Here's what I said back on December 28th:

Shirley Jackson is a vivid horror writer, not vivid as in blood and gore, but like her most famous short story, The Lottery, her depictions of the horrors of human cruelty are ones that stick in your imagination forever. Since reading that short story way back in junior high, I'd never tried anything else that Jackson had written and was happy to have finally rediscovered her work with the short novel We Have Always Lived In the Castle, a chilling, twisted, smart, haunting book about a family rocked by murder, insanity, suspicion and class warfare.

Merricat Blackwood (named by Book Magazine as one of The 100 Best Fictional Characters Since 1900) is your narrator, a strange child of eighteen and one of the only surviving members of a prominent family that was killed at breakfast when someone put arsenic in their sugar. Constance, her older sister was acquitted of the murders and poor Uncle Julian's body and mind were permanently warped by his non lethal dosage. Together the three of them, along with Jonas, the cat, live in an old mansion apart from the rest of the village. They are completely sheltered from the outside world except for the two days a week Merricat goes into the village for goods and must endure the stares and laughter of the villagers, and Sundays when members of other prominent families bravely take tea with the two mysterious girls.

Their beloved castle is under the protection of Merricat's sympathetic magic described by wikipedia as:

“a type of magic based on imitation or correspondence. Imitation involves using effigies or poppets to affect the environment of people, or occasionally people themselves. Correspondence is based on the idea that one can influence something based on its relationship to another thing.”

For example, she buries items like a box of silver coins and nails her father's books to the surrounding trees to keep out strangers; once that book falls, she knows danger is imminent.

That danger comes in the form of Cousin Charles, a thieving manipulator who can fool the frail Constance, but not so easily the equally manipulative Merricat who envisions different ways he could die (turning him into a fly and leaving him in a spiders web, or perhaps just stomping him to death in the garden…) during a rather unappreciated visit. His presence sparks a chain of events that breaks down their odd routines and concludes in an eruption of fire and violence which marks the beginning of a new and far weirder way of life for the two sisters.

It's part Grey Gardens, part Tim Burton (who would have a grand time adapting this), part old timey Gaslight thriller, and I loved it. It was interesting to find out that Jackson was an agoraphobic herself, which is probably why the extremely eccentric but happy sisters are sympathetic and oddly relatable while all the outsiders are depicted as cruel or petty.

While Jackson isn't as well known today as she deserves to be, this, her last novel did come out in a new edition in 2007 with a smart looking cover featuring an illustration by Thomas Ott (pictured) but the original cover is also pretty wonderful and both adorn an equally great read.

RUNNERS UP:
The Demon Princes
Random Family
Code of the Woosters
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
A Friend of the Earth
Please Don't Promise Me Forever

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Posted on November 2, 2009

Kurt Vonnegut is an utterly beloved author by anyone that's discovered his equally humorous and gravely poignant novels, but he is rarely given satisfactory adaptation to screen. His time traveling anti war sensation Slaughterhouse Five, adapted in 1972 by George Roy Hill, is an exception.

It's been many years since I read the book, but the film to my memory seems to capture the languid fatalism and realistic surrealism of the book personified perfectly by the toothy smiled, calm voiced Michael Sacks as Billy Pilgrim. Even Vonnegut is a fan, which is rare among novelists of their big screen interpretations. He said “I drool and cackle every time I watch that film, because it is so harmonious with what I felt when I wrote the book.”

The cinematography is appropriately lovely considering Miroslav Ondricek (Amadeus) is behind the camera, and the exceptional Glenn Gould supplies the Bach. While the film may not have captured the intricacies of the novel, it captures the essence and gets one in the mood to re-read his novels (for some of us for a third time).

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Posted on September 28, 2009

If you don't know how much I adore the work of Jack Vance, you obviously just have not been listening to me! The Demon Princes, two volumes collecting five novellas written between 1964 and 1981, are my favorites second only to the middle books collected in Tales of the Dying Earth (the absolutely phenomenal Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga). I've only been holding off on recommending them here, on Brix Picks, until I had a chance to re-read them and write while their fresh in my mind, but over the years they've been passed around to all my friends and I just haven't had the chance.

The four novellas chronicling the vengeful exploits of Kirth Gersen as he seeks to destroy a cabal of high powered, shadowy, inter-planetary criminals known only as the Demon Princes in the wake of the massacre of his home planet match up so perfectly with this week's vengeance-based extreme movie, Oldboy, that I'm positive the authors of the Manga Park Chan-wook's film was based on were heavily influenced by Vance's stories.

Over the course of 850 action-packed pages, Gersen manages to find (and attempts to kill) each one of the gangsters on his hit list in exponentially brilliant ways that involve, among other things, a high school reunion, a planet that's turned kidnapping into a safe and reliable business, weirdo art parties on old Earth, rare and possibly deadly culinary delicacies, and a maniacal plan involving the restructuring of a moon… And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

To give away too much of the plot would be totally unfair as the real thrill of any Vance work is watching the intricate and often extremely surprising plots rapidly unfold and reveling in his witty and wildly imaginative brand of speculative social engineering. Just writing about this series is making me really want to read it again – this is one of my all-time favorites.

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Posted on September 7, 2009

The dramatic, sweeping Make It Easy On Yourself could only be the child of Burt Bacharach, the Walker Brothers and a full orchestra under the inspiration of Phil Spector.

Exclaiming that breaking up is so very hard to do, Scott and pals made it to number one in the UK with this one and a none to shabby #16 in the US. The Brothers (who are not really brothers), who hail from LA always got more love and attention from the Brits.

Here's an adorable polite and lovable Gary Walker explaining the song choice “we thought it would be good all around” and a performance from 1965.

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Posted on August 3, 2009

'Nuff Said! was recorded at the Westbury Music Fair in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. days after his devastating assassination; track 6, 'Why? (The King of Love is Dead)', was written by bass player Gene Taylor. His brother remembers the concert in this NPR story:

“We learned that song that (same) day. We didn't have a chance to have two or three days of rehearsal. But when you're feeling compassion and outrage and wanting to express what you know the world is feeling, we did it because that's what we felt.”

Introduced as “The High Priestess of Soul”, the warbly and smooth voiced Nina Simone takes us through a stirring, uplifting set beginning with the soft and beautiful 'In the Morning' and 'Sunday in Savannah' before pulling out all the stops for 'Gin House Blues' and an amazing cover of 'Ain't Got No' from the musical Hair, which you can see here.

It may not be the most well known album of her illustrious career, but it's a great record that's simple and heartfelt.

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Posted on May 25, 2009