Puppets

A lot of writing opportunities have been presenting themselves lately, though none offer immediate fiduciary rewards. Mari's been perusing Craig's List and found some interesting things: someone in Omaha seeking a ghost writer, a web clearinghouse for "columns". And I got my short story based on my job posted to Zoetrope, finally.

Then there's this. A few entries ago I mentioned I had purchased a book called Rootie Kazootie at Goodwill. I said I remembered a character with that name as a TV show or comic book, and that was confirmed right on the first page. Rootie was also a puppet, as it turns out. He is not, however, extremely important to the plot of the book that has his name. That's ironic, huh? Rootie is mentioned only once, as an epithet directed at one of the main characters. It is only one of many epithets directed at that character; butI imagine Rootie Kazootie was picked as the title because, let's face it, it's catchy. It hooked me, for one; and as I am The Average American, that means it must have hooked a lot of people. Too bad Lawrence Naumoff (the author - I guess I should mention the author's name, huh?) doesn't get royalties from Goodwill.

So, it's about a love triangle. Caroline and Richard are married, but Caroline's kind of kookie (she's the one toward whom the epithets are directed) and Richard is tired, so he goes off to live with Cynthia. So now Caroline becomes kookie and possessive, manipulative and a little violent.

Richard, in this book, seems not to have a will of his own, just going where it's easiest to go. For instance, when he leaves Caroline, he tells her its because Cynthia wants him to move in. Not that he loves Cynthia, or doesn't love Caroline any more - she just wants him to, so he does. In the end, he's back with Caroline because, obnoxious as she's been, Caroline wants him and Cynthia doesn't. Evidently, it's one or the other and no further alternatives. In other respects, Richard is a good old boy, on his own two feet, running a business, fixing things, knowing stuff. But as far as his romantic life, he's at the mercy of what women want.

I've noticed that this is a widespread notion, by the way. When a guy leaves one gal for another, some women blame the other, like it's all her doing and the guy had little or no say in the matter. Maybe some guys encourage this so that, like Richard, they keep their options open: as long as Cynthia wants me, okay, but since Caroline doesn't blame me, I can still go back to her if it doesn't work with Cynthia. In this universe, guys are like they are in beer commercials: absolute brainless jerks who cannot be expected to resist whatever current is sloughing its way through town.

Rootie Kazootie was written to be funny, and it is. There is even a chapter in which Naumoff makes it clear a tragedy is inevitable, that it's going to happen, that there's no way to avoid it -- and then it doesn't happen. Caroline has moments of great sweetness. Richard does the right thing once in a while. Cynthia is trying. But for all that, it was a let down. Maybe I kept thinking a writer as obviously talented as Naumoff was building to a moral or an ending equal to his talent. Didn't happen, at least to my expectations, and I feel let down.

Awwww.

Pretty Little Policemen In A Row

Goodwill has been stingy lately -- lots of decidedly uninteresting books. Sitting there now are two by Dan Quayle, for crying out loud. I assume they have ghostwriters or, if not, translators. Dozens of Mary Higgins Clark titles too. She's my nemesis at the moment. Every unpublished writer has a nemesis, a "If so-and-so can get published, why can't I?" person.

Yet we read the undeserving published (and fabulously wealthy) authors because they tell stories. MHC conceives interesting stories. They start at Point A and end at Point Z, and all a reader has to do is grope his/her way around the horrendous writing and pathetic characterizations to get to a satisfying end. Subject through predicate to object. Man bites dog. Very satisfying. The only problem is it's "Man, purplish in complexion though Adonis-like in reputation -- notwithstanding that the reputation itself was his own creation - bites, with teeth that needed brushing due to the garlic butter he had put on his pasta at lunch that day, lunch with Trudy who drove him crazy and wasn't buying into the reputation, which he had assumed she would and was shocked when she left him with the tab and a slap on the chops at what he had suggested they do for dessert, dog."

So I just finished Ed McBain's Romance , a "novel of the 87th precinct" I've read others in the series. They take place in Isola, which is New York City, except New York City also exists in the McBain novels, evidently not too far away from Isola. So Isola, I guess, sits on top of NYC but a little askew, with maybe a Northeast River and, who knows, a Painting of Liberty.

McBain (who has many names, BTW) is a much better writer than MH Clark (my nemesis), but he does manage to make reading his stories into a chore. He writes "hey look at me" dialogue, with characters talking over each other and repeating each others words - unreadable, but that's how people really talk -- except that in writing it this way, McBain is saying "I'm writing unreadable dialogue because, gosh, ain't I clever at getting how people really talk?" he also has some sort of clothes fetish, describing how every character is dressed, down to their socks. May I say that, with a few exceptions, "NO ONE CARES!!!"

Romance is a book about the murder of an actress in a play called Romance, which is a play about a production of a play called Romance (I'm not making this up), in which the actress who plays the actress who gets stabbed, gets stabbed (still not making this up). The actress is named Ed McBain (I made that up). The detectives of the 87th solve the case. All in all, a good story. But, as I. Say? Yeah, say.

On the other side of the crime coin, and the dialogue coin for that matter, about a year ago I spent a few weeks on the bus with Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty. Frankly, I was not all that fond of the story -- low level hood makes himself a film producer while outfoxing other low level hoods -- but the dialogue is great. I heard that Travolta flipped when he heard they were re-writing the dialogue for the movie, that he only agreed to the movie because of Elmore Leonard's great dialogue. Good call, Vinnie.