Arkansas Books

How does Joan Hess do it again and again and again? Her Claire Malloy mysteries are funny, smart, and interesting. She has me hooked by the cleverness of her heroine, as well as by the intricacies of the plot. I devoured this one in a single plane ride. I do think Claire may be becoming a bit TOO testy, but just a tad, as her ascerbic wit is part of her unending charm. Well done, Ms. Hess!

I expected more out of this book, I have enjoyed the series in the past, although the daughter Caron is irritating! I really thought the story dragged quite a bit in this book, and must agree with others that our main character did some really dumb things.

Joan Hess has done it again. The latest Claire Malloy mystery is a hoot and hard to put down. I have read all of the books in the series and am waiting patiently for the next book. If you're an avid fan like myself, don't miss out on this new installment in the long-running series.

Claire Malloy, owner of The Book Depot, in Farberville Arkansas is having a bad day. There are rats in her kitchen and she is going to have to move out while the problem and other emergency work is taken care of. This could take weeks.

Fortunately, Dolly, one of her customer's at the store is going away for a few weeks and wants Claire to housesit for her.

So she moves into the palatial estate with her daughter Caron and Caron's best friend Inez. What could be more perfect?

Not this. No sooner does she move in than Caron and Inez claim to have found a dead body in the back yard. The body has disappeared by the time the police show up and Claire tries to convince herself that the girls really hadn't seen anything.

Then things start to get strange. Madison and Sara Louise, claiming to be nieces of Dolly show up and claim their car had broken down while coming down to see Dolly and they needed a place to stay.

Other strange people seem to be lurking around the area and when Claire see's a dead body in the yard, which also disappears before the police can show up makes her worried about everyone's safety, which proves true, when the much seen dead body shows up in the freezer in the garage.

Who is the man? What was he doing there. Where is Dolly, who has disappeared and appears not to be who she says she is. What is going on, why are the FBI investigating and are they in danger?

Claire decides to investigate with the help of Lt. Peter Rosen, "her boyfriend" the web of secrets, lies and more murders as she wonders if maybe they shouldn't have stayed at the "Dew Drop Inn."

Highlights:

Claire Malloy, she is a very adult acting character. Serious-minded, but you almost have to be if you're a widow raising a teenager alone and trying to get along on an iffy business like a book store.

Peter Rosen, who is a great boyfriend and friend. He doesn't like her investigating, but helps all he can because he knows he won't be able to stop her.

Caron and her best friend Inez. Typical middle of the group teenagers, they're not in the "A" group of teenagers, although they want to be, but they're not in the "Z" group either. They are actually the funniest characters in these books.

A complex mystery. A lot of twists and turns. A very quick read.

The sci-fi fan pot-head, who spends most of his time trying to shop lift from her store. He's been in since the first of this series and add just a touch of humor whenever he appears.

Lowlights:

For the first time, Claire does some really dumb things. When you're house sitting, you don't let two total strangers move in without asking the home owner. And when they're obnoxious, and insulting to your daughter and her friend, treating them like maids and making it miserable for them to live in the house you throw them out. I didn't understand Claire's insisting that they stay, except as a plot maneuver to move the story along.

Except for Peter & Inez there aren't a lot of reoccurring characters that appear in this book. Claire needs a wider circle of friends.

Minor problems, but still a very good read.

I think this series has one of the longest time between books, the last book "Out On A Limb" came out in 2002 and it was a little difficult to get back into the characters.

Check out Joan Hess's, Maggody series, with Arly Hanks. I don't enjoy it as much as the Claire Malloy series, but it's also a good series.

NOTE: Do not listen to any negative review posted here. I've enjoyed most of the Claire Malloy mysteries thus far, and THE GOODBYE BODY doesn't dissapoint. The story is chock-full of surprises, twists and turns, and plenty of laugh out loud moments.

I like cuddling up with a new Claire Malloy mystery whenever possible, and this is one of Hess's best mysteries, and one of Malloy's most bizarre adventures.

If you've enjoyed other Claire Malloy mysteries, don't pass up this interesting romp. I'm looking forward to Hess's next book in the series.

Sara

I've worked my way through almost all of Hess's books, but somehow had overlooked this earlier one. It's a fun mystery, as all of her books are, and it was fun to see Caron tackle a problem on her own.

This was the first Claire Malloy Mystery i have ever read and based on it, i just ordered 8 more. i loved the humor in here. i am a 50 year old woman and for me, at least, there were some pages that had me literally laughing so hard that i had tears in my eyes. i am looking forward to passing each of them on to my best friend after i read them to share the fun with her.

After all the serious mysteries i regularly read, it was great to read something that was just plain fun.

If you like the mysteries which play on words then this one is for you. The story line wasn't anywhere nearly as complex as the language. Many puns, word plays and an investigator that talks to herself if no one else is around because that is how important the word play is in this book. If you prefer more crime and detection you will not like this one.

This book was not as interesting as poisoned pins. I hope the author finds a better boy friend for Claire Malloy than The CID Inspector Peter Rosen as he seem to have no depth of character. I eagerly await to read the next mystery.

A pretty awful book altogether. I love the Claire Malloy series, but this novel totally missed. I never could figure out why Claire cared for the fates of those appalling secondary characters, each one more loathsome than the next, including a bunch of tiresome Druids (a plot convention indicative of a desperate mystery author). Her daughter's misadventure with the mall Santa Claus was much more interesting.

God and religion are the problems?

What about schools in communist countries? No God in that, and none of this mass killing, so that point is moot

Japan doesn't have any "God and Jesus", no mass killings.

NOTE: So These countries don't have mentally ILL????

The USA is a whole mix of kids and religions is what set some kids off, upper class mixing with lower class, shy with jocks, different religions, all combined. This has never happened in the society in history, all of this mixing. Yes we are trying to "have a go at it", and for the most part its working, but nothing is 100% perfect.

Everyone is getting it wrong, flat wrong

This author claims it's a mental illness that these shooters suffer from. It has NOTHING to do with a "mental illness", that's flat wrongo. I saw her on TV on the Bill Curtis rampage special she has no make up on, and is making a TV appearance, so that must be how she is, women with no make up on, and especially those who need it, always turn out to be radicals, and who trust a radicals view? Not many.

Oh no, I just put her down, will she go postal now? And have you notice a woman has never gone postal with a gun? Why? Because women, while they do suicide, they don't take it out on others, only themselves because they blame themselves if something goes wrong. If a woman has a weakness, a physical handicap, she still by because she can still get a man, IF she wants to, for a weakness in a woman does not bother a man, what's the only thing a man is really after? Hint hint, right you guessed it. More so if a woman has a weakness many men will take advantage of that and want her more, as man is a dominator and likes a weakness, to give him power. So bottom line is a woman with a physical impairment, or someone who doesn't fit in with a "click", can always find a man, if she wants one.

Well, the author doesn't get it. zero stars for calling it a mental illness, when its not. Or it would happen in other countries, for if we have mentally ill in the USA, then the rest of the world has some also. Where are the mass killers in other countries???

Cho's speech problem, the columbine killers were small kids, any weakness in a male, he then can have problems with girls/ women and asserting himself in any "male ranks". For females are the opposite, they do *not* like a weakness in males. Also males, have the need by nature to be strong, and if other boys/men treat them as lesser thans, over time, it builds up. If you do not suffer from anything physical, then you will NOT ever get this, I don't care how many degrees you have, how much money you have, how observant you are of the world, how smart you are, male or female, you will never get it.

Look at the animal world in the wild?, who gets all the females? The strongest male.

Males that get "excluded" from others turn inward, and start watching everyone and everything else from the outside in, they just watch and watch. See others having a good time. They just watch and watch and watch. It builds and builds and builds.

There isn't any "counseling" or "meds" that is going to change anything, I said, there isn't any counseling or meds that is going to change anything. That's a flat red flag for people that push that flat don't get it, and think they do, or are trying to get it.

You have a person that is "removed" from society, through "default" meaning its NOT anything they have done, but its how others are treating them, then your going to have people that "check out", for humans do not life to be alone. Animals like to be alone, hence, no suicides in the animal world. Yet more proof we are not animals, but that's another conversation.

This book does not really bring anything new to the table, but is worth having if for no other reason than it has a history of shootings that stretches all the way back to the 70's. (All trends, graphs and studies usually start in the 90's when the killings reached their appex.) It was interesting to see that back then the trend tended to be "Shoot Authority Figures!" as opposed to today's killers who tend to hunt their peers instead.

Exactly, and when did the all the "times change" and we all started to live with each other? In the 1970's , right? and no one did one of these rampages before the 1970's, right? *RIGHT*

Lastly, all these kinds of problems happen in big large schools, right? Right

Everyone is getting it wrong, flat wrong. What I just said are "the" answers, and I do not have a PHD, but I have a physical problem, so I know.

You either get to the point where you except it, through faith that after your outta here from this planet life will be better, or you succumb to it and always seeking help of the world, meds, counseling, nothing changes, then you lose it. For the nearly 99% of those who lose it and commit suicide they do it alone, and you never here about them, right? For the few that get so pissed off that they fell they need to send a message, and take out as many as they can on the way, that's what they do. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often, isn't anybody else? So we can be thankful for that.

Bottom line is, each generation of kids come along, none of them know about what has happened in history, kids being kids bulling and making fun of and excluding others has gone on for as long as time has been going on, nothing new here, nothing will change. All this new age of counseling and meds is a phony Band-Aid. Sure it helps suppress and save a few people, keeps some in check, but it doesn't change the problem. And I know many will debate it's not supposed to, it's only to help one person at a time, deal with their "own" stuff. But it's not working, more meds and counseling is going on than ever in history, and suicide is higher now than ever, right? Yes we have more of a world population, but the ratio is higher now than ever. Maybe that's because guns are new over the last few centuries, which is by far the most used method, especially by males.

I guess the only way outta all this is to move to the mountains and live an easy life! Well, that's no answer either, why do you think they have so many lil bars in all over in every mountain area.

Interesting mankind's continual needs to be around people no matter where in the world, we hate solitary, but many animals in the wild the world over will only live solitary, and they prefer it.

God is playing tricks on us?

Could be, for although my wife likes it, my hair just doesn't grow much on my head anymore, where I want it, yet it continues to grow plenty on my face, where I don't want it, so man has to shave his face till he gets old and dies, yet many males have so little on the top of the head.

Yep, God "is" playing tricks on us haha

Research like this is useful for anyone who wants to understand the Virginia Tech tragedy. School shooters such as Cho Seung-Hui are not born raging to kill. They are molded through abuse. Cho is a textbook example of the type of school shooter featured in these in-depth case studies - shy, socially awkward, and tormented by high school classmates.

The social climates at the high schools attended by school shooters are typically vicious and hateful, with rampant sexual harassment of girls and women and antigay harassment of less dominant boys.

At Columbine High School, the most famous school shooting site studied in this book, jocks reigned supreme. The state wrestling champion, the leader of a clique of athlete bullies and the symbol of injustice for school shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, was allowed to park his $100,000 Hummer all day in a 15-minute parking space. The school indulged athletes' rampant sexual and racial bullying and physical abuse of others, including Harris and Kleboldand were given free license to abuse others. A coach did nothing when the athletes targeted a Jewish boy in gym class, singing songs about Hitler when he made a basket, pinning him to the ground and doing "body twisters" that left him bruised all over, and threatening to set him on fire.

Many of the school shooters featured in this book endured antigay harassment that contributed to their rage. Barry Loukaitis, who killed a teacher and two students in Washington state, was taunted by school jocks as a "faggot." Luke Woodham in Mississippi, who killed two students and wounded seven others, was often called "gay" by classmates. Michael Carneal, who killed three fellow students and wounded five in Kentucky, was labeled as "gay" in the school newspaper. Charles Williams in Santee, California, who shot at 15 students and adults and killed two, had been derided as "a skinny faggot."

According to an Associated Press news account (4/20/07), Cho endured similar abuse to the shooters featured in this book: "Classmates in Virginia, where Cho grew up, said he was teased and picked on, apparently because of shyness and his strange, mumbly way of speaking. Once, in English class at Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., when the teacher had the students read aloud, Cho looked down when it was his turn, said Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior and high school classmate. After the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho began reading in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said. "The whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, `Go back to China,'" Davids said. [In middle school, another student is quoted as saying,]"There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him. He didn't speak English really well and they would really make fun of him." "

The first thing one has to do, when trying to take a serious look at the subject of school shootings, is to put things in perspective. After all, despite the shocking and graphic images seen during the media frenzies following these events, the actual statistics do not support an epidemic of violence in schools. Less than 1% of homicides and suicides among school-age children actually occur in or around school grounds. 99% of the violence that school-age children are subjected to happens outside of school grounds and outside of school hours. Kids in violent urban neighborhoods are statistically safer in the classroom during school hours than in any waking hours.

That aside, I began working my way through this book, and trying to keep a disciplined perspective on things, on February 13th, a couple weeks ago, the day before the shootings at NIU. Besides the coincidence in the timing, the NIU shooting was the first of its kind where I had to worry about people very close to me being involved. Millions of kids represented statistically mean nothing compared to a single horrific story involving the real people who populate my life. It was a tragic reminder for me that no one is immune to gut reactions.

There is no minimizing the importance of this topic, and not just because we want to avoid future tragedies, but also because the discussion sheds light on themes that affect multiple aspects of our shared culture and our collective quality of life.

The authors here take an interesting approach. The automatic responses from most people, as far as preventative approaches, would be limited access to guns and a greater focus on screening for individuals who are likely to perpetrate these horrendous crimes. But, for a myriad of reasons, not all of which are simply political, neither of these approaches end up being straightforward. I could rant on and on about gun laws, we all have strong opinions, but that would steer me too far off course.

As far as predictive strategies, focused on identifying adolescents likely to commit serious acts of mass violence, you have the same statistical problems you would have trying to screen for a very rare form of a medical illness. The more rare the event, the greater the ratio of false positives versus true positives for any measure. This is not necessarily a problem, if resources are ample, costs of screening are low, and the outcome of being falsely screened in is completely benign. But in the real world, designing an accurate screening tool that is practical and not potentially harmful is not an easy task. Believe me. There are many researchers who have dedicated their entire careers to this without producing a demonstrably valid instrument.

The authors of "Rampage" draw on their extensive fieldwork in the aftermaths of two school shootings, as well as other data in the literature, and come to the conclusion that best solutions will be found in "the insights of sociology over psychology." The authors extensively review the popular explanations that get filtered down to us: mental illness, the "he just snapped" most-proximate-cause explanations, family problems, a culture of violence, bullying, peer influences, changing communities, media violence, the copycat effect, and gun availability. Katherine Newman et al. also report insightfully on the aftermath of these tragedies in their towns. There is an important chapter, "Blame and Forgiveness," which talks about the role faith plays in the public mediation of blame and responsibility. All explanations are explored thoughtfully, nothing is dismissed, but Newman et al. effectively argue that clinging to any one of these over-simplifications may be comforting but ultimately contribute to missing the big picture.

After reviewing the details of two particular school shootings, they tell us "there is nothing spontaneous about a rampage school shooting." School shooters, and the rest of us, inhabit complex and dynamic social and institutional worlds: "There are reasons why the shooters don't go out quietly when they decide to address their social dilemmas. They arrive at these tragic solutions after a period of small trials and big errors." From their perspective, solutions lie not in preventative models as much as in risk management models: "...the best bet we have for prevention lies not in trying to identify the people whoa re going to shoot their teachers and classmates- though preventative mental health measures are good policy across the board- but rather on intercepting the flow of information when the threats fly." Solutions have to do with the organization of schools and the relationships between individuals, families, and our institutions. All of this is handled with appropriate humility. The authors never pretend they have it all figured out. They acknowledge that any intervention will meet resistance and may have unpredictable negative consequences. But they certainly do a lot to advance the discussion.

So, guess what. Zero-tolerance policies that preordain overreaction- such as expelling a student for giving a friend an aspirin, instituting punitive penalties for specific language with no regard to context, or gang-marshalling a kid to the psychiatric emergency room instead of allowing them a minute to take space and collect themselves- are counter-productive. It works against fostering a sense of belonging within the school, and it discourages the flow of important information from students to administrators or counselors. It works against a sense of sharing information in good faith.

Improving the sense of trust and connection between kids, families, schools, and communities sounds like an over-simplistic solution. But it isn't. It's as simple or complex as you want to make it, but ultimately it will prove to be a much more effective way to decrease violence than intensifying efforts to label kids as potential sociopaths.

If I had to pick a beef with the authors, I would say that it would have been nice to see more about mental health services in the schools. The authors do endorse this, but it is a brief discussion. I would have wanted it emphasized that kids with trauma histories typically present with anxiety, hypervigilance, irritability, and a tendency to misinterpret social cues. They may react to perceived bullying or intimidation from peers or staff, and the typical "show of force" response to their behaviors will typically increase oppositionality, ultimately making no one safer.

In a brief summary, I can't do justice to a topic that the authors here spend nearly 400 pages discussing. So get the book and read it. I highly recommend this book for reading that is important and serious, but also written at a very accessible level. It manages to be very compelling reading, a hard book to put down, which is quite an accomplishment for such a heavy and heartrending subject.

An in-depth look at two school shooting cases, supplemented by statistics about the trends in school shootings over recent decades. Because each member of this group of sociologists writes his/her own chapter, there is some repetition of information, but the gain in reading each contribution is to understand the multiplicity of factors which coalesce in the shootings. It's not as simple as violent video games, or bullying, or family life, or youth culture, or socioeconomic status, or racism, or academic success. One key factor, among several others, is the tendency of school personnel and community members to overlook children's signs of distress and to give kids the chance to start over in a new year, neglecting to accumulate a historical record of kids' transgressions and thereby succombing to a kind of wishful thinking that kids will turn out okay in the end. So many do, but those who turn violent have escaped the radar of the adult world.

Rampage misses the elephant in the living room.

Although the public schools account for about 85% of the student population in the United States, they represent nearly 100% of the fatal shootings. This is statistically significant and is no accident.

For although the authors fail to mention it, the main reason for this discrepancy is that the public schools are basically amoral. God, prayer, and even american tradition are absent from them.

The separation of church from state has not kept religion out of the public schools. Far from it. Rather amoral secular humanism has become the de facto form of worship there.

Among other things, this has removed much of the inner self restraint that traditionally kept students in line which in turn has lead to school shootings.

This is one of those not bad, but not really good books.
After meeting that most horrible of fates for a woman, being jilted by her fiance, Lucy Richards ( whom I thought was supposed to be strong) abandons her teaching career in west Texas and flees back to her hometown of Bonham, where she hopes to scare up an alternate husband.
Once back home, Lucy frets incessantly about being "an old maid" and contemplates marriage to any one of three admirers, none of whom she loves. But Prince Charming, in the form of Josh Arnold, a west Texas friend, rides to the rescue.
Lucy agrees to marry Josh, seemingly more out of a desire to marry somebody, anybody, than from genuine affection for Josh.
Oddly enough, the rather unlikely couple enjoys a blissful marriage with lots of sex ( described in more detail than some readers may want).
The unrelenting bliss ( but not the sex) lets up a little when the couple relocates to Arkansas, where the whites are bigoted and the blacks "uppity".
The fates of some of the characters is left dangling, to be sort of resolved in the final book of the trilogy.
This book makes for light, pleasant summer reading, but don't expect much depth.

I found & read this book first. Later I found the first in the series, Train to Estaline. They are both very good. I enjoyed reading about Lucy & her family & all their quirks. Enjoy.

I read the first book in the trilogy and picked up A Place Called Sweet Shrub just because the author had killed off so many characters in the first and left much unanswered that I naively thought resolution would come in the sequel. I was wrong. Lucinda had so much going for her in the West Texas hardened by encounters with Christobel and Mrs. Sully that I thought her character would continue to grow. Instead, the book was a grandiose setup for the time displaced rehash of a race riot. The ribald humor was misplaced and characters are killed off haphazardly. I knew not to expect plot resolution, but some motivation would have been appreciated.

It has been three years since Lucy Richards returned from Estelline. Taking over the family hardware store and caring for family has taken her mind off her sister's betrayal and the man she had planned to marry, perhaps too well. Lucy feels that she may be too comfortable, and that life in Bonham may not hold much for her. When Josh Arnold visits Lucy on his way to Sweet Shrub, Arkansas(where he is to read law) he makes it clear in no uncertain terms that he is still interested in Lucy, and that he won't take no for an answer. Lucy discovery that her heart is once again willing to trust combined with Josh's insistance and the impending visit of Lucy's sister and former fiancee, propells Lucy to accept his proposal. Together they move to Sweet Shrub. Just as she had faced change and adversity when she left home to teach, Lucy is faced with a whole new life to claim. She is faced by the prejudices and fears of the townfolk, and must turn to Josh and an inner strength she did not realize she had to survive. This is the second in three books, and is told in a very different way than the first. The author is very skillful in including the events of the early 1900's, impending world war, friction between races and small town dynamics to weave a wonderful story of life in Texas.

"Sweet Shrub" was such a surprise. This book looked like dripy ole' southern novel. BUT...how wrong I was. This book was deep, emotional and I loved the characters. DEEPLY. This is such a great book.....it's clear, enjoyable, and such a pleasant surprise.

"Arkansas Mischief" was written Jim McDougal, the Clintons' Whitewater real-estate partner. The book was co-authored by a Boston Globe reporter.

In this book we find McDougal admitting, "I was put in a position where I might have to lie to protect the president," and in sworn testimony, "I told other lies."

Why would a reporter co-author want to be involved with the autobiography of an admitted liar? The only motive I can think of is to make sure that various stories and events were given the proper "spin" or were covered-up altogether.

The co-author gratuitously offers reasons to doubt McDougal. Footnotes also question whether the author's wife, Susan McDougal, had an affair with Bill Clinton as publicly claimed by McDougal.

But, there are some interesting tidbits that can be gleaned from this book: (1) Whitewater provided a conduit to funnel $2,000 per month to Hillary for services not rendered, and (2) Hillary illegally deducted loan payments made by the Whitewater corporation on the Clinton's personal tax returns.

McDougal, a real estate developer and savings & loan operator (who used his financial institution as a personal piggy bank), died at age 57 in federal prison after being convicted of multiple felonies in connection with obtaining loans and then applying the money to projects other than those covered in the loan applications.

It is only tempered by the shabby treatment that Jim McDougal received not only at the hands of his friend, Bill Clinton, but also long time political ally, Govenor Jim Guy Tucker, Clinton's sucessor. Govenor Tucker, like McDougal, went to jail. Clinton did not & went on to screw many others, figuratively & literally. Bill Clinton's charisma was such that long after it made any sense, McDougal, & especially his wife, Susan retained a great deal of personal affection for the president. Politically, being a "yellow dog" democrat, McDougal could do no less than support both the president & the govenor.
The political stories fronm an Arkansas insider are light & funny. Some universally true about politicas & others peculiar to Arkansas.
The legal morass that McDougal found himself & tries to explain make for rough going in places but these segments are brief. Any good ol' boy or political junkie will like this book. As to the veracity of this book, Mr. McDougal knew he was dying & in fact died before it's publication. Most people do not wish to leave this world with a lie. He had considerable help from Curtis Wilkie, a professional writer, which probably helped him keep it real. Lloyd James' narration made it seem as if it actually was the voice of Jim McDougal.

A very dry, self glorifying effort at expanding his image, Jim McDougal's book is as boorish as the man himself perhaps was. We were saved his testimony in the Grand Jury, perhaps for the better. Truly an old boy who liked to make himself bigger than he really was.

Jim MacDougal has writen a fascinating account of politics, logrolling, and back scratching in a one party Southern state. MacDougal, a fierce populist, detested Hilary's insider trading and other shakey deals that enriched the worst lady during the Reagan/Bush 80s that she castigates for its greed. He also recounts how Clinton's loss in the 1980 Governor's race made him resolve never to lose again and to do whatever it took to win. Thus we had the 1996 election and its campaign finance lawbreaking, orchestrated by Clinton, and carried out by the DNC. After reading this book one is left with the impression that some indictments should have been issued by Ken Starr out of the Little Rock Grand Jury. I think the co-author should look into MacDougal's death. Some inmates at the prison have claimed that he was denied medicine. He died in solitary confinement, ending up there because he couldn't urinate on demand for a drug test. Another FOB has taken the dirt nap.

Curtis Wilkie's name appears in smaller case type below that of Jim McDougal's on the cover, but there should be no doubt in any reader's mind that without Wilkie's dogged pursuit of the truth and his well-honed journalist's credentials this would be just another publisher's attempt to capitalize on the Clinton scandalmongering machine. Fortunately, Wilkie successfully navigates McDougal's obfuscations and produces a fascinating account of McDougal's sad life and role in one of the late-20th century's seminal political events. Required reading for anyone interested in southern-or national-politics.

Strange Valley was a fun read, and it goes fast, which is probably a good thing, because I'd hate to think I spent too much time on this one. It's got an interesting premise, but it fails to expand much beyond the premise. Character motivations are paper-thin and seem too often to just be a thinly disguised extension of the author's feelings with no logical grounding in the plot. And sure, it's fun to see someone taking a few pot shots at neo-conservative Christian mentalities, but hey, it doesn't always drive the book forward. And the sexual liberalism scenes, particularly the final one where the main characters are celebrating their success, come off as just some ridiculous throw-back to the 60s. Like something out of an Austin Powers spoof. Can you say campy?

Census Bureau career civil servant Harry Beales is stunned with the data that reflects Masterville in the Arkansas Ozarks. The small town contains no measurable crime, a much greater than average life-span, no international business chains as everything is locally owned, no federal money is received not even Medicare or Pell Grants, the marriage rate is very low, but offspring very high and no major religion has taken hold. However, the oddest fact is that these trends can be traced back to the Civil War.

Harry's findings reach NSA; they become concerned with this oddity in the center of the Bible Belt especially since the objective of the President of the United States is to imbue Christian family values as the Bill of Rights. NSA field agents Daniel Stenning and Shirley Rostervick are sent to Masterville to uncover and destroy this heretical conspiracy in the middle of the United States that the POTUS and the NSA believe is the biggest threat to national security since the wall fell.

Using hyperbole to highlight the extreme of the fundamentalist religious right movement, Darrell Bain provides a powerful political thriller. The story line showcases a central government that feels so strongly in the end state of Christian based federalism that it leads the people to a restrictive faith in which the means to get there do not matter. This includes beating the bushes to thwart a small town whose residents are living together in harmony as that is not necessarily a pious life style. This reviewer kept thinking of the bane imposed on Rushdie as this strong thriller with a powerful message leaves readers to ponder what is right. Darrell Bain has written a fabulous eye-opening tale.

Harriet Klausner

Premise: The United States has an ultra-conservative, fundamentalist Christian ex-preacher as a President, and he gets upset with a Census Bureau analyst discovers that Masterville, Arkansas and the surrounding valley features a population that is markedly non-religious and features few marriages and many voters registered as Independents. The President chooses to overlook many of the other statistical anomalies in this valley: very low crime rate, very low usage of government funding, high life expectancy, large number of children, low unemployment, high percentage of intact families (even if the parents seldom are married), low divorce rate. The President only sees a valley of citizens who are not religious and who did not vote for him. His response: send in the National Security Agency to investigate the Godless mutants!

The N.S.A. sends in Shirley Rostervik and Daniel Stenning, who quickly find that Masterville is a great place to live. There is no apparent conspiracy, and no hint of danger to the national security. But, Masterville is quite different, in a positive and quite intriguing manner. It is definitely worth investigating, for intellectual curiosity, but not a place that is dangerous.

As the President and the Director of the N.S.A. continue to not find the conspiracy they are convinced is there, they escalate their efforts to ferret out what surely be a government-threatening rebellion in the making.

It eventually comes out that one of the N.S.A. agents is one of "them" (a Godless free-loving mutant), and begins to look at resigning from the N.S.A. and taking up residence in Masterville. The N.S.A. helps him make up his mind, through very direct and unpleasant means, and the agent is plunged into the true secret of Masterville. Is that secret a threat to national security, or a boon to all Humankind?

This is a very fast-paced thriller with a science-fiction component. It is definitely a page-turner, and I enjoyed reading it. Mr. Bain knows how to turn out an entertaining tale. But, there are several flaws that, for me, cost the story one of the five stars it could have earned, and came close to costing it another star.

There were several sex scenes that seemed unnecessarily explicit to me. The social mores of the valley had to be communicated to the reader, but I felt that the level of detail given was excessive. Robert Heinlein depicted similar attitudes and relationships in "Stranger in a Strange Land" or "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" without need of the play-by-play account given in "Strange Valley."

The extremes of the politicians in Washington, D.C. and of the residents of the valley are so polarized, that I could not identify with either one, and I think that many readers will be in the same situation. All of the "good (valley) guys" were caricatures, with no significant flaws, and all of the "bad (government) guys" were corrupt, rigid, narrow-minded, and authoritarian, with few redeeming qualities. In essence, only Shirley Rostervik came off as a fairly rounded, three-dimension character. "Strange Valley" thus ends up sharing that trait of Extreme-A-versus-Extreme-B that can also be found in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged."

"Strange Valley" shares another flaw with "Atlas Shrugged": they both needed better editing. I'm talking about words with missing letters, sentences with missing words, and instances of mis-chosen words (e.g., "they" instead of "the").

The "science" component of "science-fiction" is also not well-explained here. The author covers this by having the genius behind the science be so caught up in his jargon that he cannot explain it in lay terms. The reader finally gets some idea of the science being described, but it was enough for me to buy the concepts.

So, after all these complaints, why still four stars? With a sufficient dose of suspension-of-disbelief, and an ability to overlook weak editing, "Strange Valley" is still a very fun read.

An entertaining story as far as that goes, but the numerous grammatical errors and misuse of words ruined it for me.

Numerous time I found myself re-reading long, poorly worded, compound sentences trying to figure out what was meant.

And the frequent misuse of the word "rouge" was embarrassing. At lease three time he used that word where he meant "rogue". It is a bit hard to keep oneself immersed in a story when you read about "rouge agents" of the NSA.

Darrel Bain has come up with many entertaining story ideas but he needs to take some writing classes or get a good editor.

Only a few of Masterville's citizens are aware of the anomalies and uniqueness of their behaviors and lifestyle, but with the NSA sending agents to investigate them and their valley will they have time to find the cause and prove they are not aliens, monsters, or a threat?

Harry Beales' work in the Census office is routine if not boring, until he comes across some unusual findings about the small town of Masterville.

NSA Agent, Daniel Stenning, is a bit confused by the NSA's interest in a small town on the Arkansas, Missouri borders. Why are a few unusual statistics and lifestyle choices considered a threat to national security?

When he arrives in the valley with his partner, Shirley, who is posing as his wife on this assignment, he finds a back-in-the-fifties, clean town, and Lisa. The minute she opens
the door of the B&B where Shirley and Daniel are registered for their stay in Masterville, the attraction between Daniel and Lisa is obvious. Impossible to hide, impossible to fight.
Daniel has no desire to fight it, and begins to suspect he has a lot in common with the unique residents of this pleasant valley town.

Someone else has discovered Daniels similarities to the valley residents too, and he finds himself marked as a target by the agency he used to work for.

Daniel must work with Tyrone and the Masterville council and prove they offer no threat before powerful and corrupt government officials use terrorist tactics to wipe out a small part of the homeland.

Darrell Bain keeps the questions and suspense flowing through the action packed pages of Strange Valley. Thought provoking, this story stirs the imagination with what may at times seem exaggerated and extreme, but then, the extreme and those who err on the side of it is where the danger lies.

Robert Mezey has been a consistent voice in contemporary American lyric poetry. His "Collected Poems" bear this out; he develops seamlessly, apparently effortlessly. His lovely "Evening Wind" (also reprinted on the book jacket), and "Slow Sonnet" show the master poet. The poems unfold before us. Mezey has a consummate sense of imagery, timing, meaning; contained by the pace and form of a poem. A lovely book!

Robert Mezey has been a consistent lyric voice in American poetry. His Collected poems bear this out. The lovely "Evening Wind, " the "Slow Sonnet," and many others in the volume demonstrate the consummate feeling that infuse his poems. Mezey combines intense and careful perceptions with a great sense of pace and form. His poems unfold before one. A lovely book!

There is no doubt of Mezey's expertise in poetry. He has edited the definitive editions of both Thomas Hardy's and E.A. Robinson's work. And the man knows more about poetry than most people. But I found his own work to be uneven. The Collected Poems contains some good poetry, and as a whole it is an enjoyable read. But there were sections of the book that didn't seem up to par with the rest. I especially found the clerihews, couplets, and 'prose and cons' to be weak, and they invaded (a little) some of the other sections. Light verse is a joy to read, and a valuable form of poetry, but it seemed to me that Mezey didn't take them serious enough (no pun intended) to make them come off successful. But the first half of the collection I found to be really good. Mezey's Collected Poems is, overall, a good collection, and one worth reading.

Stop the Hate


Though dishonorably discharged from the US Army during the Korean Conflict, and though expelled from Franklin & Marshall College in 1965, after having urged his students to burn their draft cards, Robert Mezey has matured into a conservative of sorts, a neo-kahn, if you will. And his poetry mirrors these developments. He no longer writes the amorphous and utterly forgettable free verse of his youth, but has redefined himself as a formalist, whose greatest poetic achievements are translations from the Spanish of Jorge Luis Borges, translations that the great Argentinean bard's widow found unworthy of the originals, but which Mr. Mezey has published in this volume as imitations anyway.

He writes plenty of sonnets now and occasional exercises in other forms, where he ultimately finds a way to show his contempt and hatred for the people who tamed and built America, the same people who magnanimously opened their arms to his forefathers when they fled Europe's shetls with, no doubt, tears in their eyes.

"I make a lot of money and I have a perfect tan;
I wear Armani clothing, I'm a very fancy Dan;
I've dominated women ever since the world began---
Yes, I'm phallocentric, logocentric, Eurocentric Man!"


From "Eurocentric Rag"


Like the late Anthony Hecht, whose villains always have blue eyes and blond hair, Mr Mezey is not very good at hiding his hate.

Mr.Mezey has been for years an acknowledged expert in the poetry of some of the greats, having edited the collections of Thomas Hardy, Edwin A.Robinson and others. It's refreshing to read some original work by someone who is a great editor/collector of the work of others. Here is a favorite (about Hardy): 'Thrown away at birth, he was delivered/Plucked from the swaddling shroud, then chafed and slapped/The crone implacable. At last he shivered/Drew the first breath, and howled and lay there trapped/In a world from which there is but one escape/ And that forestalled now almost ninety years./In such a scene as he himself might shape,/The maker of a thousand songs appears./ From this it follows, all the ironies/Life plays on one whose fate it is to follow/The way of things, the suffering one sees,/ The many cups of bitterness he must swallow/Before he is permitted to be gone/Where he was headed in that early dawn.

Get this book. Enjoy it. Compare his efforts to Stanley Kunitz, Richard Wilbur, Timothy Steele,Dana Gioia, Gjertrud Schanckenburg, Rhina Espaillat and see how he stacks up against the best of the best alive and rhyming today.

i tried to like this collection, i really did. it came highly recommended to me by a poet that i respect and whose work i like. but stokesbury just couldn't impress me. most of his poems were confusing, rambling, and just weren't coherent. there were a few clever poems, and "Evening's End" is a great poem, definately his best. the collection is weak, but this poem alone makes it worthy to pick up a copy. and you'll find a few other gems in the collection.

Autumn Rhythm is the co-winner of the 1997 Poets' Prize. Stokesbury will share this year's award with Sydney Lea.

Leon Stokesbury is one of the most original poets now writing in America. This collection, gathered from thirty years of work, ranges from sonnets to surrealism. I have written at length on this collection, and the review is forthcoming in THE HUDSON REVIEW.

Chatty,self-involved, too clever by half, these poems are trying to playfully approach serious subjects, but he can't quite get there. Stokesbury seems a poignant example of our involuted poetry culture.

Written by noted Western author Glenn Shirley in 1957, this book is not up to the standards of his more recent works. Shirley depends extensively on other books, and unfortunately, his book contains a large number of errors. Sure is fun to read, but if you are interested in Judge Parker and the Fort Smith court, read 'Hell on the Border' instead. Leave this one to hollywood....

This book cobbles together accounts from policy makers and the popular press seeking to show that Indian country was a lawless place, with Judge Parker and the federal marshalls as the slim line between law and anarchy. The account utterly ignores the reality in Indian country and works mightily to justify the actions of a man for whom, apparently, the accusation was enough to make you guilty. The book does, however, compile some interesting sources not found elsewhere, including a description of each of the 79 men Judge Parker hanged, the battle between Parker and the Supreme Court which continually reversed Parker, and the statements of some of the Indian defendants on their views of federal justice. The evident desire of the author to celebrate Parker and the court rather than objectively examine his record, however, fatally taints the entire work.

I bought this book at he Ft Smith Court House museum because my Great Grandfather rode for Parker. I was expecting information about the bad deeds of many of the desperados but I was pleasantly surprised to find additionally a comprehensive treatment of the legal aspects of Parker's tenure. As Glenn Shirley effectively documents, the Judge Parker known and respected by the citizens of Arkansas and the Indian Nations is a far cry from the one created by the Eastern press and the monied interests (including Congressmen) of the East. This book will provide the reader with a very balanced approach to what Parker saw as the rights of the victim and community with the rights of the accused. And as Shirley clearly points out Parker may have gone too far sometimes but early on extreme measures were needed.

The body of the book covers many of the best known cases to be covered in Parker's court but also provides appendices on each and every person that Parker sentenced to hang (including those that were commuted, pardoned, reversed and acquitted). Byron Dobbs, a second generation lawyer that practiced law in Ft Smith for 40 years, provided a lawyer's appraisal of the Parker Court a number of years ago for the "Ft Smith Historical Journal". He wrote:

Parker was given the near impossible task of providing justice between the white men and the Indian. The disgrace arose out of the failure of the U.S. and Congress to appropriately prevent intrusion upon the Indian land and in permitting such carnage as to result in the great number of murder trails and then Parker was condemned in the halls of Congress for imposing the only penalty authorized by Congress. Parker's accomplishments stand as a monument to law and order achieved under the most trying circumstances.

Shirley's book simply and effectively documents these accomplishments.

This is a very easy book to read. Not at all like a history book...but it is! It thoroughly tells the tales of the infamous characters that came through Judge Parker's (the hanging judge) court. It tells of the founding of Ft. Smith and the frustrations Judge Parker had to endure to tame the Indian territory around Ft. Smith utilitizing his marshalls and deputies from the likes of Belle Starr and the Daltons. I recommend it to all interested in the history of the west.

If you doubt that too much education can be a bad thing, read this book. Utter garbage from a Clinton sycophant.

Does everyone have stacks of magazines lying around, meaning to excise treasured articles and send them to friends or to one's own archives? You cannot always plan on purchasing a collection in book form later by subject or author. Not that many essayists or columnists have enough worthy articles to publish in a collection. Certainly Russell Baker, Calvin Trillin, and Mike Royko, are available, but they are humorists. I was in law school at the University of Texas at Austin about twenty years ago when I first read some of Gene Lyons' work in Texas Monthly and Harper's magazines. Somewhere I have copies or clippings, as I remember sending some to friends, and particularly to my younger brother who was on his way to seeking a career in academia. I was therefore delighted to find out that this collection was available. Mr. Lyons is seen occasionally on the political talk shows, especially recently in the ongoing saga of Kenneth Starr's investigation of all things Arkansan. He is a reporter/writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Salon magazine, one of the new "on-line" magazines. I re-read with pleasure some of the essays I remembered from years ago, particularly "Why Teachers Can't Teach" and "The Higher Illiteracy", along with some I had not encountered before. The two familiar ones were every bit as entertaining and insightful as I remembered. When parents complain about ignorant and unskilled teachers, even in expensive private schools, and when I hear stories about accomplished and dedicated teachers who are struggling against the odds for tenure in the universities and colleges, I cannot help thinking of Gene Lyons' articles. His witty characterizations about academicians are memorable-I remember laughing out loud at one or two in particular when I originally read the article "The Higher Illiteracy". I laughed out loud again. Too bad "educators" and college administrators are unlikely ever to understand sincerely what Lyons so keenly observed and reported on so many years ago. Or is it possible that they know what the problems are, but will not act? Briefly, the trouble with teachers in the public schools is that they are trained in abstract "concepts" and mostly worthless "educational theory", usually little more than memorized terminology or "methodology". The insufferable jargon of "educators" that Wilson Follett, (in Modern American Usage, published thirty years ago) called "Educationese" is bad enough. But the real scandal of schools of education at public universities is an open secret to those who have any experience or exposure to them. I first discovered the inanity of it all when I picked up a "manual" issued by the Education Department at a major state university intended for master's candidates writing their theses. Unfortunately, it is not just precision in language that is the problem. Most education graduates lack solid training and even basic familiarity with the subject matter they are to teach, or are simply ignorant. The rare exceptions are people with advanced degrees who do not succeed in finding permanent college level positions, but are dedicated to teaching such that they go through the education school certification process and, one hopes, end up teaching high school, without having been poisoned while undergoing the process. Some of these people, by the way, were almost certainly passed over for tenure in favor of others for considerations other than the merits of their teaching or their enthusiasm, or even their scholarly achievements. Coincidentally, but tragically, in the universities, teaching underclassmen is frowned upon by the academic stars of the faculty. These tenured faculty members do research, and teach only a handful of graduate students, while preparing erudite and scholarly (but not necessarily well written) articles for academic journals that no one reads. Lyons is not a reactionary--he admires some contemporary literature and praises some simple "popular" fiction that is entertaining and worthy. So it is not as if he is just bemoaning that college students do not receive liberal educations these days, or that many of today's writers turn out trash, and poorly written trash. Lyons passionately believes that society should not be providing sinecures for pedants who think teaching freshman English is beneath their rarified fields of "research". He also apparently believes that literature need not be elitist. I would love to know more about what writers he admires, and why. I also would have liked the author to offer some more observations or a general critique of academic writing style, but just the two essays on academia and teachers are worth the price of this handsome paperback book. Some of the others, such as on modern writers' disdain for realistic and readable fiction, are equally valuable. After reading this fine collection, I am looking forward to a book just announced by this author, on the "hunting" of President Clinton.

Does everyone have stacks of magazines lying around, meaning to excise treasured articles and send them to friends or to one's own archives? You cannot always plan on purchasing a collection in book form later by subject or author. Not that many essayists or columnists have enough worthy articles to publish in a collection. Certainly Russell Baker, Calvin Trillin, and Mike Royko, are available, but they are humorists.

I was in law school at the University of Texas at Austin about twenty years ago when I first read some of Gene Lyons' work in Texas Monthly and Harper's magazines. Somewhere I have copies or clippings, as I remember sending some to friends, and particularly to my younger brother who was on his way to seeking a career in academia. I was therefore delighted to find out that this collection was available.

Mr. Lyons is seen occasionally on the political talk shows, especially recently in the ongoing saga of Kenneth Starr's investigation of all things Arkansan. He is a reporter/writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Salon magazine, one of the new "on-line" magazines. I re-read with pleasure some of the essays I remembered from years ago, particularly "Why Teachers Can't Teach" and "The Higher Illiteracy", along with some I had not encountered before.

The two familiar ones were every bit as entertaining and insightful as I remembered. When parents complain about ignorant and unskilled teachers, even in expensive private schools, and when I hear stories about accomplished and dedicated teachers who are struggling against the odds for tenure in the universities and colleges, I cannot help thinking of Gene Lyons' articles. His witty characterizations about academicians are memorable-I remember laughing out loud at one or two in particular when I originally read the article "The Higher Illiteracy". I laughed out loud again. Too bad "educators" and college administrators are unlikely ever to understand sincerely what Lyons so keenly observed and reported on so many years ago. Or is it possible that they know what the problems are, but will not act?

Briefly, the trouble with teachers in the public schools is that they are trained in abstract "concepts" and mostly worthless "educational theory", usually little more than memorized terminology or "methodology". The insufferable jargon of "educators" that Wilson Follett, (in Modern American Usage, published thirty years ago) called "Educationese" is bad enough. But the real scandal of schools of education at public universities is an open secret to those who have any experience or exposure to them. I first discovered the inanity of it all when I picked up a "manual" issued by the Education Department at a major state university intended for master's candidates writing their theses.

Unfortunately, it is not just precision in language that is the problem. Most education graduates lack solid training and even basic familiarity with the subject matter they are to teach, or are simply ignorant. The rare exceptions are people with advanced degrees who do not succeed in finding permanent college level positions, but are dedicated to teaching such that they go through the education school certification process and, one hopes, end up teaching high school, without having been poisoned while undergoing the process. Some of these people, by the way, were almost certainly passed over for tenure in favor of others for considerations other than the merits of their teaching or their enthusiasm, or even their scholarly achievements.

Coincidentally, but tragically, in the universities, teaching underclassmen is frowned upon by the academic stars of the faculty. These tenured faculty members do research, and teach only a handful of graduate students, while preparing erudite and scholarly (but not necessarily well written) articles for academic journals that no one reads.

Lyons is not a reactionary--he admires some contemporary literature and praises some simple "popular" fiction that is entertaining and worthy. So it is not as if he is just bemoaning that college students do not receive liberal educations these days, or that many of today's writers turn out trash, and poorly written trash. Lyons passionately believes that society should not be providing sinecures for pedants who think teaching freshman English is beneath their rarified fields of "research". He also apparently believes that literature need not be elitist.

I would love to know more about what writers he admires, and why. I also would have liked the author to offer some more observations or a general critique of academic writing style, but just the two essays on academia and teachers are worth the price of this handsome paperback book. Some of the others, such as on modern writers' disdain for realistic and readable fiction, are equally valuable. After reading this fine collection, I am looking forward to a book just announced by this author, on the "hunting" of President Clinton.

Isn't it amusing to see right-wingers trying to dis people like Gene Lyons?

The only reason I didn't rate this book any higher is because the earlier essays are obviously the product of a man who, though talented, was still learning his craft. His essential artistry had yet to be fully honed in the 1970s.

His essays are especially important today, with the "liberal media" myth propounded by well-financed right-winger propagandists (indeed, a study by the journalism watchdog group FAIR showed that most journalists are wealthier and more conservative than their audience members) and the Murdoch-Moonie Times cabal.