otherworldly electronic instruments (and some
kind of piano) as well as anybody ever has done, including Jerry Goldsmith.
Parts of it reminded me of parts of James Horner’s Star Trek music and
that’s never a bad thing.
“Wondering “ alternates between still, atmospheric ideas and some
insistent pulsing figures that suggest forward momentum. Whatever
the synthesizers are, they sound great. It ends up in something of a sonic cloud.
The synths sound like they do most of the work on “The Change”,
which combines lyrical writing with strangely beautiful electronic
noises, before a burst of Baroque-style music on acoustic instruments
that itself gets interrupted by crashing electronic voices.
Low menacing long tones and some high-pitched piano noted with
lots of space between them are most of what you’ll hear “In the Pens”.
A jaunty piece with synth horns taking the lead voices and
establishing a triumphant mood describes “Sheep Dogs”. It
ends on an ominous note, though.
“The Escape from the Incinerator” is a short cue of less than
a minute and a very effective blend of strings, piano and timpani.
After that we get to go “Frog Catching”. Introduced by upright
bass and with some light jazz drumming and a very strong blaring
trumpet, this is reminiscent of some of Peter Thomas’s music.
Then it’s synthesizer-land again with “Rowf’s Kill”, a still
musical atmosphere that has a complex emotional range.
“Lack Loud’s Death” continues in this vein but is more apprehensive
and suggestive of danger.
Some more directly “horror” music is found “Inside the Laboratory” and
it's easy to imagine a creepy scene to go with these unbalanced musical
lines and washes of synth textures.
Crashing piano and keening synths announce “The Beginning of the End”.
Electric bass guitar and drums come in and anchor the cue with a groove
that stops and starts while lyrical melodic ideas float above it. It all
comes crashing down again at the end.
“Chase Music” isn’t what I expected. There’s a driving low pulse and some
vigorous snare work and some interesting statements from saxophone and keyboards.
Saxophone opens “Rowf and Snitter Run to the Sea” but the same ensemble
from “Chase Music” soon joins it. Some of it is very intense scoring but
it can shift into a gentler and more lyrical phase immediately,
and just as soon shift back.
The record concludes with a reprise of “Time and Tide”,
but instrumental and done almost in Vangelis style.
2019 March 08 • Friday
One of the most affordable and most regional souvenirs
you can pick up on a trip these days is a mini-comic.
Probably you have to be in a big city and you have
to find a comic book shop or at least some kind of
cool book store that carries a range of independent and
alternative titles.
Paris is a big city and Europe in general takes
comics a lot more seriously than the United States.
And so we were pleased to bring back these three
mini-comics from our recent vacation.
The first title, Cavalcade Surprise, was an easy pick as I was already a fan
of all three creators: Jessica Abel, Matt Madden and Lewis Trondheim.
I haven't tried to decipher the text yet. I think even with
my extremely limited French it might not be too hard.
Diablotus is a Trondheim solo work and, like
some of his other titles, has no text at all, only pictures.
No translation necessary!
The name Marc-Antoine Mathieu didn't ring a bell
but I was very taken with the art and design of Labyrinthum,
so this one also found its way into my luggage.
These came from Philip the Bookseller, 32 Rue des Vinaigriers,
right near the Canal St Martin and were published by
L'Association.
2019 March 06 • Wednesday
John Blackburn's first novel is also
the first in a series of books to feature General
Charles Kirk, "head of Her Majesty's foreign office
intelligence". A Scent of New-Mown Hay is a killer-virus
thriller written mostly as a procedural story.
The actual copy I have traveled quite a ways to me
and has presumably been enjoyed by several other readers.
The books moves along very quickly, which is a good thing
since there are several extreme coincidences and contrivances.
Blackburn is presumably hoping that you'll want to turn
the pages too quickly to stop and think such things as
"How fortunate that the Chief Constable of that small remote
town happened to have served in the war with General Kirk"
or "What a stroke of luck that these two important characters
just happen to be neighbors and colleagues" or "Thank
goodness that that random person on the train happened to start
a conversation and accidentally dropped an important clue".
Such things do happen in real life, of course,
and when they do I often reflect on how unacceptable they'd
be in a novel.
A youngish biologist is more or less the central character,
summoned back to his government post from a sleepy college
town once reports of strange
activity in Russia demand investigation.
General Kirk, who's missing some fingers on one hand
and can never be sufficiently warm, always overheating
his office and bundling up, is also a major
character here, of course, though we don't find out
much about him.
Blackburn directs our attention to a handful of other
characters whom we follow around to get peeks at
what's happening in various places and how the plague
is spreading.
The biologist's wife turns out to be a crucial
character, discovering and placing important
pieces of the puzzle.
But the best part of the book, in a way its best character,
is the virus itself. The plague turns people into walking
mushroom monsters, and Blackburn gives out just
the right amount of description and information for readers
to supplement with their own horrific ideas.
I don't know how successful or widely read this book
was, but I wonder if there's any connection between
A Scent of New-Mown Hay (1958) and Matango
(1963).
The first line is "At the corner of the old cathedral
building he turned right and began to walk up the
long slope towards the station".
2019 March 04 • Monday
Mark Barkan and Ritchie Adams's music from the
Olivia Newton-John movie Toomorrow is our 559th
Soundtrack of the Week.
The first song, “You’re My Baby Now”, is a sunshine pop masterpiece and
one of my favorite songs. Olivia Newton-John shows up about two minutes into
it to add support and be part of a call and response section.
“Takin’ Our Own Sweet Time” starts out as a tough organ funk jazz rocker
but then these outer space synths grab the wheel and when the vocals come
in they drive the whole thing off a sunshine pop cliff. It’s another completely
awesome song.
Then it’s lounge time for the “Toomorrow” instrumental with smooth horns,
twinkling electric keyboards, roving electric bass and of course a laidback groovy beat.
Things get just a touch acid rocky with the relatively aggressive “Let’s
Move On”. It’s a decent number but not as special or as interesting as the others.
There’s an instrumental (with wordless chorus) version of it later that I like better.
This is followed by another instrumental, “Walkin’ on Air”, which reminded me a
bit of Lesley Gore’s “Consolation Prize”.
Olivia Newton-John and the male vocalist duet on “If You Can’t Be Hurt, You
Can’t Be Happy”, an inspirational song whose title pretty much gives you all
the information in it. Some sick drumming and keyboard playing, though.
After that comes the vocal version of “Toomorrow”: “Toomorrow is the answer
that I will give / If you ask me where do I live / Where do I stay”. It’s a
soft rock/pop/lounge sort of song and Olivia Newton-John gets a good chunk of
it, much to the listener’s benefit.
“Look at the rainbow / Look at the moon glow / Look at the clouds roll by /
Baby just you and I / Walkin’ on air” is how the vocal version of “Walkin’
on Air” starts and since Olivia Newton-John sounds so good singing it, I’m
not going to question the probability of being able to look at a rainbow,
the moon and clouds all at the same time. It’s kind of crazy but it just might work.
A change of tone is the first thing you’re likely to notice about the
next track, “Spaceport”. The change in tone comes with a change of composers
as well, as this outer-space secret agenty cue that sounds somewhere in between
Lalo Schifrin and John Barry is brought to you by Hugo Montenegro. It’s excellent.
“Happiness Valley” brings us back to sunshine pop but this time in a minor
key and with a quality reminiscent of the Velvet Underground. Though more
restrained than the other songs I love here, this one is great too.
Finally, there’s “Goin’ Back”, an Olivia Newton-John feature with a
country feel to it though there’s still that synth in there. It’s a bittersweet song about nostalgia and really nice.
2019 March 01 • Friday
“When Grandmother vanished, the glass of the large, handsome
mirror in her bedroom was found scattered on the floor in small,
glittering pieces, like the remains of a collapsed, bleached mosaic.”
That’s the first line of Elizabeth, the first novel by Ken
Greenhall. First published in 1976, it’s a masterpiece of
supernatural suspense, written with flawless and unwavering focus,
power and intensity.
The title character is about thirteen years old when we meet her.
She’s one of literature’s most enthralling psychopaths: “I remember
being surprised at how easily everyone had accepted the categories
of good or bad. Most things had seemed not important enough for such
classifications”.
She’s also sexually active with her uncle: “When I was younger I saw James,
my father’s brother, look from our dog to me without changing his
expression. I soon taught him to look at me in a way he looked
at nothing else”.
But the real subject of this book is power and its uses for
manipulation, in this case unnatural powers that come from
witchcraft. Elizabeth is descended from a sixteenth-century
witch named Frances, who appears in mirrors to speak to Elizabeth,
to guide her and to teach her or perhaps to destroy her.
And so begins a very small and quiet sort of war, or chess game,
in an old house on the waterfront of lower Manhattan, in which
the living are not necessarily less mysterious than the
lingering spirits of the dead.
This book is only about 150 pages long but it’s so perfectly
constructed and precisely written, with a smooth and unerring
pace and rhythm, that you might not get through it that quickly.
I found myself savoring it and consuming it in small quantities, as
I would an especially excellent bourbon. And this particular
distillation is cask strength.
