Tag: Raleigh Bouchercon

comfortably numb

Lou Berney is not only one of my favorite writers, but he’s also one of my favorite people in this business.

I met Lou for the first time many years ago, because we shared a panel together at Bouchercon in Raleigh (the moderator was Katrina Niidas Holm, and the other panelists were Lori Roy and Liz Milliron; none of whom I knew before and have been grateful ever since that I not only got to meet them and become friendly but also because–even better–I discovered incredible new-to-me writers whose work I’ve been enjoying ever since). Shortly after this I read his novel The Long and Faraway Gone and was completely blown away by it; it won every conceivable award for crime writing the next year, and he followed it up with the completely different but just as fascinating and brilliant November Road several years later. I’ve yet to go back and read his earlier work, but plan to eventually–but I also like having them in reserve; Lou’s not nearly as prolific as I would like. I kind of think of him as a male version of Megan Abbott: brilliant, insightful, and exceptionally gifted writers with piercing perceptions into the kinks and flaws of character that make people human.

And Dark Ride is exactly what is promised in that title–a dark ride.

I’m lost, wandering, and somewhat stoned. This parking lot, when you’re in the middle of it, deems much vastr and more expansive than it does from the street. Or do I just seem much less consequential? That’s the question. One for the ages.

It’s July, hot as balls. I stare up. The sky, pale and papery, looks like it’s about to burst into flame.

How would you describe the sky to someone who’s never seen a sky? You’d have to explain how it’s different every day. So many shades of blue, of grat. And we’re not even talking about sunrise or sunset. Plus the clouds! How would you describe clouds?1

“You need some help?”

“What?” I say.

Some dude in a suit is about to climb in his car. He’s about my age, probably a couple of years out of college. With the suit and haircut, though, he’s all business. Me, I’m wearing board shorts, flip-flops, and a vintage faded Van Halen T-shirt I found for five bucks at Goodwill. I haven’t cut my hair in almost forever and I’m a minimum-wage scarer at an amusement park fright zone.

Jesus, what a fucking great opening. (Although I did wonder if any T-shirt costs $5 at Goodwill.)

Dark Ride has about the most unlikely main character you’ll ever meet in a crime novel–Hardy “Hardly” Reed–and that above paragraph is a master-class in character. In fifty-two words and two sentences, Lou Berney created a character that I absolutely, 100% know and believe is real. I’ve known any number of Hardlys over the years, and I can also certainly identify with being in your twenties and kind of drifting aimlessly, with no plan for the future other than you’re afraid of it and you don’t want the path everyone else seems to wnt for you that you know isn’t right.

The story opens with Hardly going to the city building of some unnamed city in the Midwest (since it’s Lou Berney, I’m going out on a limb and saying it’s probably Oklahoma City or Tulsa) to get a thirty-day continuation on paying a parking ticket. A tedious, horrible, day-disrupting chore that most of us have had to deal with at some point in our lives. Personally, I despise having to go to any city or state office for any kind of business, and feel pretty confident in stating that’s probably pretty much how everyone feels about that sort of thing. (Even worse is getting the camera fucking ticket in the mail.) Hardly is, by every definition of the word, a loser–despite being very likable and relatable; the kind of man whose relatives just sigh and say, “well, that’s Hardly” when they talk about him. But Hardly doesn’t have relatives. His mother died when he was a child and he would up in foster care–and even admits he and his foster brother, a successful rising architect, got very lucky with their foster family. But he came out out of it with no purpose, no sense of direction, and no goals or desires for life. He just does his minimum-wage job, lives in his shitty rented room, and smokes a lot of weed. So do most of his friends.

And the opening paragraph and that meditation on the sky and clouds? Such a stoner thing to do. (I’ve had some experience with cannabis–especially in my twenties, but that’s a story for another time.) So, why is this amiable, stoner loser the main character of this book? we soon find out. As he waits in line to get his continuance, he sees a woman with two very young children–and notices on both a pattern of cigarette burns on each child. Horrified, he looks for someone in authority to report this to–but no one seems to care. The woman and her children leave, and he manages to meet someone who works there who pointedly won’t tell him their names but that he needs to sign in, which makes him realize he can her name that way–Tracy Shaw. He finally calls CPS and makes a report over the phone. Relieved that he’s done his duty, he goes on with the rest of the day, which includes going to work at the crappy amusement park where he works (a fair played a major role in The Long and Faraway Gone, which makes me think at some point in his life Berney must have worked for an amusement park or a fair) where we meet his co-worker and friend, a mentally challenged 16 year old named Salvadore, who is one of my favorite characters in the book.

It begins, though, to bother him that CPS never calls him back with questions or for more information–he’s sadly still young enough to believe in the efficacy and efficiency of Authority–and it begins festering in his head. He’s worried about Tracy, but he’s even more worried about the kids, seven and six by his estimate, and how their lives are being shaped and ruined by the abuse. It keeps bothering him until he decides to do something about it, and what follows is a delightfully entertaining, beautifully written saga of someone who has been completely written off by society as a loser and a wastrel yet still manages to find the strength of character and moral purpose to try to save those kids, however foolhardy–and dangerous–it may turn out to be for him.

I’m not really sure how to describe the book, to be honest. I feel like “stoner noir” is the best fit, even though the cover calls it a thriller, I don’t know if that’s actually correct or not. Hardly’s sense of purpose, his sense that he’s the only person who cares about saving those kids, reminded me of a knight’s quest from classic literature; another time he reminded me a bit of Don Quixote tilting at windmills. I loved this book. I loved the main character, I loved the voice, I loved everything about this book–except the fact I didn’t write it.

Buy it, read it, cherish and love it–and thank me later.

  1. “Bow and flows of angel’s hair, and ice cream castles in the air” per Joni Mitchell. You’re welcome. ↩︎

You Must Love Me

Many years ago, at a Bouchercon in the far distant past, I was lucky enough to be assigned to a panel with several strangers. It was Raleigh, and I don’t remember what the panel was about–other than none of us on the panel actually wrote what the topic was about–but it ably helmed by Katrina Niidas Holm. That was the weekend where I was lucky enough to meet both her and her husband, Chris. Also on the panel were Liz Milliron, Lou Berney, and Lori Roy. I always intend to read my co-panelist’s work before panels, so I can talk to them intelligently about their books–but it’s not near as pressing as it is when I moderate, and this was one of those years where I was busy and simply didn’t have the time. The panel was marvelous. I had the best time, and I loved everyone on the panel. I have since gone on to read their work and have become a besotted fan of all three of them, really.

My first Lori Roy novel was Bent Road, which won her (deservedly) the Edgar for Best First Novel. I absolutely loved it, and made sure I got the next two as well. (At the Edgars following the Raleigh Bouchercon, both Lou and Lori won Edgars; her second, also making her one of the few authors to win Edgars for Best First and Best Novel.) I’ve read everything she’s published since then, but have never gotten to the second novel (an Edgar Best Novel finalist) or Let Me Die in His Footsteps, her second nomination for Best Novel and her second Edgar win. I don’t remember why I decided to finally read Let Me Die in His Footsteps, but I am very glad I did.

It’s really quite marvelous.

Annie Holleran hears him before she sees him. Even over the drone of the cicadas, she knows it’s Ryce Fulkerson, and he’s pedaling this way. That’s his bike, all right, creaking and whining. He’ll have turned off the main road and will be standing straight up as he uses all his weight, bobbing side to side, to pump those pedals and force that bike up and over the hill. In a few moments, he’ll reach the top where the ground levels out, and that front tire of his will be wobbling and groaning and drawing a crooked line in the soft, dry dirt.

They‘re singing in the trees again today, those cicadas. A week ago, they clawed their way out of the ground, seventeen years’ worth of them, and now their skins hang from the oaks, hardened husks with tiny claws and tiny, round heads. One critter calls out to another and then another until their pulsing songs made Annie press both hands over her ears, tuck her head between her knees, and cry out for them to stop. Stop it now. All these many days, there’s been something in the air, a spark, a crackle, something that’s felt a terrible lot like trouble coming, and it’s much like the weight of those cicadas, thousands upon thousands of them crying out to one another.

Annie has known all morning Ryce would be coming. It’s why she’s been sitting on this step and waiting on him for near an hour. She oftentimes knows a thing is coming before it has come. It’s part of the curse–or blessing, if Grandma is to be believed–of having the know-how.

Let Me Die in His Footsteps is set in rural Kentucky, with a dual timeline–the present in the book is 1952; the past is 1936. Both timelines feature two sisters, one normal and the other with the “know-how.” In the present, Annie is the sister with the know-how while her sister Caroline is normal and pretty and sweet and pretty much beloved. The 1936 section focuses on Caroline’s mother, Sarah, and her sister with the know-how, Juna. It is soon made clear in the present day that something terrible happened back in 1936, something whose repercussions are still being felt to this present day of 1952. Annie isn’t Caroline’s sister, but rather her cousin; Sarah is Caroline’s mother while Juna was Annie’s. Juna also had a bad reputation around the county, having played a pivotal role in the 1936 tragedy. The book opens with Annie reaching her ascension; the halfway mark between sixteen and seventeen, when she is supposed to look down into a well at midnight, where she will see the face of the man she is going to marry. Annie sneaks out of the house late at night to go next door and peer down into the Baine family well; there’s trouble and tension between the two neighboring families…dating back to 1936. All the Baine sons are long gone; the only one left is old Mrs. Baine, who sits out on her porch with a shotgun in case of her worthless sons try to come home. Caroline follows Annie and sees someone in the well; Annie sees no one. But after the look into the well, they discovered Mrs. Baine’s dead body in the yard…and all the secrets and lies from 1936 start to not only unravel but impact 1952.

We’re never really sure what the “know-how” is, or if it’s just an old wives’ tale, a superstition. The rural south in both 1936 and 1952 were dramatically different than modern times; the rural areas weren’t as exposed to television or films or the newspapers, really and the old ways still held sway. I can remember being told about someone with the sight that everyone was supposed to stay away from in rural Alabama when I was a kid; those kinds of superstitions and beliefs still exist in some of these more backward rural areas. But one thing I truly appreciate about Roy–who often writes about poor rural Southern people–is that her writing isn’t what I call “poverty porn”; her characters are very real and this just happens to be their situation. The Hollerans have a lavender farm, having eschewed tobacco in the recent past after Grandpa Holleran died from lung cancer. Lavender infuses the novel almost from the very first page. I love the smell of lavender, although I would imagine fields and drying houses filled with it might be a lot. The story plays out in a slow burn, terrific build to the end, and all kinds of secrets from the past must be dealt with in order for the present-day characters to get on with their lives.

Roy is such a good writer that it almost takes my breath away. She uses a distant third person point of view, one in which we don’t really get inside her character’s heads that much, so the reader has a kind of distant remove from the characters, but it really works. Her work reminds me of Faulkner without the racism, and of other great Southern writers. Her novels are very smart, with a lot of depth and emotional honesty that resonates with the reader, compelling us to keep reading.

Highly recommended; Let Me Die in His Footsteps clearly deserved to win the Edgar for Best Novel.

Hopefully there will be a new Lori Roy soon, because all I have left of her canon is her second novel, Until She Comes Home, which was also an Edgar finalist.