Review: Booth, by Karen Joy Fowler

Review: Booth, by Karen Joy Fowler

by Rich Horton

Recently someone told me that Karen Joy Fowler has a novel coming out soon, perhaps next year. I can't remember who told me that, or where, and so I cannot be sure that it's true -- but I hope it is! At any rate, that seemed a spur for me to finally read her latest novel, Booth, from 2022. Fowler is perhaps the only novelist that both my wife and I read regularly. And, of late, it works out that when a new Fowler novel appears, my wife gets the first crack at it. So she read Booth when it came out -- and it has lingered on my TBR pile until just now!

Fowler has been one of my favorite writers at least since her first novel, Sarah Canary (1991). Probably before then -- earlier stories like "The Lake was Full of Artificial Things", "The Faithful Companion at Forty", and "Game Night at the Fox and Goose" had already make a big impact on me -- and on enough people that her first collection, Artificial Things, appeared in 1986, the year following her first published story. It is notable that her short fiction is largely (though not entirely) fantastika, to use John Clute's preferred term, while her novels are largely, if often ambiguously, realistic. (This is one reason my wife reads her!)

Booth is an historical novel -- the third of her novels to be set in the US in the 19th Century, though the other two (Sarah Canary and Sister Noon) are only loosely based on historical events, while Booth is to an extent about arguably the most traumatic event in our history -- the Civil War, and especially the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The Booth of the title is not strictly speaking John Wilkes Booth -- the novel concerns his entire family -- his father, Junius, one of the greatest American actors of his generation; his brother, Edwin, pretty much indisputably the greatest American actor of HIS generation; his mother Mary Ann, his sisters Rosalie and Asia, and his brothers June and Joe. (There were four other children who died in childhood. There were other actors in the family, as well -- John Wilkes Booth himself, Asia's husband Sleeper Clarke and their sons Creston and Wilfred, June's third wife Agnes and their son Sydney Barton Booth, who acted in silent films, and Edwin's wives, Mary Devlin and Mary McVicker.)

The novel is told primarily via the points of view of Rosalie, Asia, and Edwin, with brief interludes about Lincoln. It opens in 1838 in rural Maryland. Mary Ann lives there with her several children by Junius Booth, but Junius spends most of his time touring. Nonetheless, they end up with 10 children, the last born in 1841. Rosalie, who turns 15 in 1838, narrates this section, which describes a somewhat pleasant country upbringing, though punctuated with the deaths of four siblings, and the stress surrounding her father's careless handling of money, and his eccentricities, which include alcoholism, a somewhat inconsistent vegetarianism, and a strong abolitionist viewpoint. Rosalie herself is much put upon -- acting as a second mother to her brothers and sisters, feeling herself less attractive than her generally beautiful siblings, and suffering from scoliosis. They are brought up with black servants -- freed slaves -- and while this novel is closely centered on the Booth family we do not miss the terrible condition of black people, even freedmen, and neither do we miss the way the nominally abolitionist Booth family members don't really see how their servants live.

We continue from then until, of course, April 1865. The Booths move to Baltimore, and the surviving children grow up. Rosalie has one love affair (perhaps just in her head) but her family squash it, and she is resigned to spinsterhood. Asia grows up a beauty. Edwin, bullied as a child, eventually turns to the stage against his father's will. June does the same, and moves to California where he marries. John is popular with his fellow boys, but an indifferent student, and for a time returns to the Booth farm, which he hates, then he too becomes an actor. In the mean time he is increasingly pro-South, and his repulsive racism is readily on display. The whole family is upended when a woman claiming (correctly) to be Junius Booth's actual wife, along with her son, turns up, and relatives all but force the Booths from their farm. Edwin eventually follows his father on a somewhat disastrous tour to California, partly in order to see June, and Edwin stays behind when his father returns home -- or, as it happens, does not. Edwin, upon his own return, establishes his reputation, and is soon regarded as one of the country's greatest actors -- and so he also becomes the family's means of support. And he marries a young actress, and has a daughter. Then comes the war. The Booths, by now in New York, mostly sit out the fighting, though they witness such events as the Draft Riots. Asia tells much of this story, and as John is her favorite brother, we see a bit of him, and his increasing radicalization, including threats to kidnap Lincoln. And so comes the inevitable climax.

There is much more going on of course, much based on the historical record, but many personal details of course invented. And the book beautifully and convincingly depicts all the main characters: John's charisma mixed with violence, Rosalie's disappointment, Edwin's depressive nature, acting brilliance, and distrust of his brother, Asia's sometimes unpleasant fierceness. The black characters -- mostly the servants at the Booth property -- are naturally less prominent, but as I said their condition is clearly portrayed, with such details as the adult couple who work for the Booths desperately saving money to buy their children out of slavery. The way John Wilkes Booth's faults distort the entire family is clear, and of course his final act falls heavily on them as well. (Edwin is jilted by a woman he wanted to marry, Asia's husband, as well as June, are imprisoned as suspects in the conspiracy, though they are eventually released. Edwin nearly quits the stage, and does stay off it for months.)

It's a strong novel, involving, honest, and -- like some but not all historical fiction -- informative. We really do learn about this period in American history -- a familiar period to most Americans at least superficially, but reading about it this way does deepen our understanding. The characters are real as well, though (as Fowler certainly admits in her Afterword) much of this aspect is due to the novelist's imagination. Still, seeing this time through the eyes of people of that time -- when those people are faithfully reconstructed as I trust Fowler to do -- is a way of learning more about how they lived. It was a fraught time -- aren't they all -- and that comes through powerfully. Definitely a worthy novel, though I will confess, I don't place it at the top of my lists of Fowler's books. (I have, I think, four tiers -- at the top, Sarah Canary, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, and the collection Black Glass; second level, The Sweetheart Season, The Jane Austen Book Club, Booth, and the collection What I Didn't See; third tier: Sister Noon and the collection Artificial Things; and then Wit's End at the bottom. I should probably reread both Sister Noon and Wit's End, and I should emphasize that her lowest tier would be top tier for most writers.) 

Review: The Last Emperox, by John Scalzi

Review: The Last Emperox, by John Scalzi

by Rich Horton

This novel, from 2020, is the final entry in John Scalzi's Interdependency series, after The Collapsing Empire (2017) and The Consuming Fire (2018). I had enjoyed the first two novels, and always intended to finish the series, and in fact bought the book long ago, but just never got around to it. I finally have, and I'm glad I did.

The setup, in a few sentences. The Interdependency is an interstellar empire comprising a number of star systems, all linked by the Flow, a kind of traditional set of something like wormhole links. They're not really wormholes, but they act kind of like them, and they allow much faster than light travel between systems, though those trips still take, typically, weeks or months. The Interdependency was formed about a millennium before the action of these novels, and it was designed specifically to have the various systems depend on each other -- so each system only makes a few necessary products, and must trade with all the others to survive. Especially since almost all the planets are uninhabitable, and the people either live underground or in space habitats.

However, the Flow is collapsing -- and within a number of years, all the systems will be isolated again. The rather young, rather new, Emperox, Grayland II, is working as hard as she can to save as many of her subjects as possible, by moving them to the one human-habitable planet, End. She has the help of the scientist who knows more about the Flow than anyone, Marce Claremont. (And she and Marce have become lovers.) But Grayland is opposed by many of the other noble houses, who are more interested in saving themselves than the common people, and who also are more interested in their political power games than in actually working on solving the collapsing Flow problem. And the most evil of these -- a real mustache-twirler had she a mustache -- is Nadashe Nohamapetan. The Nohamapetans have already tried to assassinate Grayland a couple of times, and Nadashe is plotting to have another go at it, and to make herself Emperox.

So, the novel becomes a sort of race against time -- can Grayland use her position to set in place a plan to save most of the Interdependency before Nadashe finally manages to kill her? Grayland has the help of her lover Marce, who has some theoretical ideas that may help at least delay the full collapse of the Flow, and might also help move more people to End -- if he only had the time. Grayland also has the help of simulations of all the previous Emperox's, to give her advice, and of the wily and profane Lady Kiva Lagos. And of course Nadashe has her own fellow schemers, though they do have the usual problem of those sorts -- none of them trust the other.

It's really a very enjoyable novel. It's told in Scalzi's typical snarky voice. To be honest, this voice can get wearing at times, especially as many of the characters sound pretty much the same. Still, Scalzi does snark very well. The love story is really pretty sweet. The political manipulations are interesting -- over the top evil, yes, but interesting. The science is all obviously made up, but it's cleverly done, and it's in the service of a well-constructed story with some pretty worthwhile discussion of morals, of how to govern, of the effect of travel on society, and such. The good guy characters are pretty delightful. The bad guys -- well, it's fun to read about their plotting and such, but maybe the mustache-twirling I mentioned is a tad over the top. And there is too clear a divide between the good guys and the bad guys -- the good guys are all nice, the bad guys are all super-evil. The plot logic is kind of inexorable, and after a while I was able to see how it would have to resolve -- which while it does in a sense (literal sense, really) involve a deus ex machina, gets there sensibly, and doesn't cheat on its internal logic. Having said that, the ending does come off a bit rushed. I would say, in fact, that the Interdependency novels are my personal favorites of Scalzi's books.

Review: The Presidential Papers, plus ..., by John Kessel

Review: The Presidential Papers, plus ..., by John Kessel

by Rich Horton

John Kessel's new collection is the latest in the PM Press Outspoken Authors series of slim volumes by, in their words, "today's edgiest, most entertaining, and uncompromising writers". These books are all by writers of speculative fiction, and the originating editor was the late Terry Bisson. This book was presumably one of the last books Bisson edited, but the series will continue, under the aegis of Nick Mamatas.

In the interests of full disclosure, and because it has a mild effect on my response to the book, I'll note that I bought this at the most recent World Fantasy Convention, at which I had the opportunity for multiple enjoyable conversations with John Kessel, over breakfast, and over drinks. And of course John signed my copy. My response is also affected, however, by some of the more biographical material here -- addressed in a reprinted speech, and in the interview conducted by Bisson that's included in the book. In those, Kessel discusses his ambition, on entering college, to become an astrophysicist, and his realization that his talent really lay elsewhere -- in his case, on encountering tensor calculus. I had nearly the same experience at college -- I entered as a physics major with an astronomy minor, and on encountering complex analysis, and advanced quantum mechanics, I realized that a Ph.D. in Physics wasn't likely. Unlike John, I didn't get an English degree, but I did load up my electives with multiple classes in poetry and contemporary fiction (and science fiction!) which were profoundly rewarding. In addition, I share with John a Catholic upbringing, since lapsed, but still informing a certain part of my worldview.

I knew none of this, mind you, when I first read John's work back in the early '80s -- stories like "Not Responsible! Park it and Lock it!" (1981) and the remarkable "Another Orphan" (1982); and searing later stories like "The Pure Product" (1986) and "Mrs. Shummel Exits a Winner" (1988), which last became part of his first solo novel, the underrated Good News from Outer Space (1989). I've been following his work ever since -- three more strong novels (Corrupting Dr. Nice, The Moon and the Other, and Pride and Prometheus) and a lot of excellent short fiction.

The Presidential Papers, plus ... includes a range of stories from early in his career to now, as well as a transcript of a 2001 speech, and the above-mentioned interview. The stories are chosen to fit the title -- but that doesn't mean quality was in any sense sacrificed to theme. "A Clean Escape" is built around sessions between a military psychologist and her patient, but as we learn about the situation they are in, and the identity of the patient -- and his disease -- the title truly resonates and the story is profoundly chillling. "The Franchise" is somewhat famous for an odd reason -- it's an alternate history and part of its premise is that Fidel Castro becomes a Major League pitcher, and the same issue of Asimov's in which it appeared also featured "The Southpaw", a Bruce McAllister story with the same premise. Kessel's story follows an alternate 1959 World Series in which Castro, a great pitcher for the Giants, faces George H. W. Bush, a minor league callup for the Senators (of course!) I don't want to reveal the guts of the story, though in the end it's more interested (properly, I think) in US politics than Cuban politics.

"The President's Channel" (1998) appeared first in the Raleigh News and Observer, but I saw it in Science Fiction Age. It's an amusing story, but it doesn't have the impact of the rest of this book -- the idea is that the President is constantly on a sort of reality TV channel, and we see an ordinary man watching this channel as we also see his own life. "The Last American" is another searing story, told from the point of view of posthumans looking back at the 21st Century, via the reconstructed life of the last US President. It mixes in actually kind of cool (if frightening, it its way) speculation about future tech and humanity, with even more frightening -- and only too plausible -- speculation about 21st Century political trends. The last fictional piece, new to this volume, is "A Brief History of the War with Venus", in play form, as the President of the Solar Federation confronts the Ambassador from Venus from a decidedly losing position. It's a dark jape, and the resonances with a certain current politician are only too obvious. (I was also curiously reminded of Andre Maurois' "The War Against the Moon".)

The nonfiction is really fascinating to me. The speech, entitled "Imagining the Human Future: Up, Down, or Sideways", looks at novels by Olaf Stapledon, Vernor Vinge, and Bruce Sterling, all of them imagining a posthuman future. Kessel's point it to look at these futures, and the people in them, from a moral or ethical standpoint. Essentially, he asks, if we become posthuman, are our ethics different? And that's a crucial question to ask. The interview is delightful -- basically a look at John's life from his own perspective, and these are interesting (to me) in general, and the more so reading his thoughts a week or so after we were talking across a breakfast table.

I've made this a more personal review than normal, and I don't want to overstate that. I see John Kessel at various conventions, and we have good conversations. But we're not bosom buddies or anything. I can say, I think without prejudice, that that is a first rate book. It is what it is -- it's slim, it's thematically focused. But the stories here are strong work -- particularly, for me, "A Clean Escape" and "The Last American". The nonfiction is really nice. Highly recommended.

Review: Drive, by James Sallis

Review: Drive, by James Sallis

by Rich Horton

James Sallis, who will turn 80 in December, began publishing with stories in New Worlds and in Orbit in the late '60s. He was strongly associated with the New Wave (and was for a time a co-editor of New Worlds), and it would be fair to say that when Darrell Schweitzer complained about "non-functional word patterns", he likely would have placed some of Sallis' early stories in that category. I would have to admit that whatever of his stories I had read by 1976 or so didn't make an impression on me. But I have returned to his work over the past couple of decades, and many of these Orbit stories are striking and intriguing, and always well written, though, yes, sometimes difficult to comprehend. And there is nothing wrong with trying hard to do something truly new and sometimes failing! (And the Sallis stories from that era that I did understand (to a sufficient degree) are wonderful -- I review some of them here.)

Sallis never really stopped writing SF, and he published worthwhile stories in Asimov's and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet through the '90, and more recently has placed work in Clarkesworld, Interzone, and even Analog! And these stories are first rate -- in particular I recommend a long novelette, "Dayenu", from LCRW, that I had the honor to reprint in The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2019 Edition. He also has written an on and off again book review column for F&SF since the turn of the millenium.

But I haven't mentioned any novels. And that's because when Sallis turned to longer fiction, he concentrated primarily on crime fiction. He developed quite a reputation in that field, particularly for his Lew Griffin series, though he published a number of standalone novels and one other trilogy. Some of this work was more experimental, mainstream or liminal, but the bulk was in the the crime field.

Drive (2005) is certainly a crime novel. It is sheer noir -- in no sense a mystery. There was eventually a sequel, Driven, from 2012, though I rather imagine Drive was conceived as a standalone. Drive was made into a fine movie in 2011, starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan. The movie takes the main "heist gone bad" plotline from the novel, but leaves out the rest. Quite possibly that was the correct artistic choice for a film, but the novel is deeper for having additional threads.

Drive, the novel, is told in a non-linear fashion. The main character is just called "Driver", and it's not entirely clear whether that is actually his last name or just a reference to his job. (In the movie he's called The Driver, removing any ambiguity.) He works as a stuntman for low budget movies, and he is a remarkable driver. This leads eventually to a side gig as a getaway driver, though he cautions anyone who hires him that he doesn't do anything but drive -- no direct involvement in the actual crime.

The short, sharp, chapters go forward and backward in time. We see Driver's childhood, including an abusive father, and a mentally ill mother who ends up killing her husband in front of her son. We learn of his brief time with step-parents, then his move from Phoenix to LA, and his getting work as a stunt driver, then, his descent into the world of crime. He hooks up in a curious relationship with Irene, a woman living next door to him in one of the cheap apartments he rents, and when her husband, Standard, gets out of jail the relationship continues with Standard's consent. (I should say that there are no sex scenes in the book, and it's not entirely clear that Driver and Irene ever sleep together (though that's the way I'd bet.) It is clear that they are close, and that Driver also loves her son, Benicio.)

This is noir, so we kind of know what's going to happen -- but we know anyway because the first chapter in this non-linear narrative is set shortly after a heist that he and Standard were inveigled into goes south -- and as the book opens Driver is in a hotel room with three dead people -- another member of the heist team, a woman, who has been killed by the two dead men, who were supposed to retrieve the large bag of money that the woman had made off with. Driver, of course, killed the two hitmen, but he knows that he'll remain a marked man, as the two mobsters who set up the heist won't rest until they get their money back, and also kill anyone who knows about it. This narrative runs through the whole book, with, as I said, sections set in Driver's past, and also during the earlier days in New York of the two mobsters.

It's a perfectly executed piece of breakneck noir action. The novel is short (just over 30,000 words, I'd say). It's as violent as the reader expects. It's twisty and clever. The several men who have significant roles (the mobsters, a down on his luck doctor who treats Driver when he's injured, his mentor in the stunt business, and a younger driver who works with him, a friend he knows from the movie business, a couple more criminals with whom Driver is involved, and of course Driver himself) are economically and convincingly portrayed. (I should say that the only woman who comes into much focus at all is Driver's mother.) Driver is one of those criminals we root for -- because of his traumatic upbringing, because the other criminals all seem worse than him, because many of his actions seem forced on him.) He's also curiously complicated internally -- presenting an only partly true façade of an empty and emotionless man, but a devoted if eccentric reader, someone who likes good wine, and someone who is good to women and children.) It's a wickedly fast read, very entertaining.