“Man in the Blue Moon” by Michael Morris / Monday, November 26, 2012 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Today’s featured book is Man in the Blue Moon by Michael Morris.

The rich get richer and the poor…keep fighting them off.

Why Clay Stafford chose this book:

You have to ask yourself, what has Michael Morris been doing all these years? Morris is one of our best Southern writers and I think it has been at least 10 years since he released his last book…until “Man in the Blue Moon.” I guess he was storing up the power shot. This is a wonderful book set in Florida during World War I.

A stranger comes to town in one of the most unusual entrances I think I’ve read. “He could never relieve himself of the sins of the father. The past shaded his mind until at times he was certain darkness had overtaken him.” As I read, I was not sure, at times, if it was the stranger’s story or the woman whom he befriends, but by the end, it becomes clear that it is the story of all of them, the entire community. There is a nice mix of quirky characters. Highly emotional. The stranger, the protagonist, the three diverse sons, the caretaker, the balanced ministers, the odd little girl, even the absentee husband, and all the other more minor characters are all well-defined. The plot and characters are in constant forward motion: they are changing characters within a changing world with fundamentals solidly set in the past. “Mark my word, we’re living in the end times.” As a Southerner, I’ve heard that before…actually last Sunday.

It is Southern literature, but it is also a work that breaks out of the box of locality. You’ll find themes of love, community, and forgiveness, which are some of the strongest catalysts in a writer’s toolbox. It takes place outside Apalachicola, Florida in a dying town called Dead Lakes, but it could have just as easily been set anywhere. These are real people. You see it in the way they react to the same singular situations: “Beyond belief.” “Lifesaver.” “Voodoo.” It’s one of those books that will have you wondering about the characters long after you’ve put the novel away.

“Innocence and justice sometimes don’t go hand in hand,” Michael Morris writes, but they certainly are emotional powerhouses to write about. Will she keep her farm? Will she not? Much healing water flows through the Dead Lakes before we finally have that answer.

From Amazon:

“He’s a gambler at best. A con artist at worst, her aunt had said of the handlebar-mustached man who snatched Ella Wallace away from her dreams of studying art in France. Eighteen years later, that man has disappeared, leaving Ella alone and struggling to support her three sons. While the world is embroiled in World War I, Ella fights her own personal battle to keep the mystical Florida land that has been in her family for generations from the hands of an unscrupulous banker. When a mysterious man arrives at Ella’s door in an unconventional way, he convinces her he can help her avoid foreclosure, and a tenuous trust begins. But as the fight for Ella’s land intensifies, it becomes evident that things are not as they appear. Hypocrisy and murder soon shake the coastal town of Apalachicola and jeopardize Ella’s family.”

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

– Clay Stafford, Founder of Killer Nashville

“Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures” by Emma Straub / Tuesday, October 23, 2012 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Today’s featured book is Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub.

A star is born.

Why Clay Stafford chose this book:

This novel takes me back in time. Maybe it is my own personal past experiences in summer stock, but I was immediately pulled into the setting of “Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures” by Emma Straub. I felt the barn, the family, the summer camp, the carefree life of the young. And the egos. “No one in the theater liked to be around people who were better-looking than they were.” Oh, yes. I recognized the egos.

The story is told from the point of view of Elsa who later becomes Laura Lamont. “Hildegard got to be Hildy, but Elsa only got to be Else, as in Someone Else, a human afterthought.” That is how Elsa’s life starts out: the youngest, the overlooked. A chance suggestion puts her onstage, however. Elsa learns “there was power in pretend.” And she uses it throughout the rest of her career.

The novel is full of great lines. If you’ve spent any time in Hollywood, you’ll recognize the personality types. It is about so many actors and actresses I know who have difficulty separating the reality of a role from the reality of…well…reality. The stretching of the truth. As an ex-actor, some of it is downright painful to read especially the character arc relating to the man she left Wisconsin with. I feel for these poor characters. Even Elsa has a bit of the non-reality to start: “She was going to step off the bus into the waiting arms of the world.”

Hollywood is near a collective main character itself in this novel. You get an introduction to Method Acting, what goes on during movie-making (including the endless waiting), the lives influenced by movie successes and movie flops, the jealousies, and – if you are Hollywood history savvy – you might recognize what could be identifiable composite characters under a different name: Rock Hudson, Jack Warner, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Louis B. Mayer, Lucille Ball. And, of course, there is Irving Green, the Hollywood Boy Wonder. “Irving Green had an idea every thirty-five seconds.” It’s not difficult to see the personage of Irving Green to be a representation of Irving Thalberg.

“Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures” is one woman’s lifetime saga with exhilarating peaks and painful valleys within the ever-changing evolution of Hollywood itself. If a reader finds the main character’s choices a bit mercurial at times, it is probably because same reader has never dated an actress. The plot is straightforward and Straub attempts to cover a lot of ground in the 300 or so pages. And, not giving anything away, the story goes full circle. “Was it possible that she’d finally gotten old, when she had always been the youngest?” Old Hollywood was a grand and glorious place. I can see what attracted Straub to the subject.

From Amazon:

“The enchanting story of a midwestern girl who escapes a family tragedy and is remade as a movie star during Hollywood’s golden age.

In 1920, Elsa Emerson, the youngest and blondest of three sisters, is born in idyllic Door County, Wisconsin. Her family owns the Cherry County Playhouse, and more than anything, Elsa relishes appearing onstage, where she soaks up the approval of her father and the embrace of the audience. But when tragedy strikes her family, her acting becomes more than a child¹s game of pretend.

While still in her teens, Elsa marries and flees to Los Angeles. There she is discovered by Irving Green, one of the most powerful executives in Hollywood, who refashions her as a serious, exotic brunette and renames her Laura Lamont. Irving becomes Laura’s great love; she becomes an Academy Award­-winning actress—and a genuine movie star. Laura experiences all the glamour and extravagance of the heady pinnacle of stardom in the studio-system era, but ultimately her story is a timeless one of a woman trying to balance career, family, and personal happiness, all while remaining true to herself.

Ambitious and richly imagined, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures is as intimate – and as bigger-than-life – as the great films of the golden age of Hollywood. Written with warmth and verve, it confirms Emma Straub’s reputation as one of the most exciting new talents in fiction.”

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join ourFacebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

– Clay Stafford, Founder of Killer Nashville

“Rebecca” by Daphne Du Maurier / Monday, October 22, 2012 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Today’s featured book is Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

It’s classic, gothic, romantic suspense at its finest.

Why Clay Stafford chose this book:

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” One of my absolute favorite opening lines. And the book never takes a downtown. This is classic, gothic, romantic suspense at its finest. Most of you have probably read it, but for those who have not, it is a classic. I won’t belabor the review because I know most have probably read it, but maybe this will inspire you to go to your bookshelf and pull it off for another read. The critics panned it when it came out in 1938 (what do they know?), but it won the National Book Award in that year despite them. After 65 years in publication, in 2003 it was still listed as number 14 on the UK survey of The Big Read. Alfred Hitchcock won an Academy Award for the film version of it in 1940. Just writing about it makes me want to go read it again. If you’ve never read it, add it to your list.

From Amazon:

“With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten – a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house’s current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim’s first wife – the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca.

This special edition of Rebecca includes excerpts from Daphne du Maurier’s The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories, an essay on the real Manderley, du Maurier’s original epilogue to the book, and more.”

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join ourFacebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

– Clay Stafford, Founder of Killer Nashville