Surly Thursday: Not Crazy, Just a Little Unwell

I still don't feel like writing. But I told myself I have to write a blog post or exercise, and I REALLY don't feel like exercising, so here we are.

I become more and more aware of my mood cycles as I age. In April my friend was here and I said I felt like she was mad at me or hiding something, and when she looked shocked I said "but I'll believe you if you say I'm wrong, because I remember the same thing happening last year before your birthday. I think this is the time of year when you get distant and I get paranoid."

I had a brief burst of wit and energy in May - decluttered a bunch of areas in the house, framed and hung up a bunch of pictures that had been lying around for years - and then June hit me like a hammer. And I realized that I invariably feel completely etiolated in June, even though I'm happy that the school year is ending and the structure of our days will change and the weather is better. Way to make NO FUCKING SENSE, mood cycle.

Photo credit Scott Hart

 I roused myself to hitherto unseen heights of house-cleaning the week before my birthday party - you can actually see WALL between pieces of furniture in the living room and dining room now, instead of stacked-up kindergarten art (yeah, my kids are practically adults now, piss off) and paintings that my husband likes but I don't (trees and rocks, they're great, maybe better outside than in) and rolls of wrapping paper and gift bags (it would be a TRAGEDY if we had to go all the way downstairs for one of those). And it was quite satisfying. Then we had the party, which was fabulous.

Then..... *that sound of something falling before it explodes, but no explosion, because an explosion would take energy*.

I'm working on my penultimate course for my diploma. I miss my placement. I loved my placement. I should have done that placement last, because any other placement will invariably suck by comparison. I just want that job, now, with, like, actual pay. I am finding it hard to give any kind of fuck percentage about this course, even though it's on children's programming which I'm theoretically interested in.

I find myself nursing resentments over throw-away comments my friends made months ago, or bracing myself for my mother to make comments about my hair or my weight or my driving before I see her, or dreaming of fighting with my sister over things we would never fight about. And then I realize that there's one common denominator here, and it's not all the OTHER horrible people in the world. Uh-oh.

I need new orthotics really badly - every time I walk anywhere I hobble around with a burning lower back and twisted-up feet for days after. So am I hastening with great alacrity to order those orthotics?

Photo credit Troy Tolley

Not so much.

I read another book today that wasn't really worth the two hours I spent reading it. I keep saying I'm going to stop doing that, and then I don't. My taste for writing has matured, but my juvenile sense of curiosity invariably sucks me in to any book that has a mystery that I can't immediately figure out. Then even when it all becomes predictable and the dialogue is clunky and I know I should go read something substantive instead, I just don't.

It's okay. It will pass. Probably. Eve got out of grade seven with good marks despite, not because of, most of her teachers, and I'm proud of the resilience she's developed throughout a pretty challenging year (more on that in the next post). Angus is baseballing all over southern Ontario and the states right now and having a blast. I will force myself to work on my course, and walk, and order new orthotics, and blog. Because it makes everything better, or at least helps me keep a handle on everything getting worse.

If anyone needs me, I'll be over here in the red tent.

Mondays on the Margins: Twist and Shout OR Stop F*cking Comparing Everything to Gone Girl Already

For the love of Gillian Flynn, could every freaking publisher stop marketing every freaking new book as the next Gone Girl or Girl on the Train? Yes, Corporate Reading thinks we're all sheep that follow every new trend and then every other trend coat-tailing on the first trend, without any ability to discern quality for ourselves. Could we just not?

For the record, I read both Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. Hey, I'm as susceptible to hype as anyone, I just take a breath before I leap in, and I don't buy, I borrow. Here's the thing about Gone Girl; Gillian Flynn has actually been around for a while. I would have read Gone Girl even without the blow-up because I had read her previous two books and found that she's actually a really good writer. Her books are dark mysteries that also have some solid and uncomfortable insights into the icky parts of relationships and family and self-image and identity. This is also true of Gone Girl, and that's what I think makes it a great read, not just the 'twist' that seems to be the hook that publishers think will grab everyone.

Here's the thing about The Girl on the Train - it's a really solid book, for a first novel. It has great narrative energy and the writing is workmanlike. I felt that it lacked the depth of Gone Girl simply because Hawkins hasn't had the time to develop those writing chops, but she very well might in forthcoming work.

So now every new book, especially debut work, is being touted as the next Gone Girl or Girl on the Train. Well, yeah, because every publisher wants you to buy up stuff by their new author and create another feeding frenzy that will make them rich. And hey, I'm all for Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins getting rich off writing - something that is really, really hard to do these days. But I'm not a publisher, and I don't have a horse in this race. What I can do is tell you about some books that I've read that have a twist, if you like that kind of thing. And I do - if it's done well, and supported by great writing, and works to subtly undermine things in a clever way, there's nothing more delicious than a good plot twist. What a lot of these 'next Gone Girl' writers and publishers don't seem to realize is that a plot twist is nothing without a good plot to twist, or good writing to twist it well. And a lot of readers (present company excepted, naturally) don't realize that you can read backwards as well as forwards - it doesn't always have to be about the Next Big Thing.

So here's my list of, um, I don't know.... the last Gone Girl? Gone Girl Precursors? Really Good Books that Mostly Have Some Sort of Twist and Who Actually Gives a Fuck About Gone Girl, Let's Move On? No, that's unkind, I'm not blaming the book, just the shallow lowest-common-denominator shilling.

There are seventeen - not ten or fifteen twenty or any kind of round number because this isn't a neat little magazine list!

Exmoor Trilogy by Belinda Bauer (Blacklands, Darkside and Finders Keepers): These work as standalones, but they are a magnificent work of melancholy mystery with a visceral sense of place when read all together.

Monkeewrech by P.J. Tracy: On the whole, this series is a little uneven - some entries are brilliant, and some are mediocre mysteries that still have a really fun cast of characters. The first one really needs to be read first, though (I didn't read it first. Slight regrets).

The Scarred Man and The Animal Hour by Andrew Klavan: I could write a whole post on this author in the category of whether you can still love books by people you come to strongly dislike personally, but I won't right now. I read these years and years ago, and to me they exemplify classic noir storytelling with hard-boiled characters, flawed steamy romances and cracking good twisty mysterious plot elements.

Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card: See above about authors with problematic opinions on stuff which I feel strongly about. I can't tear myself away from his storytelling, though. This is more of a meandering family story where the mystery smacks you in the face, but it packed a real punch for me. 

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane: I also adore his Kenzie and Gennaro mystery series - like, it's in my top five mystery series list. But this fits square in the psychological-suspense, slow-build-of-dread, shook-my-head-in-wonder-when-it-was-over category. 

Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton: I also liked her earlier mysteries, before she started her Lacey Flint series. There's a substantial danger that this will get confused with Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty - if you end up with one instead of the other, just read it! Happily, they're both pretty good. 

To the Power of Three by Laura Lippman: In direct contrast to how I usually feel, I really like Lippman's Tess Monaghan series, but I LOVE her standalones, particularly this one and Every Secret Thing. They both have some very deft writing about class divisions, adolescent female friendships, and how the effects of crime reverberate around a society in sometimes unseen ways. 

The Treatment and The Devil of Nanking by Mo Hayder: Dark, twisty AND twisted - not for the faint of heart. 

The Last Child by John Hart: With some books, you just feel like the author squished up a bunch of broken hearts and wrote the book in broken heart juice. You might think I'm a monster for liking this. "Like" isn't even the right word. 

Sanctum by Denise Mina: 

Land of the Living by Nicci French: She has amnesia but is not a brain dead moron. In fact, she takes control of her own victimization quite admirably. 

Judas Child by Carol O'Connell: Dark and messy and brilliant. 

The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah: Leads you down the garden path and then clobbers you with a bird-feeder. Wholly unreliable narrator. I had no idea where this was going. Still catching my breath. 

Oh, and there's this book The Widow that's supposedly also for fans of You Know What, and you know how I always say even if someone you like doesn't like a book, don't let that stop you from reading the book and deciding for yourself? On this one, do yourself a favour and let me decide - it's utter crap. 

(I apologize that I seem to have let Surly Thursdays creep somewhat into my Mondays on the Margins post. I will attempt not to make this a regular thing). 

Conversations

On our way down to Toronto to visit the new baby, Eve and I stopped for lunch, and bought some doughnuts that we put in the back seat.

A while later, she looked back and said "oh man. I want a doughnut. But I'm not really hungry. Have you ever had that happen, that you're not really hungry, but you just feel like eating something?"

Me: - HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *drives into a speeding transport*