Clare Pooley. How To Age Disgracefully. Toronto: Viking, 2024.
Not a scrounge, a purchase, which of course must next go into our in-house library. Someone dies, but it's not a crime novel. Osman's Thursday Murder Club will come to mind due to the elderly age factor, although here we have a squabbling gang of eccentric individuals. A seniors social club at the Mandel Community Centre is what pulls them together, and saving it from city-proposed destruction becomes a slightly unifying force of protest. Daphne is front and centre of the brand new seniors' group, opinionated warrior woman with no filters. Art is a mediocre actor with few gigs these days; his inseparable friend William is a retired photo-journalist. Anna had been a long-haul truck driver, now deftly piloting a mobility scooter. Ruby is a therapeutic-knitting champ. Menopausal Lydia is the hapless underpaid worker in charge of their entertainment.
Ah, but this is not merely a seniors' romp. The Centre hosts other worthy programs like the karate club, prenatal classes, AA meetings, and a childcare nursery. The latter greatly benefits teenage Ziggy, accidental single father of baby Kylie. A shoplifting habit, yarn bombing, illicit drug running, internet dating, and covert surveillance help explain the chaotic introductory scene, to which the reader may return from time to time. Collaboration on a gender-neutral Nativity play performed by the nursery element with seniors assisting (and a scruffy dog called Margaret Thatcher) is a highlight for persuading the city to keep the Centre. If only Daphne would stop shouting and scaring everyone—she fell naturally into a leadership role despite (or because of?) a background she keeps well hidden. No one's problem is too hopeless for her to solve.
It's hard to stop laughing at the unconventional characters and their advocacy efforts that fly haphazardly in all directions. Admire the wordsmith perfection; read, laugh, love!
Daphne
▪ She Googled "hook-up," which, it transpired, was all about sex. Daphne hadn't had sex for over fifteen years, and wasn't sure it all still worked. (41)
▪ She was going to have to attend this ghastly council meeting. No one was closing down the Senior Citizens' Social Club on her watch. (63)
▪ She appeared to have jumped out of the frying pan of sexism and into the fire of ageism. The final frontier of isms. (65)
▪ "So you two are my best friends?" said Daphne. William and Art started laughing. What looked like genuine belly laughs. (114)
▪ "STOP RIGHT THERE, EDWARD FUCKING SCISSOR-HANDS!" came a shout. Daphne. Obviously. (199)
▪ "Well, luckily I've never aimed for nice," said Daphne. "That sort of wishy-washy adjective is much more your bag." (230)
Others
▪ "Part of the ceiling came down, and someone died." (36)
▪ "Or if you wanted to go farther afield, which might be good for you, the universities all have arrangements for single parents." (57)
▪ "She hated me for seducing her perfect only child, and never forgave him for marrying someone brown from Bangladesh, rather than a blonde from the local pony club." (79)
▪ "Lydia," he said, as he turned away from her and made his way up the stairs. "You're drunk, hormonal, and delusional. Hopefully by the morning you'll have pulled yourself together." (77)
▪ "Just doing my bit," said Anna, peeling off her leather jacket to reveal an AC/DC T-shirt. "Luckily, this ain't my first rodeo." Lydia had no idea what she meant by that. (103)
▪ And if he ever did have sex in the future, he was wearing a full-body condom. He'd make sure none of those suckers ever got loose again. (125)
▪ "And due to decades of Tory government austerity and the inadequacy of Universal Credit, Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem to visit the food bank." (148-9)
OOPS >>> Daniel Cole. The Hangman. USA: HarperCollins, 2018.
Still scrounging fillers from here and there. Oh dear. Looks like I arrived in the middle of something—much reference to the previous novel featuring the same cop and the serial killer she caught, a man whose bizarre murder method is being copy-catted. DCI Emily Baxter is the brusque, impatient Brit policewoman who thought she was finished with it all, but agents Curtis (FBI) and Rouse (CIA) want her assessment of a similarly outlandish murder in New York. References to colleagues and former activities quickly became interruptive or incomprehensible, so it was either abandon the book or look up the author. The latter, of course.
And that, indeed, revealed that what I'd latched onto was the second book in a trilogy, the first being called Rag Doll. There's just too much prior context clearly invested in The Hangman, so for once I'm calling it quits. The synopsis of Rag Doll looks as gruesome as this one seems to be; not going there, thanks.
A.J. Finn. End of Story. Ebook download from TPL. USA: William Morrow, 2024.
A quirk of fate landed me with both the e-book and the paper copy at the same time. I switched from former to latter part way, thanks to the unreliable antics of my tablet. Quotes with an E page number indicate from the ebook.
Sebastian Trapp is the eminently successful author of mystery novels featuring gentleman sleuth Simon St. John. Having enjoyed a mutually spirited correspondence with Nicky Hunter—a literary critic of crime fiction— Sebastian invites her to "write his story." He seems to intend a type of memory book for family posterity—the man is slowly dying of renal failure. Nicky arrives at his overwhelming San Francisco mansion almost speechless with hero worship. Given the man's ability to mask personal feelings, she's not sure if he will talk about the mystery surrounding him for twenty years—the mystery of his young son Cole and first wife Hope utterly vanishing at the same time but from different places. Public speculation has attributed every imaginable scenario, including that Sebastian murdered and disposed of them.
Second wife Diana is hospitable and sensible, calmly coping with Sebastian's theatrical outbursts; is the man bipolar? Nicky meets affable nephew Freddy, his hovering mom Simone, and new friend Jonathan. Daughter Maddy, feeling useless, unworthy of her father, resents Nicky getting his attention. All contribute stories to Nicky; her preliminary work pleases Sebastian. Unknown to anyone, Nicky had been a school-assigned childhood penpal with Cole; his fate in particular has her detective instincts quivering. After ever-so-carefully building the setting, the author brings Cole into the picture as a virtual presence—the child who was unmercifully bullied—and events turn deadly. Be aware that in the end, suspending your disbelief could be problematic even if you think you scrupulously collected clues along the way. Finn generates disturbing twists or more mysteries on almost every page; nothing is linear.
One accustoms oneself to the often choppy narrative; these characters are on edge, facing the imminent loss of the capricious giant in their lives. A breathless chase through Chinatown is but one memorable episode. Crafty story-telling, to maximum effect. Surprisingly (isn't it always?): an "off of" writer.
Bits
▪ "And thanks, but tomorrow I'm scheduled to be overweight and out of shape all day, so I must decline." (E98)
▪ She's a stout woman, on the downward slope of her sixties, wearing a ruby red top, billowy yellow slacks, green sandals. She looks, Nicky thinks, like a traffic light. (E113)
▪ Who could possibly know about Magdala? (125)
▪ She hasn't told Cole about Nicky, has she? The girl their father is ... well, using, isn't he? Manipulating? To shape his legacy or something? (165)
▪ Floating in the water is a woman, facedown, hair sprayed about her head, her back and arms bare. (224)
▪ "You're—ever since you got here for this pointless, moronic memory book, everything's gone wrong. Everything's wrong, Nicky!" (249)
▪ "They even asked if he reminded me of anybody! Meaning Cole. As if I wouldn't recognize my own nephew." (262)
Sebastian
▪ Just sitting before her, he seemed to radiate energy, like a dying star. (E37)
▪ "Life is hard. After all, it kills you." (E75)
▪ He's speaking in his whitewater voice, that full-boil roar that rushes around corners and bursts through walls. (E127)
▪ Maybe this is all a game for him. (167)
▪ "Stay as long as you like," he calls. "Die here." (172)
▪ "Do you know why people don't like you, son? Because you're weak." (185)
▪ And in the center of the room, Sebastian is a popped bottle of champagne, fizzing and sparkling and overflowing. (201-2)
▪ "Neither one of us really wanted lives beyond those we had already led. We were each other's afterlives." (266)
▪ "I expected a son who—not deserved, but validated my survival, and would himself survive. And live. As I had not." (308)
Invitation
Your published work is searching and humane—rare qualities in a critic. You know Simon well, and of course I am a part of him just as he is a part of me. In you, Miss Hunter, I see the audience for the final story I will ever tell. I see someone who can tell it in kind to anybody who cares to know.
I'll be dead in three months. Come tell my story. (23)
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