5� “Everything had to be good. Had to be fine just as it was, even if it wasn’t. Always. Because any changes might be worse. So terribly much worse.�
Ma5� “Everything had to be good. Had to be fine just as it was, even if it wasn’t. Always. Because any changes might be worse. So terribly much worse.�
Make no mistake � this is a scary story. Everybody in Peaksville understood the rules and said things were fine and good, even if someone had died. Not only did they have to talk like this, they had to think like this around Anthony.
He’s a strange little boy who hears people’s thoughts � not so much a mind-reader as an unintentional eavesdropper. When he hears about trouble, he feels he needs to fix it, but he’s a kid, so what does he really know.
He’s currently using mind control to make a rat eat itself (blech), but he has his reasons.
“Aunt Amy hated rats, and so he killed a lot of them, because he liked Aunt Amy most of all and sometimes did things that Aunt Amy wanted.�
The operative word there is “sometimes�. When Bill Soames arrives on his bike with the mail, he tries hard to mumble and think mumbled thoughts so he won’t attract Anthony’s attention. He’s anxious to leave, and as he goes out the gate, he makes the mistake of thinking just that.
“As Bill Soames pumped the pedals, he was wishing deep down that he could pump twice as fast, to get away from Anthony all the faster, and away from Aunt Amy, who sometimes just forgot how ‘c²¹°ù±ð´Ú³Ü±ôâ€� you had to be. . . . Pedaling with superhuman speed â€� or rather, appearing to, because in reality the bicycle was pedaling him â€� Bill Soames vanished down the road in a cloud of dust, his thin, terrified wail drifting back across the heat.â€�
Anthony had decided to ‘help� him.
As a fan of Twilight Zone and of short stories in general, this one felt appropriately ‘out there�. When the townsfolk gather for a birthday celebration, everyone is tense.
“The next arrivals were the Smiths and the Dunns, who lived right next to each other down the road, only a few yards from the nothingness.�
“The nothingness.� Where IS Peaksville?
I mention Twilight Zone because of the reference in the introduction to the story, which I have added to encourage you to read the story (and others) yourself.
“Jerome Bixby (1923 � 1998) was an American short story and script writer who wrote four Star Trek episodes and helped write the story that became the classic sci-fi movie Fantastic Voyage (1966). He is most famous for the “It’s a Good Life� (1953), also made into a Twilight Zone episode and included in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). The Science Fiction Writers of America named “It’s a Good Life� one of the twenty finest science fiction stories ever written. References to the story have appeared in the Cartoon Network’s Johnny Bravo, Fox’s The Simpsons, and a Junot Diaz novel, among others.
You can read it here:
This is another from the Short Story Club, which offers a story every two weeks for discussion. Find out more here � it’s fun!
5� “But some children never feel at home in the family they were born to, and I was one of such. I found more solace in the unnameable openness of the 5� “But some children never feel at home in the family they were born to, and I was one of such. I found more solace in the unnameable openness of the sea, on the little beach on the island that Endo-san would one day make his home.�
Philip Hutton is telling this story. An elderly Japanese woman has told Philip she knew his friend Endo-san when they were young and has only recently received a letter from him, written to her decades earlier, and she wants to know what happened to him during the war.
� ‘Tell me about your life. Tell me about the life you and Endo-san led. The joys you experienced and the sorrow that you encountered. I would like to know everything.�
The moment I had been waiting for. Fifty years I had waited to tell my tale, as long as the time Endo-san’s letter took to reach Michiko.�
Philip’s narrative about the past is interspersed with conversations and tours of Penang with Michiko.
As a boy, he often didn’t fit in anywhere. He was born in Penang to a prominent English businessman and his father’s young, much-loved, second wife, whose Chinese family had come to Malaya to escape the poverty and politics of China. The first wife had died, leaving Noel with three English children.
Philip’s mother also died when he was very young, so Philip was raised in an English family, all of whom loved him, but he knew he looked different. People obviously thought he seemed to be neither one thing nor the other. Even the ancient soothsayer’s prophecy could be interpreted two ways.
� ‘You were born with the gift of rain. Your life will be abundant with wealth and success. But life will test you greatly. Remember � the rain also brings the flood.��
As a young man, he found peace on ‘his� island.
“There was a small island owned by my family about a mile out, thick with trees. It was accessible only from the beach that faced out to the open sea. I spent a lot of my afternoons there imagining I was a castaway, alone in the world. . . . Early in 1939, when I was sixteen, my father leased out the little island and warned us not to set foot on it as it was now occupied. It frustrated me that my personal retreat had been taken from me.�
Philip was home alone (except for servants of course) while the family was in London for several months, when a man with an unusual accent came to the house and asked to rent a boat. He introduced himself as Hayato Endo, pointed to the island, and said he lived there, but his boat had broken. Philip wasn’t happy, of course.
“I got up from the wicker chair and asked him to accompany me to our boathouse. But he stood, unmoving, staring out to the sea and the overcast sky. ‘The sea can break one’s heart, ²Ô±ð³ó?â€�
This was the first time I heard someone describe what I felt. I stopped, uncertain what to say. Just a few simple words had encapsulated my feelings for the sea. It was heartbreakingly beautiful.�
This was the beginning of Philip’s hero-worship. Endo-san was older and took Philip under his wing offering to teach him martial arts and how to focus his mind.
“I felt no connection with China, or with England. I was a child born between two worlds, belonging to neither. From the very beginning I treated Endo-san not as a Japanese, not as a member of a hated race, but as a man, and that was why we forged an instant bond.
I began my lessons in ‘a¾±°ì¾±Âá³Ü³Ù²õ³Üâ€� the following morning, entering into a ritual of learning that would continue largely unbroken for nearly three years.â€�
While his family was still away, he met the son of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.
� There were the usual speculative glances when I entered � ‘here comes the half-caste, � I thought wryly.� . . . I knew people called him Kon, which I now did. He looked at me with a curiosity I found disconcerting. He radiated a sense of confidence for someone so youthful. . . . We talked for a long time on the beach that night; although we did not know it then, it would be the start of a strong friendship. It was only when Uncle Lim was driving me home that I realised Kon had not asked me a single question, that he had seemed to know all about me and perhaps even about Endo-san.�
This is a story about men � Philip and the men he reveres. The closeness between him and Endo-san is never spelled out as love, but there are scenes and incidents that hint at something more than comradeship.
Kon is more of a best pal. Thus, this English-Chinese boy became very close to his Japanese â€ÈÙ±ð²Ô²õ±ð¾±â€� and to an up-and-coming leader of the Chinese community, representing the two countries already at war in China.
The British seemed oblivious to the danger the Japanese posed to Malaya, and when the invasion began, it was shocking and brutal, just as it was on the Thai-Burma Railway and in Changi prison, and everywhere else I’ve happened to read about WWII atrocities.
“When would I find a sense of my self, integrated, whole, without this constant pulling from all sides, each wanting my complete devotion and loyalty? �
Philip had to make terrible choices, trying to save his family and friends. Through it all, are the lessons he absorbed in his training. Endo-san had once told him that the sword is always the last option.
�‘We use swords in training,� I pointed out.
‘What am I teaching you?�
‘To fight,� I said.
‘No. That is the last thing I am teaching you. What I wish to show you is how not to fight. You must never, ever use what has been taught to you, unless your life is in danger. And even then, if you can avoid it, so much the better.�
He made me promise him that I would always remember that.�
This is a story, rich with history, that is brought to life through a boy growing up, caught between cultures and loved by both sides of his family, facing a world war.
Something that stood out to me was how many people spoke so many different languages. There are dialects within cultures, of course, and I lost track of who spoke what, although the author often pointed it out. Philip could use it to advantage because people often didn't expect him to understand them.
It is not all ‘plot�. The setting, the sights, the foods, the many cultural influences are all celebrated.
“Instead of going through miles of jungle, my father decided to drive around the island, heading to its westernmost tip before turning south.The road rose up on the shoulders of low hills and faithfully followed the curves of the coastline. Below us the thick green of the trees was stitched to the blue of the sea by a seam of white, endless surf. Light splattered like careless paint through the trees above us and the wind through our open windows smelled clean and unblemished, tasting of wet earth, damp leaves and always, always the sea.�
The Gift of Rain was longlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize. I’m currently reading some award-winners and nominees that sound interesting, and this certainly deserved a spot. ...more
4.5� “Baz darted in and pinned the head with his crook. Then he crouched and used his other hand to flick away lumps of concrete until the snake was fr4.5� “Baz darted in and pinned the head with his crook. Then he crouched and used his other hand to flick away lumps of concrete until the snake was free. He picked it up, keeping the whipping front section clear with his crook, and poured it into a hessian sack.
‘Piece of cake,� he said, grinning at the others. Who were more interested, it seemed, in a depression under the middle section of the slab.
‘What, we got a whole family of the buggers?�
He looked. What they had was a rotting cotton shirt over a rib cage, and a wrist bone encircled by a knock-off Rolex Oyster.�
The young couple who lived in the house never questioned why there was a slab of concrete in the backyard, but it made a handy place to park a chair and sit outside with the baby, until:
“On a mild October morning near Pearcedale, south-east of Melbourne, a snake slid over the edge of a veranda on a shortcut to somewhere.�
Somewhere was under that slab. Cue the snake-catcher, Baz, in the opening quotation. Next, cue the cops.
Detectives Alan Auhl and Claire Pascal have been assigned as partners in the new Cold Case Unit to investigate what is clearly an old crime scene. He’s been brought out of retirement to relieve the burden from the younger police, who refer to him as “Retread�, while Claire, considerably younger, has transferred from Homicide.
Initially they have a scratchy relationship, each haunted by past cases, but they are both committed to this new unit. They find a 2008 coin under the bones, so that gives them a time frame around which they can gather other evidence.
As well as countless phone calls, door-knocking, and tracking down past residents of the area, they also attend the pathologist’s examination of the remains to find cause of death, possible signs of poison and the like.
“Under the cold bright ceiling lights and in the chilled air of the autopsy room, they pulled on ill-fitting smocks and overshoes and waited. . . . The bodies were stored on steel trolleys in refrigerated units. Even the gleaming steel added to the chill in the air.�
They ask a lot of unanswerable questions and wish they could get a facial reconstruction, but where’s the budget for things like that?
�‘Come on, doc,� Auhl said. ‘Haven’t you got any tame PhD students in the building?�
The pathologist gave it some thought. ‘Actually, yes.�
‘They might get a kick out of joining the fight for justice,� [Senior Sergeant] Colfax said.
‘They might get a kick out of a few dollars, too,� Karalis said, and Auhl could see him considering the paperwork, the budget, whom to sweet talk. ‘I’ll see what I can do.��
Auhl has a couple of other interesting cold cases he still wants to follow, and the story moves between these three cases and his complicated home life.
He inherited his parents� huge old house with many rooms, now home to his daughter, his ex-wife (occasional lover when the spirit moves her), students, and assorted waifs and strays, like women and kids escaping abusive partners.
I began this book as a library audio, and I admit I got confused. As the story moved through the three cases and the many characters. I nearly gave up, until I thought, hang on - this is GARRY DISHER, a favourite author � he’d never let me down. So I bought a copy and am glad I did.
Auhl seems to be one of those guys who attracts extended family, and not just because he’s solvent and generous. He listens, he cares, and when necessary, he’ll get between you and the bad guy. He’s one of Disher’s good guys (unlike Wyatt � great character but a crook). Also, people care about him.
I ended up loving it. The narrator was fine, but for some reason I didn't engage with the story as well in the audio. I think that is more to do with me than with the narration. In a perfect world, I'd have both. ...more
2� I think other authors have told similar stories better.
Better than this one is Richard Connell's famous story, The Most Dangerous Game, written a h2� I think other authors have told similar stories better.
5� “And just that clearly, in the muddled, whiskey-soaked place where terrible ideas pose as good ones, I knew what I had to do. It made perfect sense.5� “And just that clearly, in the muddled, whiskey-soaked place where terrible ideas pose as good ones, I knew what I had to do. It made perfect sense. I would write my obituary.�
That is an excerpt from John Kenney’s new novel I See You've Called in Dead: A Novel, which reads smoothly, easily, amusingly and sounds as if it might actually live up to what the publisher claims it to be: “The Office meets Six Feet Under meets About a Boy in this coming-of-middle-age tale about having a second chance to write your life’s story.�
Kenney’s won several awards and is a contributor to 'The New Yorker', so you know you’re in the hands of an experienced writer.
Much-loved author Emma Donoghue, (with sixteen novels, including Room under her belt, or in the back of her brain, or wherever she keeps them) is releasing The Paris Express soon. It’s historical fiction, based on an 1895 train disaster, described by the publisher as “a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia.�
It opens with a young woman hesitating as she’s about to board the train, and I imagine many readers will want to know what happens to her.
The next one that caught my eye is a debut novel, The Names, by Florence Knapp, who has previously written nonfiction. The excerpt was compelling and I hope I get to read the rest of it. Cora’s husband, Gordon, has instructed her to register the baby’s name, today. Cora and her young daughter walk to the registry office and the little girl suggests a name.
“Cora has never liked the name Gordon. The way it starts with a splintering sound that makes her think of cracked boiled sweets, and then ends with a thud like someone slamming down a sports bag. Gordon. But what disturbs her more is that she must now pour the goodness of her son into its mold, hoping he’ll be strong enough to find his own shape within it. Because Gordon is a name passed down through the men in her husband’s family, and it seems impossible it could be any other way.�
Does a person grow into the name or does the name define your trajectory? I completely forgot this was a debut, at least for fiction, and that is was only an excerpt. It’s imaginative and thoughtful and I’d like to read more, please.
Notes on Infinity is a debut by Austin Taylor, who is a recent Harvard graduate with joint degrees in chemistry and English, which she certainly put to good use here. The excerpt opens with Zoe in a dressing room, feeling manic, getting sick, and finally downing four pills before getting her makeup redone and going onstage.
She introduces herself and says she’s going to tell the audience a story.
Then the book cuts to Part 1, and I got caught up in the meeting of two bright students, kind of competing against each other in chemistry classes, which was a lot more interesting than I’ve made it sound - sort of a cat and mouse, unspoken rivalry between exceptionally smart young people.
The publisher describes it as two people going into a biotech startup and discovering a cure for aging, That got my attention, too. I immediately thought of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, although this may be completely different, of course.
These Publisher's LunchBuzz Books are free to download from the Publishers Marketplace.
There are excerpts from 49 books, but there are a lot more titles and release dates for books by acclaimed authors. There are no excerpts, but many authors are famous, so you may find a favourite with a new book to look forward to.
Get a copy and have a look.
Thanks to #NetGalley for my copy for review, but you can download these books for free....more
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