Ziegelman's absorbing
social history follows the story of one New York City tenement, 97
Orchard in the Lower East Side, and five families who lived in it
during the Age of Immigration from 1863 to 1935. Focusing on what
these immigrants ate, Ziegelman explores how their diets affected
the city and later influenced our country's culinary culture over
five waves of immigration: German, Irish, Jewish, Russian, and
Italian. We learn how each group brought its own food customs to
America, and, through food substitution, food abundance, and the
changing culture, how they adapted and thrived. Jewish cuisine
traces the source of fat, from geese (which were to kosher), to
chickens (which were cheaper), to Crisco—the first commercial
vegetable fat—which was pareve and even more versatile than goose
fat. It was mostly men who came from Italy, and they clung more
tightly to their ancestral food than any other immigrants. For them,
proper Italian food wasn't just dishes made in the Italian manner,
it required actual ingredients from Italy. The family meal was a
time to be together as well as eat, and attendance was mandatory.
Even if the school lunch was free, most Italian children ate lunch
at home. Germans would gather for 30,000-strong cultural festivals
and enjoy the spirit of their nation through beer and
sausages—something that today we don't find unusual (Miller Lite and
a Dodger dog anyone?), but at the time was exotic. Delicatessens
boomed because they made it easy to buy a small amount a good food.
And, in a crowded, windowless tenement, who wanted to cook?
Especially with a wood-burning stove and no running water. Food for
these immigrants was not just a source of nourishment, but, by
serving as a reminder of all they had left behind, of comfort as
well. The book includes a few recipes in each chapter to help
explain food customs and to encourage readers to experiment at home.
At last an aspect of the Civil War that hasn't been beaten into the
ground. With the exception of Abraham Lincoln's instructions to find
out what General Grant was getting drunk on every night and to make
sure the rest of the Union's generals got some, we don't really
laugh when we think of the 1860's. But American culture wasn't all
that different 150 years ago. Magazines, songs, and especially
newspapers produced during The War Between The States were filled
with satire both as sophisticated as Doonesbury and as broad
as Saturday Night Live. A Currier and Ives lithograph titled
“The Old General Ready for a 'Movement'” depicts Union General
Winfield Scott atop the city of Richmond supposedly waiting for the
Confederate Jefferson Davis to “move in,” but his squatting position
over Davis, suggests “it is not a military evacuation he is ready
for.” Southern papers depicted Lincoln as a monkey handing the
Emancipation Proclamation to a jubilant black man, and as an
ineffective stick figure made of rails. On the home front, army
contractors who grew fat on the public's dollars were warned of
their sins by doggerel verse, and those who shirked their duty by
not joining up were caricatured as effete “swells.” The book does
not shirk from the unpleasant use of African Americans in some of
the “humor” of the time, but Nickles employs that as springboard to
detail the little-known position of “contrabands”—escaped former
slaves living in the north. The book is well-illustrated with
reproductions of political cartoons and broadsides from the period.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is Nickels' examples of humor in
advertising. Today's President's Day car dealership ads aren't too
far removed from the “Proclamation” issued by Charles Baker of
Philadelphia warning that “General JOHN FROST aided by his
Irresistible Warriors” hail, rain, snow and sleet were “about to
INVADE THE HOMES of Loyal Northerners.” Therefore Baker was
advertising “for the purpose of EMANCIPATING the people from the
Tyranny” of the elements and coal dealers—by selling weather
stripping.
For a thousand years, British warlocks kept a secret: an inhuman
language that can be learned only by children and used only with
blood sacrifice. Tradition had it passed down by father to son and
practiced in private—and sparingly, because the speaker doesn’t get
to set the blood price of their negotiations. And so tradition was
kept, until Nazi u-boats threatened the coastlines of the British
Isles and the Germans sent their secret weapon -children tortured by
a scientific mystic until they developed superhuman abilities- into
the field.
Out of desperation, British spy Raybould Marsh asks a longtime
friend, with whom he’d once borne witness to something uncanny, to
call on every warlock he knew of. They gave the Allies the edge they
needed... but now there will be consequences.
Bitter Seeds,
Ian Tregullis’s debut novel and the first of a trilogy, is a
horrific story written well and executed brilliantly, giving life to
London's wartime streets and its citizens. Strongly recommended.
This
latest zombie mash-up brings together the flesh-eating undead and a
Star Trek convention. In the style of Galaxy Quest,
this is a loving parody, playing with the stereotypes of science
fiction and science fiction fans without being mean-spirited. It’s
packed with references to Star Trek (every chapter title is
the name of an episode or movie) and other genre fare, making it a
fun read from start to finish for those on the inside.
The
in-jokes occasionally backfire, however. Although you can’t do a
Trek parody without joking about Red Shirts, the cannon fodder
security guards, the stretched-out routine here is played for dark
laughs but falls flat. A Trek convention in a hotel named
“Botany Bay” without a single attendee making a joke about it?
Inconceivable. The same could be said for the lead character with
the mash-upped captains’ name “Jim Pike” . . . like no one would
notice that. There are other misteps; the hero’s back story is a bit
heavy-handed, and the soldier-with-a-sixth-sense bit was both
cliched and then strangely underused.
But
the reader doesn’t pick this book up for subtly crafted fiction. The
authors create sci-fi zombies and heap on the Trek trivia, zombie
gore, and a variety of edged weapons from Klingon bat’leths to
Jem’Hadar kar’takin. What more do you need? Although some of the
metafiction references seem a bit well-worn, there are enough plot
twists to keep this geeky romp worth reading for anyone who’s been
to a sci-fi convention.
Pluto Water—a bottled spring water with a sulfurous smell and a
dancing devil logo—was a popular cure-all during the roaring
Twenties, and it put West Baden, Indiana on the map. But, when the
Depression hit, the factory closed and most of the townsfolk left. A
century later, Eric Shaw is there to work on a video biography of
the one famous person ever to come out of West Baden, the very
wealthy Campbell Bradford, now on his death-bed. Eric has always had
psychic flashes, and sips from some still-sealed bottles of the
water begin to give him detailed visions of the town's dark past.
(Eventually, Eric becomes dependent on the water, and Koryta's use
of this as a metaphor for alcoholism is striking.) As this excellent
supernatural thriller progresses, Eric and Kellen Cage, a graduate
student looking into West Baden's African American history, turn up
mystery after mystery. Were there two Campbell Bradfords, or is the
millionaire just impossibly old? What is the destination of the
ghost train that Eric sees, and who is playing the violin elegy that
haunts him? Perhaps most confounding, what is in one particular
bottle of Pluto Water that keeps it ice-cold no matter what? The
pair's investigations are hampered by Josiah Bradford, the rich
man's great-grandson, a young punk with a string of petty crimes
behind him who dreams of a big score. The strange whisperings he
hears will draw them all together.
He was not going to kill her immediately. No—if there was one thing
he had learned, it was to save the moment, to be deliberate and
purposeful.
“Deliberate and purposeful” may be the perfect description of
Velocity, Alan Jacobson’s latest book to feature FBI agent Karen
Vail, raises the stakes as well as the scope of the story. That’s
because in addition to the serial killer caught at the close of
Crush, there’s another at large here. And one of them, if not both,
may be responsible for the disappearance of Vail’s lover, Detective
Robby Hernandez.
This time out, Vail’s pursuit of that second serial killer with a
fondness for leaving his victims in public places takes her out of
her comfort zone, both figuratively and literally. His trail and
Hernandez’s whisk Vail away from wine country to Washington where
the tale takes a sharp curve into the unexpected confronting her
with professional challenges that clash harshly with her personal
ones.
The picturesque Napa Valley settings aside, Velocity is a
rare and exquisite vintage of the genre, a thriller with heart and
soul to go with its proverbial muscle. This is The Silence of
the Lambs gone conspiratorial. Think Hannibal Lecter connected
to some dastardly, Washington-spawned plot. Now that Thomas Harris’
rare writing has dissolved into drivel, Jacobson seems more than
ready to replace him as king of the serial killer form.
Ian Minot is a struggling short story writer in New York who gets a
shot at fame and success—if he's just willing to lie. He meets Jed
Roth, who's written a rollicking thriller full of romance, tough-guy
action, and the flavor of New York City. Roth's problem is that
nobody wants to publish his novel. It's too far-fetched. But, based
on the success of another recent book about life in a street gang—a book almost as far-fetched, yet billed as a memoir—Roth has an
idea. He'll get Minot to say he's the author and that the book is
completely true. That book is also called The Thieves of
Manhattan, and . . . well, throughout the book, Langer tosses
around neologisms based on other writers' names (“franzens” are
glasses like Jonathan Franzen wears), so when Ian, who's telling the
story, mentions that Roth's book uses neologisms and has a glossary
at the end explaining the literary references he's tossed in, you
turn to the end of this book . . . and find a glossary.
Langen's novel relishes in playing with that line between the real
and the unreal. And, after all, isn't the point of fiction to tell
the truth? Roth's plot is carefully thought-out. He has Ian actually
re-type the book so that he's intimately familiar with every word.
The two choose an editor with a sterling reputation, yet who's known
not to bother with fact-checking. Thieves (Langer's book,
not Roth and Minot's) is filled with the gossip and backstabbing of
the publishing world, and its second half is a rollicking thriller
full of romance, tough-guy action, and the flavor of New York City.
It's the mid-1960's, and
every '50's sci-fi movie cliché has come true. Earth is swarming
with aliens, atomic-spawn monsters, and mutants. And some of them
are going to high school. J!m Anderson is a blue-skinned,
hyper-cephalic teenager who nobody understands nor appreciates. He's
James Dean with a finger than drinks crude oil (if he eats anything
more-recently deceased, he picks up on the “psychic aftertaste” of
how it was killed), and he's in love with a human girl, Marie
Rand—daughter of the neighborhood mad scientist. This satiric
monster mash-up fuses horror with the angsty high school melodramas
of the period. “Hygiene” classes teach about the dangers of
inter-species sex, and the cafeteria lady is a mole woman. There are
throw-away in-jokes on almost every page: A radio reporter
announces “Henry Kissinger returned from Arkansas today with welcome
news in the War on Schmoo,” and J!m ironically quotes from Singin’
in the Rain by reminding his mother, “I'm not people.” And, as
if high school life weren’t embarrassing enough, his cat-woman mom
works at a cocktail bar called simply SHE (if you spotted that as an
H. Rider Haggard reference, this is definitely your book), and
everybody in school knows that J!m’s alien dad almost destroyed the
world. This is a funny book that rewards you for all those hours you
spent with Gort and Klaatu.
Richard Doetsch follows up his bracingly original mindbender The
Thirteenth Hour with a return to his master their series hero
Michael St. Pierre and almost pulls it off. Almost. Thing is, it’s
not fair to compare The Thirteenth Hour to any thriller that
plays by the normal rules, much less one by the same author. But
judged on its own, The Thieves of Darkness is solid in all
respects as complex heist drama and equally complex character
study.
“Michael had been a thief, had been being the important
words. That was a world he had promised to leave behind.”
And had his wife not died eighteen months, you honestly get the
feeling St. Pierre would indeed have put away his picks and codes
forever. When he gets the opportunity to pursue a long lost relic
of incalculable value both financially and historically, though,
it’s just too much to pass up. Especially when a friend happens to
be in a prison St. Pierre must break into in order to break him
out. From there, we’re off on a dizzying cross-continental chase
for a relic somehow tied to the births of every major religion.
I guess after Doetsch’s last book, only one entitled The Fourteenth
Hour would have totally sufficed. The Thieves of Darkness is
a bit too familiar to stand out in this overstuffed genre, but it’s
a strong and sure effort all the same.
High-schooler Elizabeth
Rew has just taken an after-school job at the New-York Circulating
Material Repository. This library of rare objects houses and loans
out such things as Lincoln's stovepipe hat, centuries-old globes,
and a doublet that probably dates back to Shakespeare. But the
Repository also houses The Grimm Collection. The brothers Grimm
didn't just collect fairy tales; they also collected the magical
objects associated with them. There's the magic mirror of “on the
wall” fame, the seven league boots that can carry you twenty-one
miles in one step, and lots of other objects from fairy tales
throughout the world, including a flying carpet. While theater
companies are always borrowing doublets for their costume
departments to copy, these magic items circulate only to a select
clientele. At least they're only supposed to. But recently things
have been missing from the shelves, and the girl Elizabeth is
replacing was fired for theft. As Elizabeth learns the ropes (and
magic spells), she and her fellow teen-aged pages at the Repository
are drawn into mysteries and situations right out of classic fairy
tales—the original, scary ones, not the sanitized Disney versions.
With it's retro-cool / steampunk setting (pneumatic tubes to carry
messages!) and familiar magic, there's something for everyone.
Soccer has always been the foundation of Amanda’s friendship with
Lena. But as they start high school, Lena makes the girls’ varsity
soccer team, while Amanda is left behind playing JV. Can their
friendship survive, especially when Lena is pulled into the orbit of
the popular crowd? In Amanda, Halpin creates a funny, likeable
narrator with a very believable voice. The dynamics the
relationships within her blended family, as well as her friendship
with Lena, ring true. Teen athletes will appreciate the fact that
she takes her sport seriously. Highly recommended for middle
school.
Natalie has been losing her vision for a long time, but she’s never
quite faced the possibility that she might lose it completely. So
when she first arrives at the boarding school for the blind, she
doesn’t want to learn how to read Braille or walk with a cane—she
doesn’t need those skills, because she’s not blind. But as her
world slowly narrows, Natalie realizes that sooner or later, she
must choose between taking charge of her life and hiding in the
dark. Though obviously well researched, Blindsided is
sometimes a little too earnest in its effort to educate its readers
about the daily life of the blind. A series of extremely dramatic
events at the end of the novel seem improbable, but teen readers
likely won’t mind.
My Reading Log by Jeff Ayers, Associate Editor
Since I’ve started reviewing for the
Associated Press as well as RT Book Reviews, it’s becoming
more difficult to find time to read books that I’m not
reviewing for other places. But I do have a few.
Complete
Peanuts 1977-1978
(Fantagraphics, $28.99). This is another wonderful Peanuts
collection that highlights for me, personally, the period where I
stopped reading the cartoons on a regular basis. Lots of new
characters are introduced including the latest Van Pelt, Rerun.
Schulz was a genius and he is still missed.
Terry Brooks remains the king of the
fantasy genre with his latest look into the early beginnings of the
Shannara world in
Bearers of the Black Staff (Del Rey, $27.00). The barrier
that protects the world from evil is disintegrating and the last
Knight of the Word, Sider Ament, must convince everyone to prepare.
But powerful forces inside the protected zone seek to take advantage
of the situation. Great characters are Brooks’ strength, and some
of his strongest to date permeate this amazing read. Can’t wait for
the conclusion.
The summer movies were not all that
great this year, but Pixar continued its streak by producing another
terrific film. In the
Art of Toy Story 3 (Chronicle, $40.00), Charles Solomon
takes the reader behind the scenes into the development and struggle
to make this the perfect end to the Toy Story saga. It’s fun to
learn more about their creative process. Also, the artwork is
amazing.
I was sad when the powers at NBC
cancelled Law and Order. I know that a new series set in Los
Angeles is premiering at the end of the month, but it’s not the
same. (I’ll still watch, though). Since I enjoy a great courtroom
drama, I can’t recommend
Perfect Alibi by Sheldon Siegel highly enough. (MacAdam/Cage,
$26.00). Attorneys Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez are worrying
about their daughter and her new boyfriend. When the boyfriend’s
father is murdered, they are shocked to learn the boy’s only alibi
is their daughter. As they uncover the evidence to prove his
innocence, their story of what really happened that night begins to
unravel. Siegel is in the top echelon of legal thriller writers and
his latest doesn’t disappoint.
Scott Meyer’s latest collection of his
comic, Basic Instructions, provides a bunch of belly laughs with
some insightful analysis thrown in for good measure.
Made with 90% Recycled Art (Dark Horse, $10.99). Learning
how to do various tasks and handle your responsibilities has never
been funnier.
My Reading Log 
