Back To Dealey Plaza

Since I had taken the time to read Stephen King’s time travel novel relating to the Kennedy assassination, I decided to read a bit more about the events of November 22, 1963. It happened that Don DeLillo’s novel, Libra, was sitting on my “to read” shelves (as are a couple of hundred other books). I’ve just completed his book and will share some comments.

Libra was published in August of 1988 (25 years after the assassination) by Viking. The book is 456 pages long. Signed copies of the 1st printing can be found at around $75 to $100. The book was on the New York Times bestseller list for only 4 weeks – never getting higher than 13 - and had fallen off by the time November 1988 rolled around. DeLillo won the National Book Award (Fiction) for White Noise and Libra, his next novel, was a finalist for the same award.

Even though DeLillo’s novel is built upon fact, he has done an amazing job of blending his fictionalization with actual events and characters. It is hard for the reader to realize when facts meld into DeLillo’s story of how things might have happened. The characters are complex and they move within many fuzzy subplots, most of which converge in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza on November 22nd. The main focus is, of course, on Lee Harvey Oswald and his strange life on the fringes of society, both here and in Russia. Other key characters include a variety of CIA agents, retired or semi-retired, anti-Castro Cubans, mobsters, FBI informants, and Jack Ruby, who seemed to have had some association with almost all of the other players.

DeLillo’s position is that the assassination was a conspiracy, or scheme, or plot that took on a life of its own, often driven by elements of chance and even chaos. There was no real structure or leader or even very good communication. Things just evolved. The tipping-point event that triggered all of this was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba (April 1961). The invasion was orchestrated by the CIA, working with Cuban refugees. The CIA hoped to persuade the young President (who had been in office for less than 3 months) to authorize USAF air support, once the invaders were struggling onshore. Kennedy refused, as he had warned he would, but many in the CIA, as well as Cuban refugees in the U.S., felt they’d been terribly betrayed.

In the novel, several quasi-retired CIA agents develop a scheme designed to focus the country, and the administration, against Castro. A failed assassination attempt on JFK that could be traced directly back to Castro would get things back on track. Lee Harvey Oswald just happens to surface in key places at key times, and the conspirators decide he would be the perfect patsy in their scheme. I won’t go into the details of Oswald’s life that make up much of the core of the novel. The reader knows what is going to happen in Dallas, but how all the subplots evolve into the shots in Dealey Plaza is the intrigue in this read. Indeed, wouldn’t an assassination actually be better than a failed attempt?

The difference between the King and DeLillo novels is huge – one is an easy, but very long read, and the other requires the reader to pay very careful attention. Libra is definitely not for all readers. George Will hated the book and railed publically against it – from my perspective, that’s a damn good endorsement. Anne Tyler wrote a very comprehensive, and positive, review of Libra.

                          http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/16/lifetimes/del-r-libra.html

 I found, as I worked through Libra, that I often grabbed a different book to help me follow the players and the details. This book, The Assassination Please Almanac, was the first published book of local writer Tom Miller. It was published by Regnery Press as a magazine-sized, soft cover book in 1977. It is a comprehensive, actually amazing, collection of factoids and media quotes relevant to the assassination. After being out of print for many years, it is now available as a “Print-On-Demand” book.

From the front cover – “This sourcebook/collection is the nerviest in years.” Rolling Stone

From the back cover – “The Assassination Please Almanac is a consumer’s guide to conspiracy theories, an annotated bibliography of JFK assassination books, a chronology of events leading up to and away from November 22, 1963, and a black humor look at the Kennedy assassination. A rare find in high demand on the assassobuff circuit, now back in print for all to appreciate.”  Publisher’s blurb

Comments on: "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie"

I recently picked up a copy of Alan Bradley’s “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.” It caught my eye while I was browsing in a Bookman’s. I had heard some good things about and bought it to read. The book was published in the U.S. by Delacorte in 2009 (apparently published nearly simultaneously by Orion in the UK and Doubleday in Canada). It was issued in pictorial boards (see above), without a dust jacket, that are rather fragile. The author is from western Canada and has turned his heroine into a full-fledged business – see www.flaviadeluce.com.

The novel is essentially a “cozy” mystery featuring an eleven-year old English girl, Flavia de Luce, who is a child prodigy. Her specialty is chemistry, especially poisons. Her mother is deceased and her well-to-do father spends all of his time with his stamp collection. She has two sisters and the three girls are quite different from each other. They live in an English Country mansion and the story is set in 1950. She has inherited a complete chemistry lab that had been created by a decreased relative, who had lived at one time in the family mansion. The mystery revolves around a stranger who is found, by Flavia, dying in the cucumber patch. It is murder, but the authorities can’t seem to figure that out. The book is a delightful and entertaining read.

A complete review can be found at:  http://literarycornercafe.blogspot.com/search?q=sweetness

What’s a “cozy” mystery? – think of Angela Lansbury and her TV series, “Murder She Wrote.” Want to know more details about “Cozy” mysteries? See   www.cozy-mystery.com

When I read a book of any type or genre, I am not happy unless I learn some new things along the way. I was not happy with King’s book (see previous post) because I didn’t feel I learned any new. However, after reading Bradley’s book, I know some more about British stamps and chemistry. However, the thing that intrigued me most was the question: Did Bradley read Oliver Sacks’ “Uncle Tungsten – Memories of a Chemical Boyhood” (see below) before he came up with his heroine? Sacks’ autobiographical account of his boyhood in England has many similarities with Flavia’s situation. Oliver grew up in a family mansion, in London, and inherited a complete laboratory on an upper floor. This was where he hide away doing experiments, much like Flavia. An interesting coincidence, or was Bradley inspired by Oliver’s chemistry adventures?

Finally, “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie” has won an amazing number of awards, including: The Agatha Award, Arthur Ellis Award, Barry Award, Debut Dagger Award, the Dilys Award, and the Macvity Award.

I definitely recommend this one (as well as any of Oliver Sacks’ books!).

A Review Of "11/22/63" by Stephen King

I am not much of a fan of Stephen King, and I have read only two of his novels. These two were “The Shining” and “Firestarter.”  I read “The Shining” when it was published back in 1977. I had seen the Stanley Hotel up in Estes Park, and I enjoyed the read. I certainly have never forgotten Kubrick’s movie, nor Jack Nicholson’s performance. I really don’t remember much about “Firestarter,” since I read it over 30 years ago and did not see the movie.

I have tended, over the years, to agree with John Dunning’s comments regarding Stephen King. In his classic bibliomystery, “Booked to Die,” Cliff Janeway is scouting along Denver’s Book Row on East Colfax. An old dealer sells Janeway a first of “The Shining” for $4.00. Janeway tells him he’s not charging enough for the book. The dealer replies: “I don’t believe in Steffan King.” Many years and many King books have come and gone, and I’ve not been tempted to read another. But, a couple of weeks ago I picked up a copy of King’s “11/22/63.” I remembered that I’d seen good reviews when Scribner published it in November 2011, 48 years after John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

The book is huge – 849 pages, weighing in at almost 4 pounds. I certainly didn’t read through it quickly. I figure that I averaged 20 to 30 pages at a sitting, and so picked it up and set it down many times, getting some real exercise.

The tales told here by King revolve around a fantasy type of time travel (i.e., a Jack Finney way of easing back into the past) – quite different than science fiction tales where there is a “machine” or some deterministic control over time travel. As I was reading early sections of the book I was somewhat reminded of time travel tales from the 1950s. Ray Bradbury’s short story, “A Sound of Thunder” (a dinosaur hunting expedition changes politics back in the future), or Wilson Tucker’s “The Lincoln Hunters” (again with politics at play in time). In fact, after I’d been thinking of the connections, King’s main character refers to “The Lincoln Hunters,” so King may have been a member of the Science Fiction Book Club back in the 1950’s.

I can’t summarize King’s book here, since it is so long and very convoluted. The primary plot revolves around Jake Epping (aka George Amberson), who returns to 1963 to prevent the assassination of JFK. A dying friend, who runs a café, has discovered a tangle in the strings of time that allows him to step back into the past, always into 1958. No matter how long the time traveler remains in the past, when he returns to the present only two minutes have gone by. This is the first quirky aspect of time travel ala Stephen King. Another is that the traveler has physically aged whatever length of time he/she spent in the past. Jake is urged by his friend to step through the time tangle and experience 1958. He does this a number of times, until the dying café owner convinces him that he should remain in the past for 5 years and prevent JFK’s assassination. So, this is the basic thread of the book – Jake Epping, school teacher from 2011, steps back in time to 1958 and stays until 1963, when he will try to prevent the assassination.

Unfortunately, King can’t head straight down the main plotline. He adds a large number of confusing, and at times quite slow, subplots. There’s one about a young woman disabled in a hunting accident, that’s replayed several times. There’s a much longer tale about a dreary, factory town in Maine, where a man goes off the deep-end and murders his entire family. Then there’s a subplot about the mob, bookies, and betting on sporting events whose outcomes Jake already knows (this is how he funds his long stay in the past). There’s a love story, after George meets Sadie, a 1958 high school teacher in a fictional, Texas town south of Dallas. George has gotten a job as a substitute teacher to help both his finances and to pass five years while he waits for the fatal date to arrive. This story is very long and involved and introduces yet  another violent and crazy character. The love story has its own subplots. It appears that King has gathered together a number of short stories and novellas, not previously published, and hammered them into the time travel plot of this book. No wonder it’s so massive.

There is an extended account of George shadowing Lee Harvey Oswald, so that he can learn whether or not Oswald is acting on his or if there is a conspiracy. King has to provide his answer to this question that will never go away. However, getting to an answer takes up several hundreds of pages that are not very interesting, and this part of the tale drags along. The final hundred or so pages are the best part of this novel, as events, characters, the Kennedy motorcade, and time converge on Dealey Plaza. It’s an interesting climax, but the effort required of the reader to get here is substantial.

And then there’s the final and fatal quirk of King’s version of time travel. The time string of 1958 “resets” to exactly how it was the previous time the traveler had stepped into 1958. This is a real “What the hell?” aspect of the novel. It allows Jake to go back again and again to redo things in the past, if he doesn’t like how 2011 turned out due to his fiddling in his previous trip. This aspect of King’s story deflates the tensions and suspense associated with more classic, time travel, science fiction stories. Recommended only to folks who have a lot of time on their hands.

Quick Trip To San Diego

We took a short trip over to San Diego at the end of last week. The trip was partly to use a Southwest Rapid rewards ticket before we lost it, and partly to escape the heat for about 36 hours. San Diego is usually cool in the summer, if you stay close to the ocean. The Balboa Park complex provides more interesting museums than one could visit in a single trip. It's a great place. Above is the Marston House, a Prairie Style mansion built in 1905. It sits at the north end of Balboa Park, with tours every half hour. An interesting place with beautiful wood work and several original libraries still in place. It's owners played an important role in the development of Balboa Park. We spent Friday wandering around the park and then caught an evening flight home.

Our first afternoon (Thursday, August 2nd) we headed up to Adams Avenue to visit book stores. Adams Avenue used to be called Book Row because of all the store fronts along the street. Alas, no more. There are only three book stores left. Adams Avenue Book Store (above and below) is one of the survivors, and has been there since 1965. It's a nice store with both general used and collectible books housed on two floors and in many rooms. It also is home to two resident, mostly inert and snoozing, bookstore cats. The person working at the counter told us that rapidly rising rents in this part of San Diego had chased out almost all the booksellers. This store is definitely worth a visit, if you're in San Diego. Their web page is http://www.adamsavebooks.com/

On our last visit (has been 9 years ago), we browsed in at least five stores and were enchanted by The Prince and the Pauper - Collectible Children's Books. It appears that they are still in business, with a store front out in an eastern suburb now. The other stores still open on Adams Avenue are: The Scarlet Letter, which is small and which has irregular hours - they weren't open on Thursday afternoon - and The Book Tree which specializes in metaphysical, spiritual, and controversial books.

I wasn't able to resist several books. Above is a nice UK first of Edward Abbey's 4rth novel - Black Sun - published in the UK as Sunset Canyon. Below is one of two mysteries that Cornell Woolrich wrote as "George Hopley." I am slowly building a run of Woolrich's (also aka William Irish) books.

Finally, I picked up Dykes "Western High Spots" which is an important and very useful reference for western writing and also western illustrators. This is the 1977 edition published by Northland Press. Although the copy has underlining and some notes (which of course doesn't particularly hurt a reference book), it has been signed and inscribed by Dykes. All-in-all, a nice outing.

More From Our June Road Trip

Browsing the antique malls in Prescott (there's a serious concentration of such along North Cortez Street) we happened on a display of very nice, collectible books in one of the malls. The books, from Charles Parkhurst Rare Books and Autographs, were worth a close look - even though I managed not to purchase any. Very tempting. Parkhurst sells mostly online these days, after being a partner in a high-end storefront in Scottsdale for a number of years.

From Prescott we headed west out to Kingman, where we picked up Old Route 66 and headed back to the east. The longest surviving stretch of the famous highway stretches from Kingman to Seligman, Arizona - it survived because  it takes a loop to the north, considerably away from where the interstate was built. The famous Delgado brothers were a major force in saving the stretch of old highway. Seligman is a serious tourist town now - among all the cars crowding the streets were two tour buses filled with Japanese tourists.
The dinosaur (below) was at the turn out for Grand Canyon Caverns, which is a few miles east of Peach Springs. I just couldn't get a shot of him without that telephone pole - he wasn't painted on the other side.

On to Winslow, where we stayed at the restored, Fred Harvey Hotel that faces the Santa Fe RR tracks. La Posada (above from the back which faces Route 66) is a wonderful place with a great restaurant - The Turquoise Room. Well worth the stop, and it even has a nice selection of new books in the Lobby/Trading Post. Winslow's other claim to fame comes from the Eagles 1st single - Take it Easy (written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey and recorded originally with Frey singing lead vocals). The Standing on the Corner corner boasts a statue and now (below) an actual flatbed Ford. The flatbed truck is a recent addition and wasn't there when we visited last summer. It is crowded with tourists and photo takers all summer long. It was a great road trip and we returned home with a few new books and many photos.

The Ugly American

I recently picked up a copy of "The Ugly American" (by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick) at a Friends of the Library sale. I thought that it might be a first, but when examining it closely at home found the statement "Sixteenth Large Printing" at the top of the front flap. So, I put it on my reading stack and have just finished it.

It was published by Norton in 1958 and was on the New York Times Bestseller List for 78 weeks - reaching as high as number 3 during its time on the list. First printings are quite scarce, especially in near fine condition. Several are listed online at around $150.00. Signed copies are not often seen.

The book is a series of quasi-fictional vignettes, strung together, as a novel, through the story of a newly assigned ambassador to the fictional country of Sarkhan (obviously based on Vietnam). The vignettes present the authors' views of what was wrong with American Foreign Service during the middle 1950s. They touch on the Americans' inability to speak the languages of the countries where they work; the fact that the goals of politicians usually do not relate to the real needs of the populace (big road projects, dams, and military hardware don't often improve the lives of common people).

In their factual epilogue they note that:

"In Japan, Korea, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and elsewhere, our ambassadors must speak and be spoken to through interpreters."

Little has changed over the years, so this book remains relevant today. Ambassadors are appointed because of party loyalty and fund raising skill. The US Foreign Service still does not require foreign language skills of its employees - I just checked their employment webpage.

Supposedly John F. Kennedy felt this book was so important that he sent a copy to every member of the Senate. Sadly, little took. As the French fell to defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the US helped negotiate the split of what had been French Indochina into North and South Vietnam. As the French retreated home in defeat, the US waded into the morass of South Vietnam.

There was a movie of the Ugly American that was released in 1963. It featured Marlon Brando as a somewhat naive Ambassador MacWhite. Although some critics praised Brando's performance, the movie essential flopped at the box office. People just weren't very interested then, as now, in complex issues. The movie ended up focused just on MacWhite, and most of the interesting vignettes were not included - thus, another movie that was only sort of based on the book. The producers hoped to film in Thailand, but our State Department and the Thailand government refused to cooperate and the movie was largely filmed in Hollywood.

Our Recent Road Trip - The Old Sage Bookshop

We have been away on a week-long road trip, and I plan to recount several aspects of that trip here on the Squid Ink Spots blog.

Our first stop was in Prescott, Arizona, (photo above is looking northwest across the town) which is located north of the Bradshaw Mountains at an elevation of 5400 ft MSL. It is a popular escape destination for Arizonans wanting a bit of relief from the low-elevation heat of the Sonoran Desert. Population is around 45,000. Prescott was the first Territorial Capital of Arizona. It is home to Yavapai Community College, Prescott College, and a campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical College. It is also home to The Old Sage Bookshop, which we visited twice during our time in town.

The bookshop is owned and operated by Susan McElheran and is located on the shopping-level (1st floor) of the historic Hotel St. Michael (located on the northwest corner of the Courthouse square) - across from the Prescott Brewing Company, making this a choice spot.

The shop, although small, has an excellent variety of stock - including collectible books, fiction, children's and other genre, and nonfiction. A careful browse through the store takes a couple of hours. Photo below is looking through the front door. This was the only open bookshop we were able to visit during our trip. Don't miss it if you're in Prescott.

And finally, below is a photo of a sculpture at the entrance to the Prescott Public Library.