Arizona Books

Don't expect science fiction. And don't enter into this because of the fascinating description of the game for immortality: it is explained in no more detail than as described in the synopsis. What this novel from Silverberg does offer, rather unexpectedly, is a quartet of intriguing character studies. The four young college students who set out on this expedition are examined in such astounding detail that they are given an authenticity unrivaled by any other characters I have encountered. Though seeming stereotypical at first glance, a Jew, a homosexual, a farm-boy, and a blueblood, each personality contains much deeper elements and motivations than in any literature I've read. Partially, this is due to the graphic, and at times horrifying experiences that make up their pasts. No detail is spared here; the prudish and faint of heart will likely find themselves repulsed. What prompted my average review, however, is something of a product of my own expectation, though it is fostered by the novel's description. I was searching for a story of the quest for immortality and the ultimate culmination of this search in some form of success or failure. While this element of the plot is indeed fulfilled, it is vastly inferior to the four characterizations that make up this work. To be truthful, they are superb characterizations, but this is simply not what drew me to the novel in the first place and sparked my interest.

3 stars for an admirable display of skill in the portrayal of these four young men, but not nearly enough time was devoted to the fascinating concept of a search for life everlasting.

Blood and Rain
Blood for the Masses

The Book of Skulls
By
Robert Silverberg

Reviewed by
B.L.Morgan


Novel
5 Daggers of Death

What would you be willing to do to live forever?

Four college students are asked this question and take a mystical journey to a forgotten temple called The House of Skulls in the Southwestern Desert. The answers each one of then find in this temple are devastating.

Make no mistake about it The Book of Skulls is a very powerful novel. After reading this book you might be examining your own motivations for the choices you've made in your life. I've never read anything like this book anywhere else and I don't expect to read anything like this ever again.

Told in the first person by four different characters, the structure alone of this novel is fascinating. Writers should read this one just to see how Robert Silverberg put this book together. The most important aspect though was the realism of the characters and the situation they are in.

On the spine The Book of Skulls was labeled as Science Fiction. There was no way this novel was science fiction, not even close. The front cover blurb called it a Dark Fantasy. That's closer but still no cigar. I would call this book a Dark Drama with violent consequences. Usually I don't like dramas. Silverberg makes this drama entrancing.

I highly recommend The Book of Skulls to anyone who wants to experience a novel unlike anything you'll find anywhere else.

So, what would you do to live forever? Remember, the price for immortality is very expensive.

The answers you find may not be to your liking and living forever may not be worth the cost.

Afternote:
As was reported in Sinesteria Volume 1, Issue 2, The Book Of Skulls is being made into a movie with William Freidkin as the director. If the movie is true at all to the book it will be an extremely good movie. I'll be waiting to check that one out.

I bought this book because I thought it was horror. When I read the back and saw it was classified as SF I was a little leary. I don't think it's horror or SF. I see it as a piece of fiction that delves into four very different personalities, how they interact with each other, how they examine their own personal demons. This is definitely a book I want to read again!

I found this book among some SF and Fantasy books being thrown out for trash and am really glad I saved it. Though presented and packaged as a dime novel mass market popular paperback, the work is deserving of high literary merit and probably should be taught in literature classes where character study and symbolism are main themes.
Silverberg's scharacter developement of the four college boys who have discovered directions to an Arizona cult that can grant immortality is astounding. Parts of the story are told from the first person viewpoints of each of the four questers, and as in Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" each section has a distinct style and train of thought in order to effectively describe the different personalities of each of them. Knowing that in order to complete the ritual, one of the companions must be murdered and another must commit suicide, the thought processes of the companions become exceedingly intricate as the story unfolds.
The most obvious symbolism in the book is stated by analogy when the tracking of a wild beast by primitive hunters is described. The four companions are, essentially, a War Chief, a Political Chief, a Witchdoctor, and a Court Jester. They are tracking a wild beast across a vast landscape, and this beast is symbolic not only of immortality but also of an ideal civilization. The interaction between the four adventurers is an analogy to the relationship, communication, and strife between different factions of government.
Incredibly profound, hypnotically interesting, and with an ending that will blindside even the most astute reader, The Book of Skulls is indeed a novel worthy of cannonization. I am exceedingly happy to see it back in print!

I first read this book when it came out (I was in high school). I was profoundly affected by it then, and it still hits the spot today. So glad it is finally available again after such a long time. Probably Silverberg's best work, and a quick and easy read, whether the first time or the 8th. A great psychological exploration of 4 separate characters told in first person by each. Probably my favorite book of all time.

I've just finished Marks' book and was very impressed. The readers who will most appreciate the book are those with a researcher's heart, who aren't looking for simple good and bad, right or wrong but simply wanting to sift through as much of the available information as possible in one place and come to their own conclusions. For those who have already made up their minds about the characters involved, find a different book that suits what you wish to see.

As with any historical event with multiple witnesses, there are a lot of contradictions in the stories given. Marks sifts through the various versions, gives the readers the facts of who recounted what and also ties together information to let the reader have a better idea what might be true or not. For example, if one person is supposed to have killed another and this information is from hearsay sources, she will offer what other factual evidence is known to let the reader know that this event is likely to have happened or unlikely to have happened (as in one case where the story had someone killed three years before another event they were known to have been involved in actually happened).

Having read the entire book, I don't see the claims made by some other reviewers that the book attempts to be politically correct, but politics does play a part in helping explain how different factions chose sides. Marks lays out the local politics that helped to split the town. The Earps are not presented as good, bad or indifferent. They, and the other cast of characters are presented as people, with their own goals, their own agendas and those agendas are not presented as either good or bad. This is a story of people in a time and place where the common rules for living together that we take for granted in today's modern civilization were still in the process of being developed. The events of the book appear to be scrupulously researched and documented. An outstanding book that doesn't tell you what you want to hear either way, but instead tells you what was said, what others reported happened and then tries to lay out what most likely happened based upon all the evidence available. For those who say that the book is derivative, the nature of the book is that Marks has taken what is available on the people and the events, tells where the information comes from and makes no assumptions that the stories told to those biographers were 100% accurate and true. She compiles the information and lays it out in such a way that the reader can make his/her own decision.

I have received and commenced reading this story. After going through the first 50 pages of the hard-to-let-go narrative, I am inclined to say that the topic is very well-researched and written by the author - Prof. Paula. Many books and movies have been produced about this ugly confrontation in the frontier days of United States. Each seems to claim that its version is more authentic than the others. But result speaks for itself and the reader at large is the best judge of this abbreation in American history. The gunfight and subsequent death of several cowboys were inevitable given the chaotic and gun-totting period and the final showdown or shoot up in the OK Corral reflected the conditions and society of that time.
Wyatt Earp and his two brothers including the former's sidekick Doc. Holliday were determined to take law into their hands when they shot Bill Clanton and McLaury brothers. The feuding group reached its tensionable climax at OK Corral showdown could not be avoided and both parties insisted that they were right and other was wrong. For the book it provides all the evidence and background development until the shootout. As for the movie, I think the best was TOMBSTONE. I highly recommend this book and the movie to all readers of Amazon.com...so go for them while the stock lasts. Thanks.

I strongly recommend this book. It is not only about the infamous gunfight. It also covers the political and economic conditions that led up to the incident and the events that followed. The actual gunfight, which does not occur until the middle of the book, was part of a larger picture of the times. Marks has done a great job. My only complaint, and it is not really a complaint as much as a comment, is the lack of a photograph of Wyatt Earp's wife Josephine Marcus. Many of the other players covered in the book, both major and minor, are shown. But Marcus is curiously absent.

When I began reading this book, I was quite favorably impressed. The author had obviously done her homework and wrote widely about all manner of happenings in the early west and about the Earps' early days. Gradually, however, I noted that she was cherry picking her facts and was choosing her words quite carefully so as to depict the Earps, in general, and Wyatt Earp, in particular, in the worst possible light. It occurred to me that she must be setting them up to be the villains of the piece when she finally got around to the subject of the book, "The Gunfight at the OK Corral." As I continued to read, I looked forward to seeing if this would prove to be the case. I was not disappointed.

It was hard for me to believe but, in spite of her apparently extensive research, the author had somehow concluded that the Earp brothers were the cause of the problems in Tombstone, and (if I understand what she wrote and I read) that they initiated the action at the corral. She even went so far as to hypothesize a number of scenarios, leading up to that event, all of which reflected badly on Wyatt Earp, his brothers, and Doc Holliday. Strangely enough, however, although she had inadvertently set the stage for an even more likely scenario, she failed to mention it. I refer to the fact that, a number of pages earlier, she had quoted Ike Clanton as telling Wyatt Earp that if his associates ever became aware of the fact that he had conspired with Earp to capture three stage robbers, his life wouldn't be worth a plugged nickel.

What, then, would a cowardly Ike Clanton do when faced with the possibility that that information was, or was about to become, known? Of course: he would get drunk and go on the warpath against the Earps, which is exactly what he did. Add to this the fact that several of Ike's friends and associates, including his younger brother, just happened to arrive in town shortly after his widely known threats and the stage was set for a deadly confrontation largely based on a serious misunderstanding. In this scenario, Ike Clanton, by his threats and blustering tirade, would inadvertently have caused the gunfight at the OK Corral. This, to me, is a real possibility.

But with regard to the Earps and their reputation: does this author seriously believe that men who had been law officers in Wichita and Dodge City over a period of years, with minimal blood shed and with stellar reputations, would suddenly become outlaws? And does she seriously believe that a sickly dentist, who had made his living as a gambler, would all of a sudden decide to become a stage robber? A more likely scenario is that the "Democrats," as she termed them, i.e., those opposed to law and order in Tombstone, would use the same approach that Democrats use today. The best defense being a good offense, they would simply accuse the Earps of doing what they, themselves, were doing. Which is exactly what they did. Furthermore, if one considers the Earp brothers friends and associates, and their accomplishments over the years, as opposed Sheriff Behan's friends, associates, and posse members, Curly Bill Brocius, Ike Clanton, John Ringo, etc., one must conclude that the Earps, although flawed in many respects, acted in accordance with the law and that Sheriff Behan was either an outlaw; an associate of outlaws; or was somehow beholden to them, possibly for voting him into office.

So, although I found this book to be interesting in many respects, I find the author to be on the wrong side of the fence. And I can't help but wonder: How could someone seemingly know so much and understand so little. (For a better read, try "Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp" by Steven Lubet, "Famous Gun Fighters of the Western Frontier" by Bat Masterson, "The O.K. Corral Inquest" by Alford E. Turner, "Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend" by Casey Tefertiller, "The Earps of Tombstone" by Douglas D. Martin, "The Tombstone Story" by John Myers Myers, or Tombstone's Epitaph" by Douglas D. Martin.")

If you want tall, rangy, squint-eyed men in dusters standing in the center of the street at high-noon, go elsewhere. If you want some real information on what the old west was like including the nitty-gritty of Republican vs. Democrat as a part of the troubles in Tombstone, this is the place.

I've read a biography of Wyatt Earp and several articles from various sources on this topic prior to reading Paula Mitchell Marks book. I wish I'd come here first. There's more good information (well documented too) packed into each page than you're likely to find in other sources. She doesn't just tell the story of the Earps, Clantons, Mclaury's and Doc Holliday (not to leave out Ringo & Curly Bill and all the rest), but sets the scene, showing what kind of society these people were operating within as part of a mining town in the old west.

Best of all, the author doesn't take a side. She's not out to paint anyone as a villain or saint. Therefore we're presented with both sides in their full glory, warts and all. Yes, the Earps were, to a degree, duly appointed wardens of the law. They were also gamblers, grifters and probably confidence men, not to mention thugs. Yes, the cowboys were rustlers and hell-raisers. They were also hard working cattle-men providing a service to the community. Both groups may or may not have been stage coach robbers. Each group broke down on party lines showing a fractious American political landscape not too discimilar to our own (although ours involves a bit less gun play). She even outlines how the treatment of the Apaches in the area played a part in the atmosphere and attitudes.

I enjoyed this book and I can recommend it if you're looking for a good set of information about the old west in general and the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Riding between the worlds did exactly that, took you between the world of the horse and human. I finished the book in one sitting it was that engrossing to me. Thanks again for another wonderfully written book.

Required reading! She describes people she's healed and how the horses in her equine assisted psychotherapy help clients hearts to heal the way they did ours when we were kids. It also talks about the deep and painful losses of our horses that were taken from us. Other adults have had the exact same experiences that seem to symobolize our parents robot menatilty to take away our childhood.

Though overall this book is too "new age" for my taste, I believe Ms. Kohanov probably does a tremendous amount of good pairing horses with people and solving inner or repressed emotional conflicts at her ranch in Tucson, and in the clinics she presents. I found the examples she sited very believable for both horse and person, and truly believe horses can heal emotional wounds. I very much agree "it is never JUST a horse!" Horses reveal our deepest secrets and conflicts, they sense these before we even can give them words. I liked, and I promptly employed, the technique of telling my horses things about my life that I believe make me similar to each one. The horse always listens, and the verbalization is good for both. This book adds understanding to our relationship with horses by making the reader more aware of what the horse "knows" or senses immediately about us, and thus makes us more open to the horse.

I bought this book simply because Amazon advertised it to me and it had good reviews. It obviously makes a connection to certain type of people (presumably "extreme sensitives") but it didn't do much for me. I found it hard to work out who the author was actually writing for. She didn't provide insights to assist troubled people, so clearly you have to actually attend her therapy program to benefit from her knowledge. Nor did she detail what she does in her therapy with horses, so you are left wondering exactly what is happening in the round yard. I suppose if you are on the inside (ie part of the horse-assisted therapy community) this book will mean more to you than it did to me. I tried to have an open mind but sorry, I ended the book not feeling at all convinced that horses are somehow in tune with the real meaning of life just like yogis.

When I saw the beautiful cover of this book, and the intriguing title, I couldn't wait to read it. It promised mysteries and a wild ride into the unknown. Actually, the riding is transformative. The author overcomes a destructive marriage to find her way back to life through her interactions with some very wonderful, talented, compassionate and truly honest animals. A lifetime of fascination with, and interaction with horses leads her into an astonishing field of work, using members of her herd as therapy animals, in the treatment of trauma victims and people with emotional problems.

There is so much to this book that resonates, for anyone who has ever ridden a horse, or wanted to, or just enjoys watching them. Some of the stories are just inspirational. There is a wonderful section in which her beloved mare, Rasa, prematurely foals, and a community of helpers keep the young horse warm with body heat and take turns milking his dam so he can nurse. What a fantastic story.

Some of the horses are stories themselves. There's Noche, the abused horse, who is tender and kind with abuse victims. There is Merlin, a disturbed stallion, who finds love. There is Rasa, a powerful empath and spiritual guide.

I kept waiting for the book to turn New Age-y, but it's not preachy at all. This is one woman's journey that touches and heals. I won't look at horses the same way again.

Okay. I don't understand why someone with a nickname like "writergrrrl" would be so easily offended. Maybe her nickname should be "delicategrrrl"--whatever. On to the book: the stories in here are wild, funny, and oddly touching. There's something moving and poignant in each one.

Once in a blue moon, I come across a book so good it makes me proud to be a writer myself. (The rest of the time I daydream about what it would be like to be a filmmaker or architect instead.) Naked Pueblo is just such a book. Poirier is a comic genius, an in-your-face, no-holds barred, two-fisted, hairy-chested, s__t-kickin' chronicler of all that is most hilariously sick and twisted in 21st-century American dirtball culture. If Salinger emerges from his bunker long enough to sire a love child on Mary Gaitskill, Larry Brown delivers the baby, and Rick Bass performs the circumcision, the result might just be someone like Mark Jude Poirier. If we're lucky.

I haven't reviewed a book in a long time, but I thought that this was so bad, I just couldn't let it go unsaid. On the back of my paperback edition is a blurb from Esquire that terms it a "...throw-everything-in-and-shake-it-up short story collection..." That sums it up exactly, and as so often happens when you throw everything in and shake it up, what comes out is kind a of flavorless, colorless mush.

These stories are filled with all kinds of characters, with all kinds of backgrounds, doing all kinds of things. They have no theme or focus, and at the end of each one I found myself saying, "yeah, so, and then what." They read like like a bunch of guys reminiscing about the old days, telling about the crazy things they did, that only they could find interesting. I kept asking myself "why did the author write this?" And imagining the answer "cause that's the way it happened."

I can't remember when I got this and why it ended up on my bookshelf, but it's not staying there.

Okay. I don't understand why someone with a nickname like "writergrrrl" would be so easily offended. Maybe her nickname should be "delicategrrrl"--whatever. On to the book: the stories in here are wild, funny, and oddly touching. There's something moving and poignant in each one.

The reader from Seattle: did you even read the book? When reviewing a book, at least get the facts straight. The young hooker was NOT in a trailer park, she was in a recreational vehicle parked next to a lake with water "like Pepsi." The stories here are raw, sometimes hilarious, and always meaningful. Poirier is adept at finding the beautiful in the ugly or mundane.

What a delight to be in the hands of a master storyteller! Characters are engaging and the book does not get in the way of the story, but pulls you in. Off now to buy everything else she has ever written.

LATER: Well, this will teach me to write a review before I've finished the book. I still very much like "Territory", but the voice of the book is more like a voice I am used to reading in Young Adult fiction, and in some places it does get a little silly. The level of attention, for example, that the heroine dedicates (or the author dedicates) to what she wears every day is a bit tiresome. The treatment of the Chinese character Chu is paper thin, ham handed and even a little offensive. I do like the idea of opening a window on the women's world of a town like Tombstone, but that idea never seems to go anywhere. We spend time gettng to know the Earp women, but for no particular reason.

There seems to be a shift in the book from more serious fiction to lighter, younger, sillier stuff somewhere in the middle. The strength of the beginning is what kept me turning pages to the end. If I could change my star rating, I'd give it a 3.5 or 4.

I then went back and read "War for the Oaks", which I think is the author's debut novel written in 1987. It is clumsy, and demonstrates a lot of the same flaws as this much more polished later book -- self-conscious and bad handling of non-white characters, a heroine who spends too much time in the mirror worrying about her clothes, and overuse of devices (in "Territory" it is Chu who swears in every sentence; in "War for the Oaks" it is the phouka who interjects "my sweet" or "my primrose" in every sentence). "Territory" is much better.

Territory is the first book by Emma Bull that I've read, and it won't be the last. I am glad that fantasy writers like her exist to write succinct, satisfying, stand-alone novels. Territory is original and subtle, featuring memorable characters, both fictional and historical, and careful plotting.

Bull impressively balances the historical elements with the fantasy elements. She provides the perfect amount to detail to recreate late 19th century Tombstone and flavors it with a dab of magic and the occult. The setting and magic system remind me of Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series, quality books in their own right.

I agree with the reviewer who cites the absence of a resounding climax; like him, I was expecting a showdown and slightly disappointed when it did not occur. However, I understand why Bull avoids a big gunfight. She prefers subtlety to obvious action, and the novel is more about the characters understanding each other's knowledge and agendas than killing each other. All that said, I anticipate a sequel, which just might give us the most famous gunfight of all time.

Emma Bull is one of those writers about whom my main complaint is that they don't write enough. Her last novel, Freedom and Necessity (with Stephen Brust) appeared fully a decade ago. So I was delighted to see Territory on bookstore shelves this summer.

This is a fantasy set in the Old West, indeed, in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1880, in the months leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Bull focuses on three characters. Mildred Benjamin is a young widow making an independent life for herself as a newspaperwoman and as a writer of early "pulp" Western stories. Jesse Fox is a horse trainer, previously from San Francisco, who has wandered into Tombstone on the way to Mexico - or so he thinks. And Doc Holliday - well, we know who Doc Holliday is: a dentist, a card player, a Southerner, and a friend of the controversial Wyatt Earp.

Through the eyes of these characters we learn the dicey political situation in Tombstone. Much of the trouble is centered on Wyatt Earp and his brothers. Wyatt wants to be Sheriff, but has no formal position. Virgil is City Marshal. And there no account brother Morgan is on the other side, more or less, and as the novel opens he has just participated in an attempted stagecoach robbery that left two people dead. Doc Holliday manages to create an alibi for Morgan, but in the process becomes a suspect himself. Over the next few months tensions rise between the townspeople, the Earps, and the cowboys, some of them rustlers, who live outside of town - people like the McLaury brothers, John Ringo (supposedly an ancestor of the SF writer of that name), and the Clantons. And the truth about the stage robbery becomes fuzzy as the main suspects all meet violent deaths before they can be arrested.

All this is for the most part historical record. What makes this story a story is the personal experience of the main characters. Mildred is the most engaging, the best depicted. As a woman, she has a different view of the conflict, especially once she befriends the Earps' wives. And her budding career as a reporter gives her a still different angle. Jesse Fox, meanwhile, has his own secret, one he is loath to admit to himself. He can do magic. His friend Chow Lung, a Chinese doctor, urges him to accept his abilities. And in so doing, he realizes that there are other magic users in Tombstone - including very likely both Wyatt Earp and at least one of Earp's enemies. Finally, Doc Holliday is probably the least well realized main character - perhaps because he is historical. His viewpoint serves mostly as an inside look at Wyatt Earp's "camp".
At this level the book follows Jesse's arrival, his investigation, with Chow Lung, of the murder of a Chinese prostitute, and his subsequent realization that the girl was a victim of the political eddies in Tombstone. Meanwhile Mildred moves from typesetter to reporter at the Nugget as she gets interested in the nasty doings of a mining company. At the same time she is romantically drawn to both Tom McLaury and Jesse Fox. And her knowledge of the situation of the Earp women puts her squarely in the anti-Earp camp. Meanwhile Doc Holliday is trying to escape Earp's orbit, urged by his common law wife Kate. But Earp's hold - magical, perhaps? - seems to prove too strong.

The book is quite a delightful read. Mildred and Jesse are engaging protagonists, if, as I mentioned, Doc Holliday is a bit thinner. The fantastical element is modest but well-integrated and well portrayed. I had just one major issue: as the end approached, I realized that the remaining pages were not possibly enough to contain the actual gunfight. And, indeed, the book rather suddenly stops - at a not unreasonable point, with certain crucial information just revealed, but not, it turns out, at the end of the story. Yes - once again we have a book that is only Part 1 of a series (of only two books, I believe) - with absolutely no indication of this fact in the book, or on the cover, or anywhere unless you poke around the author's web page. I will certainly be happy to read the conclusion to this story - but it would have been nice to know going in that Territory is only the first half.

"Emma Bull is really good." - Neil Gaiman

This quote (printed on the front cover) was enough for me, some years ago when I first discovered Emma Bull's books. I'm SO GLAD to see her publishing again. I've read all her previous books and have been waiting for a while in the hopes that she'd bring something new out.

She does not disappoint! This book adds a really interesting possible background to the Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday story. For the first time in several years, I was really forced to think about the plot, and it wasn't until about twenty minutes after I finished the book I realized the full implications of her addition to the tale.

I won't say more! Go read this book and pay close attention!

I did not know what to expect from this book - westerns are not my thing, but I trusted Emma Bull to deliver, and she certainly did. Territory is totally different from her other works (which I love) but this turns out to be a good thing. She continues to grow as a writer and storyteller. Wonderful!

This book is a great read for anyone that wonders what happened before, during and after the street fight on Fremont Street. The author does a great job looking at the strategy of both the prosecution and the defense and how both make an all or nothing effort to win "justice".

It certainly will not quiet those that think the Earp's got away with murder nor does it completely vindicate their actions. It does give some insite into the proceedings and how if not for a small thing here or there, history would remember the events in Tombstone quite differently.

The book and story opens your eyes on the real old west. Hollywood has skewed our conception of life in the wild western frontier. You gain a fuller understanding of western hero's and how they navigated through the rough and tumble civilisation. I enjoyed every page.

Steven Lubet has taken a thought provoking look at the fallout surrounding the October 26, 1881 shootout on the streets of Tombstone. He gives the background of the major players and a Wild West Frontier look at a growing mining camp during the early days of Tombstone.
The buildup to the shootout has all the elements of conflict, partisan politics with opposing newspapers fanning the flames, a love triangle, which involves both suitors in a run for the office of sheriff of Cochise County, and a gang of bullies known as cowboys running roughshod over citizens and ranchers in the Tombstone area.
Ike Clanton, one of the most provocative voices among the cowboys sets the stage for the shootout the night before with his threats and rants against the Earps and Holliday. The threats continued the following morning with other cowboys joining in the chorus. In an effort to disarm the cowboys and quell the disturbance, Chief of Police Virgil Earp deputized his brothers Wyatt and Morgan Earp along with Doc Holliday.
When the confrontation becomes imminent Ike Clanton, the chief loud mouth, ran away and left the fighting to his younger brother, Billy Clanton and two associates Tom and Frank McLaury. At the end the shootout cowboys Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and Frank McLaury were all dead. Virgil and Morgan Earp both received debilitating gunshot wounds, Doc Holliday suffered a bad bruise from a glancing bullet, and Wyatt Earp was not hit.
Cowboy backers and lawyers immediately filed murder charges against the Earps and Holliday and hauled them into Judge Wells Spicer's court for a hearing.
Prosecution and defense were represented by capable lawyers skilled in the law and articulate in the courtroom.
Lawyers Tom Fitch and T.J. Drum represented the Earps and Holliday in the courtroom while District Attorney Lyttleton Price and lawyer Ben Goodrich presented the prosecutions case.
More than a dozen witnesses took the stand during the 28-day hearing and Lubet uses all of them to point out strategies being employed by prosecution and defense attorneys. The questions and cross examinations, objections and rulings by Judge Spicer leads to good courtroom drama. And there is a good balance in presentations until Ike Clanton takes the stand and makes a string of wild allegations that could not possibly be proven.
In the end Judge Spicer rules in favor of the Earps and Holliday. Spicer advises the prosecution team that they have every right to pursue a grand jury indictment. However, it was his opinion that there was mot enough evidence to sustain a conviction.
The cowboys were not finished though, and pursued a vendetta using threats and intimidation against Judge Spicer and Mayor Clum. In the dead of night shotgun blasts hit and almost kill Virgil Earp. Unfortunately their next try succeeds, when they shoot Morgan Earp in the back
To avoid an all out bloodbath Doc and Wyatt eventually leave Tombstone for a safe haven in Colorado.

Tom Barnes author of "Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone."
"The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle."
"The Goring Collection."

The Hurricane Hunters And Lost in the Bermuda Triangle
Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone: The Life and Times of John Henry Holliday
The Goring Collection

I always appreciate looking as closely at historical events through a realistic eye. This book didn't fail to meet those expectations. Although I must admit that I raised an eyebrow occasionally at some of the author's assertions e.g. Virgil Earp's tenure as police chief was a disaster. I nonetheless could appreciate what the Earps had accomplished by ridding Tombstone of scum. Sometimes enough is just enough and I can't hold the Earps to blame for dealing with the "Cowboy menace".

I am sure this is closer to the truth than many of the movies portray, however I am curious to read other books on the subject. One can certainly identify the various slants people of different backgrounds bring to the table. As mentioned in this story, there are numerous people who later go on to write accounts of the ordeal. That itself is rather amusing whereas they testified to not seeing the entire event or were proven incorrect by the "provables" on the stand.

Much akin to the judge's predicament in this story, it is up to the reader to determine who is able to be trusted and what their various motivations and agenda's are. Considering that people cannot agree on balls and strikes when watching a ballgame it is very amusing and rather interesting to read what a witness' take on the ordeal was.

I am a fan of the Earps' saga. This book only strengthened my beliefs that the Earps were justified and honorable men and that the Clantons et al were vile individuals.

I'm almost always hesitant (which is a gross understatement) to give a review on books. On this masterpiece, I have no hesitation.

Unfortunately, the trial of the Doc and the Earps, which had a great deal of real drama, has been largely long-since buried and the dirt has covered the coffin. Fortunately, Lubet, with remarkable skill and insight, resurrects the trial, which was as important as the "Freemont Street Fiasco" (as biographer Gary Roberts termed the gunfight).

Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern, is uniquely qualified to concisely and clearly define and explain what was a stake in the Spicer hearing, the factors that lead to the prosecutions' failure and the success of the defense, and the ramifications of just how crucial this hearing really was to Doc and the Earps.

Stephen Lubet is not merely a lawyer professor. He is a law professor that has done studied the political situations at Tombstone, the life as it was in Tombstone, and the plethora of other factors involving the hearing that are too numerous to mention. These factors place the Spicer hearing in an accurate historical background that is fascinating.

And yes, even the "lay-person" can understand Lubet's presentation! Since I am a "lay-person," this makes the book just that much more educational and enjoyable.

I highly recommend it.

I love this book. I love it when Apollonius imparts "For all the good or evil, creation or destruction, your living might have accomplished, you might just as well never have lived at all." What an utterly devastating thing to say to someone. I love the name Woldercan. And I loved the movie with Tony Randall.

A brilliant, gentle, and wonderful book. This book has been found on great book lists and favorite book lists for over 70 years. Saturday Review, Ray Bradbury, and countless others hold it in high regard. Get it. Read it. It will probably become one your favorite books.

I came upon this book by random chance, and was mislead to believe that this was a piece of true literature. A book (short story really) that stumbles towards nothing. If you're looking for some popcorn reading, sure this might suite you just fine, but avoid like that plague otherwise. I suggest picking up some Vonnegut or Yates. I hope this review might save at least one of you!!!

PS: avoid frustratingly pointless epilogue..

Here are comments by high-school students in the class I teach:

Charles G. Finney creates in his book, The Circus of Dr. Lao, a story of magic touching the disbelieving townspeople. This book is more of a collection of short stories rather than a novel. There is no one central plot, nor is there one protagonist, and there certainly isn't an antagonist. Finney doesn't add in any divisions in the book such a chapters, nor does he make use of foreshadowing or allusions. The fact that there was no central theme or plot bothered me when I was reading the book. Accepting a book such as this was hard, but once you realize that one should just enjoy the sardonic humor instead of hunting for a plotline, the read becomes a lot more enjoyable.
I could sum up all of the happenings of this book without giving away any of it. Hard to believe, but in The Circus of Dr. Lao, each encounter that a human has with an animal can be described in very few words. It is not the twists in events that make this story interesting, but rather, the vivid descriptions of their actions, of their form, of their words. The rather unique character of Dr. Lao is especially humorous, often switching from the eloquent speech of a sophisticated individual to the stereotypical vernacular of a "chinaman." An interesting and light read, with characters to please minds of all ages.


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I would like to comment on the review by Babytoxie from 2002. I have not seen the movie and thus cannot speak to the differences between it and the book, but I can address some of Babytoxie's criticisms of the novel. To begin with, Babytoxie states that the locals "play no worthwhile part in the story." Without the locals, there hardly is a story. The story lies in the locals' reactions to the animals, which offer a great deal of insight into the minds of these ordinary people as they are confronted with the extraordinary. Far from being "cardboard locals" with no personalities, they present numerous perspectives and characteristics, which their reactions to the mythical creatures and seemingly impossible events of the circus display to the reader. The author's concise and understated description of the locals cuts right to the core of the natures of the characters and, by extension, of humanity as a whole.
This is more of an extended short story than a novel, and it does not fit the standard mold of a novel. While it could probably be extended into a more developed novel, in the process it would lose much of what sets it apart from most books. The book's current format invites readers to explore the characters and the situations presented, draw their own conclusions about them, and search for the underlying message. The message may not be blatant, but neither is it inaccessible. By trying to make this story fit the confines of a standard novel, one cannot help but lose sight of its value as a unique and intriguing tale offering insights into humanity.

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While The Circus of Dr. Lao is certainly a very cleverly-written little book, it has no driving plot or particularly inspiring scene or character. Rather, it is simply a brief glimpse at a strange episode that happens to occur in Average Town, U.S.A., with the range of characters that one might expect to find there - drunken college students, a repressed schoolteacher, a wealthy old man, and many other middling sorts of people. Development-wise, the story just kind-of floats along, and then it ends. But despite this lack of conventional set-up, as the author shows this bizarre occurrence touching the lives of all the characters, the book turns out to be a rather interesting and hilarious examination of human nature. As an actual book, there is no reason to recommend it, because there is no hook, nothing truly attention-grabbing about it. However, I have decided to recommend it just the same, because it is one of those books that make its reader think. With no final resolution or grand declaration of purpose, it is left to the reader to try to figure out what the Hell is going on, and whether the characters are actually going to learn anything from this encounter.


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At first glance, it is easy to see why a reader might dismiss The Circus of Dr. Lao as racist, nonsensical tripe. This book does, after all, focus on the interactions between the largely racist population of a small town (Abalone, Arizona) and a circus of mythical creatures that, it seems, only a Classics professor would love. For some, this may be a hard premise to accept. Well, to each his own opinion. For my part, I thought that this was an excellent book.
Finney's writing is both amusing and insightful: while the townspeople try to figure out what type of creature is in a cage ("It's a man", "No, it's a bear", "It's a Russian"), Finney both illustrates the way the people of Abalone try to rationalize the miraculous things they see before them and pokes fun at their ignorant ways of thinking. If you're looking for a book to read to your five-year-old (as, it seems, many reviewers are), or if you always hated ancient mythology in school, this book is not for you. For the rest of us, it is a treasure.

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An Amusing Read!!!

Books serve many different purposes: some are meant to teach, others are meant to convey life lessons, and still others are simply meant to be enjoyed. "Dr. Lao" seems to be a brilliant example of a book intended to be enjoyed. Boasting a plethera of miracles and comic relief wielded as if by Shakespeare himself, "Dr. Lao" makes a magnificent read. "Dr. Lao" shows a complete lack of regard for any type of cohesive plot.
The book seems to reveal at a slightly dramatic level that humanity is simply beginning to deny the fact that miracles exist. Finney portrays the people of Abalone to be stubborn folk who don't believe that there is any such thing as magic. One would think in a town as mundane as Abalone people would be relieved to have a break from daily life, and indeed most of the people overcome by curiosity do indeed go view the parade and then circus. They are paid back in full for the efforts each of them witnessing amazing acts of magic or viewing an assortment of rare creatues. Whether they witness Apollonius raises the dead, or Medusa makes a statue out of a townswoman, or even a Roc egg hatch, the people of Abalone remain unphased. They take all such encounters as nothing more than particularly dry gossip.
Finney creates a wonderful environment easily allowing minds to wander in and among the circus tents privately viewing all the inhabitents for any lenght of time. He does so by giving such vivid descriptions of both the physical aspects of the creature and also of their temperments. Finney does a wonderful job describing everything and anything in this book; from the exciteable Dr. Lao, to the pensive Apollonius or even the agressive attitude of the fearless sea snake. Everything human or otherwise adopts a personality and connects with the townspeople in different ways. This book needs no plot with so many other brilliant attributes. It's hard to get bored reading about so many different rare creatures and their affect on the hard to impress townsfolk. All in all "Dr. Lao" is a magnificent read, with characters that keep the pages turning.


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Interesting Read


Being not a big reader I generally stray away from books. I tend to only read books for school and often hate reading the whole time. This book, however, was an outstanding book. Although the plot and story line are a little vague, the book is always turning a corner and keeping you reading. Dr. Lao is the ring master of a odd circus that comes to Abalone. The people of the town do not know what they are in for.
Dr. Laos' Circus is definitely one of a kind. With great descriptions of ancient creatures such as a chimera and the hound of the hedges the circus gets everyone interested. All of the creatures also have human like personalities and interact with the people that are visiting the circus. The creatures hold up conversations with the visitors, argue, and tell stories of mystic places and adventures. Magic is done and in the final show of the circus the the animals all go wild and the devil is even raised.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking for something exciting and that will keep them reading. For all the non readers out there like me I also recommend it for you because it is definitely interesting and it is also short so it can be finished in an afternoon. This book is a Casas and shouled be read by everyone looking for a book that is out there and that will keep them reading. I give this book two thumbs up.


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Charles Finney's "The Circus of Doctor Lao" is a novella about a circus
full of magical creatures that stops in Abalone, Arizona during the
depression. Finney's dead-pan prose - a delight to read - reveals both
the banality of Abalone's citizens and the casual viciousness of Dr. Lao's
attractions (the conversation between Mr. Etaoin the proofreader and the
sea snake provides a particularly sharp juxtaposition). For readers
interested in mythology, this story is full of treats.

However, those interested in tight plotting or climactic action
should pass "Dr. Lao" by, as it has neither. The story consists in a
series of vignettes, connected only by place and theme. If you require
certain conventional literary forms - such as an overarching conflict or
an indentifiable protagonist - to enjoy a work, "Dr. Lao" will only
frustrate you. In addition, some characters employ racist language; if
this bothers you, so will significant portions of the book.

I recommend "Dr. Lao" with the above reservations.

_It came as a surprise to me to find that one of my favorite films as a boy was actually based on a novel. It was even more of a surprise to find that the novel was written in 1935. It was a further surprise to find that it was written by a newspaperman that had served as an enlisted man in the old 15th Infantry in China back before WWII. Finally, it was a surprise that I actually liked this little book even more than the film.

_The story centers around the most unusual circus of Dr. Lao. The good doctor's circus is his own personal world- and seems to obey no laws of man or nature but his own (and that of his junior partner, Apollonius of Tyana.) This is an appropriate partnership, for Apollonius was perhaps the wisest man of the classical West, while Lao, if I am not mistaken, is patterned on Lao Tzu, wisest man of the classical East. Between them, they have assembled a remarkable collection of creatures from all places and times for their little show: a Chimera, a Unicorn, a Sphinx, a Sea Serpent, a mermaid, a werewolf, a hedge hound, the Golden Ass, a medusa, a satyr, a faun, nymphs, a Roc, and much, much more. All of this for the edification of the inhabitants of the sleepy, ordinary, little town of Abalone, Arizona during one hot, dusty August during the Great Depression. Everything is intended to wake the little town from its slumber, for everything reflects the great dance of life in all its appetite and lust, its wonder and terror. Yet, above it all, and in control of it all, are the two great sages.

_Many of the inhabitants of Abalone are left in wonder or in denial. Either way, most of them will never be the same again....

I have enjoyed reading this book. It gives lots of great insight into the stresses of nba players and coaches. How they prepare for games and their perceptions of fans and media. You really see how almost all NBA players are prima-donnas with fairly fragile egos. They all have their front that they put on for the masses and the media. It's good to see the human side of them. The book is an easy read and very enjoyable.

Even though I'm not a Suns fans and for that matter, not much of a basketball or a sports fan anymore, this was a pretty good book - it's mainly about the Suns' 2006 playoff run, with some "flashbacks" to some regular season games that season, with some insight into most of the players and an NBA season's roller coaster ride, and some insight into the coaching staff too. Individual players are discussed, as is the coaching staff, and it's nice to read that kind of info too.

Expected a lot more to be honest. There are better books by beat writers, such as "If They Don't Win It's A Shame" by Dave Rosenberg.

If you love basketball, you're going to love this book. McCallum writes about a season with the Phoenix Suns, and takes us through their playoff run. He mixes in flashbacks to key points during the season, and manages to entertain.

Two problems are that the book is shallow and doesn't go into enough depth on most topics, and there is absolutely no criticism of anything the Suns did.

Enjoyable, but light. NBA fans are going to devour this.

A great, well-written and funny book exploring what goes on behind closed doors on an NBA team.

If you're looking for a book that delves into players affinity for clubs, booze and girls, then you'll have to look elsewhere. The Suns are a pretty clean club, and I'm sure they've done some stuff that isn't included in the book. What is included is an insiders look into the thought processes of coaches and players and discusses how the relationships within a professional organization can affect the win-loss column. There are some solid perspectives on team chemistry, ownership, the role coaches play in the success (or failure) of a ball club, the pressures of the playoffs, the psyche of the pro athlete (who knew someone making $20m a year could be so sensitive), how marketing efforts can affect a player's attitude and much more. I kind of wish the Suns would've won it all in 2006 so that this book could've been longer. Also, you don't have to be a Suns fan to appreciate this book. I'm a die-hard Pistons fan, and found this read very enjoyable.

On thing to point out: there's some swearing in this book (a few F bombs and the like), so if you're a parent thinking of picking this book up for a young Suns fan you may want to browse the pages beforehand. Otherwise, there really isn't anything worse than that, though.

Unfortunately this book which I hoped to be a biographical "chapter 2" to his personal journey after his Viet Nam stint, as covered so well in "Faith of My Fathers," this book offers only a sloppy mish-mash of this and that, which causes it to never commit to be any specific type of book. It tries to be part "Profiles in Courage" (which later McCain books "Courage Matters," and "Hard Call" commit to), part "Leaders" (by Nixon), and part autobiography, but sits as an uncommitted, uneven, unsatisfactory read. On paper this might have been a good idea - to tell one's story by also talking about that person's heroes, but in this work all these different types of works get in the way of each other. There is a chapter that goes on ad nauseum about the Keating scandal to be followed up on a piece of fluff over Ted Williams the baseball player.
This is also probably not the bio that his supporters want us to read during this 2008 election as almost each and every "hero" of his...including his contemporaries...are all dead, which highlights the age issue. I have yet to find a classic bio on this man, but I understand they are out there; unfortunately this book sadly misses its mark.

This is a great book by a great man. John McCain's humor, style, and love of life are inspiring in this read. His honor, patriotism, and his words of those who have inspired him, make him one of the most inspiring public figures of his generation. He has a loving awe of what is best in America, and in ourselves.

When the 2008 GOP primary began, I was not a fan of McCain. I didn't dislike him. I just had a different preference. I'd always wanted to read Faith of My Fathers and read that one first. It took the reader from McCain's grandfather, to his father, and finally to McCain himself and his experience in Vietnam, where it concluded with his homecoming.

This book picks up with John McCain's return home. He is atypically candid for a politician and presidential candidate. He admits faults where necessary. He takes responsibility when demanded. He defers credit where due. He takes the reader into his personal struggles, in particular the Keating 5 affair. He touches on his failed first marriage -- and takes full responsibility. The reader has the privilege of being a "fly on the wall" as McCain learns from his mentors and teachers. I can't imagine an author being much more transparent. The reader does not come away with a messianic vision of John McCain. Rather, one develops an understanding of whom he is and what influenced him. There is also much history to be learned as he explains how historical figures have influenced him in his career. I was a bit surprised by the profanity used in the book, but it's a part of who he is -- part sailor, part rebel, part patriot, part leader, part humble student, part aspiring executive, part competitor -- and full time, 100% himself.

If you have an interest in politics and/or history, and want a better understanding of who this potential President of the United States is and may be as president then this is THE book. Straight from his own mouth -- warts and all -- leaving it to the reader to make their own educated decision regarding McCain's worthiness for the most powerful job in the world. You may not finish the book as a supporter -- and you may go from pro to con -- but you will have a greater respect for the man.

Highly recommended.

"Worth The Fighting For" is John McCain's political biography. In it he briefly discusses his naval heritage and the acquaintances he made through his father, an admiral in the U.S. Navy. He mentions his time as a POW, but most of the references to his naval career involve his service as the naval representative to the U.S. Senate.

McCain does a good job at weaving tales about his heroes into his own story. Generally the book involves a section about a friend whom he admired or an historical figure on whose example he modeled his life, alternating with sections pertaining to political challenges which he has faced. Among the friends whom he discusses are Scoop Jackson, John Tower, Moe Udall, Barry Goldwater and Ted Williams. Among the historical figures he emulates are Billie Mitchell and Theodore Roosevelt and a character in the movie "Zapata."

In the sections relating to his career, McCain talks about issues with which he has struggled, including the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIAs. There he became a friend and admirer of John Kerry, with whom he worked to clear the record on missing POW-MIAs and to normalize relations with Vietnam. Perhaps this was the origin of the proposed Kerry-McCain ticket. He also defended his positions on Social Security, Campaign Finance reform and the Marine deployment to Lebanon. The insight into his 2000 presidential campaign makes for interesting reading.

McCain does not shirk the hard times, providing detailed explanations of the John Tower confirmation hearings and his own involvement in the Keating 5 investigation.

McCain does not mince words in expressing his opinions on people with whom he comes in contact, be they other Senators, witnesses or lobbyists. He is open in discussing his own failings. In this he demonstrates a refreshing approach rarely seen in autobiographies.

Through much of this work, McCain is defending and explaining his own actions. At times he seems to be more overtly self defensive than is found in many autobiographies. Is this a continuation of the "Straight Talk Express" on which he campaigned, or just another campaign biography? I will let each reader decide that for himself. I will say that it makes an interesting read of a type rarely found from active politicians. I am glad that I picked it up. I am confident that you will also.

Several times in "Worth the Fighting For", the senator notes that he has a quick temper. It is an inspiring book, however, I do wonder how effective he would be in the White House given his self acknowledged temper.

Author of: Mr. NewHeart (New Heart): Heart Attack to Transplant and Beyond

You may preview a free copy of my next book if you Google "david hollar the face of war."

There was one thing I completely neglected to remember about Bill Houston while reading Mister Johnson's magnificent Tree of Smoke so I read it a second time and there it was again, larger than life: this same dude was already dead by the end of Johnson's first novel. I remember reading Angels years ago and thinking hey wait just a dang minute now. As far as I can tell Bill didn't even make it into Vietnam in the new book but stayed out on the periphery of global events prior to coming home to work on and off in Phoenix in the late sixties. I read the alternately stunning and lulling description of him pulling the night shift in the cement factory and decided then and there to go back to his debut and final disappearance up the pipe in Angels--an especially lovely and heartbreaking re-read after Tree of Smoke, I can't even begin to tell you. James is here too but just barely--this is mostly the story of Bill and Jamie. Burris is definitely a presence though--can't you just picture this funny feller in Tree of Smoke, right at the start of that first phone call home, Bill in Honolulu talking to James?

"His little brother Burris stood in the drive with a finger in one of his ears, peering down the barrel of a cap pistol while he pulled the trigger repeatedly."

Angels heralded a poet trying on prose for the first time. Not exactly unapparent, I'd have to say--about the poetry I mean. Everything Johnson does right in any case is still here: the exit interview Jamie has with her certified overseers even goes as far as the word Oops. And how about Burris driving with one hand pressed to the radio, frantically switching stations every time somebody started talking? Amen to that. The writing in Angels, if you allow it, throws some deeply satisfying shapes. Tree of Smoke won a prize and attracted the attention of a lot of neophytes and literalists who thought maybe Mister Johnson was interested only in the straight dope about a war they might be expected to know a thing or two about. Sigh. These witless unsuspenders of disbelief, bleating at this great book with bogus displeasure, bewailing every conceivable failure except their own to thoughtfully and patiently read it. Spare me please from these tedious and prating dilettantes--suckers for the facts of life apparently, not the fiction. No wonder I'm back here with Angels and the original high old times. Remember Bill and the cigarette lighter bursting unaccountably into flames in his hand? The poor fella didn't know which way to turn.

Angels is a heart-wrenching tale of loss and questionable redemption, of two people finding each other amongst the rubble of their lives. They are survivors in a world howling around them like society's wolves. These two hop from bar to bar and drink to drink, keep on the move for movement's sake, never wanting to stop because they are no one in themselves in which to simply "be". The two are tossed by the winds of circumstance. Each meets his and her destination and definition in his and her final tragic end.

The language is bar none powerful, evoking images and a sense of things I didn't think the written word was capable of conveying. Insanity. The terror of a drug-induced rape. Shysters and religious charlatans: peddling madness, smiling ear to ear.

Of your own empathy's fate at book's end. . . beware.

In "Angels" I think Denis Johnson is focusing on the mystery of being a particular self, and questioning how much of the stuff that goes together to make a self is actually that person's own doing. His vehicle for this exploration is the underbelly of the USA, and here he taps into a tradition in American writing stretching through Kerouac, and Fante, Bukowski, Miller and Dreiser, and no doubt many others unfamiliar to me; in a way, a more distant echo is heard in Beckett and his tramps. The wonder of individual consciousness, the experience of subjectivity, is illuminated by making all the gaudy trappings of the world dark.
*
I've read criticisms of "Angels" bemoaning the sketchy take on the central characters, but I disagree that this is a failing. Johnson gives us enough for us to sympathize and, at times, empathize with his motley cast, and certainly enough to share in their everyday epiphanies, when they see the world fresh and new and each moment appears precious and, by the miracle of Johnson's poetic prose, we see out of their eyes.
*
Likewise criticism falls upon Bill Houston's fate as being somehow unemotional, but this very fact suggests that we are not simply being asked to consider the ethics of capital punishment, but also to dwell on our own, that is to say everyone's, inevitable fate - the blind certainty of our mortality.
*
The entire work questions the role of personal will versus that of circumstance in deciding the choices we make. I do not think that a pat answer is provided, instead the question is raised and investigated through the thoughts and deeds of Johnson's miscreants.
*
All of this is dressed in Johnson's universally praised and delicately wrought language. For me, this novel is a celebration of the power of words to first and foremost communicate - if we gain a window into the souls of "Angels"' lost protagonists, then how much easier to see inside our own, and inside those who surround us.

This book does not necessarily demonstrate the Denis Johnson that we've come to know through stories like "Car Crash While Hitchhiking." Maybe that's why I found this one in the bargain bin of a mega bookstore. Johnson certainly manages to deal in what is painful and ugly. His characters are not likeable and just barely pitiable. What it does remind me is that stories deserve to cover all subjects, no matter the distaste of them. Sure we can write safe suburban stories about people we all know, that play to what we imagine about our neighbors, but there are all other sides of life worth exploring. I've certainly had my share of contact (experience) in darker sides of American life and every bit of that ugliness is worth exploring.
Johnson deals with this seedier side with a painfulness entirely appropriate to the lives of his characters. Their lives are not easier and watching them rationalize and try to make the best of what are obviously poor circumstances can be particularly sorrowful. Angels reveals a beginning for Johnson or Johnson before he really opens up. The novel, though inspiring, leaves the reader feeling about as empty as the lives of the novel's characters. But it is obvious that the author was going to have a lot more to say.

Let me start by saying that Johnson is a phenomonal writer. I read this about a year ago and look forward to reading his other works and also this one again even though 'Angels' left me depressed. Despite the subtle humor, the hopelessness of the characters and the poor choices that they make wrap a dark cloud around the story. This is a very inventive and realistic novel but full of despair. I can see Johnson's influence in an emerging new crop of shock-lit writers such as JT Leroy. Close the blinds, get back under the covers and take a break from sanity for a few days.