The Racketeer

by John Grisham

2012 

Malcolm Bannister was a small-town lawyer until a bad real estate deal connected him to a criminal conspiracy and landed him in federal prison for a crime he didn't (knowingly) commit. When a federal judge is murdered and the FBI has no leads, Malcolm reveals that he knows who killed him, but only if the government agrees to release him and give him full immunity and a new identity. What follows is an intricate game of leverage, deception, and revenge as Malcolm manipulates the FBI, federal prosecutors, and the real killers, all while concealing an even larger scheme of his own. Each revelation upends what seemed certain, and Malcolm proves himself several steps ahead of everyone trying to use him.

Grisham here moves from his typical milieu, the courtroom, to try his hand at the caper and confidence game, with mixed results. The novel is less concerned with legal arguments than with strategy, hidden motives, and carefully timed revelations. Malcolm is an intriguing narrator: intelligent, patient, and morally flexible. However, Grisham also occasionally switches to a third-person omniscient narrator, so he can keep various revelations hidden until it suits him, repeatedly forcing the reader to reassess what they thought they understood. The excitement in the novel comes from watching Malcolm outmaneuver institutions that believe they hold all the power. I wasn't overmuch impressed with this book, however. The secondary characters beyond Malcolm are more functional than memorable. Most FBI agents, prosecutors, and secondary figures exist primarily to move the machinery of the plot, and the emotional stakes never run especially deep. But the main reason for my lukewarm reception is that narly everything in the book strains credulity. The plot relies heavily on coincidence, unlikely events, and highly questionable reactions on the part of law enforcement. As Grisham writes in his author's note, "almost nothing in the previous 340 odd pages is based on reality." This is an understatement. It's a two-star plot, bumped to three stars due to Grisham's easy, readable style that keeps the pages turning.  

three stars 

IQ

by Joe Ide

In South Central Los Angeles lives Isaiah Quintabe, a 26-year-old African American man, whose brilliant mind justifies his initial-nickname of IQ. After his beloved older brother was killed in a hit and run, the young IQ drifted into illegal activities until he realized he could use his computer-like mind to solve the problems of people in his neighborhood, taking on cases the police won't or can't. IQ has known, as his spiritual godfather Sherlock did, the temptation of recreational drugs, and his understanding of the criminal mentality is based on experience. (His involvement in crime was typically idiosyncratic, stealing items like feline epilepsy strips with low security but high resale value.) But all this comes in flashbacks. Satisfyingly to us Sherlockians, the main plot line of this novel adapts some elements of The Hound of the Baskervilles: a superstar rapper, Calvin Wright, faces an attempted assassination by a 130-pound monster of a pit bull, who seems to have been bred by an enemy for murderous purpose. IQ uses street-smarts, near-perfect recall, and inductive reasoning to find answers to who is behind the threat. IQ's sidekick Dodson fills a Watson-like role, in that he does his part and is capable of providing backup in the form of a gun.

The setting, the voice, and the characters are all high points of the novel. Ide has a gift for sharp observations and memorable details (the rapper's belongings include "a bundle of rolled-up antique Persian prayer rugs from his two weeks as a practicing Muslim"), and the novel is packed with lines that are funny without feeling as though they are trying too hard to be funny. IQ feels grounded as a character, fleshed-out with his own foibles and weak spots. The flashbacks showing how he became who he is are often more compelling than the central mystery. The mystery itself is solid. Ide lays out the clues fairly, and the solution emerges logically rather than through arbitrary twists. Watching IQ think is consistently entertaining. At times, however, the novel stretches credibility. Some of Isaiah's movements through particularly hostile environments feel easier and safer than they ought to. As a non-black author, Joe Ide seems fairly oblivious to how carefully a young black man must perforce maneuver through certain white-dominated situations. I don't mean that IQ shouldn't be confident, but these scenes in particular don't ring true. I also thought that a few of the character interactions seem shaped more by the needs of the plot, or even slapstick, than by reality. I enjoyed the novel's portrait of a community, its exploration of grief and responsibility, and the chemistry between IQ and the exasperating, scheming Dodson. This isn't a brilliant book, but it's a novel take on an old trope, with an engaging protagonist and an ending that promises more.  

three stars 

Pledging My Time: Conversations With Bob Dylan Band Members

by Ray Padgett

Rather than focusing on Dylan himself, Ray Padgett interviews forty musicians, collaborators, and fellow travelers who spent time onstage, in the studio, or on the road with him. The result is not a standard profile of the man; it's a portrait assembled from the edges inward. The book spans virtually Dylan's entire career, from the folk scene of the early 1960s through Rough and Rowdy Ways and the Never Ending Tour. Padgett's interview subjects range from major figures such as Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Richard Thompson, Larry Campbell, and Benmont Tench to one-off collaborators who found themselves unexpectedly swept into Dylan's orbit.

There are a lot of terrific anecdotes, from gushing, grateful unknown musicians given a chance to play on stage by Dylan himself, to baffled sidemen wondering why they got hired (or let go). There are terrific asides from talented musicians about how great a guitar player or piano player Dylan is. Others marvel at his breadth of musical knowledge (one guitarist recalls having to ask various friends about all the obscure folk and blues artists Bob talks about are in order to keep up: "if I knew half of what he's forgotten, I would be one of the most well-educated musicians on the planet"). There is very little communication from the man himself. Players are called up unexpectedly to jam, go home, and then find the jam session was an audition, and they're going on the road, or a late-night talk show, tomorrow. If there's a central idea to the book, it's to serve as an answer to this question: Why do so many accomplished musicians speak of playing with him as a career highlight? Dylan's reputation among casual listeners is built on his songwriting and distinctive voice, not on instrumental virtuosity. Yet interview after interview describes the experience as exhilarating. Musicians recount being thrown onstage with little preparation, confronted with shifting arrangements, unexpected keys, and performances that seem perpetually on the verge of collapse. Yet the disorder is rarely random. As you read the various experiences, it becomes clear that Dylan creates conditions that force musicians to listen, react, and create in the moment, producing performances that feel spontaneous yet require the most intense focus. The interviews also reveal Dylan as a director-like figure, choosing musicians not simply for technical ability but for the musical worlds they carry inside them. Dylan's encyclopedic knowledge of blues, country, folk and more becomes both a shared language and an audition process. As an interviewer and editor, Padgett is exceptionally well prepared, asks the right questions, and keeps the focus on music rather than gossip. As a result, the book sheds light not just on Dylan's career but on his creative process, which is fascinating to the Dylan devotee.  

five stars 

One Fat Englishman

by Kingsley Amis

Roger Micheldene, the titular fat Englishman, is a publisher visiting a fictional prestigious college with the oddly-chosen name of "Budweiser" (a stand-in for Princeton). Ostensibly he's there on a business trip to acquire the rights to a novel or two, but his real aim is to eat and drink far too much, bed as many women as possible, and belittle Americans with displays of British erudition and contempt. He spends most of the novel shuttling between New York and Budweiser, leaving unsatisfied women and unimpressed undergraduates in his wake.

This is the kind of novel that isn't written much any more, a character study and satire of manners. Unlike the tremendous Lucky Jim, this novel's main character isn't the least bit sympathetic and holds no youthful idealism. He's a creep, a seducer, a drunkard who leads women on and insults them for being needy, holds grudges against small children, and so on. There's no plot, except in the sense that Roger goes through a wringer and leaves America only slightly more humble and resentful. Roger may be an exaggerated portrait of Amis himself, but knowing that doesn't change my impression of the book; watching this boorish ass weave in and out of cocktail parties putting down others, only to end up looking ridiculous, isn't as interesting as Amis seems to think it is. Yes, it's a satire of both America and Britain; what Roger never sees is that he embodies all the bad qualities he adumbrates in defining Americans; he's childish, illogical, and emotional. A game of Scrabble against a young boy exemplifies this, as he upturns the board in a fit of pique when his British spellings aren't accepted. The consequences of Roger's actions annoy him, but they never instruct him. This is meant to make him funny, but I mostly found him tedious. It was also difficult for me to sympathize with any of the other characters. Take Helene Bang, the object of his most desperate amorous attentions; since he treats her with utter contempt, why does she allow him within ten feet of her? The American college students who puncture Roger's inflated ego with silly pranks are similarly smirking and supercilious. I enjoyed the witty writing, as far as it went, but I didn't find it particularly funny, nor did I think it has anything original to say about academia or the Anglo-American chasm. In the end, this is less a satire than a character study of a man trapped by his own habits and resentments. It's clever, but unappealing, much like Roger himself. 

three stars 

Holding the Note: Profiles in Popular Music

by David Remnick

A florilegium of eleven profiles and essays, mostly from The New Yorker, on legendary musicians centered around the uncomfortable question: what keeps an artist going after the peak years are behind them? The subjects are largely figures from the deep canon with decades-long careers, who in and of themselves represent an era or musical genre: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Aretha Franklin, Mavis Staples, Buddy Guy, Paul McCartney, Keith Richards (this one is largely a panning of Richard’s self-serving memoir), and Luciano Pavarotti. This is not traditional musical criticism, but examinations of impact and character. What drives Springsteen to keep playing marathon concerts in his sixties? Why did Cohen continue writing and touring into old age? How does Buddy Guy shoulder the burden of preserving an entire musical tradition? In addition to delving into the history of gospel, blues, and rock, Remnick investigates, the stubborn need to keep creating, to keep "holding the note." Memorably, he also presents a "Unified Theory of Bob Dylan," positing that Dylan's entire raison d'etre is to absorb, keep alive, and rework the American musical tradition.

Throughout, Remnick combines deep knowledge with elegant prose, curiosity, and humane humor. It's readable, fascinating, extremely thorough, and holds surprises even for those who, like me, have read about some of these icons extensively. My favorite piece is one devoted not to a superstar but to jazz scholar and radio host Phil Schaap. A brilliant obsessive who devoted his life to preserving the legacy of Charlie Parker, Schaap embodies another kind of artist: the guardian of memory. Through him, Remnick explores not only the beauty of total devotion but also the melancholy reality of jazz's decline as a mass cultural force. 

four stars 

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

by Philip K. Dick

In a near-future dystopian America (the impossibly far-flung year of 1988!) ruled by a brutal police network, civil liberties have collapsed, prisoners go to forced labor camps, students are criminals and colleges besieged, minorities have been all but exterminated, and identification is everything. (Sounds sadly familiar, actually.) The story follows Jason Taverner, a famous and beloved TV talk show host and singer. After an attack by a disgruntled ex, he wakes up to find that no one knows who he is. He has no ID, his show never aired, he doesn't exist in the files, and not even his friends remember him. Taverner goes underground to piece together what's happened, and the novel spins out into a surreal, psychological journey involving shifting realities, drug-induced revelations, strange coincidences, and the growing suspicion that something metaphysical is at play.

This is familiar ground for PKD in a few ways: the paranoiac who happens to be correct about his paranoia, the drug use, the uneasy sense of being unmoored from reality, the psycho-babble exposition, the futuristic gadgets side by side with vinyl LPs and phone booths. The book's main hook, the terror of waking up in a universe where one doesn't exist, is intriguing. And there's a lot of tense exploration of identity and power. You can feel Dick’s fear of authoritarianism baked into every scene, especially the ones involving the brutal, manipulative cops. But he also can write with real emotional vulnerability. There are sections about grief and loss that don't really jibe with the novel's whole vibe, but are weirdly tender and you get the sense that Dick is grappling with what it means to be known, to be loved, to exist at all. As with a lot of Dick's work, it gets messy. The plot spirals and loses momentum, and there are strange narrative turns that distract from the overall story arc. It's not exactly an enduring SF classic, but it's not a self-indulgent oddity either, which some Dick stories are. It's emotionally resonant and succeeds at creating a suspenseful, tense world ruled by fear of authority. Definitely worth reading, especially if you're into cerebral, reality-questioning science fiction; just be prepared for some druggy meandering.  

four stars 

I'm Down

by Mishna Wolff

A memoir of the author's childhood up to about the age of 14. She is the white daughter of European-white parents, but her father apparently wanted to be close to black culture, so lived in a black neighborhood, had black friends, played dominoes, listened to soul music, and had black girlfriends. At school, Wolff is mocked for being white and clueless, but later on she scores highly on some aptitude tests and is moved to a private school with rich, white students, who find her mannerisms a little strange, Through it all, Wolff must deal with her father, who comes across in the memoir as a loving but hard-ass loser who can’t finish projects or hold down a job. When he marries a girl only ten years older than Mishna, the stepmother demands Mishna get a job at the age of 14, despite her maintaining a 4.0 at school and being involved in several extracurriculars.

I picked up this book because I thought it might have something interesting to say about race in America, how Wolff was too white for the black kids and too black for the white kids, but it only very briefly touches on race. Why was her father so interested in a culture that wasn’t his own? What kinds of cultural barriers were erected by her living in the neighborhood? These questions aren't answered or even addressed. Is race a huge factor in her social standing? Not really, she makes friends in both schools with no more trouble than most quiet, introspective kids. It is a funny memoir in parts, but in other parts I had to put it down briefly, the demands her father and stepmother putting on her so hostile as to edge on to emotional abuse. This isn't a book about race or culture; it's the memoir of a girl living in a poor neighborhood, who went to a rich school. It's told in an episodic manner, with the stories not building on each other or leading to any real insights. It certainly must also be at least a little fictionalized, as her lengthy conversations at the ages of 10-14 can’t be all that accurately recorded years later.