Cory Leonardo. The Simple Art of Flying. Aladdin, 2019.

The Simple Art of Flying is a beautiful, intelligent book. I have a friend who has an African Grey Parrot. They are known for their intelligence and even for their personalities. He told me he thought of writing a book about his parrot. I warned him that it would be hard to outdo Alex and Me. Well, The Simple Art of Flying may have outdone Alex and Me.

There are some conditions that readers have to accept to make that judgment. Unlike Alex and Me, The Simple Art of Flying is fiction. There are three narrators: twelve-year-old Francis “Fritz” Feldman, an aspiring doctor and pet store worker and paperboy; retired widow Mrs. Bertie Plopky; and Alastair, an African Grey who cannot fly because of a wing injury that did not heal properly. About half the story is told from Alastair’s perspective.

To summarize plot parts hardly does the book justice. Fritz “volunteers” at a local pet store. He is too young to work officially but Peter, the store’s owner, gives him five dollars a day for the usual three days after school he works there. Fritz feeds the animals and takes care of the sick and injured animals in the back room or “infirmary” of the pet shop.

Alastair ends up in the infirmary. He does not trust people. He has a vision of living in a palm tree with blue skies. What kind of life is an indoor cage in a temperate climate? Once, when Peter is handling Alastair, Alastair bites him and Peter throws him against the wall. Fritz takes care of him in the infirmary, but Alastair hates it even more.

Now Alastair is separated from his sister, Aggie. Aggie is calmer, less aggressive, and seems to accept her lot as a pet for someone. Alastair, though, convinces her that they should try to escape and find that palm forest where they can live happily ever after. Alastair feels responsible not only for his sister but for all the small animals in the pet shop. He especially keeps an eye out for the guinea pigs and rabbits.

As is inevitable, both parrots get sold. Fritz himself saves up enough money to buy Aggie. Bertie buys Alastair. While Bertie does treat Alastair well, he still has plans to escape. Bertie also owns a cat. The cat constantly threatens Alastair, but Alastair has ways of tormenting the cat back. African Greys are probably the best mimics or talkers among wild animals. Alastair will learn a few words, but he can also meow just like the cat.

Aggie trusts Alastair, but the reader can well imagine that a flightless parrot is probably not going to do very well in the civilized world.

That’s the basis of the plot, but its story is delightful. It is YA literature, but it is written with adults in mind. Already aspiring to go into medicine, Fritz makes flash cards with medical terms on them. Instead of everyday expletives, his all have medical terms like jiminy rickets or shiver me blisters. He once gets a poor mark on an essay he wrote about his wart. The teacher said she thought she was reading a romance until she realized it was about a wart. “But I like my wart!” he tells her.

Alastair eats paper, as some parrots do. He especially like Norton Anthologies because the words are so beautiful. Adults will get a kick out of Alastair’s poems, mostly adaptations or parodies of other poems such as “On First Biting into Norton’s Anthology,” “To My Dear and Loving Sister,” “Jabberplopky,” to name a few.

All three narrators have experienced losses. Fritz’s parents are divorced and his grandfather had recently died. Bertie has been widowed for a number of years but still writes letters to Everett, her late husband. Her son lives far south in Florida and does not seem to respect her independence. Of course, Alastair becomes separated from his sister.

In some ways it seems that many YA titles these days are problem novels. Sadly, many of them come across as propaganda or simply bitter stories. Yes, the problems our three narrators have are not trivial. The question becomes, how do we deal with such problems? That is where The Simple Art of Flying shines. There is hope. Cherries are delicious, but what do we do about the pits?

To say much more would give too much away. Read this story and be delighted. Gordon Korman is probably our favorite contemporary YA writer, but he mostly writes to entertain. The Simple Art of Flying will entertain you, but it will also do so much more. How do we live out our dreams? What if things do not happen the way we think they should? The stoic says, “Life is hard. Be tough.” The epicure says, “Don’t worry. Be merry.” But Shakespeare, among others, warns us that both views have their limits. Brutus and Marc Antony both end up tragically. The Simple Art of Flying shows us a better way.

Lee Goldberg and Andy Breckman. Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out. Obsidian, 2010.

It seems like recently we have been reading some novels with television tie-ins. In the case of the Hamish Macbeth stories, the television show is adapted from the novels. In this Monk mystery, the novel is a spinoff of the popular television series. Lee Goldberg is one of the writers for the Monk TV show, and he contributed to this book.

Former detective Adrian Monk needs no explanation to anyone who has seen the television show. He is a paranoid obsessive-compulsive who notices things that others do not. That makes him paranoid when it comes to cleanliness. It also makes him a very good detective.

In Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out, Monk actually solves a couple of crimes that have nothing to do with the main plot. Echoing Sherlock Holmes’ “The Red-Headed League,” Monk notices dirt on the knees of a couple of people in a shopping mall. Anyone familiar with the Holmes story can anticipate what happens.

The story begins as a witness in Madoff-type Ponzi scheme is murdered. What is remarkable about the murder is that the witness is driving to court alone in his own car and being followed by a police car. He is strangled while waiting at a stop light. The police see no one, and there is no one else in the car: a tiny closed room mystery with only the victim.

Soon, two other witnesses who worked for Bob Sebes, the man arrested for bilking many people out of billions of dollars, are also murdered. One looks like suicide until Monk shows why it could not be. All are quite mysterious. The main suspect, Mr. Sebes, is under house arrest with an ankle monitor. His house is under surveillance not only by police but by reporters. It is obvious he has not left his house.

To Monk this is personal. The book gets its title because Monk is cleaned out. He had invested nearly all his money in Sebes’ fund. Why? Monk said he was the best, not because of any financial prowess, but because his name, his wife Anna’s name, and even the name of the fund, the Reinier Fund, are all palindromes. Monk, of course, appreciates the balance. It is level, he says. Level itself is a palindrome.

There are many humorous episodes involving Monk’s compulsions and paranoia. Although this is a clever crime and detective novel, what makes it stand out is Adrian Monk’s character. Monk is convinced he is going to die of dehydration because the only water he drinks is a bottled water whose company has gone out of business. He discovers this in a conversation with a grocery store manager that goes something like this. Arthur, the manager, tells him:

“There’s other bottled water. [Heck,] you could just turn on the tap and drink from there.”

That remark was so offensive to Monk that it actually stopped his head shaking and hand waving. He looked Arthur in the eye.

“I would rather drink my own sweat but that won’t be possible,” Monk said, “because I will be dying of dehydration.”

“Have juice,” Arthur said. “Or milk.”

“Milk? Do you know where milk comes from?”

“Cows,” Arthur said.

“Are you suggesting I should drink that?”

“Why not?”

“It’s another animal’s bodily fluids. Maybe I should lap up some cow pee while I am at it, too. Or some dog drool. How about a cool, delicious glass of pig mucus? Mmm, that sounds good.” (6)

Typical Monk. For most of the story he is conserving what bottles of water he still has at home by taking a teaspoon at a time. He is convinced he is dying. When he tells a cross-dresser that he should not be wearing women’s clothes—the story is set in San Francisco, after all—the man accuses him of being a homophobe. Monk tells him, “I’m a totalphobe.”

The story is told by Natalie Teeger, Monk’s personal assistant. She has her own problems. The story is set in the 2008 economic downturn. When Monk is cleaned out, he cannot pay her, and as a widowed mother, she is barely making ends meet. We see the two of them trying their hands at different jobs. Needless to say, Monk’s people skills are wanting. This makes for complications that, at least to the reader if not Natalie, are pretty funny. Monk does not like pizzas with toppings applied randomly. He uses a compass and applies the toppings in concentric circles.

Monk’s even stranger brother, Ambrose, makes an appearance in Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out. From Ambrose’s perspective, brother Adrian takes great risks. After all, he goes outdoors. Ambrose makes a living via mail and computer writing manuals for all kinds of appliances and businesses. It turns out he wrote the manual for the ankle monitor Mr. Sebes is using. When hoarder Ambrose is reluctant to part with old newspapers so brother Adrian can do some research, Adrian reminds him who taught him how to iron newspapers…

At bottom, then, are crimes upon crimes: a Ponzi scheme followed by at least three murders. Due to the economy, the police cannot hire consultants, so both Natalie and Monk are working gratis. Still, we enjoy how Monk outwits a very clever criminal and how Natalie helps them make ends meet. Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out is a lot of fun.

William J. Faulkner. The Days When the Animals Talked. Follett, 1977.

The Days When the Animals Talked should be a welcome addition to any library or program looking for writing about the African American experience. The author was a black minister and teacher born around the turn of the twentieth century. A neighbor in his South Carolina hometown was a former slave who used to tell him stories.

Most of the stories were humorous folk tales, but he also told stories of what it was like to be a slave. The Days When the Animals Talked tells both types of stories. There is a sense of injustice in both kinds. Simon Brown tells what it was like being a slave. By Southern standards, his owner was fairly kind. When Simon wanted to marry a slave owned by a neighbor and the neighbor threatened Simon, Simon’s master bought the slave girl so Simon could marry her and live together on his plantation.

Still, Simon was aware of much injustice around him. He tells of how he learned to sneak out without being detected and different ways he eluded patrollers (“pater-rollers”). Like Mary Chesnut in her diary or Uncle Tom’s Cabin, he explains how many slave owners had black concubines. Still, they would treat their own children, “their blood,” no different from other slaves and even sell them. So much for family life.

One story Simon told was how another slave managed to escape. Simon was a slave in Virginia and one neighboring slave named Big Tom managed to escape even bloodhounds in the depths of the Big Swamp (Great Dismal Swamp?). We hear his story.

We also learn of the faith of many of the slaves. One slave saw her master sitting on a porch drinking juleps while they were working in the sun. She noted that such a person could not have the same kind of personal relationship she had with God. Simon tells a little of his own conversion to Christianity. It sounds like the Lord sustained them.

Another thing that perhaps psychologically sustained the slaves were some of the folk tales that were passed on. The stories here are similar to the Uncle Remus stories. In his introduction, however, Faulkner explains them for us. Slaves identified with the rabbit. He can see all around, is quick, weak, and surrounded by enemies. He had to survive by his wits. The predatory foxes, bears, and wolves represent the white people.

Readers might be familiar with some of the tales because they are like the ones that Joel Chandler Harris collected. Since they are orally transmitted, the stories may have some variations from the Harris versions. Also Faulkner tells us in his introduction that he purposely told the stories in standard English rather than any kind of dialect. “I would not want this book to encourage such language patterns.” (7) He was on the faculty of Fisk College and valued education.

Having said that, the animal stories do use some regional vocabulary to give us a flavor of the way the stories were told. Pinders are peanuts, cooters are turtles. “The Tortoise and the Hare” becomes “Brer Rabbit and Brer Cooter Race.” And the story is not exactly the way Aesop told it, but just as entertaining. Brer Rabbit does not come out on top in this story because of his pride. Humble turtles outsmart him the way he outsmarts the proud predators.

About a third of the book are true stories or reminiscences about what it was like to be a slave. A little more than half are the talking animal stories. There is an interesting transition. The last of the slave stories is a story about a slave named Jim who managed to get his freedom by telling his master a riddle he could not answer. The story of the clever slave segues nicely into the stories of the wily rabbit.

One tale, “Brer Rabbit’s Protest Meeting” illustrates the lot of the slave. Brer Rabbit and some other animals with small or no tails organize a protest meeting. They do not have the means to swat away insects as the animals with longer tails do. However, before the day of the meeting, the long-tailed animals led by Brer Lion have taken over the protest and the meeting. It seems even the law is stacked against the rabbit and his friends.

Some other stories are probably familiar. There is a version of the Tar Baby tale with the famous lines “Don’t throw me into the briar patch!” The fox and wolf both get outsmarted through Brer Rabbit’s agricultural knowledge in several stories, whether it is planting peanuts and other crops or finding honey.

“How the Cow Went Underground” begins with a recollection by Simon Brown that if slaves were not clever they could starve over the winter. He then tells a story of how a very selfish Brer Bear who owned many cows still stole Brer Rabbit’s one milk cow. He wanted to make some leather but did not want to kill one of his own cows. How Brer Rabbit got his revenge on Brer Bear and a new cow is a very funny story, but also very pointed when considering the context of chattel slavery.

The Days When the Animals Talked is entertaining. Clever folk tales are fun. But these are also eye-opening as well. They are as much a contribution to history as to literature.

Stephen G. Mlodinow and Michael O’Brien. America’s 100 Most Wanted Birds. Falcon, 1996.

Somehow, I missed this book when it came out. This was another one I picked up recently at a book store. America’s 100 Most Wanted Birds carries the subtitle/subscript “Finding the rarest regularly occurring birds in the Lower 48 states.” That is just what this book does and does it thoroughly.

Notice that it does speak to “regularly occurring birds.” In other words, we are talking about birds that someone might have a chance of seeing. These tend to be birds that nest in or beyond the fringes of the 48 contiguous states.

One of the birds, for example, is the Emperor Goose. A birder from the lower 48 with money can go to Alaska where these birds breed and almost certainly see one. The goose, though, does show up many years in small numbers in Washington, Oregon, and California. The book, then, lists both sighting records and places and dates where one is likely to see the birds.

For somewhat obvious reasons, many of the sites in the book are in the Northwest for birds like the goose, the Mexican border for tropical species that barely make it this far north, Florida for Caribbean and Bahamian birds, and pelagic birds that are normally only seen far out at sea, whether the Atlantic, Pacific, or Gulf of Mexico.

The birds listed are often ones that birders speak of and dream about. Some are exquisitely rare like the Ivory Gull that nests and winters in the Arctic but occasionally blesses people with a more southern appearance. Others are simply beautiful like some of the hummingbirds that barely make it into Arizona or Texas or the tropicbirds that require mostly luck to spot out at sea.

Any birder will enjoy the descriptions in the book. Personally, the book made me feel somewhat fulfilled. While I have not traveled like some birders and pretty much confine my birding to my small state of Connecticut, over the years I have seen a number of these birds. When I think about it, there is a story behind each one that I have seen. Not to mention a few that I have missed.

The last third of the book is a Site Guide, directions on visiting many of the locations in the book. This may be the most useful part.

The one concern or caveat is simply that this book came out in 1996. From my experience, bird finding books have a practical life of about 15 or 20 years. After that, too many changes in the landscape have happened.

That may not be quite the case here since a majority of the locations are state or national parks or refuges, so the habitat would largely be preserved. Similarly, there would be few changes to the historical record or the descriptions of the birds themselves. In some cases, the bird species may have become more or less abundant than in 1996, but that might only apply to a handful of species.

It might be interesting if this book were updated to reflect any site guide changes. It also might add or subtract a few species. For example, the Black-Capped Petrel is a regular in the Atlantic on pelagic trips out of North Carolina and wild Barnacle Geese have been reported more frequently than in the past. Would those things cause a change? Maybe nowadays the Pink-Footed Goose might take the Barnacle Goose’s place, but back in ’96 they were accidental. Now they are almost annual.

Personally, I have seen twenty of the hundred, which considering where I live and the opportunities I have had to travel, pretty good. A few I have seen would cause even birders with much larger life lists to envy. There are also five others I have seen in places where they are common but not on the North American continent. But if I do have a chance to go to Florida, Texas, Arizona, the Pacific Coast, or northern Minnesota, I might take this book with me.

Birds in the book that I have seen: Black-Capped Petrel, White-Faced Storm Petrel, Band-Rumped Storm Petrel, Barnacle Goose, Muscovy Duck, Tufted Duck, Short-Tailed Hawk, Gyrfalcon, Pacific Golden-Plover, Red-Necked Stint, Curlew Sandpiper, South Polar Skua, Little Gull, Black-Headed Gull, Ross’s Gull, Ivory Gull, Great Gray Owl, Boreal Owl, Fork-Tailed Flycatcher, Northern Wheatear, Shiny Cowbird, Hoary Redpoll.

Those I have seen in places where they are more common: White-Winged Tern, Black Noddy, White Wagtail, White-Tailed Tropicbird, Eurasian Skylark. The nomenclature was a little confusing on two subspecies which are listed because they are distinctive. I also probably saw a Great Skua on whale watch in 1981, but that was before the Skuas were split into Great and South Polar Skuas. The Muscovy Duck is commonly domesticated, but the one I counted was a wild type in an area where they are considered countable.

Even a few of these I never thought I would see, but birds fly, so you never know…And this book can give you a head start.

Thomas Wolfe. You Can’t Go Home Again. Thomas Wolfe: The Complete Works. 1940. Pandora’s Box, 2018.

I think the enemy comes to us with the face of innocence to us:
“I am your friend.” (47635)

You Can’t Go Home Again is the last of the four novels completed by Thomas Wolfe. This was published posthumously. I recall in college that most discussions about his work seemed to reach a consensus that this was his best piece. I would agree.

It is typical Wolfe, largely autobiographical with descriptions that come alive. Another writer once said that the Wolfe wrote many bad sentences but he didn’t write any dull sentences. However, in many ways this novel does not focus on the biography, but on the culture. It has a lot of observations about America and the world that still resonate today.

As Of Time and the River was a sequel to Look Homeward, Angel, so You Can’t Go Home Again is a sequel to The Web and the Rock. We continue the life (adventures?) of George Webber. While much of the story is set in Manhattan (the Rock), Webber leaves the Rock for his hometown of Libya Hill and then for England and Germany. We note some significant changes.

At the beginning, Webber is still involved with Mrs. Esther Jack, but he is beginning to think of breaking up with her. He still admires her and respects her greatly, but there is a sense that he does not fit in with her world. He devotes several chapters to a big party Mrs. Jack and her husband have at their New York City apartment. All kinds of people attend.

This brings in the fun of reading Wolfe. Wolfe carefully observes hundreds of people in his stories. As he sets the stage and we meet the different guests, we get introduced to all kinds of people from the elevator operators in the building and their girlfriends to the wire puppeteer who provides the entertainment at the Jacks’ party. As was true with The Web and the Rock, a few of the incidents that relate to the party were published as short stories that I had previously read. That again tells us something of the nature of the novel. While there is a thread and continuity, individual characterizations and episodes stand by themselves.

Without giving too much away, the Jacks’ party is interrupted by a fire alarm. There is a fire in one of the other apartments in the building, so everyone has to evacuate. In typical Wolfe fashion, then, we meet not just the partiers, but the other inhabitants of the apartment building, some of its neighbors, and the firemen and policemen who are called in. Whatever else once can say, Wolfe loves people.

The fire becomes a symbol. The party happens very shortly before the 1929 Stock Market crash which changes everything. There is a party—namely, the Roaring Twenties—but the fire that burns it down is inevitable. It is after the party that Webber breaks off his relationship with Mrs. Jack. As is often the case with the intimate relations in his novels, we are not privy to any conversation concerning this. The reader simply knows the relationship has ended.

That is not the only relationship that ends in this novel. Webber has recently published a second novel that has had some commercial success like his first. Still, he decides that it is time to change publishers for the third novel he is working on. He devotes more than one chapter to describe in detail his admiration for the editor at the first publishing house, Foxhall Edwards. Foxhall Edwards is clearly based on Maxwell Perkins, Wolfe’s editor at Scribner’s. The edition we have been using of Wolfe’s works tells us that his first two novels, the Eugene Gant stories, were done by Scribner’s but then he changed to Harper for his last two, the George Webber stories.

The changes continue. Webber gets word that the aunt who raised him after he was orphaned has died. He does go back home. As would be typical in the early 1930s, he takes a train from New York to Libya Hill. Even the train ride is something special.

Again, typical of Wolfe, about a hundred different passengers and commuters passing through the railroad station are described in great detail. No, Webber does not know any of these people personally, but they fascinate him and he wonders about their lives. Ditto for a number of the people he observes on the train.

In some ways the train ride is like the prologue to The Canterbury Tales. Passengers on the train include a number of prominent people from Libya Hill such as its mayor, some businessmen, and one person who acts as a kind of a Pythian or Teiresian oracle. He is the one who tells Webber that he can’t go home again.

There is some truth to that. Part of it is that some people are mad at him for putting them as caricatures in his books. His best friend, though, realizes that the people in the book are different. Webber’s work is fiction. Since he has come to bury his aunt who raised him, he does not have the family connection any more. Perhaps if he had stayed in Libya Hill, he might have married his friend’s sister, a nice girl that likes him. But he has changed, too, with his experiences in New York and overseas.

One message, though, that comes through is that the country is changing. The mayor and businessmen of Libya Hill are still bullish on the city: They have big plans for investment and development. The Depression comes to Old Catawba as well. They have their problems, and city is not what it once was and not what the boosters envisioned that it will become.

It is clear from You Can’t Go Home Again that the author loves America. In his description of the livelihoods and people, he becomes Whitmanesque. America is great. America is good. There may be a depression, but there is potential.

But there is also warning. Do not rely just on material wealth. Not only does that not ultimately satisfy, but seeking wealth above other things is dangerous. What happens if you lose it? What does that make you? A vivid and disturbing chapter is devoted to a scene on a New York sidewalk where a young businessman has just committed suicide by jumping out of a window of the adjacent hotel. We realize that the man may have been only thinking of himself, but his suicide affects many he never knew: the policeman who responds to the call, the vendor whose stall he lands in front of, the various pedestrians on the street who see him fall, and the person he barely misses as he lands on the sidewalk. Of course, Wolfe wonders about his family, friends, and business associates as well.

Even before the crash Webber is wondering what is really worth it. Speaking of the business and artistic elite who associate with the Jack family, “At these repeated signs of decadence in a society which had once been the object of his envy and his highest ambition, Webber’s face had taken on a look of scorn.” (40610)

He notes that one of the Jacks’ wealthy businessman friends supports socialist and communist causes. This is in the 1920s. The radicalism of the American elite has been going on for a hundred years.

The sources of Mr. Hirsch’s wealth and power, whatever they might be, were quite accidental and beside the point. His position as a liberal, “a friend of Russia,” a leader in advanced social opinion, a searching critic indeed, of the very capitalist class to which he belonged, was so well known as to place him in the very brain and forehead of enlightened thought. (40629)

Mr. Hirsch’s letters to the editor and support of Sacco and Vanzetti were considered fashionable. Substitute Silicon Valley, “friend of China,” and Antifa or Black Lives Matter, and things have not changed that much. Such attitudes are more entrenched among our elites today because they have been going on for a century.

He sees the irony of the morally loose elite themselves “exploiting” the people they claim to care about.

The whole tissue of these princely lives, he felt, these lesbic and pederastic loves, these adulterous intrigues, sustained in mid-air now, floating on the face of night like a starred veil, had none the less been spun from man’s common dust of sweated clay, unwound out of the entrails of man’s agony. (40458)

That is even more relevant today.

Webber understood that he could become part of the elite by writing what they wanted to hear. This is the crux of his choices in You Can’t Go Home Again. In breaking up with Mrs. Jack, he is seeking an identity beyond the elite of the liberal system.

Could he as a novelist, as an artist, belong to this high world of privilege without taking upon himself the stultifying burden of that privilege? Could be write truthfully of life as he saw it, could he say the things he must, and at the same time belong to the world of which he would have to write? Were the two things possible? Was not this world of fashion and of privilege the deadliest enemy of art and truth? (40462)

As if to illustrate the consequences of such thinking, Webber, after returning from Old Catawba, goes somewhere else that may seem like home to him—Germany. In The Web and the Rock, he spends almost a year there, and likes it. He likes the people. He had a lot of fun at Oktoberfest. He speaks the language.

It is now 1934, however. Things have changed. The elitists and the socialists have taken over. Remember, Nazi stands for National Socialism. He could not go back there and have the same kind of life. Oh, he tries. He finds a young widow as a mistress and manages well on his royalties. For obvious reasons, it becomes too oppressive. The train trip he takes when he leaves the country is harrowing, not so much for him as an American citizen returning home, but for some of the other passengers, especially the Jews.

There is even more; for example, he spends some time in England as well and connects with an older, famous American writer, Lloyd McHarg. According to some sources, McHarg is based on Sinclair Lewis. This would have been shortly after he won the Nobel Prize—”the greatest ovation one could win.” While grateful for the kudos McHarg gave his first novel, Webber seems disappointed at his bitter outlook in spite of his great success.

He also connects with a friend from his hometown who becomes a Major League baseball player. This becomes a very realistic look into the life of a professional athlete as he plays for eight years before his injuries catch up to him. Can he go home again? This is Frank O’Rourke baseball realism.

(Baseball’s a dull game, really; that’s the reason it is so good. We do not love the game so much as we love the sprawl and drowse and shirt-sleeved apathy of it.) (43720)

Still, Wolfe hears America singing. He notes the decadence of the elites, the oppression in Central and Eastern Europe, but he sees that America can overcome these things.

I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found. (47619)

Is that still true in 2021?

N.B. Parenthetical references are to Kindle locations, not page numbers.

Shelby Foote. Shiloh. 1952; Vintage, 1980.

I was browsing in a book store the other day and noticed this book. I knew playwright Horton Foote, Shelby’s brother, and I knew Shelby from the Ken Burns PBS series on the Civil War, but I had never read anything by Shelby. As I started reading this novel, it was easy to imagine it being read aloud in the gentlemanly drawl of its author.

As one can tell from the title, Shiloh is a novel which describes in effective detail the April 1862 two-day Battle of Shiloh. It is seven chapters, each told by a different person involved in the battle. Both sides are included. Chapters one and seven bookend the story as told by young aide to General A. S. Johnston. We learn something of Johnston’s background, as well as a kind of military history of the times. Johnston, like many Civil War senior officers, was a veteran of the Mexican War. This was after he had fought for Texas independence against Mexico.

Our fictional aide-de-camp was a student at the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy when the war began. Its superintendent had been General W. T. Sherman, so we get the background of one of the key Union officers at Shiloh as well. (We learned from other sources that the Louisiana Seminary was the precursor of Louisiana State University.)

Another chapter is narrated by a Union Army captain who grew up in Grant’s hometown. We get a flavor of the ups and downs of Grant’s career. There are hints that General Halleck, known more as a paper pusher than a fighter today, had it in for General Grant, his subordinate. Still, Halleck could not argue with Grant’s success in the Western Theater where Halleck was Commander until he was promoted to Army Chief of Staff two months after Shiloh.

We also get the perspective of an infantryman from Mississippi, an artilleryman from Minnesota, a scout for Nathan Bedford Forrest, and the testimonies of a dozen men who formed a squad from Indiana. It is a novel, and it reads like one. Foote notes that all of the quotations from actual historical figures like Grant, Johnston, and Forrest are genuine. Perhaps the most prophetic are those from General Sherman, written when he resigned from his Louisiana position after that state seceded. Our aide to Johnston resented what Sherman had said back then, but his words proved to be true.¹

Like many battles of the Civil War, Shiloh was brutal. We get a sense of the brutality of the fighting as well as the conditions under which men of both sides fought. In brief, the first day of battle went to the Confederacy. However, the Confederates had some poor intelligence and were not aware that General Buell would come with reinforcements overnight, resulting in a rout. In some ways it was the opposite of First Bull Run where the Union had the advantage until General Joe Johnston (no relation to the Shiloh general) came with reinforcements.

Here we also meet General Beauregard and General Lew Wallace who each figure in the battle. Like Forrest Gump, Shiloh credits Col. Forrest (he was not yet a general) with much cleverness and courage. His exploits here seem larger than life, but they are historical even if the scout who describes him is fictional. Beauregard comes across as a realistic thinker. I once heard discussion in which Civil War buffs argued who was better, Lee or Beauregard.

Perhaps the most effective piece is by our aide to Johnston. Johnston’s death in the battle is described by a couple of different observers, but aide Lieutenant Palmer is impressed with the battle plan. The Confederacy was having much success early in the war. The plan seemed to be easy, simple, and foolproof. But, as is often the case, once the fighting begins, the battle plans go out the window.

As the reader can see from the cast, we get perspectives from both North and South, officer and enlisted. Also, one of the men retreats before the battle begins. At first he gives a kind pseudo-psychological explanation, but then he admits that he was simply scared.

All in all, this is a tightly written piece. Because it is a novel about a historical battle, some readers might think of comparing it to the works of the Shaaras. Shiloh is much more focused. Yes, we do get some background of the main figures in the battle, but this novel is simply about the two days’ battle with some pointed and tight reflections.

I may have picked up this book out of curiosity, but I am glad to have read it. It tells a good story and gives us a sense of the history of the battle, the war, and the times. Interestingly, the book is dedicated to Walker Percy, a Southern fiction writer of a different ilk. There was clearly some mutual respect.

Note
¹Here is, in part, what Sherman said. It really proved to be true, if not prophetic. Portions are quoted in Shiloh:

You people speak so lightly of war. You don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing. I know you are a brave, fighting people, but for every day of actual fighting, there are months of marching, exposure, and suffering. More men die in war from sickness than are killed in battle. At best war is a frightful loss of life and property, and worse still is the demoralization of the people….

You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people, but an earnest people and will fight too, and they are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it.

Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The Northern people not only greatly outnumber the whites at the South, but they are a mechanical people with manufactures of every kind, while you are only agriculturists–a sparse population covering a large extent of territory, and in all history no nation of mere agriculturists ever made successful war against a nation of mechanics….

The North can make a steam-engine, locomotive or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth–right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with.

At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, and shut out from the markets of Europe by blockade as you will be, your cause will begin to wane…if your people would but stop and think, they must see that in the end you will surely fail.

“W. T. Sherman Warns the South.” Civil War Talk, 20 Feb. 2005. https://civilwartalk.com/threads/william-t-sherman-warns-the-south.95202/. Accessed 26 July 2021.

Great American Road Trips: Scenic Drives. Edited by Kirsten Schrader et al, Reader’s Digest, 2020.

Great American Road Trips: Scenic Drives guides the reader through 45 scenic highway trips around the United States. The photography is lovely, and each trip is described by a person who knows the route well and has photographed it.

The book covers most parts of the country outside of Hawaii even if it misses a few states. The guide book tells us the best time of year to take the trip—many are in the fall because of colorful foliage. Some routes are not passable in the winter. A few routes have warnings about switchbacks and deep canyons with no guardrails on the roads.

Some readers may find a few explanations unclear or less helpful without a photograph. For example, we are told about the distinctive “offshore rock formations called sea stacks” in Oregon, but there is no photo or explanation about them or where specifically they are found. That could be annoying; however, we suspect it was meant to be enticing. Take the Oregon Coast Highway and see for yourself!

Having lived and traveled in the Northeast, I am familiar with some of the road trails. The descriptions are pretty accurate and the photos are terrific. One warning to readers—New Hampshire’s Kancamagus Highway is gorgeous in the fall, but even though it is out in the boondocks, you may come across an occasional traffic jam at the height of the fall leaf colors.

If a person were to drive straight through most of these trips, they would take less than a day, mostly four to six hours. Of course, the reader is exhorted to enjoy the scenery and the attractions on the road. Besides a colorful description each entry has a sidebar with warnings, if necessary, and recommended side trips.

When I was boy, we had an elderly aunt live with us for a few years. She was in her nineties but still mentally sharp. She subscribed to Arizona Highways magazine. To the best of my knowledge, she lived her whole life in Pennsylvania and never visited the American West, but she thought the magazine was lovely. It is still published today and contains some of the most colorful and eye-catching natural photography and artwork. Even if you never drove any of these Great American Road Trips, the book would be worth it just for the pictures the same way Aunt Rene loved Arizona Highways.

M. C. Beaton. Death of a Gentle Lady. Grand Central, 2008. A Hamish Macbeth Mystery.

Death of a Gentle Lady’s title is a word play. The victim (one of them anyhow) appears to be aristocracy, but her name is Gentle. Like many mysteries, she appears to have been murdered but the murderer staged it to look like an accident. And, as in the case in many mystery novels, no one seems to have liked her very much. Almost anyone who knew her could be considered a suspect, especially her son, daughter, nephew, and their spouses.

Another suspect might be her maid. But it sounds like Mrs. Gentle hired her to help the young woman out of a terrible and unjust situation. And our sleuthing constable Hamish Macbeth has attempted the same thing. Ayesha, Turkish passport and legal resident of the U.K., fears she has overstayed her visa and is about to be deported. She originally came on a student visa but could not afford school and does not want to be deported.

Hamish has a solution—a marriage of convenience. Marry him, he proposes, and you can stay. He is not interested in her romantically at all, but it would keep a couple of women at bay and also might make headquarters less likely to transfer him. As is apparently true in all the Hamish Macbeth stories, Hamish has to figure out a way to stay in Lochdubh, a location he loves. If he does not do a good job, he could lose his job, but his problem is that he may likely get promoted and have to leave Lochdubh. In all the stories there are two long-suffering women, Priscilla and Elspeth, whom he likes but cannot commit to.

Ayesha, though, disappears on their wedding day. People sympathize with Hamish. Mrs. Gentle has prepared a nice reception for them at her mansion which overlooks a sea cliff. This is not the usual reluctant bride story, though. Her suitcase is packed in her room. A ten thousand pound cash gift is still in the suitcase, too. Anyone fleeing would certainly have taken the money if not the suitcase.

Shortly afterwards, as noted already, someone murders Mrs. Gentle. One theory is that Ayesha did it, and the ten thousand pounds was blackmail.

Meanwhile, the constabulary looking into Ayesha discover that she came to England on a stolen passport. She was Russian, not Turkish, and connected with organized crime. The sympathy towards Hamish suddenly turns hostile. Why would he want to marry a prostitute? What if he contracted AIDS from her?

One person who has been especially hostile towards Hamish is Sergeant Blair. Blair is an alcoholic and, because of that, not especially competent. But he has connections among both politicians and criminals. When he gets drunk and has to go into rehab, he blames Hamish for his misfortune. Blair develops a complicated scheme that would probably get Hamish fired if the plan works.

Also there is a subplot involving Shakespeare’s Macbeth. An author of a few bestsellers years ago has come to Lochdubh from England. Hamish sets him up by explaining some ridiculous “Gaelic traditions” of hospitality that he falls for. Fortunately for Hamish the author has a sense of humor, so he holds no grudge.

What he does hold are tryouts for a local production of Macbeth. He figures it ought be authentic if he gets Highlanders to play the parts. We know from experience and tradition that in England Macbeth is considered a haunted play. British actors will often not even mention it by name because of the bad luck associated with it. It is simply The Scottish Play. Apparently, that is not the case in Scotland. Our writer holds tryouts and gets a cast together.

His problem is that the cast keeps changing. Mrs. Gentle, who was in the play, obviously, is murdered. But other actors leave or miss rehearsals. It is all very casual in Lochdubh. This also provides some comic relief along with the misunderstandings about Hamish’s marriage and the eventual comeuppance that happens to Blair.

The climax of the mystery is something straight out of a Gothic novel. After all, Mrs. Gentle lives in castellated mansion. Some things here go back to not only The House of Seven Gables or the House of Usher, but even The Castle of Otranto. This Hamish novel has a lot of fun along with its murders and other horrors. It has a little of something for everyone

Samantha Specks. Dovetails in the Tall Grass. Spark P, 2021.

Dovetails in the Tall Grass is a powerful story. It is fiction, but it is fiction the same way that The Red Badge of Courage is fiction. The Crane novel tells of the Battle of Chancellorsville from the perspective of an ordinary and young soldier on the Union side. Dovetails in the Tall Grass tells the story of the largest mass execution in American history—the hanging of 38 Dakota Sioux warriors in the wake of the 1862 Dakota War—from the perspective of two young women caught up in the events.

Sixteen year old Emma Heard’s family immigrated to Western Minnesota from Germany. They settle in what is then the village of New Ulm. Her father has studied law and becomes the de facto lawyer for the town. Much of his work is filing property deeds for newly opened up land nearby.

Oenikika is about the same age as Emma and is the daughter of Little Crow, a Dakota Sioux chief. Her father has actually gone to Washington to make a treaty setting boundaries between the Indians and American settlers. Unfortunately, the treaty did not last very long. We hear the story from both sides. We are reminded of the Bible’s admonition, “Cursed is the one who moves his neighbor’s boundary marker” (Deuteronomy 27:17 NET).

The novel’s title comes not from ornithology but from carpentry. A dovetail joint is a fitted joint in which cuts are made at angles in two pieces of wood and, if done right, lock together for a perfect fit. That is precisely what the stories of the two young ladies do.

In the novel, and in the actual events leading up to the war, much of the conflict revolves around a Mr. Myrick, the local store owner who has the contracts for the food and supplies for the Indians. The Indians, in turn, were to get an annual stipend from the federal government to stay on their reservations. When the stipend did not arrive on time and Myrick refused to give the native people credit, things escalated, especially after Myrick insulted them in a very crude manner.

Little Crow has been East to Washington and has seen how many white people there are in the land. He has also seen the Federal Army mobilize for the Civil War. He understands that in spite of their warrior culture, it will be impossible for the Native American tribes to fight the white men. The reader also notes that the tribes themselves are not united. Little Crow remembers wars his tribe had against both the Blackfeet and the Ojibwe (a.k.a. Chippewa).

Still, the tribe’s people are beginning to starve, and many are looking for the promised justice. The Indians attack New Ulm. Emma’s family’s farm is attacked when she and her mute older sister Ida are the only ones at home. Ida is about to be raped by four men when a fifth comes and stops them. He apparently rebukes them for seeking vengeance, not justice. He also tells the girls, “Go!” It is the one English word they hear from him.

While some townspeople are killed and property destroyed, New Ulm survives. Soon an army unit comes to the area and begins rounding up the Indians. They are especially looking for those who might have killed people. Nearly four hundred are taken in and put on trial.

We use the term trial loosely. Put in charge of the trial is General Pope, probably the least successful military leader in American history. About three quarters of the men on trial are found guilty of something, and thirty-eight will be hanged. (This is not a spoiler. We are told that in the very first sentence of the book.)

How this all comes about we see from the perspective of people on both sides. Interestingly, while both Emma and Oenikika tend to side with their own people, both understand the complications. Myrick is the villain of the story. Oenikika’s father does not want to fight because he understands the consequences. He tries to avoid trouble by moving still farther West since he cannot get other tribes to join with his to stand against the Americans.

The young women have their own problems. Emma would love to be a teacher, but she does not think her mother will approve. Besides, she would have to leave Ida behind, and she understands her mute sister better than anyone.

Oenikika and her father and grandmother have moved onto a reservation as part of the treaty. Because he is the chief, Little Crow was given a log cabin. Oenikika hates it. The square corners and wooden floor are strange. She would much rather be in a tipi. Besides, she has been learning to be a healer, and this new location does not have access to the variety of healing plants that she needs to do her work.

Mixed into all of this are a few love stories. Oenikika marries Tashunke, a skilled trainer of horses who is orphaned and belongs to no tribe until hers takes him in. He does behave nobly but is nevertheless one of the men arrested by the Federal authorities. Ida ends up connecting with Rudolph, a young widower in town with a young son. We learn that Ida talked until the family moved to Minnesota and has been silent since. She and Emma have learned to communicate with each other, and Emma is her de facto spokesperson.

Meanwhile, with both intelligence and good handwriting, Emma becomes not only secretary to her father but the court transcriber during the Indian trials. She sees things firsthand. She becomes attracted to the young missionary who acts as a translator in the trials. The historical Stephen Riggs who did act as a translator was actually a fifty-year-old grandfather at the time of the trial, but Specks’ poetic license does make the story a little more appealing.

Like most historical fiction, most of the characters like Emma and Oenikika are the author’s creations, but Little Crow, Myrick, and Missionary Riggs really existed. Little Crow would die at the hands of a Minnesota bounty hunter but about a year later than in the book. And General Pope? Most Civil War buffs are inclined to think of him as one of the least competent generals. He surrendered ten thousand men to the Confederates at Harpers Ferry. Let’s just say, if anything, he acts even worse in this story. He was an army man but was supposed to take the role of a judge. He comes across as neither.

The historical Riggs lived most of his life among the Native Americans and tried as best he could to defend their rights. He also translated the Bible into a Sioux language and contributed to other studies on Native American linguistics. Some of the people of New Ulm called him an Indian lover, and that is what he was.

I have a lawyer friend who once said to me that the Declaration of Independence says the role of government is to protect the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of its people. Historically, he said, the United States has done a good job at this with the exception that they did not protect the liberty of black slaves, they did not protect the pursuit of happiness of the Native Americans, and now they do not protect the life of the unborn. Dovetails in Tall Grass shows us the truth of his observation about the the Indians while, ironically, at the same time America was mobilizing to set the slaves at liberty. And this is done in an effective and engaging way. We are not preached at. We are simply told a story—but what a story it is.