Something hidden by retreats
chiseled
Counted in rungs of iron beds
moving trucks
metal upon teeth
and still
your hair wound round my shoulder
your body across the stars
Dear Thief
Thoughts of the novel by Samantha Harvey continue to tug at me long after the read. So I keep checking back to see if anyone on the reviews has thought my thoughts on it. Not yet. I thought it was fairly obvious that the narrator is not at all in love with her husband, but the thief. It’s not the woman who has stolen the husband, but the husband who has stolen the woman. The affair is a betrayal, but not the way the narrator sees it. In fact, the narrator writes so well of the other woman that we see her, and not much of the husband. I don’t see this as a failing, in fact I believe this makes it stronger, better. It’s too bad that the author doesn’t see this, nevermind the narrator. I give the novel an overall B, not because of the misplaced longing, but because the prose does go on a bit. There’s no break in the pace, it’s pretty non-stop and a bit heavy handed. A good read. An even better thief, one I fell in love with too.
The Path
And then Leonard left us too
It’s still too tough to talk about this, or it’s just too late at night, or it won’t change anything anyway. All right for now.
The Novel, The Author
The Fat Man is at Amazon.com and Barnes and Nobel.com. Click cover—link to Amazon
About The Book:
The Fat Man is a 1930s novel that takes place in 2015. As the hero, Jake Underman—“Under” says—he and his pal Paulie live in the plot lines of old movies. A mystery unfolds in the weary old town of WillowPoint where Under and Paulie deliver the tight dialogue to a string of unsettling discoveries. While the mystery involves teenagers, heroin, and dead bodies, more than that—who can Under trust? Can he even trust his best friend Paulie, the copper who brought him into the case? Of course there’s also a broad in the picture—the lovely Maggie. And Maggie and the other characters are as important to the story as the plot. After all, they’re the ones who line up the shots while the jazz plays in the background. As Under would say, “Hey, kid, take a look—it’s the money shot.”
