Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Nathan started his review of Watchmen by stating that he didn't think he would be able to write a review that did the book justice. I share that sentiment. I should start by saying that I am not really a comic book fan. When I was a kid I read Ducktales and Rescue Rangers comics, but I never made the jump to "grown-up comics" (see 1 Corinthians 13:11).

Over the years, it has come to the attention of some of my friends and acquaintances that I don't really like comics. Somewhere in the course of their trying to convince me that I should read this comic or that comic, Watchmen invariably comes up. I just kind of wrote it off as just another comic -- excuse me...graphic novel -- that comic fans love. Then a couple of years ago, Time named it one of 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. Watchmen was the only graphic novel to make the list. I started thinking that maybe I should pick it up. I heard that they were making it into a film (the ultimate marker of whether something is worthwhile) and decided that I should read it before I saw the film.

The story, set in 1985 but of an alternate reality (not completely unlike Back to the Future II) follows a group of superheroes as they uncover a sinister plot that affects the stability of the world. So, that doesn't sound all that ground-breaking. Well, there people aren't really superheroes, because all but one of them are just regular people. They are essentially vigilantes, fighting against what they see as societies ills. And there are plenty of societal ills in the Cold War era reality that Moore creates. But these real people have "real people" problems -- more abundant in some than in others. What is it that drove them to a life of fighting crime? What do they see as crime? These masked vigilantes have biases, opinions, and prejudices just like the next guy. So, the question is raised, "Sure the Watchmen are watching us, but who's watching the Watchmen?"

The storyline was rather simply, but it unfolded in patchwork form. The credit really goes to Moore for his ability to weave together storyline and dialogue. Like Nathan, I enjoyed Moore's proclivity to flesh out two storylines as the same time using on line of dialogue. This happened most often during flashback sequences, of which there were many. Moore supplied his readers with a wealth of background information about each of the Watchmen. Much of it was supplied by means of short interstitials between the chapters. These were things that have been mentioned or featured in some way in the graphic portions of the novel. For instance, one of the Watchmen wrote a tell-all after retiring, and the book comes up a number of times in various conversations. So a few of these interstitials were excepts from that memoir, while others were newspaper clippings, or selections from a police file.

The realism of the novel fades as Watchmen comes nears its end. It is slowly usurped by an tone that is over-the-top. The plot that seemed so simple morphs into something that is much larger than the story of a league of crime fighters. As Christopher points out in his review, the novel is chalked full of symbolism and meta-narratives. By the end, the seemingly concrete aspects of the story have given away to something much more abstract. In this respect, it put me in mind of The Man Who Was Thursday. That is to say that I was impressed by Watchmen. It's no Rescue Rangers...but what is?

The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards

A couple of years ago, I read The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards first novel. The book was somber, bordering on depressing, but I really liked it. Edwards did an excellent job of developing her characters throughout the novel. So when I saw that Edwards has published a book of short stories I quickly grabbed it up.

The stories in this collection focus on the people at the edge of societies, people living on the fringe: the woman who rents lodgings to Madame Curie, the Korean woman who marries a GI and moves to Pennsylvania, the girl who reluctantly travels with her mother who is a leader in the anti-abortion movement. My favorite stories were the ones that flirted with the supernatural. 'In the Garden' is the story of a young man and woman who routinely drink what they believe to be an elixir of life, a potion that will enable them to cheat death, only to find out that the potion has nearly the exact opposite effect, hastening them towards the day that their bodies cease to work. 'Thirst' is the story of a mermaid who chose to leave her life "unda da sea" so that she could live out her days with a man. They have children and a life together, but her insatiable desire for the sea threatens the world they have constructed. 'The Secrets of a Fire King' was probably my favorite story. It was told from the perspective of Jasper, a 19th century fire eater who travels with a group of performers. In a small rural town -- the arena of choice for the troupe -- he falls in love with a young girl by the name of Jubilee. Her brother is enraptured with Jasper's apparent mastery of fire, and Jasper, in order to spend time with Jubilee, agrees to take him on as an apprentice. It quickly becomes clear that the young man has some issues, and he is none too happy when he finds out Jasper's intentions when it come to Jubilee. The characters are riveting, and the plot is taut and full of religious undertones.

Like Edward P. Jones, Edwards has a knack for developing her characters and stories in such a way that it is easy to forget that they are short stories. On numerous occasions, I have found myself slogging through a novel that is just simply too bloated, unnecessarily long. So it is refreshing to read excellently crafted stories that are around forty pages in length. Alas, brevity is not easy.

In the Woods by Tana French

My mind sideslipped and spun. Every step set recognition thrumming in the air around me, like Morse code beating along a frequency just too high to catch. We had run here, scrambling sure-footed down the hillside along the web of faint trails; we had eaten streaky little crab apples from the twisted tree, and when I looked up into the whirl of leaves I almost expected to see us there, clinging to branches like young jungle cats and staring back. At the fringe of one of these tiny clearing (long grass, sun-dapples, clouds of ragwort and Queen’s Anne lace) we had watched as Jonathan and his friends held Sandra down. Somewhere, maybe in the exact spot where I was standing, the wood had shivered and cracked open, and Peter and Jamie had slipped away.

First things first: READ THIS BOOK. I’ve never felt more comfortable recommending a story to anyone who’ll listen to me. Really, no matter what kind of reader you are, I bet you’ll thoroughly enjoy In the Woods by Tana French.

In the Woods is a police procedural novel set in present day Dublin. The protagonist and narrator, Rob Ryan, finds himself investigating the murder of 12-year-old Katy Devlin of Knocknaree. Ryan must solve the case without alerting his superiors to his personal connection to the case. 20 years earlier, Ryan and two of his friends went missing in the woods of Knocknaree. A police search eventually turned up the twelve-year-old Ryan, wide-eyed with blood-filled sneakers and mysterious scratches on his person. His two playmates were never recovered. Now Ryan must discover why Katy was found bludgeoned to death on an ancient Druid sacrificial altar just outside the very woods where he lost his friends.

I’ve never been a big crime drama type guy. Law and Order doesn’t really do it or me and I could never get into the hundreds of James Patterson and John Sanford crime thrillers that stock my mom’s bookshelf. And really that’s exactly what In the Woods is, a standard police procedural: Someone commits a crime. The detectives investigate the crime. They find their suspect! But wait, they were all wrong! Dead end. Eureka! A new suspect! Crime solved. I don’t say this to take away from the narrative itself. In fact, Woods has a really interesting plot with some good red-herrings and twists thrown in. But the story itself is far from ground-breaking. One thing about the plot, though, that was particularly well done was the subliminally supernatural tone. Nothing about Katy’s murder or any of the investigation lead you to believe that this is a Stephen King-type story with a monster on the loose. But certain details of Ryan’s friends abduction and his rescue keep that window slightly ajar. As if you wouldn’t be totally shocked if the story ended with some sort of werewolf conspiracy (which it sadly does not).

No, the beauty of In the Woods is all in French’s style. Her dialogue is fresh and realistic. There’s none of the melodramatic, hard-boiled bull-crap you almost expect to get in a crime drama. Or perhaps that’s that fair to say. You get a lot of the stuff you expect in a crime drama. Good cop, bad cop. Commanding officers behind desks questioning tactics and threatening to “take your gun and badge so quickly your head will spin.” Interrogation room scenes with jumpy suspects. The more I think back on it, the more cliché a number of things in the story were. I think the genius is in French’s ability to show you those clichés through the eyes of a player fully aware of those clichés. Ryan and his partners just come across as completely normal people who play the role of ‘television cop” when they find it necessary. Ryan explains his quick rise from uniformed officer to detective as having occurred because “he looked the part.” French’s characters are all too aware of the stereotypes and caricatures of police officers. And unlike the characters of so many other crime novels, they only use them to their advantage. They don’t live them.

I also enjoyed French’s uses of pop-culture references. A lot of times, things like that strike me as annoying for forced. As if the writer is trying too hard to relate to the reader. Maybe other’s will feel that way about French’s writing, but to me it just felt natural. Every random Simpsons or South Park reference felt appropriate. The detectives skipping lunch to play Worms on their computers or getting hammered and playing Cranium succeeded in making these characters seem flesh and blood. The way they talked and interacted after-hours reminded me of my friends.

As I’m sure you’ve already distilled, I loved In the Woods. It’s an exciting story from a new author that I think people are really going to enjoy. The plot/conclusion is nothing mind-blowing but it captures your interest enough for you to enjoy French’s dry sense of humor and smart dialogue. I’m already looking forward to reading French’s next book, whatever that may be.

Highlights: The hint of the supernatural, French’s dialogue, the cultural references

Lowlights: The ending was a little ho-hum, with too many questions left unanswered.

The Green Mile by Stephen King

The Green Mile was originally a serial novel. I had no clue. It was published in six parts, each containing approximately ten chapters. The story is told by the aging Paul Edgecombe, who is writing his memoirs at a retirement home. Edgecombe was in charge of the section of Cold Mountain Penitentiary that housed the inmates on death row. This area was colloquially referred to as the Green Mile because of the color of the floor (it was green, Brent). In his writing, he focuses on the story of John Coffey, a man who came to the Green Mile in 1932, convicted of raping and murdering to little girls.

It didn't take long for Edgecombe and those that worked for him to realize that Coffey was unlike any other inmate they had encountered. He had certain powers that couldn't be explained and hardly believed. What was even harder for them was justifying Coffey's special abilities and calm demeanor with the heinous acts for which he was convicted.

It is obvious that he is working through some deep, dark issues. Sitting in the atrium at the retirement home, Edgecombe lays bare his past, "What I didn't realize was how many doors the act of writing unlocks, as if my Dad's old fountain pen wasn't really a pen at all, but some strange variety of skeleton key." Along with people from his past, Edgecombe is also dealing with the present. Brad Dolan, a particularly conniving and nasty orderly at the home, seems to have it in for Edgecombe.

The story jumps back and forth from the retirement home to the Green Mile, with excellent pacing. King takes time to develop interesting characters in both eras. These characters wrestle with the complex issues of death, love, justice, and religion. King strikes again.