“The Dante Club”, by Matthew Pearl

 

372 pages, Random House, ISBN-13: 978-0375505294

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl was the first book he wrote and concerns a club of poets who are translating the Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri into English in 1865, only to discover parallels between a recent spate of brutal murders and the punishments described in Dante’s Inferno. The poets in question are in fact historical personages, as was their club: James T. Fields, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell. These men set out to solve the murders, fearing as they do that, seeing as they are among a handful of Americans who are familiar with the work, that they would also be the only suspects should the police discover their interest; also, scholars that they are, they worry that the truth of the murders would ruin Dante’s still-burgeoning reputation in America, thus damning the Italian poet in the minds of their countrymen while also dooming their translation.

While the first corpse is discovered quickly in the book – and a more gruesome description one would be hard-pressed to find (not a complaint; merely an observation) – the second takes much longer to turn up, as does the third. Meanwhile, the stage is set by Pearl as Old Boston comes back to life, these long-gone poets are resurrected and their quest to translate and bring Dante to the benighted masses of their countrymen – as the Civil War winds down, mind you – is given life once more. For Pearl is in no hurry to get the story going as he rebuilds this lost world and makes it real. While at times the depth of detail can make one wish to skip ahead to the good stuff, don’t do it; Pearl’s writing is a masterclass is descriptive detail and world-building. When the story begins to take off and the poets follow the clues (oh, and the police too, as they carry on their investigations independently of Fields, Holmes, Longfellow and Lowell) the game is afoot.

Pearl’s strength is his descriptive prowess, with seemingly inconsequential details coming forth and men and places breathing once more. The mystery surrounding the murders unravels slowly as the poets piece together what is going on without help from the police – well, there is Sergeant Rey, the first (half) black officer on the Boston police force, but the higher ups are AWOL through most of the book. As mysteries go it’s alright; while one is ever wondering who is going to die horribly next and discover just how Dante’s Inferno fits into everything, there was never any real suspense through the book. Rather, this is an intellectual story in which a bunch of Long Hairs play detective and delve into the mysteries of medieval poetry in the Modern (to them) world. All good stuff if that’s your bag (and it is mine), but if a mystery filled with suspense and red herrings and craven criminals is your thing then The Dante Club isn’t for you.

After finishing I had learned a good deal about Dante Alighieri – to say nothing of James T. Fields, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell. In an “Historical Note” at the end of the book, Pearl helpfully tells us that he recreated the speech of his protagonists from the “poems, essays, novels, journals, and letters of the Dante Club members and those closest to them”, so perhaps in reading of their exploits we are again hearing the voices of Fields, Holmes, Longfellow and Lowell after having been silenced by time. Perhaps that is enough reason to read The Dante Club.

“Island of the Blue Dolphins”, by Scott O’Dell

 

177 pages, Houghton Mifflin, ISBN-13: 978-395069629

Hey, you remember me mentioning Mrs. Roberts 4^th Grade class? And how she’d read us stories now and then, like Old Yeller, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, James and the Giant Peach, and a bunch of others I have yet to remember? ‘member that? Well, as I was walking the shelves of the Fraser Public Library the other day I came across Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell and was once more transported back to the Glorious 80s and the 4^th Grade. And once more I was listening to Mrs. Roberts tell the tale of Won-a-pa-lei (secret name Karana) after she and her little brother are left stranded on an island off the coast of California for years when her tribe is relocated, and how this young girl managed to survive on nothing but wits and grit.

Turns out this story was based on a tale told by the inhabitants of San Nicholas Island about one Juana Maria, the last of the Nicoleño Indians, who lived all alone for twenty years. In 1939 her hut, made of whalebones, was discovered, and in 2009 several more artifacts of Juana Maria and the Nicoleño were uncovered, as well, giving credence to the tales told about the Lone Woman and making O’Dell’s story so much more believable (it just goes to show that the best tales ever told really happened). So just like that this tale of a Native American answer to Robinson Crusoe (which was likewise based on a true story) gains credibility. I knew none of this back in the day as Mrs. Roberts regaled us with the adventures of Karana, only that I was engrossed and couldn’t wait for the tale to continue.

And what a tale, too. Island of the Blue Dolphins was published in 1960, when adventure tales starring Indian girls taking on traditional male roles weren’t a thing. But it is told with verve and motion as we follow Karana and her quest just to live. From finding food, to building canoes, to fending off the wild dogs of the island, to just survive being alone all the time, we root for Karana and wonder what we would have done in her place. And none of it is condescending, either; O’Dell was a white man who crafted an engrossing story starring an Indian girl who is as alive, forthright, engaging and inspiring as any Eurocentric story one could mention. And O’Dell shows us just how she does it, too; through intelligence, guile, and sheer stick-to-itiveness, not because Karana is some unstoppable girlboss who can do no wrong.

Island of the Blue Dolphins is yet another story from my youth that has stayed with me because it was an excellent tale expertly told without ulterior motives or personal politics involved. Imagine that: a story about a strong woman that neither denigrates others nor makes its protagonist into a super-being. Would we had more such stories today.

“Driving Like Crazy: Thirty Years of Vehicular Hell-Bending, Celebrating America the Way It’s Supposed to Be – With an Oil Well in Every Backyard, a Cadillac Escalade in Every Carport, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Mowing Our Lawn”, by P.J. O’Rourke

 

267 pages, Grove Press, ISBN-13: 978-0802144799

Patrick Jake “P.J.” O’Rourke passed away from lung cancer on February 15^th, 2022, and the Conservative movement in particular and American humor in general lost one of the most original and acerbic voices ever to breath air. I have read and reviewed several of his books, such as Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut: 25 Years of P.J. O’Rourke (reviewed on August 10^th, 2016), Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government (reviewed on January 25^th, 2019), Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind’s Struggle against Tyranny, Injustice and Alcohol-Free Beer (reviewed on April 20^th, 2021) and All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty (reviewed on July 16^th, 2021). I will now have to hunt down the rest of his books, for the only way in which we can still enjoy P.J. is by reading and honoring and laughing at all he left behind.

Like Driving Like Crazy (you can read the full title above) which was published in 2009 and collects his many articles featuring cars, driving and fighting the good fight against the regulatory Man. While driving cars and enjoying cars and wrecking cars and celebrating cars is notionally what this book is about, it is also as politically subversive as anything O’Rourke wrote. With tongue firmly in cheek, he recounts many escapades of his wild youth, middle-aged fantasies and crazy trips in a strange mash-up of adolescent political incorrectness, childish silliness and near-religious reverence for American chrome, steel and horsepower. In O’Rourke’s telling, cars are quintessentially American because cars equal freedom: freedom to go where you want and when you want without some busybody central planner telling you NO. Which is why busybody central planners love public transportation and want to kill the oil industry, just so that we all can be more easily under their green totalitarian thumbs.

All of which is recounted across 18 articles and one interview. Driving Like Crazy is, like all of the Late Great P.J.’s work, subversive, entertaining, enlightening and energetic, and makes one miss the man all the more.

“The Police: 1978-1983”, by Lynn Goldsmith, introduced by Phil Sutcliffe

 

192 pages, Little, Brown and Company, ISBN-13: 978-0316005913

I stated before that I was never really a fan of The Police (in my review of Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies by Stewart Copeland, as it happens, published on August 25^th, 2025); while liking many of their songs I just wasn’t rabid for them, like I am for The Beatles, Rush, Queen and Kate Bush. But when I saw that I could have The Police: 1978-1983 by Lynn Goldsmith (introduced by Phil Sutcliffe) for a mere $1 from the Fraser Public Library Book Sale well, I mean c’mon, who wouldn’t buy it?

In a nutshell, photographer Goldsmith had almost full access to the band, from their founding in 1978 until their separation in 1983; the whole of this book, published in 2007 to commemorate the band’s 30^th anniversary and their subsequent reunion tour, captures their rise to fame until the final curtain call. Also found within are a series of quotes by Stewart Copeland (drummer), Andy Summers (guitarist) and Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner (lead singer and bass guitarist), all taken from the books The Police L’Historia Bandido by Phil Sutcliffe and Hugh Fielder and One Train Later by Andy Summers, and from Rolling Stone, The London Sunday Times, The New York Times and sundry other magazines.

So, what do we have her, then? If many of these pictures look familiar to you, it is because Lynn was responsible for so many of the most famous, iconic images of The Police that we have known for decades. This book has sections of images devoted to singular portraits of Stewart, Andy and Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, along with sections devoted to the band as a whole. And while the inclusion of quotes from the band members themselves help tie this volume together, none of the photos are captioned; sometimes one can puzzle together just where this or that pic was taken – especially if one has seen any of the band’s music videos – but a little insight as to just what we were looking at would have been nice.

But so what. The Police: 1978-1983 was made for fans of Stewart, Andy and Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner to celebrate their long-lost band and to reminisce on their youth when the world was better and brighter.

“Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald”, by Therese Anne Fowler

 

375 pages, St. Martin’s Press, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1250028655

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was more than just the wife of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald; she was also a novelist in her own right, a painter, a playwright, a dancer and Southern socialite who, sadly, died before her time in a fire in a hospital, widowed and all but forgotten, after living in a series of sanatoriums and undergoing a decade worth of electroshock therapy and insulin shock treatments. Sad, tragic and pathetic. And so we owe Therese Anne Fowler a debt of gratitude for reviving this most interesting of women in Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and letting her live and frolic once more – if only in our imaginations.

The novel begins when 17-year-old Zelda meets the dashing young Army officer F. Scott Fitzgerald and continues on to document their lives together until their ultimate, tragic ends, all told from Zelda’s point of view. Not being at all familiar with the life of Zelda, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this telling, only that Fowler follows her subject as she traipsed all over America and Europe, as she and Scott (and their daughter, Scottie) enjoyed the privileges of being young and relatively well-off in the Roaring 20s. One wonders at Fitzgerald’s view of this time, seeing as he and his bride seemed to enjoy it so much.

While their lives of the Fitzgeralds are documented and brought back to life for us, I have to say that they and their world remained flat throughout; I mean, Zelda’s voice was never in stereo in Fowler’s telling, only ever in mono, a strange situation for this opinionated and passionate woman. New York, Paris, the American South and even Minnesota never came alive in this telling, as all the colors Fowler paints in are faded pastels rather than the vibrant oils a woman like Zelda deserves. Not badly written, as the book moves along at a brisk and interesting pace, but I couldn’t help but feel that there were depths there being left unexplored.

And Zelda herself never really seems fully realized. While her friends wish her to latch on to the then-nascent feminist cause she never actually does, as she was then enjoying all the freedoms her predecessors could only dream of (this in spite of the fact that many of her stories were published under her husband’s name). But her works – novels, short stories, paintings, etc. – are never named or described, and her accomplishments are mentioned – by herself, mind you – only in passing. Thus, even in a novel in which Zelda Fitzgerald is supposed to be the main protagonist, she plays second fiddle to her more famous husband. Strange…and disappointing.

I had circled this novel for several months at the Fraser Public Library before adding it to the Books on Tap book club schedule; having finished it, I wonder if the other participants will like it more or less than I did (whenever a book I have chosen falls flat I always have a feeling of guilt, like I let them down). Maybe they’ll have a better opinion than I, but overall while Z was an enlightening look into the lives of a golden couple of the Lost Generation, it was an outsider’s view rather than an insider’s. Zelda guides us through her life before-and-after Scott, but she never truly comes alive in Fowler’s telling.

But I have to say that Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald has at least kindled my interest in this fascinating if maddening couple, so much so that I think I will seek out a biographies of Zelda and F. Scott, and read their many, storied works. So all was not lost reading Fowler’s flawed if still interesting work – so there’s that.

“Turn of Mind”, by Alice LaPlante

 

320 pages, Grove Press, ISBN-13: 978-1594135798

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante centers on Dr. Jennifer White, retired orthopedic surgeon, and the murder of her friend, Amanda O’Toole (whose fingers were surgically severed after death, to boot). Dr. White is the prime suspect but, complicating matters for her and the police is the fact that she is suffering from advanced-stage Alzheimer’s and can remember nothing or, when memories do spring to mind, are always fractured and out of sorts. The structure of the book is told from the viewpoint of the unfortunate Dr. White, a viewpoint that, as one can well imagine from a person with dementia, is out of sorts and unreliable. It also serves to make the book smaller in fact than it purports to be, as it is written as a series of small, brief, paragraphs separated by a blank line or two (to say nothing of a very fast read).

One thing that suffuses this book is the loss of Jennifer; not literally, or course, as she is the narrator and principle voice of the book. But hers is a broken voice, spoken by a woman who is no longer there, mentally. When she is most cognizant is when she remembers the past – the far past, if you will, rather than the recent, which she cannot grasp. This woman was so much more than what she is now and to see such an accomplished and respected woman brought low by a disease that robs one of their intellect and dignity is a damn shame (it also proves that there are, in fact, fates worse than death). In this state we learn more about Jennifer and discover that she is flawed; indeed, one of her sins especially proves that her late husband, James, was a saint for putting up with her in her normal, pre-Alzheimer condition.

As mysteries go, however, Turn of Mind is not very…mysterious. The murder of Amanda is supposed to be at the center of the book but, in fact, Jennifer’s Alzheimer’s is the engine of this car. Seeing as it is told from Jennifer’s fractured and unreliable point of view this makes sense, as we puzzle along with her what is real and what is misremembered fantasy; what are relevant facts and what are irrelevant meanderings. The suspect list is thin and the final reveal – dealing as it does with our demented heroine fleeing the facility she was placed in and attempting to solve the crime on her own – is rather shocking (to me at any rate). Whenever I finish a mystery that fools me I usually go back and reread certain portions to try and determine why I didn’t sniff it out; Turn of Mind was no different, and I kick myself for not having uncovered the perp.

So Turn of Mind requires patience on the part of the reader as you try to puzzle out Jennifer’s thoughts and the motivations of those around her. But stick with it, as the final reveal will make it all worthwhile.

“Relic”, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

 

382 pages, Forge, ISBN-13: 978-031285630X

Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child is set in the New York Museum of Natural History (now the American Museum of Natural History) and follows the opening of a new exhibit called “Superstitions”, about native and obscure religions and beliefs from around the world – only to be plagued by a series of brutal murders in which people are savagely mutilated and their brains partially eaten (the 1997 movie The Relic was also based on it, but that bombed so you probably didn’t see it). It turns out this book was the first to feature their reoccurring characters Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast and Detective Vincent D’Agosta.

So, anyway, Relic was okay. The mystery at the heart of the story is over the relic in question that is the center of the new exhibit, the culture from which it was taken and its connection to the bloody murders. As the scientists and researchers study the history and mystery surrounding the whole, bits and pieces fall into place as the novel barrels headlong. All of this was fine as these Very Smart People try and piece together the strange findings that come their way. If you are not a geek then much of this may be dull, but any library rat worth their salt will find all of this techno-digging to be well worth the read.

The real problems lay in the wooden characters; not once while reading Relic did I feel any dread or suspense, a damning critique for a book that purports to be a thriller. This is mostly because I couldn’t give a damn for any of these posts masquerading as people. Then there is Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI who is investigating these murders due to their similarity to deaths that had occurred in New Orleans a few years before. While Aloysius brims with personality – especially in relation to the blocks of wood all around him – he also knows…everything and has had just the right unreal life experiences to make him indispensable.

And the ending is LONG, as everything comes to a head and all hell breaks loose and there’s blood and guts and – hell, just wading through the last several chapters was a chore when it should have been a suspenseful hell-ride as we bump and jostle towards the conclusion. The Epilogue, however, was good, as the writers wrap everything up and answer all of your unanswered questions – and set up the sequel. The character through which they do it was always present and, while arrogant, was not very malevolent, until he reveals his ultimate plans. If I had enjoyed Relic more then I think that this last chapter would have gotten me excited for the next book.

The Relic was a ‘B’ Movie, which should come as no surprise, seeing as the book it was based upon was also subpar. An entertaining enough read that occupied me for a week, I shan’t be reading any more Preston and Child books and must bid adieu to Special Agent Pendergast and Detective Vincent D’Agosta.