RV

Funny and wrenching, superbly narrated

Revisado: 02-24-22 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Misdirection, the second installment of Gregory Ashe’s Borealis Without a Compass trilogy, is entertaining, funny, and, true to form, extreme. The intricate story is flawlessly narrated by Charlie David, who might be my favorite audio book talent.

Misdirection has more coherence than Indirection, its predecessor, in that it feels more unified, with the main story, about missing and murdered teenagers at an elite high school, woven tightly around the trilogy’s ongoing story arc

Indirection, while also funny, felt more ad hoc, as if its various parts were forced together. Misdirection’s multiple elements, for the most part, flow easily together.

At the start of the book, North and Shaw’s relationship is at its strongest, their Borealis detective agency is going well. But the mafia-linked Uncle Ronnie turns up to spin another of his endless webs of manipulation and menace, even as North and Shaw are forced into chaperoning a conservative state senator’s teenage son, Flip. When North and Shaw show up at Shaw’s elite high school alma mater, Flip has disappeared and the duo suddenly have to deal with a number of sketchy administrators, teachers, and students.

Misdirection continues Ashe’s misanthropic vision. If Ashe were a visual artist, he’d be the painter of the abject. If his characters came to life, they’d look much like the uncanny portraits of John Currin. But where Currin’s figures are dissonant, so very close to kitschy-normality they would feel as cozy as Norman Rockwell if not for their off kilter eyes or disturbing asymmetry, Ashe’s characters are burlesques, caricatures meant to makes us, the readers, feel superior.

Where an artist like Currin seeks to shift his audience’s way of seeing, even make them uncomfortable in their complacency, Ashe’s characters placate us. By creating such obviously wretched and frequently appalling characters, Ashe plays to our conceits and egos. His characters make us feel good about ourselves simply because we can be certain we are no where near as pathetic as they are.

If I had to take the author to task on anything, it would be the imbalance in his representation of African and African-American characters. Two main Black characters are depicted as involved either with drugs or under-age sex. Sure, the White characters are often pretty despicable, but the North and Shaw books feel like a White Boy faire to begin with. Ashe might be consistent in his misanthropic writing, with everyone getting smeared with the same abased brush, but given that our country’s foundation rests solidly on demonizing and degrading people of color, perhaps more care is called for, even in narratives of the abject.

Note: An audio ARC was generously provided by the author for an unbiased review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A superbly narrated, intricate LGBTQ murder mystery

Revisado: 02-24-22

With this third book of the second North & Shaw series, Ashe redirects his odd-couple private investigators into new territory: that of being ex-boyfriends but still business partners in Borealis Investigations. The extended, oddball Borealis team is along for the ride, as is North’s soon-to-be ex-husband, Tucker, whose been arrested on murder charges, and Shaw’s eternally suffering ex-boyfriend, Detective Jadon Reck.

As they try to prove Tucker didn’t murder a college professor, the dead man’s mysterious, estranged son turns up. Adding to the confusion is multiple leads pointing to the son, but also several of North and Shaw’s college friends. Worse, there’s renewed, more deadly threats from North’s Uncle Ronnie, seeking revenge for North turning him into the cops. As with all of these books, the various plot threads weave and interweave, and are only solved by North and Shaw’s unique combination of hutzpah, bravado, and bad luck.

Redirection has less humor, but the same amount of witty and occasionally surreal repartee between North and Shaw as the earlier books. Perhaps the humor doesn’t land as well because of the rift between North and Shaw that opened during the last book. For me, the decision to have them break up fell flat, feeling more like an artificial plot device forced into the story to keep the series going. It felt out of character, so the humor didn’t click as well as it did with Indirection and Misdirection.

For an already violent series, it also has more violence. Ashe’s style can be described as the overheated melodrama of the abject, the only problem being that, when you start a series on high boil, eventually your only choice is to have the stove explode. I’m not sure we’ve hit that mark yet, but in Redirection it comes close. I had to pause the exceptionally gifted Charlie David’s narration a few times to get through one scene.

David’s superb delivery raises an interesting question. I’ve listened to the entire series, from the very first book, and David’s characterization of North and Shaw is so perfect, so entertaining, that it’s hard to separate the characters from David’s talent. But would I have reached book 6 if I’d been reading the books, instead of listening to them? I’m not sure I would.

I tend to be a more critical reader than listener (given that I’m a visual and print-oriented learner), and an audiobook is a more episodic, fragmentary experience for me. When listening, I’m not as focused on the over-all aesthetic of how the plot, pacing, characterization, thematic content, and writing style all cohere into an overarching experience. Ashe’s style really is over the top, and I think reading it would wear thin after awhile (I stopped reading his Hazard and Somerset books, opting to listen to them instead). But his style seems perfectly suited to the episodic listening that occurs with an audiobook, and Charlie David’s insight, pacing, and vocal characterizations make Ashe’s books an engaging, funny, and suspense form of entertainment.

That said, the amount of work Ashe is turning out - he has several series going - and the intricate, character-specific plot threads he weaves together, is more than impressive. I’m a visual artist, so I have an idea of the effort and complexity involved. I take my hat off to him, with thanks for many hours of enjoyment.

An audio-ARC was generously provided by the author for an unbiased review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

By turns hilarious and sinister, another strong North and Shaw book

Revisado: 01-01-22 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Gregory Ashe’s unique mix of humor, burlesque character portraits, and bleak view of humanity is on full display in this first book of the second series of North and Shaw novels. This time, the setting is “Queer Expectations,” a fictional convention for gay romance novel enthusiasts, with a secondary plot thread featuring North’s slimy, mob affiliated “uncle,” Ronnie. The Borealis team is contracted to sniff out a series of threats against the convention, while Ronnie forces them into tracking down someone beating up young male prostitutes.

Ashe is nothing if not an equal opportunity satirist, and there are few truly good, decent folks to be found in his detective novels. But his North and Shaw books are personal favorites because of the humor and banter between the two long time friends and lovers, which lightens the mood of what can often be pretty dark stories.

Indirection opens with the humor and banter set on hyperdrive; the first chapters are hilarious, made even more so by the always excellent narration of Charlie David. That said, the burlesque and satire take on an added edge by the middle of the novel. I’m not sure whether it’s intended or not, but it feels as if Ashe’s caricatures of romance writers and the gay romance industry is more a vicious take down than parody. Of course, his own books, themselves overheated caricatures of old school noir crime novels, could easily lend themselves to equally vicious lampoons, so one wonders what’s up in this book: is Ashe making fun of everyone equally, or is there an axe he’s grinding? This line of inquiry becomes quickly entangled, especially because North and Shaw’s love scenes become ironically meta given the author’s lampooning of the romance industry that North and Shaw are investigating.

In the end, just sit back and enjoy where North and Shaw take you (wonderfully assisted by Charlie David’s vocal characterizations). I’m looking forward to the next novel in this series, and, although the author generously provides me with ARC’s for independent reviews, I also buy my own copies. I’ve really enjoyed the North and Shaw books, and look forward to many more.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Another brilliantly narrated installment in the North/Shaw series

Revisado: 05-12-21

Beautifully narrated by Charlie David, Triangulation is the second, very successful installment in Gregory Ashe’s Borealis Invesigations series (so far, my favorite series from this author - although he's been on a roll recently with new book series, so I have a bit of catching up to do).
​​
​​There's a certain misanthropic thread that runs throughout Ashe’s detective novels, both this one about North and Shaw but also in the Hazard and Somerset books. In some ways, I associate it with a kind of grim, mid-western American Gothic, where very few of your neighbors are really the nice people they try to pass themselves off as. That so many of the unpleasant characters in this book are LGBTQ could be off-putting if it weren't for the fact that almost no one comes off in a good light (except poor Jadon, a cop dating Shaw at the start of the book, maybe a couple secondary characters, and the kids struggling to grow up at a LGBTIQ youth center, which is central to the story).
​​
​​Scanning the other reviews of this book, is clear Ashe has hit a sweet spot among his fans. The reparte and dynamics between North and Shaw have a lot to do with this - they may each be dealing with their own, albeit different, traumatic pasts, but they're love and concern for each other shines through every page, more often than not with a humor that is both a mask and balm.
​​
​​I read the books out of order, so I've finished the first three - but the next book in the North and Shaw series, Indirection, is finally out! And, just as important, narrated by Charlie David, whose stamped his unique talents on this series to such an extent I can't envision anyone else ever narrating them.
​​
​​I'd like to thank the author for providing an ARC of the audiobook for an unbiased review of Triangulation. It's fantastic - time well spent.
​​

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A highly entertaining mystery featuring two fascinating gay PI's

Revisado: 09-21-20

With Orientation, author Gregory Ashe brings us another pair of inwardly tortured gay detectives, but with none of the awkward edges of his Hazard and Somerset series. The personalities and inner conflicts of his Borealis private investigators, North and Shaw, have a coherent emotional dynamic missing in the earlier series. Not that I dislike Hazard and Somerset; I enjoy those books quite a bit. But Hazard’s inner psyche has a stitched together, Frankenstein quality, as if characteristics from radically different people were pieced together In a way that’s left the disjointed seams showing. Both North and Shaw have deep seated emotional scars, some of them raw and open, but I can easily accept them as two unique, coherent personalities, each of whom have experienced different kinds of trauma but who’ve held on to their individual identities.

Set in contemporary St. Louis, Orientation finds North and Shaw on the trail of a blackmailer in possession of videos of members of the LGBTQ community in compromising positions. A core dynamic of the book is that the two PI’s are clearly in love with each other, but, because of missed opportunities, misunderstandings, and their own private demons, neither can acknowledge this obvious truth. Worse, North is already married and Shaw is still dealing with a violent assault from his past.

You might expect Orientation, given these plot points, to be a dark and angsty novel. In fact, it’s hilarious. The banter between North and Shaw, both in private and when threatened, is inventive, funny, and wonderfully entertaining. It lets the novel breath, creating space to understand the Borealis PI’s in multiple ways, but also provides the reader with a greater range of emotional experiences.

With Orientation, Ashe has found a way to give voice to his multiple gifts as a writer, allowing humor and tragedy, the absurd and mundane, and decency and violence to careen off each other. The result is a cascade of sparks that keep this story lively and engaging from start to finish.

The narration by Charles David is outstanding; his characterizations are superb, as is the emotional range of his voice. I can’t imagine anyone bringing this book to life as beautifully and seamlessly as David.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

A fitting, moving culminations of the Hazard and Somerset series

Revisado: 08-28-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

In this last of the Hazard and Somerset books, we find Hazard and Somers as well as the author growing into their respective roles with greater maturity. Hazard, now a PI, and Somers, still a police detective but with a new, younger partner, are engaged top each other and acclimating to their roles as dads (to Somers' 3 year old daughter). Then Somerset senior throws a curve ball. Somers' dad is running for mayor of their city, which has plenty of homophobic voters, and so calls in favors from both men, insisting they live apart until after the upcoming too-close-to-call election. Following the form set early on in this series, there are multiple high-emotion subplots occurring simultaneously, including a disappearance and murder, Hazard's ailing father, a detective's infatuation with Somers, and unresolved issues between Hazard and his ex Nico. In fact, the rift caused by Somers' dad leads to the couple discovering they need to confront a number of unresolved issues between them. Aside from the various plot threads, the author's writing takes a clear step forward in Wayward.

The author, Gregory Ashe, still enjoys writing characters and conflicts that are just a bit overheated, with Somers' dad coming off as a nearly cartoon villain at certain points in the story. But where Ashe's writing really shines is the raw emotion that unfolds as a result of these conflicts. He nails the cruel vindictiveness of hurt, pain and fear as it twists into the caustic attacks that Somers and Hazard launch against each other. He captures the gritty, awkward feelings and the eviscerating barbs designed to bury each of their separate vulnerabilities as the two lovers, both alpha males, clash repeatedly. Early on, my husband of 20 years and I experienced something similar, two strong males socialized as take-charge leaders; it took some time for us, lacking role models, to not only get the balance right, but maintain it in the face of homophobia and life's unexpected challenges. So, too, with our fictional detectives - who have the added hardship of living in Missouri and doing a job not conducive to the healthy processing of difficult emotions.

In Wayward, gone are the distracting metaphors that I recall from the second book in the series, metaphors which didn't always align with or illuminate the characters' action and emotions. In this book, the writing is sharp, focused, and to the point. Each scene is clearly drawn and well conceived.

But Ashe's writing is more flexible and assured in this book than in the earlier books, too. It veers from raw and ugly emotional realism to charming, lighthearted scenes with the couple's daughter, and even to a few passages that are flat-out funny.

I was generously provided a free copy of the audio version of this book, narrated effectively by Tristan James, in exchange for an honest review. At first James' breathy, staccato delivery, which has plenty of words ending in a gravely falling intonation, might seem like an echo of a Guy Noir episode. That feeling won't last. Soon you'll discover James' nails Hazard's grumbling reticence and foul moods, providing an effective contrast in the laid-back sunniness of Somers' extroverted personality. His vocal characterization of a shady psychologist is simply disturbing. Regardless of cultural background or socio-economic dialect, James' vocal acting and narration effortlessly transported me to Ashe's Wahredua, Missouri. His delivery fits Ashe's top-notch writing perfectly, giving Hazard and Somerset, the couple we've come to love despite their not always being very lovable, a fitting, compelling end.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A desperately needed, near-encyclopedic account of the invention of race

Revisado: 06-22-20

The History of White People is a near-encyclopedic look at the invention of race and the evolution of whiteness as a privileged category, one that is consistently used as a socio-economic and political weapon. It should be required reading for every high school graduate. Starting with the Ancient Greeks and Romans, with their imaginative, hyperbolic descriptions of light-skinned, northern barbarian tribes, Painter traces how differences between people were conceived before the emergence of race theory in northern Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries. She traces the subsequent transmission of taxonomies and ideologies of race thereafter across Europe and America. Whereas the ancients thought climate dictated difference, Enlightenment-era thinkers decided that "blood" and "heredity" made people different, with some being naturally superior and others naturally inferior. Painter dismantles the American equation that "Black = Slave" by demonstrating that, for most of history, most slaves were, in fact, white, pointing out the fetishization of Caucasian slaves as a popular theme in Victorian-era painting. Concluding her history in the 21st century, including attempts to racialize the human genome (the unraveling of which proved that there is no biological basis for race) and a discussion of current census categories, Painter shows that whiteness and race are ever-changing, fugitive categories that collapse amidst their own contradictions given either critical scrutiny and/or changing social conditions.

I used this book as the basis for a university seminar, and my students devoured it. It's a necessary, immensely valuable book that will remain within easy reach on my book shelf.

That said, I made a few critical notes as I read the text.

The author distorts the evolution of contemporary American art. Her contention that "Painters invented nonfigurative abstract expressionism in a reaction against socialist realism" is so superficial and off-base as to be worthy of an eye-roll. Abstract expressionism grew out of multiple factors, including a reaction against American Regionalist painting (a much bigger factor than socialist visual propaganda, especially considering that some Abstract Expressionists were taught by American Regionalists such as Thomas Hart Benton). It also grew out of the conceptual and aesthetic exhaustion of Cubism, which had become formulaic by the 1930's and no-longer a viable, relevant visual language for meeting the needs of the new age. "Ab Ex" was extensively shaped by the influx of European intellectuals and artists fleeing the war and persecution, bringing with them new psychoanalytic ideas about how to creatively tap "the unconscious." These ideas and practices were deeply influential at the time. Her brief mention of Ab Ex is so distorted and wrong as to make one worry what other arguments she's manipulated by elision or selective citation. NOT that I think her arguments are misleading or her conclusions are wrong, but rather, because I think they are accurate, there's no reason for minor examples of overreach or overgeneralization such as this to be part of the narrative. (To be fair, this text was written prior to her going back to university for a BFA and then a MFA in Painting from RISD, and her memoir about this experience, "Old in Art School," tracks her learning curve in coming to understand visual art as a professional artist (and hoists a few pompous art professors on their own petards by pointing out when they mask their own lack of understanding with mindless jargon).

Editorially, there's the odd transitional paragraph that might make you scratch your head, or the odd sentence which favors excessive detail at the cost of clarity. Mostly, though, the text reads smoothly and logically (although it might not be clear why she brings up certain thinkers or topics, rest assured she weaves everything together over the course of the book).

The author doesn't suffer fools and calls out nonssnse for what it is. But given her scholarly rigor and general equanimity, I have to wonder why she makes a point of mentioning one theory that Johann Winckelmann, the father of euro-centric, Greek-idolizing art history and a man who had sex with men, might have died from a "rough trade" sexual encounter gone awry. It comes off as a morally-superior-than-thou, anti-gay pot shot that doesn't square with other parts of the book, for instance, when she alludes to likely lesbian relationships.

This book is one of the most valuable I've read. It's a desperately needed addition to any attempt at understanding what America is all about.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

A thoroughly entertaining audiobook, by turns riveting and funny, with exceptional narration

Revisado: 05-25-20

Declination veers from pitch-perfect humor (the really funny, belly-laugh kind) to life-or-death action, yet still manages to convey raw moments of tension, hurt, and passionate affection between the newly coupled private detectives, North and Shaw. Equally pitch-perfect is the crystal clear narration by Charlie David, who gives each of the supporting characters their own vocal style but who reserves his most impressive characterizations for North and Shaw themselves. David's dramatic and comedic timing is flawless, and his narration includes an entire palette of emotions that makes it hard to stop listening. For instance, North can ground and center Shaw's rapid-fire thoughts and manic feelings by simply saying "Shaw, Baby," two words that acquire layers and layers of nuanced meaning when uttered in David's deep, resonate base, two words that, in David's intonations, can mean anything from "I love you," to "Calm down," to "You're safe with me," to "Get ready to run!" (Note: a review copy of the Declination audiobook was provided to me by the author).

The story finds Shaw trying to open up to North but struggling with trauma from an encounter with a serial killer years earlier, a killer who targeted young gay men. It's an abyss preventing the couple from taking the next step in their relationship. But the slasher's story is far from over, and North and Shaw soon wonder if there's anyone they can trust, especially after a man from Shaw's past is nearly shot to death. Ashe's dialogue sparkles, and the plot takes enough twists and turns - both in terms of the search for the killer and in the detectives' love life - to keep you wanting more (at least, that's how I felt, from beginning to end). Ashe uses some tried and true tropes along the way, but because of the strong characterization, constantly evolving plot, and exceptional pacing, everything feels fresh and engaging. (I thought I'd take the week to finish the audiobook, but finished it in two days).

Declination is thoroughly entertaining, hits all the right notes, and I'm looking forward to more North and Shaw (fingers crossed).

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña