The Last, The Lighthouse, and Too Many Cooks
If you’ve read my book reviews in The Floating Library or the Los Angeles Times, you know that I rarely gush over a book. I tend to be more reserved than effusive. At a writer’s conference, an author I’d reviewed asked me point blank if I liked the novel, because he couldn’t tell from the review. (It was a friendly question, not a confrontation.)
Whether I like a book or not is (almost) beside the point because if I do a good job of describing it than the reader can decide for herself if she wants to seek it out. That, as I see it, is the job of the critic. Describe a thing in a way that will resonate with readers who will respond to that thing.
Ironically, part of my restraint comes from all of my years working in advertising where superiority claims are strictly verboten – unless you can back them up. You can’t say best airline or fastest Internet or juiciest tomato unless it’s verifiably true. But on any given day you can go online and see a list of the 10 Best Books to Read This Instant, or something to that effect, written by people who almost certainly haven’t actually read those books.
As a book reviewer, I always thought it was strange that the guidelines for how we sell rental cars and refrigerators are more disciplined, to say nothing of ethical, than the way we talk about literature.
I don’t know why I went off on that tangent, because today I want to tell you about a book I loved: The Last, by Hanna Jameson. If you haven’t read this book, I want you to seek it out. Request it from your library or your local independent bookstore. Do what you must, but read this book.
I readThe Last while I was in Ireland this summer and as soon as I finished I looked up the author on Twitter and saw that she has all kinds of fascinating things to say about Midsommar, a film that I liked a great deal, enough to seek out the script and read it almost immediately. (Strangely, I liked it a lot less after I read it; but after reading Jameson’s takes on the movie, I decided I needed to see it again).
Jameson struck me as an open, engaging, and ferociously intelligent writer, who happens to like some of the same things I like. Would she be up for interview, I wondered. It turns out she was. That interview was published at the Los Angeles Review of Books, and you should probably go ahead and read it now. It’s not long. But it’s got a brief plot summary I’m not going to get into here. I’ll be here when you get back.
When I bought a paperback ofThe LastI was just beginning my residency at the Curfew Tower. I’d just spent a short week traveling all over Ireland with Annie and was ready to get to work.The Last, however, was so good, I kept picking it up and getting sucked into the story. When I got to the last 100 pages, I decided enough was enough and plowed through to the end. To summarize:The Last basically took over the first few days of my residency. I couldn't stay away.
I don’t have any extra insights about the novel and how it came to be written that aren’t in the interview because it was conducted via email, but I will say this: it’s fucking excellent. I’m not going to barnacle the novel with superlatives. It doesn’t need it.
I especially love the end. It’s delightfully strange in a way that many thrillers aren’t. The nature of a mystery is you can’t keep the reader in suspense forever. Thrillers bombard the reader with information and then make sense out of that in a way that surprises and delights. But by attempting to tie everything up in a neat bow, the writer reveals her plan, which ends up being the opposite of suspenseful.
Jameson doesn’t do that. She embraces the weird in a way that’s strange and wonderful and thought provoking.
Just read it, and when you do, tell me what you think.
Last weekend I went to see The Lighthouse and almost lost my mind. It is so my jam: an atmosphere of dread, a whiff of the supernatural, and nautical as all get out. If William Blake and Samuel Taylor Coleridge got together, took some opium, and wrote a play full of body comedy and cosmic horror, you’d get The Lighthouse.
While I was watching the film, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Curfew Tower. The claustrophobic setting, the steep staircases, the rattling floorboards, the wind-shook stonework, and the drunk Irish lads screaming into their chips and curry. (Okay, that last part wasn’t in the movie.) I mean just look at is. Can't you see Willem Dafoe's beard coming around the corner?
One last thing before I go. This week marked the five year anniversary of the guerrilla horror short film Too Many Cooks. If you haven’t seen it, I truly envy you. Just strap in and watch it.
Here are my Lit Picks for the week of October 31-November 6 in San Diego, Los Angeles, and beyond.
Thursday, October 31 at 11:30pm (SD)
Need a head start on your NaNoWriMo project? Want to spend the Witching Hour on Halloween with other novelists? Do you like pancakes? Then get yourself to the Denny’s at 10430 Friar’s Road for the NaNoWriMo Midnight Write-In.
Friday, November 1 at 7pm (LA)
McSweeney’s celebrates the release of Keep Scrolling Till You Feel Something: 21 Years of Humor from McSweeney's Internet Tendency at Book Soup with Jennifer Locke, John McNamee, Matt Ingebretson, Sarah Walker, Kevin Seccia, and Cirocco Dunlap. Sam Riley will emcee. There was a time when in my writing life when my sole ambition was to publish in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, the SNL of the Internet. A lot of it was silly, and still is, but I’m still fond of this list: Bad Names for Boats.
Saturday, November 2 (SD)
This isn't a literary event, but the Sherman Heights Community Center has been celebratingDia de los Muertos for 25 years. Festivities include altars, vendors, food, and workshops. There’s so much to do and it's a welcoming space for people of all ages. The community breakfast begins at 9am and ends at noon. At 4pm there will be a procession from the community center to Chicano Park.
Plan B (SD): Join inspirational speaker Cherie Kephart, author ofA Few Minor Adjustments: A Memoir of Healing, at the Central Library at 330 Park Boulevard at 1pm.
Plan 9 (SD): Elizabeth Earley, author Like Wings, Your Hands, will be in conversation with Kazim Ali at The Book Catapult at 7:30pm.
Sunday, November 3 at 4:30pm (SD)
Mysterious Galaxy now hosts a Dungeons & Dragons Campaign on the first and third Sunday of the month. The campaign is designed for all skill levels so players can drop in and out without having to commit to every session. Dust off those icosahedrons (20-sided dice) and get rolling.
Monday, November 4 at 7:30pm (SD)
Kamla K. Kapur will sign her new bookRumi: Tales of the Spirit at Warwick’s.
Tuesday, November 5
It’s publication day for The Worst Kind of Wantby L.A. writer Liska Jacobs. Here’s what I wrote about her astonishing debut, Catalina, last spring. Jacobs writers exceptionally well about the problem of desire when our desires want to destroy us.
Wednesday, November 6 at 7:30pm (LA)
Dorothea Lasky and Alex Dimitrov read from their bookAstro Poets with the sensational Melissa Broder at Skylight Books. Be advised this is a ticketed event.
Thank you for reading Message from the Underworld. Tell your friends.
