#458 The Rifleman- Craig Davidson

#458 The Rifleman- Craig Davidson

There’s a certain type of father that gets banned from attending his son’s little league athletics. Usually it’s one of two things: an over-bearing loud attitude that puts too much pressure on the kid, or public intoxication. Hank Mikan was guilty of both. He wanted his son Jason to be the next great basketball shooter, a rifleman. He would drill him until late at night when the neighbors began complaining about the noise.

Now as Jason is about to get college offers, Hank is barely a part of his life, and not by choice. He is one step away from being a homeless drunk. He is an embarrassment for Jason who wants nothing to do with him. He has made him hate the thing he is best at. The only thing his son has in common with him is basketball. When you get rid of that, what happens?

Rating: 7-7-8-7 Total= 29

#457 I Dream of Zenia With the Bright Red Teeth - Margaret Atwood

#457 I Dream of Zenia With the Bright Red Teeth - Margaret Atwood

I read the title and immediately thought of the Stephen Foster song: I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, but the title is where the similarities end. Charise, Roz, and Tony are three friends battling their coming middle-age. Each has had mid-life crises symptoms, some of them as innocuous as regressing to watch vampire movies.

“Why are the three of them indulging in these adolescent pursuits…They seem to have thrown away all the maturity and experience and wisdom they’ve collected like Air Miles over their middle years; just tossed them out, in favor of irresponsible buttery and salty munching and cheesy, adrenaline-soaked time wasting.”

Charise however, is having a more serious reaction to aging. She has been having vivid dreams about their deceased friend Zenia. Zenia was the wild-card of their group and one-by-one stole a boyfriend from each of them. Just as the dreams begin, Charise has re-kindled a relationship with Billy, the boyfriend taken by Zenia.

Her new dog, doesn’t like Billy at all, and like an old friend that knows some secrets, does what it can to ward off the dangerous bad decision Charise is about to make.

Notable Passage: “In dreams the time is always now.”

Rating: 8-8-8-7 Total= 31

#456 Briley Boy- Robert Mailer Anderson

#456 Briley Boy- Robert Mailer Anderson

Briley could dodge a punch. That’s what he was good at. Which was pretty convenient because he had a knack for making people take swings at him.

“He had learned to become elusive, especially from himself. He didn’t stand in front of a mirror long enough to see his own reflection. It helped when he was stealing cars, scouting houses for a B & E, scoring drugs.”

So when his new stripper wife clocked him in the head, breaking his nose, he laughed. He stood there and took all her blows, until something would give, something had to give.

This is a classic noir story, and with every good noir story you get some pretty choice lines. Here were some of my favorites:

-Her eyes were like tunnels. No train coming.

-You can’t kiss a shadow or a memory, he had been told. It was hard enough to stare at someone in the eyes and wish them dead.

-He wanted to say something. Not and apology, maybe an epitaph.

-Waiting. He heard sirens in the distance racing toward him as if there was something left to save.

Rating: 7-7-9-7 Total= 30

#455 Zaabalawi- Naguib Mahfouz

#455 Zaabalawi- Naguib Mahfouz

A man is afflicted and in need of help. He remembers his recently deceased father speaking glowingly about the great Sheikh, Zaabalawi. He saved his father and now he strikes out to find him, so he too can be saved. But where to look?

“He was once upon a time. A real man of mystery: he’d visit you so often that people would imagine he was your nearest and dearest, then would disappear as though he’d never existed. Yet saints are not to be blamed.”

He visits any place he has heard rumors of Zaabalawi’s presence, but he is greeted with the same answers each place he goes. They say that Zaabalawi was here, but he has left, and they don’t know where. Zaabalawi has touched the lives of so many people, talked of in mostly hallowed terms, and even when he was thought a charlatan, they still remembered him. But he still cannot find him

Zaabalawi is a metaphor for faith. He is elusive and hard to describe. Those that have experienced it talk glowingly about it, but they cannot show you where to find it, it must be found by each person in their own way. In searching, one might find many other valuable things.

Rating: 8-8-9-9 Total= 34

#454 Cavalcade of the Old West- Lucia Perillo

#454 Cavalcade of the Old West- Lucia Perillo

Two sister’s have a yearly tradition: they go to the pier for the carnival. It’s cheap, dirty and not aging well, but they go anyway. When they were younger, their was a revue called the Cavalcade of the Old West. They were fascinated by this show, but because of the insensitive and racist portrayals of several of the characters, the show has long since been cancelled.

Ginny is the younger, more responsible of the two and Stella is definitely on the wild side. This has been a sore point between them over the years. Stella drinking too young and too much, being loose with the carnival workers and having now divorced several husbands, Ginny resents having to be the adult for her older sister.

But, Stella lives her life without regret. “Here’s the difference between you and me…you’d be embarrassed if you were me, but I’m not.” Just like the old show, they hang on to their memories but it’s not like it used to be.

Rating: 7-6-6-6 Total= 25

#453 Sister Hills- Nathan Englander

#453 Sister Hills- Nathan Englander

This is an allegorical tale about the re-claiming of a settlement in the West Bank. Started by two families in 1973 during a time of war, the Sister Hills were “settled” soon after by seven boys, turned quickly into seventy, then in a span of fourteen years, emerged as a metropolis. The story begins with a fight over a tree. As complicated as this topic is, the following dialogue is a pretty brilliant break-down of the fight over this land:

-If it was your tree, I’d have seen you at my side last year during harvest. I’d have seen you the year before that, and ten years before that, and a hundred.

-You weren’t here yourself a hundred years ago. And anyway…you don’t look back far enough. The contract on this land is very old.

-A mythical claim, as meaningless as the one you make today

-It looks like [a war] not a judge [will decide].

Sadly in real life, that’s exactly how this has played out, but of course war hasn’t settled anything. And unfortunately, extremism and stubbornness has stopped the progress of any lasting peace:

-We’d prefer to avoid that kind of extremism.

-Then you do not have my trust.

I have no stirring or lucid insight into the politics of the Israel/Palestine question, but I think Englander does a great job shining a light on the issues.

Notable Passage: “For a judge can know how his heart would decide, but his obligation is always to the law. And they had sworn, these three. Sworn on their lives. A terrible promise to make.”

Rating: 8-9-9-9 Total= 35

#452 Gorilla, My Love- Toni Cade Bambara

#452 Gorilla, My Love- Toni Cade Bambara

Hazel is a tough young girl. She’s stubborn and very serious. She took her brothers to the movies to see Gorilla, My Love, but when she found out that it wasn’t about Gorilla’s she stormed into the managers office and demanded her money back. Not getting it she set fire to the concession stand, because when a movie title says ‘gorilla’ it better have gorillas in it.

She feels betrayed by everything that isn’t what it seems. Her uncle, Hunca Bubba, is the latest to “lie” to her, because when she was a baby, he told her she was so cute, he was going to marry her one day. Adults are untrustworthy, the kids better stick together.

“And baby Jason cryin too. Cause he is my blood brother and understands that we must stick together or be forever lost, what with grownups playin change-up and turnin you round every which way so bad. And don’t even say they sorry.”

Rating: 7-6-7-7 Total= 27