Author: gregh121

I am a writer and editor who lives in New Orleans.

Crimson and Clover

Constant Reader knows I love history.

One of the (many) reasons I didn’t major in history was because I really couldn’t pick a period to specialize in; there are so many different periods of history that fascinate me. I talk on here a lot about the sixteenth century, but I am also interested in the seventeenth. I’ve actually been toying with a book idea set in that century for going on ten years now; periodically I will read some history of that century as background, but there is still so much I don’t know. I am reading Royal Renegades right now, about the children of Charles I of England–fascinating stuff; I knew basics about the English Civil War but not a lot–and the Stuarts of that period were particularly entwined with France. Charles I’s wife was Henrietta Maria, youngest sister of Louis XIII and aunt to Louis XIV; she fled to France for safety and some of the royal Stuart children also made it over there at some point. Henrietta Anna, Charles I’s youngest daughter, grew up at the French court; she eventually married Louis XIV’s brother, Philippe, the Duc d’Orleans.

And therein lies a tale.

My interest in Louis XIV–and Versailles–led me to discover that the Sun King’s younger brother, Philippe (whose existence, for that matter, completely invalidated the plot of Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask, although I’ve always loved that story), was, if not a gay man, then bisexual: he had children by both his first wife, Henriette Anna Stuart, and his second, Elisabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine. In fact, Philippe is called the Father of Europe because all of European royalty in the nineteenth century were his descendants.

As a small child reading history, I picked up on the homosexuality that most historians always tried to gloss over (Edward II and Piers Gaveston; James I and first Robert Carr, later George Villiers; Richard the Lion-Hearted; Henri III of France; etc) but there was never any real attempt to gloss over Monsieur’s (Philippe was known throughout his life as Monsieur, after the death of his uncle Gaston, from whom he inherited that particular title as well as the title of duc d’Orleans) sexuality. He had a long term relationship with the Chevalier de Lorraine, which started when he was a young man and lasted until the Chevalier’s death. Monsieur’s first wife put up with it but didn’t care for it; his second wife didn’t care one way or the other.

The story goes that his mother, Anne of Austria, made him that way–which is, in modern times, a laughable thought (a domineering mother, etc etc etc)–by dressing him as a girl when he was a child, and continuing to do so after he was of an age to start wearing male clothing. Apparently, Queen Anne was concerned that Louis XIV and his younger brother would have an adversarial relationship the way her husband Louis XIII had with his own younger brother, Gaston. The troubled marriage of Louis XIII and his Spanish wife is also fascinating; they were married very young, she had two miscarriages, and he blamed her for the second one and they became estranged, not living together as man and wife for a very long time afterwards (the second miscarriage was around 1619, I believe; Louis XIV was not born until 1638 and his younger brother in 1640)–this estrangement between King and Queen–and the way George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham shamelessly flirted with Queen Anne when he came to Paris to negotiate the marriage of Charles I to Henrietta Maria–were the seeds from which Dumas also wrote The Three Musketeers.

Since so much time had passed (almost nineteen years) since Louis XIII last slept with Queen Anne, there were lots of rumors and talk that her two sons were not Louis XIII’s; there are many who believed Cardinal Richelieu fathered the boys with the Queen (fictionalized in Evelyn Anthony’s The Cardinal and the Queen); but there was never any question that the two boys were Bourbons. (Like the Hapsburgs with their genetic ‘jaw’, the Bourbon ‘nose’ was also relatively famous; both Louis and Philippe had the nose–but then that could simply mean that their father was a Bourbon rather than confirmation that Louis XIII was)

Monsieur often dressed as a woman for court functions, even as an adult; despite this proclivity he was a great soldier and commander of the French army–he was so successful in the field that his brother was jealous of his successes and often removed him from command.

His second wife was a diarist and a compulsive letter writer; her memoirs and letters are one of the best sources for information about life at the court of Louis XIV.

I’ve always been a little surprised that, while there are scores of biographies of Louis XIV (who, despite his incredible ego, wasn’t as great a king as he thought he was; he accomplished a lot but he also succeeded in planting the seeds for the French Revolution and creating the court system that also played a big part in the downfall of his dynasty. He also wasn’t successful militarily and diplomatically; his wars were expensive and ruinous–although all of Europe had to unite against him in order to beat him.) there are very few, if any, of Monsieur. I would think a biography of him would be something a gay historian would be interested in writing, because of the ability to look at his sexuality, his difference from the others at court, and how, as a prince, he was able to be himself–despite his own religious mania, Louis XIV never seemed to care about Monsieur’s proclivities–and on his own terms. Not to mention how incredibly difficult and strange it would have been to be the younger brother of the egomaniacal Sun King.

Was Monsieur gay? Bisexual? Transgender? Was this a result of his mother dressing him as a girl when he was young or was that just a coincidence?

As I said, the seventeenth century is interesting. And a lot was going on as well–the Thirty Years’ War was the last European war over religion; there were civil wars in both France and England; the colonizing of North America by the British, French, and Spanish truly got into full swing; and it was also the time, of course, of Cardinal Richelieu, the first great modern statesmen.

I hope to write this book someday. But in the meantime, I am having a great time doing the background research.

And now, back to the spice mines.

Dizzy

Friday morning and I don’t have to be at the office until this afternoon. I thought about running an errand this morning–St. Patrick’s Day Irish Channel parade tomorrow will make moving the car impossible, so I am just going to make tomorrow my ‘down’ day where I do stuff around the house AND GO TO THE GYM–but I am very tired this morning and don’t have the energy to face it. So, I’ll have to do it all on Sunday. AIEEEEEE! But I can hang, especially if I get a nice day of rest tomorrow.

Last night I went to the offices of the New Orleans Advocate to hear Colson Whitehead speak. First off, the new offices on St. Charles Avenue are amazing. What a gorgeous building and space; hats off to John Georges and the New Orleans Advocate. The place was packed; I’d say there were well over 100 people there, and it was interesting to listen to Whitehead talk about being a writer, how he became a writer, and where The Underground Railroad came from. I gave one of my co-workers the copy I was reading and bought another last night, so I am hoping to finish reading it this weekend. (I also found my copy of Peaches and Scream; it somehow found its way under my passenger seat in the car. So I can get that finished soon, too.)

I am going to work on the Scotty some more; it’s still taking shape in my head. I kind of know what I want to do with it, but it’s not going to be easy. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? I love challenges. Wicked Frat Boy Ways was also a challenge; the problem with challenges, of course, is that you’re never sure if you’re up to it, or if you’re actually rising to it. I like to think I am up for it, and can do it–I always do–but then the insecurity starts taking over when I am actually doing the writing. I want to work on a couple of short stories, too, while I am at it; some submission calls I want to try for.

I also need to get it together, I can’t blame the post-Carnival malaise anymore. Well, I can–this was the first real post-Carnival week, after all. SO yes, this weekend I will focus on making lists and getting organized and reading and getting it all back on track.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me. Here’s a hunk to ease you into the weekend, Constant Reader.

Everyday People

I am sore this morning, but it’s the good sore–the one where you’re aware that you worked out but not so much that moving is a challenge. Tonight I am going to go see Colson Whitehead speak, which is going to be amazing. I also realized yesterday that TWFest and Saints & Sinners are literally in two weeks. GAH. Where did this year go?

I am really looking forward to this weekend, I must say. I am hoping to get to the gym on Saturday to do some cardio and maybe even some light weights. The St. Patrick’s Day parade is Saturday, which means all of Uptown will be pretty much a traffic snarl for most of the day, so running errands is completely out of the question–I will have to do that on Sunday (hello, Costco!) so Saturday will be a ‘clean the house/go to the gym/write’ day.

Oh, and SLEEP IN.

I also need to make a to-do list. I’ve kind of been floating through this week in a daze; I’ve done some reading and a very little bit of writing, and of course I’ve paid the bills and done all the adulting stuff one always has to do no matter how badly you don’t want to. I also just noticed that this weekend is when we lose the hour for Daylight Savings, which means I am going to be out of it next week too. Sigh. Hurray.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I also have to go shopping to buy some pants and maybe a new dress shirt for the Williams Fest. I have these amazing, snazzy shoes I never get to wear because of course everything formal or dressy I own is black and red (black pants, red shirts) and so I need something tan and pale blue to go with my cool shoes. I am going to go to the outlet mall at Riverwalk Mall and see what they have. I also need to get some every day wear and workout shoes. Sigh. It never seems to end.

And on that dull, boring note I am going to get back to the spice mines.

Here’s a shot of Michael Fassbender for you.

Honky Tonk Women

I made a little progress on the book yesterday; only another couple of hundred words or so, but progress is progress. I also started reading Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad yesterday (I am going to see him speak tomorrow night); the book is extraordinary, and I have a lot of thoughts about it already–despite only being half-finished. I may have to wait a few days after I finish reading it before I write about it, because it’s something I am going to have to mull over and think about; not a blog entry I’ll be able to just dash off the top of my head while I drink my morning coffee and try to wake up.

I did make it to the gym this morning for the first time in weeks (stupid Carnival) and I am very tired. I always feel better after I work out–until the endorphins wear off, anyway–and I really need to get back into a regular routine; I also need to start eating better and in a more healthy way. I realized during Carnival–as my feet, back, legs, knees, ankles, and hips all ached–that I DO need to get into better physical condition, and the longer I wait to get started on that the harder it will be and the worse things will get. My schedule is crazy, of course, but I do need to make time for self-care and doing things for me. I also realized, with a stunning shock of self-awareness, that I used to always think that I worked out and ate healthy in order to be healthy; looking better physically was just a lovely side-effect.

Obviously, the fact that I can’t motivate myself to get to the gym regularly on my own and eat right proves that I was deluding myself all those years; and without the motivation of wanting to look good when I went out and to look good for Carnival and Halloween and Southern Decadence, as well as no longer doing the wrestling–in other words, as soon as it was no longer important for me to look good the motivation to go to the gym vanished.

It’s a bit sobering to realize you were deluding yourself for a really long time, but I prefer being honest with myself, and it’s better to figure these things out sooner rather than later–although I will say this was pretty late to figure this out!

So, this weekend I am going to commit to getting to the gym at least twice more a week. I’ve already started eating better–or trying to, at any rate–and while I don’t think I’ll ever get down to the lean 180 pounds I was ten or eleven years ago…I can probably lose twenty pounds.

Here’s a shot of me eleven years ago.

I Can’t Get Next To You

Ugh, Tuesday morning of the first normal week since Carnival. It always takes a while to re-acclimate to normal life again; the time before the parades started already seems a distant memory. For that matter, so do the parades. It’s hard to believe Fat Tuesday was one week ago. Maybe after this weekend I’ll get back to normal.

As if.

So, I spent the last couple of evenings proofing the pages of Wicked Frat Boy Ways, and as I said the other day when I was going over the copy edits, the book is actually much better than I thought it was when I turned it in. I mean, I am my own worst critic (although there are some amazon and Goodreads reviewers giving me a run for my money), and this book was very tricky for me; something I’d never tried before, and a real challenge. I think I was a bit worried that because it was so foreign to me, and so different from anything I’d ever tried to do before, that I had no confidence in my ability to make it work; but it actually did.

PHIL I stopped listening to him a couple of minutes ago. It doesn’t matter. He just wants someone to listen to him drivel on and on.

He won’t notice, either, that all I do is smile and nod, my eyes as wide open as I can make them without worrying about them popping out, and all I am saying is “oh” or “really” with the right, interested inflection when I can tell by his tone that some noise from me is required for him to keep talking. He’s probably the most conceited and self-absorbed alumnus I’ve met, and that is saying something, since I’ve never met any alumnus who isn’t a boring drone who stays involved with the house because they think it was the best time of their life, and being active in the alumni association somehow makes them still a part of the brotherhood. I prefer the ones who just write a check when they get a fundraising letter and never come around.

I mean, I get it. When you’re putting in sixty hours a week at some high-stress job and then come home to a bunch of spoiled kids and a trophy wife who spends all your money faster than you can make it and your own mortality is staring you in the eye, you miss your days in college living at the Beta Kappa house when you didn’t have an asshole boss and your phone wasn’t blowing up all the time with needy asshole clients who act like you’re their own personal slave and all you had to do was show up for class and study every once in a while and spent most of the rest of your time drinking and smoking pot and snorting coke and fucking every girl you could get so wasted she couldn’t say no or stop you from taking their clothes off and doing what you wanted. How many times have I had to listen to some alumnus whose body has gone to seed, who’s gone bald and whose best days were long behind him relive the debaucheries of his youth, getting that sad faraway look in his eyes as he thinks back fondly to that time before he had to be at the office all day only to come home to some bitch of a wife and deal with assholes all the fucking time, remembering when they didn’t have to deal with all the horseshit they have to put up with to get the damned paycheck to keep up the front that they’re living the American fucking dream?

It’s pathetic, really.

It’s just another reason I am glad I am gay.

It’s told in alternating first person point of view present tense; which means everything is happening as you read it. And if you think that isn’t hard to do, well, it sure as hell was for me. It was a risk, a stretch, and a challenge–and I was absolutely certain I was messing it up the entire time I was working on it.

So, it’s kind of a relief to not only have my editor love it, but to reread it and see that I was, as always, expecting the worst of myself. Maybe someday (HA!) I’ll stop doing that.

I also come to a realization about Crescent City Charade over the last few days, and as such, I was able to get started on it yesterday. It was only 517 words, but I will take it!

And now, back to the spice mines.

Here’s a hunk for today:

Aquarius/Let the Sunshine

I stayed up late last night reading, and as such slept through my morning. When I got home from running errands yesterday I couldn’t find my copy of Peaches and Scream, which meant I either left it somewhere yesterday (the horror! It was signed) or I left it in the car–which I will check shortly–but while I was cleaning and doing laundry and all of that yesterday, I decided not to walk back out to the car but to just pick up another book–the next on the TBR pile–and I got very caught up in it, caught up so much that I wanted to see how it ended.

The book was Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.

“That doesn’t sound like a school trivia night,” said Mrs. Patty Ponder to Marie Antoinette. “That sounds like a riot.”

The cat didn’t respond. She was dozing on the couch and found school trivia nights to be trivial.

“Not interested, eh? Let them eat cake! Is that what you’re thinking? They do eat a lot of cake, don’t they? All those cake stalls. Goodness me. Although I don’t think any of the mothers actually eat them. They’re all so sleek and skinny, aren’t they? Like you.”

Marie Antoinette sneered at the compliment. The “let them eat cake” thing had grown old a long time ago, and she’d recently heard one of Mrs. Ponder’s grandchildren say it was mean to be “let them eat brioche” and also that Marie Antoinette never said it in the first place.

Mrs. Ponder picked up her television remote and turned down the volume on Dancing with the Stars. She’d turned it up loud earlier because of the sound of the heavy rain, but the downpour had eased now.

She could hear people shouting. Angry hollers crashed through the quiet, cold night air. It was somehow hurtful for Mrs. Ponder to hear, as if all that rage was directed at her. (Mrs. Ponder had grown up with an angry mother.)

I’ll be completely honest: I would have never heard of this book were it not for the HBO show, which Paul and I are watching. I primarily focus, when it comes to fiction, first on crime novels, followed by young adult, then horror, and finally queer fiction; as my reading time is relatively limited I can barely keep up with what’s au courant in crime, let alone anything else. Liane Moriarty, an enormously successful Australian novelist, is classified as chick lit, a term I’ve always found to be, at the very least, demeaning–not just to those who write it but to those who read it.

And there are a LOT of readers in this particular field.

The primary problems–which I will address now, before moving on to the things I really enjoyed–I had with this novel really are all about me, rather than the book itself. As someone who writes crime fiction, and therefore reads a lot of it, has edited a lot of it, has judged it for awards, Big Little Lies actually can be considered a crime novel, particularly if you look at the definition of the genre from Mystery Writers of America; because the book is about a crime, in a way; and the way the book is structured is a very much a crime trope: from the very beginning we know some kind of crime has happened, but we don’t know who or what or how. The book unspools by giving us all the backstory leading up to the commission of the crime, exposing all the secrets and lies involving a trio of three women, connected by having a child in kindergarten at one particular school, and then it gives us the crime itself, and it’s aftermath. There’s kind of a Greek chorus of voices at the end of each chapter, snippets from police or newspaper interviews, from various other characters but not the main ones, and Moriarty uses this device to not only build suspense but keep the reader hooked and intrigued and turning the page. The problem, of course, is that if you are a regular reader of crime fiction, many of the big surprises and twists to the plot…well, they aren’t shocking and surprising; in fact, I predicted every single one of them many chapters before the reveals. But I didn’t know who the victim would be, or how it would happen, or who would actually do it; Moriarty does an excellent job of juggling all the little threads and making you guess how it would all come down when you finally reach the climax of the novel, which kept me turning the page.

Those quibbles aside, Big Little Lies is compulsively readable. Moriarty does an excellent job of creating characters the reader can not only identify with but sympathize with, and there is also a lot of wit and sly social commentary in the book as well. As I mentioned earlier, the three main characters–Jane, Celeste, Madeline–are all connected by having a child in kindergarten. On the morning of kindergarten orientation, Madeline gets out of her car to lecture the teenaged driver of the car in front of her at a stoplight about texting and driving, only to turn her ankle on her way back to her car. Jane, new to the area, is in the car behind her and gets out to help her, and a friendship is born. Celeste is eventually drawn into their orbit, and we get to know these three women very well–as well as their secrets. Celeste is filthy rich, Celeste middle class, Jane borderline poor; Moriarty does an excellent job of showing the contrasts in their lifestyles as well as how those differences affect their behavior as well as their relationships. She also does an excellent job at showing the sensitivities and competitiveness between the moms who stay at home and the moms who work; Moriarty takes us into the world of women as mothers of young children and is very sly about the modern world of the helicopter parent; particularly on that first day of kindergarten orientation, when one of the children has been bullied and accuses Jane’s son of doing it, and how that accusation splits the school into two warring factions; of what it’s like to have your child accused of something heinous and the worry that comes along with that; the fierce desire to protect your child even if it means calling another child a liar; the terror that there is something psychologically wrong with your child. Moriarty is excellent at this; this women are incredibly real and fully developed and realized. She also writes with wit and flair and clever use of language; she has an innate ability to hook her reader and keep them reading.

It’s easy to see why she is an international bestseller.

I can highly recommend the book, despite the slight problems I had with it; it’s a great, enjoyable ride, and like I said to begin with, I stayed up until almost two in the morning reading it, and the first thing I did when I got up this morning, rather than messing about on-line and answering emails and reading social media, was get my cup of coffee and get back in my easy chair to finish reading it.

And that says a lot about Liane Moriarty as a writer. I do intend to read more of her work.

I’ll Never Fall in Love Again

Ah, the weekend. Today I am going to run some errands–including taking the car for a car wash, it’s first ever–and then I am going to spend part of the day, at least, reading the page proofs for Wicked Frat Boy Ways, the latest (and possibly last) Todd Gregory erotic fraternity novel. When I was going through the edits last week, I wasn’t really paying a lot of attention to anything story or character wise, just ploughing through the edits. Yesterday I started reading through the page proofs, just to familiarize myself with the story–hey, I’ve written another book since then, and my memory isn’t quite what it used to be–and was surprised to see that it’s actually much better than I thought it was when I turned it in. I often loathe the book I am working on while I am working on it, and am much too close to it to actually evaluate it properly (sometimes that loathing never goes away, even years later), but I was very pleasantly surprised with this one as I skimmed my way through it.

And I do love the cover.

The book’s official release date is May 16th. How exciting! It’s been awhile (September) since I had a book come out, and it feels like it’s been an eternity, frankly. I know, I know, it’s weird, but that crazy writing schedule I’ve been on since about 2008–which was hardly normal–got me accustomed to having a new book out every few weeks. And this one is different from the other Todd Gregorys; I’m not sure how people are going to react to it. My editor loved it, so it has that going for it.

We shall see. The earlier frat boy books are still selling–which is kind of a shock, really; erotica generally doesn’t have much of a shelf life. Then again, FRATSEX, the anthology that kind of started it all, was still earning royalties and selling when Alyson folded; the book came out in 2004 and was still selling strong five years later. I can’t hope this one will do as well as those earlier efforts; it would be, of course, lovely if it did but in this business you really can’t count on anything. And like I said, it’s vastly different from the earlier novels. It’s not set on the same campus–Cal State-Polk; it’s set at UC-San Felice, a new coastal city I invented, even if it is the same fraternity, and one of the primary supporting characters in the previous one, Brandon Benson, is one of the main characters in this one, having transferred. Jordy, the main character from the last one, also appears briefly, as do Jeff and Blair, the focal characters from the original.

I don’t know that I will do another one, to be honest. But I am very pleased with how this one turned out. I hope the readers will be, too.

And now, off to the spice mines.

Shadow Dancing

I woke up feeling well-rested this morning, and even before the alarm went off (not MY alarm, but still a win in my book). It’s Friday, and I have survived the three day work week after Mardi Gras. Huzzah! Or perhaps I am getting ahead of myself–but waking up rested on a Friday morning and not feeling tired is always a win in my book. Huzzah indeed!

I didn’t write anything yesterday, but I can still blame the post-Carnival malaise, can’t I? Although I have been getting a lot of cleaning and organizing done, which is always a plus, and makes me happy. I also got some things from the Container Store–little trays that attach to the wall, to hold things like shampoo and so forth in the shower. Looks so much better than that horrible metal rack thing hanging from the shower railing. I also hung another one in my bathroom downstairs to hold my shaving supplies to clear up space on the sink. I still have two left, and am not sure what I am going to do with those. I also bought a new hand vacuum, and actually mounted the holder myself in the bathroom on the wall. SO butch.

I’m currently reading a cozy named Peaches and Scream by Susan Furlong, who also did the Alabama library weekend with me a couple of weeks back. She was really nice and funny, so I bought a copy of this first book in her second series and I am enjoying it. I am also looking forward to reading Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, and once I finish that I am digging out Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad; I am going to see him speak on Thursday night and am really looking forward to it.

And the Tennessee Williams Festival/Saints and Sinners is just around the corner. Sheesh, where did this year go?

All right, back to the spice mines. Here’s a hunk for you, to start off the weekend right:

Telephone

The Carnival hangover continues.

I worked twelve hours yesterday, including bar testing last night, so that could account for feeling drained this morning. It’s probably a combination of the two–long day, post Carnival malaise–but I only have to get through today and tomorrow and then it’s the glorious weekend again, which is quite lovely. These abbreviated work weeks always feel somewhat off, much as I love long weekends. I started work on Crescent City Charade yesterday morning but didn’t get very far; I am thinking it wasn’t smart to try to get it going in the wake of Carnival–smart or not, I am not beating myself up because it didn’t come easy. I do have those days when nothing really comes out on the page, and it really can’t be forced. (I mean, it can, but it usually ends up being such garbage it has to be completely redone or thrown out; on the other hand sometimes when I force it, it’s hard going at first and then it truly gets going. I can usually tell the difference, though, and I could tell yesterday wasn’t going to be one of those good days of work.)

In other good news, my editor liked Wicked Frat Boy Games, which was absolutely lovely news to wake up to. Now I just have to go over her edits. Hurray!

Paul and I are watching Big Little Lies on HBO and we’re enjoying it so far; great performances not only by the actresses in the leads (Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shaillene Woodley, Laura Dern) but also good roles for the supporting males, and the kids are also pretty good. It’s beautifully shot, and the suspense is doing a slow build. Paul did comment that it seemed a little Real Housewives of Monterey-ish to him, but I suspect that any film or television vehicle driven by women interacting is going to feel that way for a while.

I do enjoy the Real Housewives, I’ve never denied that; it’s a fascinating phenomenon, and as ‘staged’ and manipulated as these shows can be (the Lifetime series UnReal did a really great job of tearing away the veil on these sort of shows; the first season was fantastic; I didn’t watch the second season but from everything I’ve read it wasn’t nearly as good as the first; I may go back and watch it at some point when I have time–I crack myself up); Alison Gaylin wrote a wonderful y/a ebook about a young girl whose family had a reality show called Reality Ends Here which I highly recommend. I explored the ‘real housewives’ in a Paige book called Dead Housewives of New Orleans (no longer available; long story) but because of rushing and publisher deadlines and so forth I wasn’t able to make that book all I wanted it to be, so I am rebooting the concept and making it the Scotty book I am working (or not working, as the case may be) on, but it will be vastly different in this incarnation. Pretty much the only thing that is going to stay the same is the background set-up of the book; a reality show about social climbing upper class New Orleans women. I really want to get this right, you know?

And on that note, I am going to get my day going.

Here’s a hunk for you, Constant Reader:

G. U. Y.

I love James M. Cain.

I generally give one of his books a reread every year; Double Indemnity is a personal favorite, although I also have soft spots for Mildred Pierce, Serenade, Love’s Lovely Counterfeit, and, of course, The Postman Always Rings Twice. I’ve not read all of his books, partly because I don’t ever want to be finished with the entire Cain canon, but also because many of his lesser-known are no longer in print. But yesterday, after I finished Lori Rader-Day’s sublime Little Pretty Things, I pulled out The Butterfly and read it in a little over an hour. (Many of Cain’s works are really short.)

She was sitting on the stoop when I came in from the fields, her suitcase beside her and one foot on the other knee, where she was shaking a show out that seemed to have sand in it. When she saw me she laughed, and I felt my face get hot, that she had caught me looking at her, and I hightailed it to the barn as fast as I could go. While I milked I watched, and saw her get up and walk all around, looking at my trees and my corn and my cabin, then go over to the creek and look at that and pitch a stone in. She was nineteen or twenty, kind of a medium size, with light hair, blue eyes, and a pretty shape. Her clothes were better than most mountain girls have, even if they were dusty, like she had walked up from the state road, where the bus ran. But if she was lost and asking her way, why didn’t she say something and get it over with? And if she wasn’t, why was she carrying a suitcase? When I was through milking, it was nearly dark, and I picked up my pails, came out of the barn, and walked over. “How do you do, miss?”

And so this is how Jess Tyler, abandoned eighteen years earlier by his wife, meets his now grown youngest daughter, Kady.

Cain’s novels are all relatively short (I think Mildred Pierce is actually the longest, at least of the ones I’ve read)–which is interesting on its face; many of my favorite writers (Cain, John D. Macdonald, Megan Abbott, Margaret Millar, Charlotte Armstrong) write short novels–and The Butterfly is only 118 pages long. The book is set in Appalachia; West Virginia, to be precise, and Cain’s grasp of what life is like for poor rural Southern people is spot-on, as he always was with every book. He also manages to get across the poverty, and the acceptance of that poverty, across without using vernacular; Jess says “hollow” instead of “holler,” as an example. It’s also amazing how he managed to get this book (or any of the others, really) published at the time he did; the subject matter seems a little bit much for the time. If Mildred Pierce is an opus on motherhood, and the strain of loving a child who is a monster; The Butterfly is the obverse, telling the tale of paternal love for his child that crosses that line that shouldn’t ever be crossed; from love to lust and desire. It’s quite chilling and disturbing, but also quite good because he makes it understandable, which makes it all the more chilling and disturbing.

The book was eventually filmed, as so many of his novels were, but this film was notorious as the screen debut of Pia Zadora. I’ve never seen it, actually–the only Pia Zadora movie I’ve ever seen is Voyage of the Rock Aliens, although I’ve heard The Lonely Lady is so bad it reaches epic camp proportions–but now I am kind of curious.

I also started reading Donna Andrews’ latest, Die Like an Eagle, yesterday while waiting for Paul to come home so we could go to the Parades.

And happy Mardi Gras to one and all.