C.B.E.

So grateful

Revisado: 07-08-24

I wish I had read this when I was 20. Outstanding. Frank, compassionate, realistic, often light-hearted, and definitely joyous.

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Dermis makes Tolkien even better

Revisado: 08-17-23

Andy Serkis is a marvel. Don’t know where Peter Jackson found him, but he is a genuine voice artist and he brings Tolkien’s first classic vividly to life. I love the old Rob Inglis recording, too, but Serkis is a master.

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Incredible wordsmith

Revisado: 10-28-20

Beuhlman can write, really, really write. His prose is outstanding, as is his ear for dialog. I came away incredibly impressed.

Ditto for this reader, who was outstanding in rendering the various dialects and accents in the novel.

As for the story, it sure kept me listening. That said, the resolution was really no surprise, and most readers/listeners are going to get the gist of what's going on fairly early on, certainly before the halfway point.

I will say that with a story like this, there are almost always going to be plausibility problems. How such a situation can exist, and continue, in the "modern" world (mid-Depression America, but still) is unexplained. What's more, once the problem is known, it seems ludicrous that an entire community would be unable to summon outside help to destroy the threat. Even in 1936 or whatever.

With a story like "The Exorcist," the terror and threat is deeply personal and contained within a private setting. The minute you set your story in a wider community or environment, you're going to face implausibility issues.

Nonetheless, if for no other reason than his genuinely remarkable use of the English language, ear for dialog and skill at rendering character, I'd certainly read another of this author's works.

Also, I applaud his willingness to risk opprobrium in this oversensitive age by the use of regional language that, while frequently used at the time, is now considered radioactive. Words, in and of themselves — the scratches on paper, the sound waves emitted from a human mouth — are not magical talismans of evil (or good), regardless of what some would like us to think.

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Well done, clever

Revisado: 10-28-20

As a person constantly searching for plausible possession stories, I found "My Best Friend's Exorcism" unique and well-executed.

Some readers/listeners have complained about the constant '80s references, but I think Hendrix does a great job of layering these in unobtrusively.

As a pure writer, Hendrix is outstanding. His crisp characterizations are excellent, as are his use of language and ability to inject humor into what is, after all, a fairly shocking horror story.

If there is a "message" to the novel, I'd say it's, "Find power in who you are and what you know, and don't let anybody tell you you should be somebody else."

The narrator was good, but her game attempts to render male voices were distracting. I think she might have been better off just speaking normally.

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Surprisingly sophisticated

Revisado: 10-28-20

I was surprised when I heard at the end of this novel that it received its original serialization in *1940* (and it's original book publication in 1948).

All things considered, the venerable Williamson did a remarkable job of hand-waving his way through some of the concepts of theoretical physics at mid-century, coming up with a basically plausible explanation for witches and lycanthropes. I was impressed by the plotting, to be sure.

The downside, alas, is that Williamson demonstrated his limited ability to use the English language in a sophisticated way. Although he apparently never worked as a journalist, "Darker Than You Think" feels very much as if it were written by a journalist from the 1940s. Rather than search for revealing, rich ways to express himself, Williamson defaulted time and again to the same, tired old descriptions.

I will point out in particular that I had to stop *reading* the book, and eventually opted to listen to it, because of his egregious, repetitive use of eye descriptions as some kind of stand-in for character. On the printed page, I couldn't tolerate his tiresome description of April Bell's "long" and "green" (or dark) eyes, and the man simply was in love with the word "long" as a slightly off-kilter description of many things in the narrative.

In other words, Williamson was a pulp writer, at least at that point.

But you know, it was a fascinating book, and as far as it goes, well plotted. Implausible, sure, but that's no surprise. I genuinely admire his effort to wrap supernatural concepts in a blanket of theoretical physics.

I confess that I found myself speculating about the identity of the big bogeyman at the center of the plot, and while Williamson did a nice job of turning my eye this way or that, I had a strong hunch who it was by midway through the novel, perhaps even a bit earlier.

I applaud his willingness not to wrap the whole thing up neatly at the end. You'll see.

The narrator was great, a perfect moderated "1940s radio" kind of voice that well suited the story.

I love lycanthrope/werewolf stories, and unlike the vampire and zombie subgenres, there are surprisingly few truly "classic" shape-shifter works out there (I would argue that Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" was among the first and best). So I think Williamson did a nice job here, and given that he wrote it in 1940 (!!), it's impressive and worthy of the library of any lycanthrope fan.

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Decent pop fiction, lots of flaws

Revisado: 08-30-20

I have no idea what inspired Audible to make all these titles available to members for free, but I'm loving it. For grins, I thought I'd listen to Peter Benchley's "Jaws" and see just what made me think it was so incredible at age 13.

First, I will disagree with those who insist the film is better, hands-down. The movie does some things better, such as the seldom-noted humor laced throughout what is essentially a horror movie, and the excellent performances of the principals. But by carving out much of the backstories from the novel — Larry Vaughn's troubles; troubles in the Brodys' marriage — it rendered the whole thing less human, IMO.

And frankly, I much prefer Quint's arc in the novel, with its echoes of Melville, and the ongoing conflict between Brody and Hooper, to the decisions made in the film. And, of course, the animatronic shark "Bruce" worked just fine while in the water, but hoo-boy, beyond that.... suffice it to say that Benchley's ending is more realistic and less corny.

I found it interesting how Benchley's novel metaphorically echoes society. The three men on the boat clearly represent various strata of society, the elite (Hooper), the middle-class (Brody), and a kind of id-like working class (Quint). In theory, a populist book would choose a different ultimate survivor, but I think the way Benchley went stands up for "regular Americans," circa 1970s Long Island. I am not one to judge artists of the past based on the standards of today, but there are certainly a few eyebrow-raising bits concerning race and relations between the sexes. Such were the times.

It's also surprisingly anti-environment, in my opinion, and as even Benchley acknowledged to his chagrin, it's absolutely horrible, wrong and ridiculous when it comes to shark behavior and biology. Indeed, while the novel seems to want us to see Hooper as a kind of pointy-headed freak, Benchley himself came to realize that his awe and wonder at "the fish" was, in fact, the most appropriate attitude, vs. Brody's panicky fear and Quint's raw, callous viciousness and essential solipsism.

All that noted, it's a fun, popular novel, and the kind of quick "read" that make me really want to listen to see what happens next.

The movie, which offers its own myriad pleasures, of course, would have been much better had it stuck closer to the novel, IMO.

Well worth the time to listen here at the end of a strange summer.

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Insightful, honest and engaging

Revisado: 11-28-19

I briefly interacted with Ms. Phelps-Roper a few years ago, regarding her mother. I was critical and she was, understandably, defensive.

I encountered her mother, Shirley Phelps-Roper, once, while working as a journalist. For reasons that were obscure — perhaps for no other reason that I lived in a liberal community — the Westboro Baptist Church had elected to protest in my hometown. The group assembled near a main thoroughfare with their tiresomely inflammatory signs, protected by a phalange of police officers. Across the street, locals held what amounted to a street party in opposition, dancing and laughing while dressed in colorful outfits (I particularly remember the young woman in a tiger suit and Bill Clinton mask; it was the '90s).

I crossed the street, notebook in hand, and explained to the officers that I was a reporter from the local paper, seeking comment from Shirley, the evident leader of the group of women and children protesters. They let me through. As I approached Shirley, she began to scream words akin to, "Get away from me! Stop tormenting me! Officer! OFFICER!" while not allowing me to explain that I was a journalist. When she finally paused for breath, I hurriedly asked for a comment.

The instant she understood I was a journalist, her demeanor shifted from red-faced, combative shrieker to calm, well-spoken interview subject. Her words of explanation, uttered pleasantly, were seemingly rational and considered, in great contrast to the florid, angry language of the group's infamous posters.

That day, I realized that, despite their pretentions to being "godly" people compassionately warning a fallen world (as Calvinist-type thinkers, they assumed that their god had created the vast majority of humans throughout history only to see them burn in torment for eternity, a "just" outcome for an all-powerful deity), they were the most human of creatures. Whatever their initial aims, I came to see them as primarily driven by the dopamine/adrenaline/endorphin rush they surely obtained by placing themselves in such situations and thereby "earning" publicity from journalists like me. I came to believe that, despite the pleasant and happy protest across the street, the best way to diminish their reach and influence would be, as mom used to advise, to simply ignore them.

In "Unfollow" — like everything else in this book, the title is pitch-perfect — ex-Westboro fanatic Megan Phelps-Roper both confirms and upends my impressions from that long-ago day. She assures readers that her family — the church is almost all close family — truly does have the courage of its convictions, and yet it's clear from her riveting account that they also fell into many all-too-human traps.

In viewing themselves as literally the only people with the "correct" view of the cosmos and God, they were simply exhibiting homo sapiens' deeply animalistic tribal tendencies to an extreme, carving out a tiny "us" against a vast, historic "them." Amusingly, to me, their unconscious enactment of genetic preferences is a bright, flashing signal that they are mere human animals. (By the way, I love the question posed by a gay acquaintance of Megan's near the end of the book: If the U.S. Constitution, written less than a quarter of a century ago in a modern language and dialect, is so complicated that it leads to constant, varied interpretations, how can it be that the Bible, written thousands of years ago in archaic languages, is so readily subject to anyone's "correct" interpretation?)

Although it's sometimes hard to stomach, I like that Megan portrays her family inside and out, as both truly loving to one another (leaving, for now, the abuse) and viciously un-neighborly to the rest of the world. That *she* views them this way makes perfect sense, and makes apparent my error in challenging her about her mother a few years ago. Shirley, too, is a victim of a cult driven by abuse, fear and bad ideas.

Megan Phelps-Roper is a very good, clean writer, and in this book, at least, an absolutely perfect narrator. I've done audio book narration and it's hard work; she has the voice for it and I suspect could make a living at it, if she wished.

"Unfollow" is among the top five books I read or listened to this year. If you are interested in cults and understanding how humans become trapped in them, and seeking a story of a genuinely intelligent woman who found her way out — through the compassion of others and the inevitable overstepping of Westboro's male leaders — I highly recommend this book.

I don't flatter myself that Megan will read this review, but if she does, I want to offer my apologies for criticizing her mother as I did a few years ago. I understand them both much better, now.

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This should be required reading for all Americans

Revisado: 09-09-19

Though disturbing in its portrayal of the gains that Christian nationalists have made, particularly under their "wolf king" or "Cyrus" or whatever it is they think of Individual 1 (the Current Occupant of the White House), Seidel's book is an absolutely comprehensive, brilliant evisceration of the dead-wrong notion that the United States isa "Christian nation" in any sense, other than demographically.

I suspect that the Christian dominionists/nationalists are impervious to rock-solid analysis and sound arguments like those presented in the book, but I wish every non-dominionist in America — whether the leftiest liberal, libertarian or even moderate or conservative Christians — would read this and absorb one of Seidel's (and history's) repeated warnings: Religion, when in the minority, seeks protection that tends to protect all (i.e. separation of church and state), but when married to power, religion *always* goes the other direction, seeking to enforce belief, often at the end of a gun or pyre-lighting torch.

If you think you know "the" Ten Commandments, think again. Seidel carefully examines various versions of the commandments and describes how most believers, and most public monuments proclaiming the commandments, conveniently leave out most of the text. Seidel illuminates how the commandments were not, and could not have been, the foundation for the U.S. Constitution; they are utterly opposite in both word and spirit.

Thank you, Andrew Seidel and the Freedom from Religion Foundation for the work you do. This book is, to me, the single most important work of nonfiction to be published in the past 20 years or more. I wish I could memorize it so I could quote it verbatim at will.

The narration is a little quirky, dry and nasally. But not so much that it distracts from what's being read.

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Great reporting, a tad uneven

Revisado: 09-22-18

Michelle McNamara deserves the highest praise for her obsessive research on the Golden State Killer over the years. It's tragic that she did not live to see James Joseph DeAngelo captured and charged with many of the horrific crimes he is alleged to have committed.

One hopes that future editions of the book, including audio editions, will include an extensive coda or chapter(s) to describe the remarkable circumstances of his capture in 2018, and explore if, or how, McNamara's and others' research contributed to the long hunt for this despicable killer.

Overall the book was handled well by those tasked with assembling McNamara's notes after her untimely death. However, it is somewhat uneven, in places verging on straight, and not particularly interesting, memoir, only to leave that utterly behind in its pursuit of the (admittedly more interesting) story of her sleuthing.

Certainly the book kept my attention for the most part. I look forward to seeing a future edition that greatly expands upon the remarkable story of DeAngelo's capture.

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Funny and incisive

Revisado: 09-23-17

Having read some of West's work in The New York Times, I decided to listen to "Shrill" while on a cross-country drive. I'm glad I did.

The book is honest, very funny—I seem to share her semi-dweeby, sometimes-profane, self-deprecating sense of humor—and refreshingly candid.

At times, I wasn't sure I could agree with her 100% on some of her views. For example, while I don't care to hear rape jokes or think they are funny, neither am I the kind of person who typically will laugh at a Holocaust joke, either. That raises, for me, the question of, "Where is the line?" and I'm not sure I was fully convinced by West's answers.

She is a great reader, with a lively reading style, and I've enjoyed hearing her speak since first encountering her on podcasts.

Just for comparison, we also listened to Amy Schumer's memoir, "The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo," on the same drive, and West's writing, sense of what's important, and delivery were all much, much better than those of the more famous comedian.

So here's one white male who who counts himself a West fan.

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