Fiction

It’s a beautiful evening here in Kerrville, Texas, and the weather is 84 degrees, I’ve just returned from the fabulous Kroc Center (of which there are only 8 others in the United States!) where I set up for a dinner for seating 125 people—no, I did not do it alone—are you kidding me, Jockey?  There were six of us scurrying like drunken squirrels getting tablecloths on, silver, cups and saucers, glasses, salt and peppers, sugars and creamers—and out of the dining room by a certain time so that the powers-that-be could get in there with centerpieces, banners, set up cameras, etc.!  I had also just helped with the Lions Club meeting at noon, today, and a nicer group of people you couldn’t’ meet. Very considerate and polite, but I was tempted to tell a lady that her shorts were really a little too short for a luncheon—but then, I thought better of it (Himself always cautions me on that point—the short shorts are not any of my business—still, there was that one moment when I considered it!

Could anyone tell me what Mitt Romney’s first name is?  Just an idle question. Are there many heated discussions concerning politics, amongst your friends and relations or does everyone find it better not to?  I’m sorry for whoever becomes President since,
A. this is not a dictatorship for the individual who is president to just expect or think he can ride in on his ideas and desires and get them and,
B. who’d want to have to work with a Congress who don’t even want to talk to a president, much less each other?  Maybe, since the country has expressed its annoyance and frustration with Congress often enough, they will be easier to work with, the next 4 years? 

Well, that’s my transition—heralding fictional ideas—that transitions into letting you know this is a Fiction column.  The well-known author, Ralph McInerny was a strong and vital voice in lay Catholic activities, taught medieval studies at Notre Dame University and wrote “The Father Dowling Mysteries”, which ran on TV for several seasons, and this book, “The Compassion of Father Dowling”, is a sterling collection of his short stories not only about a mystery but the human nature behind it.  It’s printed in Large Type and, therefore, easy to read.:”The benevolent and brilliant Father Dowling has cared for St. Hilary’s congregations while still finding time to unravel the knottiest of mysteries.” His great charm is the easy-going manner he has and even understanding the criminals who did when they felt they had to do.  He is, indeed, a gentle, kindly man while, at the same time, loving the unlovable. This is a nice, gentle book sans violent sex, sadism, evil people (except for the murderers, here and there) and anyone who reads it will love Father Dowling.

To be honest (which usually I am, sometimes when it would have been easier to lie!) about this next book, I am ambivalent about, and, as your reviewer, I will explain—and my reasons are strictly my own. “The Replacement Wife”, by Elieen Goudge, is a well-received, “thoughty” book about the subject of a wife and mother having cancer, learning it’s fatal and inoperable and deciding to pick her husband’s choice of wife to replace her, as she knows his likes and dislikes better than anybody. Well—he sort of does that, picking out his own “replacement wife”, she doesn’t like it and feels betrayed and he explodes and says she should have known she was playing with fire—and then, the doctor tells her that, with the new Cancer drugs she’s been taking, she will beat the disease and live another 20 years! Yeah. That’s what I thought, too. 

Well, by and by, they decide that for the sake of their marriage and kids, they’ll just “keep things as they are”, and he will distance himself from the “replacement” and his friendly buddy gives some excellent thought-provoking questions to ask himself, and so we journey on.  No, I will not tell you the ending, that’s the point of this column-I try to encourage you to read the book yourself. I, myself was not happy with the ending, but then I’ve asked myself exactly what ending did I want, much less expect, much less count on happening? See, Camille, the wife, picked Elise, knowing, “in her absence, they would need the constant, loving support only someone as kind and giving as Elise could offer.” Well, all that’s very noble and understandable—except that isn’t whom the husband, Edward, has, in accepting the situation, gravitated towards. Beginning to get the picture, are you? I always said you all were smart—smarter than the average poppets. 

The next one is another one of these “woman’s stories”, although not at all sugary and “dumb”, just interesting and full of human interest, “The Song Remains the Same”, by Allison Scotch, and it, too, is in Large Print.  Attendez!  Nell Slattery wakes up in the hospital, having luckily survived a plane crash, only to find she has no memory of who she is, or what happened, and beginning with a kind reporter (are the two terms really synonomous?) learns she was in a plane crash, apparently trying to run away. Her husband, Peter, is trying to hide his recent affair. Her mother is trying to sweep the real story of her long-lost father “under the rug”. Her sister, Rory, is trying to protect hers and Nell’s “volatile relationship” with conflicting stories of her own.”

So, with the help of the reporter, whom she makes a pact with that they’ll tell each other only the truth no matter what, Nell sets out, while confined to a hospital bed, to discover her relationships with others. During the course of her beginning “to learn the truth” about people and events, “the problem with forgetting everything, you don’t remember that trouble is always just around the bend.”  As you can imagine, memories are just around every corner, her ex-husband is trying too hard, her mother has a new man in town and the two of them loving moments in front of Nell, that rather makes her nauseous, her reporter/partner in finding out her past, such as the house, according to Indira, her mother, in Charlottesville, Va. “that’s where your father lived. That’s where he lived the other half of his life.  That’s where he lived his life without you, your sister, and me.”  So, does Nell recover all her memory, stay with her philandering husband and his pleading for another chance, learn her parent’s past and still love them? Does your past dictate your future and how much of it do we carry with us, forever and ever, amen? 

Interesting concept and the story moves right along—as will I, now, to the next offering for your reading pleasure, and this next author is a genuine delight as can be attested to by those of us who read and admire and chuckle over Alexander McCall Smith and his stories about the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency and the delightful people who “run it”. His newest is “The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection” which, upon reading, I laughed out loud at—why, you ask?  Thank you for asking—I delight in giving extraneous thoughts. Rudyard Kipling, in his classic collection of stories about and from India, wrote about a river he called “ the great, gray, greasy Limpopo River” and I always delighted in repeating it to my Brit grandfather, and he’d laugh with me at the images it brought up,  (the Brit were always linked to India, don’cha know!)

Alors! In Botswana, home to the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency for the problems of ladies, and others, it was customary to enquire of the people whom you meet whether they have slept well.  Of course, mosquitoes may be defeated by nets or sprays, just as dogs may be roundly scolded; a bad conscience, though, is not so easily stifled.” The language is always mannered, the thoughts made clear, and the reader is “let into” the various character’s minds and motives. The head of the detective agency is the wonderful, wise, Precious Ramotswe, and she is “haunted by a repeated dream, a vision of a tall, strange man who waits for her beneath an acacia tree, and she’d worry more about it during the day if she weren’t so busy.

The best apprentice at the husband’s garage is in trouble with the law and stuck with the worst lawyer in Gaborone; her assistant, Grace and fiancée, Phuti Radiphuti, are building the house of their dreams except the contractor is crooked—and,most shocking, Mme, Potokwane, defender of Botswana’s weak and downtrodden has been dismissed from her post as matron at the orphan farm.” Calamity has indeed struck! Help arrives from the tall stranger of the dreams, who turns out to be none other than the estimable Clovis Andersen, author of the manual the ladies detective agency runs by.”  You will not want to quit reading this book when bedtime comes—Smith has formulated a style that is, if I may be so dramatic, charming and funny and very knowing about people, their motives, and dark side. So, go check out this book and congratulate yourself on having a story of people and events that are both ordinary and grave and understandable.

Hey, guys, the big 4^th of July is coming up, and even though firecrackers are largely banned, everyone knows that some will go off, somewhere, in the middle of the night—and—and—there’s always slightly burned hot dogs on the grill, potato salad and homemade ice cream and chocolate cake, right? Keep smiling, water your plants, walk the dog;(no, he doesn’t get enough exercise stuck out in the yard, all by himself! Trust me on this—or ask your vet about the importance—and companionship that a walk with you provides.) and treat yourself to a double-dip ice cream cone after a hot day.

Always remember what a privilege it is to have a library in your town, and since I can see the flaws in the one just renovated and re-opened here in Kerrville, trust me when I say you have a great director and staff and great balance in materials available to the public—i.e.you! Sometimes we take libraries for granted and maybe the good ones should be, as they try valiantly to fulfill the needs and requests of its patrons—but, again, realize that not all libraries are like ours in Liberal.  Give a compliment to Jill, our director, or anyone on staff—or even a suggestion to improve something. Take care of yourselves and your furry friends and see ya next column. Bye!