The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

We do not have a Nevermore report today, so here is a review re-run. Nancy was a staff member here whose reviews remain legendary. She reads widely and always has an interesting perspective. Here's to you, Nancy!

 Reviewed by Nancy 

 It was the cover of “The Leftovers,” by Tom Perotta that enticed me to open the book and read the blurb on the inside, and reading the blurb made me feel pretty sure that I wanted to read the book. The cover features a pair of men’s shoes, empty, with mist or steam or smoke drifting up from inside them. This was enough to arouse a great curiosity in me. 

The plot revolves around a rapture-like event that occurred three years before the action in the book starts. During this event, which came to be known as the "Sudden Departure," millions of people all over the world disappeared in the same instant. Christian believers who did not disappear with the millions who did disappear were troubled and perplexed by this. This event was also confusing in terms of Biblical theology, since many of the people who disappeared were not Christian. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, alcoholics, Eskimos, homosexuals, Mormons, you name it: the disappearance just seemed to be a random harvest as far as anyone who was left could tell.

 In the aftermath of this bizarre and confusing occurrence many people attempted to return to normal, while others were so bewildered and forlorn that this was impossible. 

Kevin Garvey, newly elected mayor of Mapleton, is among the group who feel that everyone should get back in gear and get on with their lives. Unfortunately, others members of his family can’t seem to do this. His wife, Laurie, tries to carry on, but after a time leaves home to join a group called “The Guilty Remnant.” 

Members of the G.R., as it comes to be known, take a vow of silence, wear all white all the time, smoke cigarettes constantly, and travel in pairs, stalking non-G.R. individuals and staring at them to the point of total discomfort. The in-your-face silent treatment is rooted in the G.R.’s belief that nothing will ever be normal again, and it is their duty to wake up people who think things will be. 

Kevin’s daughter, Jill, comes a little unmoored after her mother joins the G.R. She shaves her head, stops going to school, and undertakes casual sex with her peers. Her friend, Aimee, equally as directionless as Jill, moves in with Jill and her father in order to escape her overly friendly step-father. 

A few months after the Sudden Departure Kevin’s son, Tom, dropped out of community college to become a devotee of a newly risen cult figure known as Holy Wayne. Holy Wayne, sincere at the outset, eventually allows the fame and power to go to his head, claiming his right to have seven teenage brides as well as the wife he had before he became Holy Wayne. Eventually the authorities catch up with Holy Wayne and in the end he pleads guilty to various unspecified charges and gets twenty years in prison. 

This leaves Tom at loose ends. He undertakes a hitchhiking trek across the United States, accompanied by one of Holy Wayne’s pregnant teenage brides. During this adventure Tom and Christine, the “bride,” pose as “Barefoot People.” 

 Barefoot People, guess what! They refuse to wear any footwear other than flip flops. They are unshaven, unwashed, and unconcerned about anything except where the party is. They seem to be the hippies of the era, seeing the Sudden Departure as a great excuse to drop out and party. (I think if I were embroiled in this plot I would be much more likely to join the Barefoot People than the Guilty Remnant.) 

I could go on and on, but I won’t. You get the picture. This book is kooky, fun to read, but even more fun to tell people about. And don’t worry. I have not told you so much about the plot that you will be bored reading it. There are still plenty of surprises, and even until the last page you will not, nay, not simply until the last page, but until the last paragraph you will not know how things are going to turn out.

Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky

Reviewed by Nancy

Do you stay in hotels? Whether the answer is that you visit hotels constantly, or that you only find yourself in a hotel every few years, you might want to have a look at Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky.

A veteran of the hospitality industry, Mr. Tomsky has written a memoir of disgruntled customers, outrageous circumstances, unreasonable managers and head spinning advice as to how to successfully negotiate the hotel landscape.

Mr. Thomsky, who has worked in luxury hotels in New Orleans and New York, provides the answers to many questions that have long been swirling around in my head.

For example: When you stay in a hotel, is your room likely to be scrutinized by hotel employees when you are not present? Oh, yes, definitely!

When you arrive at your newly assigned room and the room card works once, but then refuses to work again, is this just an accident or is something sinister afoot? Oh, Baby! It’s no accident, believe me. Review in your mind the interaction you had with the desk clerk. Was it pleasant? Were you nice? Was the clerk nice? Or did said clerk seem to be in a malevolent mood?

Do the valet parking employees abuse your car when out of your sight? Well, I’ve always liked to park my own car anyway.

Are the drinking glasses in the room cleaned properly? Is it really okay to use them? Our author suggests that you use the plastic glasses instead of the glass glasses. (There is a good reason for this.)

If you book your room on the internet will you be likely to get one of the desirable rooms in the hotel or will you end up next to the ice machine or the elevator?  Well, do you enjoy the convenience of being near the ice machine or the elevator? Then go ahead and use the internet.

Is it wise to tip the desk clerk upon check-in? You bet!

Become a savvy traveler able to impress and awe desk clerks and bellhops the world over.  Get the best deals, the best service and the best rooms. And always, always remember: those desk clerks and bell hops might not make very much money; they might not enjoy prestigious occupations; they likely work really terrible hours; AND they have the power to make your hotel visit nice or miserable.

Boone's Lick by Larry McMurtry

 
Reviewed by Nancy

No one writes about the West like Larry McMurtry. Please do not mistake me. The novel Boone’s Lick is not a Western in the traditional sense. This is not a cardboard epic of cattle drives, old time bank robberies, good guys in white hats, and bad guys in black hats with a lot of fancy horse riding and pistol twirling thrown in.

I don’t know what the frontier was like in the 1860’s, but I think Larry McMurtry’s take on things is a lot of fun. A native Texan, he grew up listening to tales of the old west as told by his father and uncles who were ranchers. It seems possible this has given him insights as to what it was really like. Boone’s Lick is set in the hungry years immediately following the Civil War, and relates the adventures of the Cecil family as told by Shay Cecil, son of Mary Margaret and Dick Cecil, and nephew of Seth Cecil.

The action in the narrative is centered on a journey undertaken by most of the Cecil clan. Dick Cecil has fallen into the habit of working in the Western Territories and only returning home every year or so to visit  Boone’s Lick, Missouri, where his wife and children live with his brother, Seth.

After sixteen years his wife, Mary Margaret, tires of this arrangement. She announces to the family that they are embarking on a journey to find their father.  They tie everything they can use onto the wagon, harness the mules and set off. Of course, when they set out they are not sure exactly where they are going, as they are not sure exactly where Dick Cecil is. That turns out to be Wyoming, probably a thousand miles from Boone’s Lick, Missouri.

Furthermore, Mary Margaret is the only member of the group who knows exactly why they are going. Is the purpose of this journey to reunite husband and family, or hmmmmm… something else?

The band of travelers includes Mary Margaret, Uncle Seth, Shay, Shay’s siblings G.T. and Neva, Granpa Crackenthorpe, and Mary Margaret’s half sister, Rose. On the first day of the journey the group encounters an Indian named Charlie Seven Days who is traveling in the same direction as they are.  He joins the group to function as a guide. Also on the first day they encounter a barefoot French priest, Pere Villy. Traveling barefoot, Pere Villy has just stepped on tacks scattered in the road by some thoughtless unknown individual. He accepts a ride on the wagon, and guess what? He joins the group, too.

There are many adventures along the way as the Cecil clan journeys up river by boat and then west by wagon. This is definitely a novel worth reading. There is an appearance early in the narrative by Wild Bill Hickok, and a gun battle you will remember not for its bloody fierceness, but more for its hilarity.

Please, please, please, if you’ve got the time, and even if you think you don’t give a fig about reading about the West in 1860, read this book. Give McMurtry a chance.

Hail to the Chiefs by Barbara Holland

Reviewed by Nancy

History can be fun. No, no, I'm not kidding. If you did not enjoy history in school, here's your second chance. You can have fun reading some history and there will not be a teacher lurking about, waiting to give you a grade.

The book you need to read is Hail To The Chiefs by Barbara Holland. Ms. Holland, who died in 2010, was an author and essayist who lived in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.

If Ms. Holland had not been busy writing, she could have come down from the mountain and been our stand-up history comic. I am not kidding. Her book offers a summary of presidential mischief, quirks and accomplishments from George Washington to Ronald Regan. The book also includes entertaining tidbits regarding presidential wives.

Barbara Holland definitely had a way with words. A great deal of this book, which devotes a few pages to each president, is laugh out loud material. As she states in her discussion of Millard Fillmore, "in the nineteenth century, whenever anything happened the bystanders got together and formed a political party about it." Fillmore was a member of the Anti-Masonic Party, and the author sums him up in this way:  “He wasn't a bad man - in fact, he quite nice. He was just wrong a good deal of the time.” She further states, "In July of 1850 Millard Fillmore found himself President and hit his stride at being wrong."

Or try this tasty tidbit. "James Monroe is remembered for the Monroe Doctrine, which some consider John Quincy Adam's finest achievement."

On Abraham Lincoln she states, "Lincoln never had much fun being President because of the Civil War all the time. It was all ready to roll when he took office, and five days after it was over he was dead as a duck. He had the war, the whole war, and nothing but the war."

On James Buchanan, Lincoln’s predecessor, and the run up to the Civil War she gives us the following:  “He thought if he just sat still and kept his mouth shut, things wouldn’t fall apart until he could hand them over to the next man and run like hell.”

See?  History can be fun. Seriously, it would have been ok with me if this woman had taught half the history courses I ever had.

The fun just never stops. Here’s what Ms. Holland had to say regarding one world conflict: “I don’t recommend your trying to understand World War I unless you plan to make a career of it, and I don’t recommend that either.”

President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other hand AT THE SAME TIME. I once worked with someone who could render backward cursive writing with her non-dominant hand, but I believe this may top that.

In the section on Ronald Regan, Ms. Holland takes five pages to render a summation of the plot of “Bedtime for Bonzo,” former President Regan’s most famous movie. I believe I have watched parts of that movie, but never the movie in its entirety at one sitting. Upon reading the plot summary I realized why. Even when I was eleven I doubt I could have gotten through it; however, I enjoyed Ms. Holland’s summary immensely.

I suppose it could be a sly “editorial comment of omission” from Ms. Holland that the movie summary constitutes the entire section on Regan. There is nothing about the Iran-Contra difficulties, John Hinckley, Jr.’s assassination attempt on Regan’s life, supply-side economics,  the invasion of Grenada, or any of the rest of his time in office.

If you think you don’t have the desire or the time to read this book, at least get hold of a copy and have a look at the portrait of Millard Fillmore. Mr. Fillmore resembles what current celebrity personality? Correct! Alec Baldwin. It's something about the eyes. Maybe also the mouth.

I felt I was astute to notice this and wondered if anyone else had, so I fooled around on the internet a little. Gee whiz. I'm not the first. If you've got a moment for some silly entertainment, plug "Alec Baldwin Millard Fillmore" into a search engine. The resemblance is uncanny.

As if the body of the text weren’t side splitting enough, most of the footnotes are a riot. I know I’ve gone on enough about all this, so I’m not going to start quoting footnotes, BUT there’s one you just have to read. It’s in the chapter on William McKinley. In the library copy of the book this is on page 174. Start midway through the fourth paragraph and read the text preceding footnote 14. Don’t worry about the context. Just read the last half of that sentence and then the footnote. HA!

I know if I can get this book into your hands you will not be able to keep from reading it, so you’d just better get in to the library and check out that footnote!