Library Limelights 181

Emily Bleeker. The Waiting Room. USA: Lake Union Publishing/Amazon, 2018.

Are they all barking mad? Veronica is only one of the clients who regularly visits psychologist Lisa Masters. Veronica is trying to recover from the trauma of losing her husband Nick and post-partum depression; she's unable to perform the natural tasks associated with mothering a baby. Like holding and feeding her child Sophie. And if you can believe this without a twinge of doubt, you will contentedly read on to the end. Not exactly contently, as the tale grows more bizarre. Veronica's mother Barb is living with her, caring for Sophie and hoping for her daughter's breakthrough. Then Sophie disappears. We know something is out of whack, but is it the new friends Veronica made in the counsellor's waiting room? Sorry, not working for me: the whole premise (as it turns out) is not anchored in any reality I know. Related from Veronica's point of view, it gets too outlandish; her conflicting self-flagellating thoughts and outbursts of rage are too repetitive. The Waiting Room tries just too hard, lacking the chills of a good suspense read.

One-liners:

▪ There was so much pain in the world; she couldn't figure out why more people weren't weeping constantly. (11)

▪ She didn't want to invite this strange, needy woman into her life any more than she'd already forced herself in. (47)

▪ Barb kept her slow advance, creeping closer and closer to Veronica, her voice filled with the panicked sound of pleading. (98)

▪ Her greatest regrets were found in the spaces between her choices, in the void of inaction that had slowly devoured her life. (137)

▪ There was only the desire to bring Sophie home and to get away from the woman running after them. (183)

Two-liner:

▪ "You deserve this hell you've built for yourself. Let's go." (236)

Diary excerpt:

"Sometimes I think it would've been better if she'd never been born. God, I wanted her so badly. I took those damned shots and I cried at each negative test, but once I got her—I failed her. If Nick were here, it'd be different. I know it would. Ma says time and therapy will help, but I don't think I even want it to. I deserve this. When her cries break through the sound machine and the ear plugs and the Tylenol PM, I know why she cannot be calmed. She wants her mama and daddy, but Daddy is gone and Mama wishes she were by his side. That poor baby. My poor baby, with no mama there to hold her." (116-7)

A new friend:

Gillian started and placed a hand on her chest before leaning over and popping the lock manually. "I'm so sorry, sweetie. Come in!" 

The endearment sounded so motherly, like Gillian had taken some parental interest in Veronica. She didn't want a mom right now. She used her mother, hurt her mother; she lost her mother, maybe even pushed her away so hard that she never came back. No, she didn't need a replacement mom. She didn't deserve one, and she'd probably ruin that relationship too. (122)

Michael Ignatieff. Charlie Johnson in the Flames. Toronto: Penguin, 2003.

Throwback to a crush of mine. Ignatieff writes of Charlie Johnson, an almost burned-out war correspondent in the Balkan conflicts, from the author's personal experience. Charlie has a searing ‒ literally ‒ face-to-face with an ugly war crime, that becomes indelible images that will not let him rest. It's PTSD of course. After being led astray on an assignment, Charlie and Jacek, his reliable cameraman, witnessed the despicable act against a helpless woman by a colonel in the entrenched forces. Charlie stopped being an observer and engaged. He's injured. The intimacy of death brings out Charlie's most impulsive feelings, in fact a turmoil of feelings new to him. Even though his bond with Jacek is rock solid, the only person he can articulate his feelings to is Etta, a manager at the news agency.

He can't return to uncomprehending wife Elizabeth and daughter Annie in England, he can't return to his real life, whatever that was. Jacek takes him to his home to recover from his wounds. Yet he reflects on whether he has a real life at all, seeing that Jacek has a haven away from military chaos. In the field, he and Jacek are an inseparable team, as if there was nothing else worth doing than covering the brutality of war. Each news story demands decisions to trust strangers or not. This time Charlie will make his own story. A quick read, so well-written, a compelling study that deeply lingers.

One-liners:

▪ Fear of being thought ridiculous was a major reason why men did ridiculous things. (13)

▪ Thinking about Annie filled him with a sense of weightlessness, as if he was coming untethered. (34)

▪ "God," she said, "you have a gift for misery," suddenly angry that he should be squandering simple happiness. (35)

▪ It was just that he needed asylum, and the peculiar feature of his home was that it had never offered asylum. (39)

▪ That was what being a parent was all about, keeping control of the emotional weather. (85)

Two-liners:

▪ He had taken the cowl off, as if to say: I am the one who makes the fire come. I am the one you will fear. (8)

▪ If he stopped dreaming about her, Charlie said, he would betray her. If he continued to dream about her, his life would become impossible. (62)

▪ Charlie looked at Etta, at her face in the car window frame, and he said, "Etta, I'm tired of being fucked over. Do you understand?" (140)

Etta came to him:

It was all very comforting and yet unsettling, since Charlie had taken a chance on her and they hadn't ever been like this, and they should have been exploring each other's every pore instead of lying side by side, presuming an intimacy that wasn't there at all. 

He'd just phoned her. Like that. It was one more thing he'd done that didn't make sense, but which seemed logical at the time. What made him go through with it was that she didn't sound surprised. She hadn't said Why me? Why there? Are you sure? She'd just said, I heard. Are you all right? And he had said, Why? Do I sound funny? You do, she said and he had admitted that he was not quite right. (15)

What to do?

"We do this thing together. You are good. I am good. Someone else will do it worse." 

"Why do it at all?" 

Neither said anything. They knew why they did it, but it seemed ridiculous to rehearse the reasons or to evaluate them now that everything had gone wrong and someone had died because of it. You either kept on or you stopped, and neither knew what they would do now. The honest truth was that it didn't depend on what they said or thought, but on how they would feel, much later, when the assignments were offered, when they watched a situation develop somewhere and felt that desire again, to be in the middle of it and working together. (54-5)

Embassy comes to jail:

It was rather impressive, Etta thought, how this small woman managed to embody a government and to initiate a formal demand for access to a detainee, according to such-and-such a convention guaranteeing consular access to all detainees in a signatory's power. She cracked the words out in the sergeant's language, but with an official cadence that, even if it was the mumbo-jumbo of sovereignty, carried a certain authority. They could make out that she was telling the sergeant the government was unhappy, the ambassador was unhappy, the country would be unhappy, the whole world would soon be unhappy. It was a good show, all round, especially coming from a tired, anxious woman impersonating the authority of Charlie's home and native land. (136)

April Smith. North of Montana. Large Print. USA: Beeler Large Print, 1995.

Here's the novel that introduced FBI Agent Ana Grey and I love this character! I'm partial to tough, fearless ladies. Luckily there are two others I haven't read in the series. Ana's successful bust of a bank robber means anticipation of promotion, but one more test awaits: she's expected to close a new case. Hollywood legend Jayne Mason is accusing her doctor of addicting her to drugs ‒ a serious charge against a seemingly upright medical professional. During Ana's chasing of witnesses around the Los Angeles area, venturing into Santa Monica north of Montana Street begins to crack open some of her own repressed childhood memories. Plus, someone insists Ana is related to a young El Salvadoran woman, recently murdered. But Ana's childhood revolved around "Poppy" Grey, her strong ex-cop grandfather; their rapport has been rock solid.

It's a whirlwind to follow Ana in these threads as she digs deep to prove herself but coping with resurging memories. At the same time she fights against her feelings for her partner Donnato, an unhappily married man. Her case is full of invulnerable liars and deceit and seems to be a dead end, then it suddenly goes so wrong. At one point I yelled out loud, Oh no! and that was a first for me―could not stop reading this alternately funny and poignant tale into the midnight hours. Smith comes up with original stories and great characters. Must mention, this large print edition was unsatisfactory with missing punctuation and occasional spelling garbles, definitely a flawed production.

One-liners:

▪ I may be a hotshot federal agent who carries a gun and a pair of handcuffs (they're light, you can throw them in the bottom of your purse trash) but my self-worth is still measured by my grandfather's rules. (73)

▪ One of the skills you learn at the academy is how to memorize an address off a card, upside down. (190)

▪ She looks like she means business, in a Palm Springs sort of way. (210)

▪ Is he deliberately undercutting me today, not thanking me for my effort, not acknowledging my accomplishments, or have these subtle put-downs and manipulations been going on for years? (258)

▪ Then, suddenly, I am overwhelmed by an inconsolable heartbreak, as if that underground source of my own grief had split rock and geysered a thousand feet into the air. (290-1)

Two-liners:

▪ "They blew off her hands," he instructs. "As punishment for taking what didn't belong to her." (34)

▪ I don't understand these overpowering, nameless sensations. I can't seem to get control of my voice. (50)

▪ The sofa is hard as a rock. It must be stuffed with horsehair or some other perverse material. (281)

Ex-urbia:

Slowing down off the freeway, suddenly quiet enough to hear your very tires chewing over feathers of sand blown across the off-ramp, as the setting sun shoots every tiny needle of every single cactus with scarlet backlight, it hits. Desert Clarity. The absence of motion, pressure, traffic, and people. A mysterious monochromatic landscape speckled with life. Your body settles down. The air feels spiritual―that is, filled with spirits that a tacky little town can't restrain. Rolling down the gamy main street of Desert Hot Springs you want to shout just to hear how your voice would sound as a loose uninhibited coyote wail instead of the tight pissed-off squeak with which you usually address your fellow man. (71)

Her Boston contact:

Lester is an old warhorse who's been around since Hoover, which is why they assigned him to this case. He's through chasing gangsters. A background check on a Harvard doctor is just his speed. On an assignment like that you can stay loaded all afternoon. I realize when he's on to a second vodka martini before we have seen menus that the reason he likes this place is not the authentic pressed tin ceiling but that it is far enough from Government Center so no agents are likely to come here and he can self-destruct in peace. (133)

Reality check:

But still Donnato does not start the car. 

"I'm concerned that you're over the edge emotionally. It comes from being hypervigilant and eating soup at midnight and not having a life. If it's too much, be a grown-up and get help. That's what Harvey McGinnis is there for," he says, referring to the shrink the Bureau keeps on retainer for agents who have gone around the bend. 

"Harvey McGinnis wears a skirt," I retort. He does, he puts on a kilt for Christmas and for funerals when he gets to play the bagpipes. 

"I care about you and you are being a wise ass." His cheeks are flushed, he is furious. "If you wig out again, I will have to notify Duane Carter that you should be evaluated as to your ability to carry a weapon." (233)