Wrong shipping date confuses book buyers and me too

I was flummoxed (yes, flummoxed) to see my historical novel "Zeppelins Over Denver" listed for pre-order on Amazon.com with a shipping date of Nov. 19. On the product page, a May 5, 2026, pub date is listed and that is correct. At the same time, I was holding a copy of "Zeppelins" in my hands, wondering why an entity such as Amazon, which can speed a supply of Dude Wipes to me overnight, wants readers to wait until almost Thanksgiving for my first novel. I have alerted the site's problem-solvers and hope for a quick solution. I mean, the book is worth waiting for, might even make a great holiday gift, but I may be an old man before that comes around. Pause for fact check: I am an old man now, typing this with the same four fingers I used on typewriters and keyboards since the 1970s when I was putting my first words to paper. Yes, paper. So, if you are anxious to read a novel set in 1919 featuring characters out of The Great War in Europe, leave a comment and I will sell you a copy and mail it the old-fashioned way. 

Travel now with Patrick as he contemplates a new life in the West

The opening paragraphs of my new novel, Zeppelins Over Denver:

Patrick Michael Hott pulled his cap down on his forehead and slumped into the seat on the east side of the southbound train. It was the last day of July 1919. He shifted in the seat, trying to bend his lanky frame into the limited space. He looked out the window. Cows grazed on brown swatches of grass that stretched all the way to the flat horizon. He passed green wavy ranks of ripening corn. There was a man laboring out in his field. An old farmhouse. More cows.

He looked in the other direction, past his seatmate and to the opposite side of the train. That was the west and the Rocky Mountains. Heads and hats blocked that view out of the passenger car windows. So many big people. So many hats. Floppy women’s hats adorned with feathers. Towering cowboy hats worn by towering cowboys. Straw boaters worn by rangy young dudes. Beat-up hats worn to protect farmers from the mile-high sun. Every blessed American wore a big hat that obscured his view of the mountains. They were all on his train.

Why couldn’t they wear sensible headwear such as the soft cap he bought in Chicago on the Fourth of July? He had joined his brother’s family to picnic on Lake Michigan for the first Fourth that America celebrated after The Great War. Not even a month ago. He bought the cap from a street vendor. He liked it immediately and spent too much of his hard-earned pay for it. He liked that he could pull it down over his big ears when the winter winds blew off the lake. The bill kept the sun off his face, which would come in handy now that he was on his way to Arizona. It also gave him a dapper air, or so he believed.

To be continued

Order Zeppelins Over Denver by Michael T. Shay now from your favorite bookstore. Just yesterday, friends ordered copies from Parnassus Books in Nashville, co-owned by the magnificent Ann Patchett,  and Mitchell Kaplan's Books & Books in Miami. Mitchell was co-founder of the amazing Miami Book Fair that began in 1984. These bookstores are key parts of the literary world that keep hope alive even when dark forces try to destroy us. 

"Zeppelins Over Denver" now available to pre-order

On April 24, I guesstimated that "Zeppelins Over Denver" would be out by summer. You have to be careful with these things as publishing tends to take time and you don't want to get readers' hopes up unnecessarily. 

"Zeppelins" is now on pre-order (May 5 official pub date) at your favorite bookstore or even from your least favorite big-box outlet that places book bins somewhere among twelve-packs of underwear and rows of gleaming BBQ grills. 

My goal is to get the book into local stores and those in my old stomping grounds of Wyoming and Colorado. It's a bit tricky because the book is set in Colorado, specifically Denver, in 1919. I'm now officially a Florida resident, a return to my roots and the comfort of family. My Colorado roots go back to 1919 when all of my grandparents decided Denver was the place to be. 

My grandmother Florence decided to extend her tenure as an army nurse in France to the new army hospital in someplace called Aurora. There she met and married my grandfather Raymond, a cavalry officer from Iowa who left the war with lung problems so they shipped him to the hospital that eventually became Fitzsimons Army Hospital. Cavalry officer met nurse and there you go. 

My Irish immigrant grandfather Martin left sweltering Chicago after having a lung surgically removed due to empyema. The surgeon urged him to recuperate in a drier clime, Arizona, for instance, or maybe Denver. He chose Denver. Grandmother Agnes, the first postmistress of a tiny town near Cincinnati, jumped into a Model T with her sister and two gal-pals and drove the rugged road to Colorado. She and her sister decided to stay while the others returned to the banks of the Ohio. Martin and Agnes met at the Hibernian Club and one thing led to another and here I am.

That's just background. The setting is important to me as I was born in Denver, did some of my growing up there, returned after college to work, left Denver to go to grad school up I-25 at CSU, and then moved north to Cheyenne to work for the Wyoming Arts Council for 25 years. Retirement party with great homemade pie on a Friday in January 2016. On Monday morning, I sat and started writing this book.

Co-worker at retirement party: Hey Mike, whatcha gonna do after retirement? You can't just sit around, you know. 

Me: I'm gonna sit around and write a novel. A historical novel.

Co-worker: That's nice. Give me another slice of that pie.

Ten years later, I'm in Florida and I have a book. Easy as pie.

Stay tuned here for more updates. 

"Zeppelins Over Denver" due out by summer

Just finished reviewing the galley proofs of my first novel. My first published novel. I’ve been writing for a long time, since I was in my 20s. I actually started earlier, as a kid writing letters that were rarely answered. My first readers were disinterested friends and family members. Maybe that’s where I learned how to hold an audience. Most of my early writing had an audience of one. I discovered journaling and keep up that written practice with this blog. I registered with the original Blogger from Pyra Press in 2001 and posted my first weblog in November 2005. I began blogging regularly in January 2006.

But back to the novel. The title is “Zeppelins Over Denver” and it will be out in May from The Ridgeway Press of Michigan in Detroit. Publisher and friend M.L. Liebler helped me get the ball rolling and I am forever grateful. Small presses rule! Big presses are great too but they have spent a lot of time ignoring me. C’est la vie! I was learning how to write all of this time, from the early 1970s until now. I’m still learning. Always will be.

“Zeppelins” is a historical novel set in 1919 Denver. Its origins lie on the yellowing pages of my paternal grandmother’s diary from her time as a U.S. Army nurse in France, 1918-19. She kept one diary in her lifetime and it was lost for decades, existing only as a rumor that faded with each passing year. It was rediscovered in my sister Molly’s basement in Tallahassee. She’s a nurse like our mother and my father’s mother. Eileen, another sister who also was a nurse, took the diary and transcribed it. She asked me for editorial assistance. As writer and editor, I gladly provided it. I whipped it into shape, working more as a conservator than a fiction writer. I corrected spelling and punctuation. I changed no contents, censored nothing. It was lovely just the way it was.

Eileen asked me to put together a little book for the family. Along the way, I researched the service of army nurses in the Great War and the Great War itself. I thought I knew at least some of the history. I had read war novels such as “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “The Good Soldier Schweik,” “Soldier of the Great War,” and “Winter Soldier.”  I had read “The Guns of August” by Barbara Tuchman and Paul Fussell’s excellent “The Great War and Modern Memory.” I’ve read the poetry: Wilfred Owen, Siegried Sassoon, and Robert Graves. I have read some of the celebratory war poetry, too. Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees" was my father’s favorite poem. I wondered if Dad had contemplated the shattered trees in the Bulge battlefield in the Ardennes in 1944. Kilmer’s reputation lives on at Columbia University’s annual Alfred Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest. The Columbia Daily Spectator once ranked the contest as number one among the “Best Columbia Arts Traditions.”

The more I read, the more I realized how little I knew. I dug deeper. In the end, I decided to absorb everything I knew and let it come out in what I see as a historical novel colored by the darkly humorous war novels of Joseph Heller, Juroslav Hasek, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. And there you have it. Ten years of work poured into almost 400 pages. I hope you enjoy it. If you are inspired by the characters, some of them will return in the sequel, “Patrick of the Mountains.” The draft manuscript is complete and it will be published once the edits and revisions are complete. I have roughed out a plot for a third novel but we will see where that goes.

Fiction writers bring new life to dusty historical figures

Last night I finished reading "The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson" by Jerome Charyn. A beautiful novel, wonderful historical fiction. Charyn has made waves the past couple decades with his unorthodox takes on historical figures: Dickinson, the notorious Orson Welles/Rita Hayworth relationship, famous recluse J.D. Salinger, and Johnny One-Eye in the American Revolution. There are hundreds of other lives worth a second or even third look by someone of Charyn's skills. ,

Historical fiction is my new reason for living past 74. I've written two HF novels, the first will be out later this year from The Ridgeway Press in Michigan. I'm editing the second now. In the process, I've grabbed as many books off the HF shelf as I can muster. I was floored by "James" by Percival Everett, "Booth" by Karen Joy Fowler, "Horse," by Geraldine Brooks, "Gone, the Redeemer" by Scott Gates, and "Clark and Division" by Naomi Hirahara. 

All this innovative HF isn't without its detractors. Some traditionalists say that writers are playing fast and loose with the facts. Some say that facts are facts and that the timelines of history should be respected. They're valid points. Some HF writers are dogged with the facts. And so are some HF readers. Some writers also have hordes of researchers to help their work, as was the case with James Michener as his career progressed. He was so intent on research that he has a library named after him, the James Michener Library at University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. I've devoured Michener's novels most of my life, first "Hawaii," recommended by my mother, and onto "Centennial," the first novel I bought when I moved back to Colorado after college, and on to "Chesapeake" when I lived in Maryland.

But I also love the art of fiction and don't mind it being bent and twisted for a good yarn. I loved the real underground railroad in Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad" and I was totally caught up in Jim's journey in "James" even when the story veered away from Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" which, of course, was also fiction. 

This reminds me of arguments about creative nonfiction during my days as an M.F.A. student. Annie Dillard was taken to task for some inventions in "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." It led to a prize-winning book so I'm willing to forgive and forget. Others aren't. Remember that CNF stands for "creative" nonfiction.

It may be that I'm too old to care about literary minutiae. Or that I'm too pissed-off about MAGA savageries to mind when a writer invents something lovely to read.

A bit of both

Emily Dickinson could not stop for death but could for poetry

How did the Dominican sisters think I could understand an Emily Dickinson poem, "I could not stop for death?"

Sister Miriam Catherine: What is this poem about Mr. Shay?

16-year-old Me: Death, sister.

Sr. MC: What about death?

Me: She could not stop for it.

Sr. MC: Anything else?

Me: There's a carriage.

Sr. MC: Are you a dunderhead, Mr. Shay?

Me: Yes, Sister. Please don't smite me.

There was no smiting on that day. 

I am now smitten with Ms. Dickinson's poetry. I did not, would not, could not understand its full meaning then. I was a kid. She began writing as a youngster but her lifetime of creativity was enormous and almost unknown at the time of her death.

I turn my attention to the poet who became "The Belle of Amherst" on stage but was anything but. Since her death in 1886, Dickinson's reputation has been battled over by family, friends, and biographers. Lyndall Gordon tried to make sense of it all in his biography, "Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds." And Jerome Charyn writes of Dickinson in his 2010 W.W. Norton historical novel, "The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson." You guess that this is a different kind of look at a literary legend because the cover shows Dickinson's bloomers illuminated by candlelight under her hoop skirt.

I'm only through Charyn's first section but know this is a different look at an American poet who bored high schoolers and even college English majors. 

I now know that I didn't get it when I was young. Why does knowledge come so late in life? 

It's a dangerous time to be woke to literature. Liberal arts majors are being threatened in the U.S., maybe no more so than in Florida where I came of age as a writer. If I can identify a fellowship of dunderheads, it rests in the Florida governor's office. He aims to gut everything I treasure at the University of Florida: The College of Liberal Arts, English majors, arts programs, "wokeness" in general, and the Independent Florida Alligator. As a movie hero of mine once said, "This will not stand, man."

Back to Emily Dickinson. Charyn notes in his intro that he is obsessed with her poetry and has been for decades. His first sentence in the author's note: "She was the first poet I had ever read, and I was hooked and hypnotized from the start, because in her writing she broke every rule."

I returned to her poetry and I know what I was missing. I read and reread "I could not stop for death." I couldn't get enough. I went to the Emily Dickinson Museum web site. I read about her and more of her poetry. 

I laughed when I read this on the museum's online Q&A (thanks AI): 

"Q: Is Amherst close to Boston? A: No, Amherst is not close to Boston. It is located in the western part of Massachusetts, about a 90-minute drive from Boston, which is a significant distance for a quick trip. The two locations are in different regions of the state, with Amherst being further west in Pioneer Valley."

I laughed because when I lived in Boston 1972-73, my woman friend and I hitched regularly to Storrs, Conn., to see friends. The two of us had logged some 7,000 miles the summer of '72 by thumb, ending up in her hometown of Boston. My pal Tommy and I hitched from Boston to Putney, Vt., passing just minutes from Amherst, on our way to get high with friends among the colorful foliage. I spent my career driving Wyoming and Colorado. Significant distance, indeed.

I wish I had gone. I still could. For now, I will finish Charyn's novel and read more Dickinson. I live in memory and imagination. 

Read more about Dickinson's "Secret Life" in upcoming posts.

 

Why did Bernice bob her hair?

"Bernice Bobs Her Hair," F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story published in the May 1, 1920, issue of the Saturday Evening Post. It was his first story to receive national attention. (Thanks, Wikipedia, for the image. I  wear your [Edit] T-shirt when I'm editing.)

I lived in 1919 for five years. It was the mid-to-late twenty-teens and, physically, I was in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but my mind was in 1919 Denver. This is the year my grandparents migrated to Colorado. War puts people in motion and the Great War  did that. But other factors were at work. Young people were restless, as we were to see in 1920s literature. We have always been part of a moveable feast in this country. We value the ability to get up and move. No state border guards to show our papers to. No permission needed if we decide to quit our job and move cross-country to take another one. Relationships break and partners seek new pastures, new people to connect with. 

Some move for their health. That was never more true than in the 19-teens when the flu pandemic and tuberculosis caused many to get up and go. In John Green's book "Tuberculosis is Everything," we see the rise of TB sanitoria throughout the western U.S., land of clean air, dry climates, and expansive vistas. Some cities got their starts with TB, places like Pasadena, Calif., and Colorado Springs, Colo. Denver's air, when it wasn't choked by those winter air inversions and coal smoke, was pristine, just the thing for lungers, as TB patients were called and not in a nice way.

So I spent much of my 20-teens in the 19-teens. I suppose part of me will always be there. The novel that arose from the project, "Zeppelins over Denver," is nearing publication. I've written a follow-up since, this one set in 1922. And I am always at work writing stories and blogs. I've surpassed my 10,000 hours of creative practice. I'm a bit tired of practicing and want to get on my way to doing and finishing and enjoying. 

I'm still hooked on the era. My Millennial daughter Annie phoned yesterday. She was deciding on a haircut for a job interview. She talked about getting a bob. 

"Bernice bobbed her hair," I said. 

Annie didn't recognize the literary reference but suspected it. "OK, Dad, who's Bernice?" 

"From the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, " 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair.' " 

"What happens, Dad. A sad ending, right?"

I had to think. "I don't remember. It's been awhile."

"It's not Gatsby-like, is it? Grim and filled with messages about a corrupt society?"

"I'll have to get back to you on that."

So I pulled up "Bernice Bobs Her Hair and Other Stories." I was about to send it to my Kindle when I came across an  audiobook version. I began listening to that, took a break for lunch, and when I returned, I found a "Bernice" graphic novel just released in 2024. The cover illustration intrigued me and I downloaded that. I stayed up late to read. Glad I did. My neighborhood is dark and quiet at midnight, as is my house. Peaceful. My laughs echoed down the hallway and might have reached my slumbering wife but she didn't mention it the next morning.

I did not remember the track of this story. I must have read it in grade school, junior high, high school. Now I do remember another notable story of that era, "Why I Live at the P.O." by Eudora Welty. Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" was an eye-opener. They all were in the same Catholic Church-approved collection as "A Bottle of Milk for Mother" by Nelson Algren and something by Hemingway probably one of the Nick Adams stories. I linger over those stories now. They are deep, wild, and funny, what I missed out on as a teen.

I loved "Bernice Bobs Her Hair." I had so much fun with the graphic novel adapted and illustrated by John Paizs and published by Graphic Publications. The story was first published in May 1920 in the Saturday Evening Post. Its popularity cased the Post to publish another Bernice Story in November that included a color illustration of Bernice. Fitzgerald was paid real money by the Post and it helped launch his career. In 1920, writers earned a living by writing stories for popular magazines. This has not been true during my time as a writer. 

Go read "Bernice." A pleasant journey during troubled times.

There is a world of difference between a 125,000-word novel and a flash of 50 words

Spending my days and nights with a close reading of the formatted text for my historical novel, "Zeppelins over Denver." Much of my adult life was spent writing and editing so this is just another in a long line of projects. But, the process is different with a 125,000-word novel. If that seems like a lot of words, it is. But they were composed one sentence, one paragraph, one page at a time. I write and revise short stories, which is a slightly different task. A short story may be 5,000 words. In 2025, flash fiction has taken over the litmags and I am pleased that I've publish a few in print mags and online. It's a neat exercise to write a story that's a page long and not pages. Some very talented writers taught me the way. The always-busy Meg Pokrass has shown me and others the way. I recently had a piece rejected by 50-Word-Story that I thought was pretty good for a 50-word-story. I had revised it from a 250-word story but maybe that was the problem. Sometimes a 250-word story just wants what it wants. 

Back to the novel. The story must be compelling and the characters memorable. The writing must be crisp. And very importantly, the text must be error-free. This is the challenge with a 125,000 word novel in this day of self-publishing. Traditional publishers used to employ editors and fact-checkers. They still do, I suppose, but I don't know for sure because I've never been published by one. I did have a st6oory reprinted in a Coffee House Press anthology, "Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking out the Jams." ML Liebler was the editor. I've also had a creative nonfiction piece published in a Norton anthology, "In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction." But my historical novel is not being published by a traditional press. Thus, the work must be done by the writer. That takes time and attention to detail, lots and lots of details. Since my book is historical fiction, this writer must pay attention to period detail in the case of 1919 Colorado. What did people wear and how did they speak? What models of automobiles were on the road? What was it like to fly a biplane? Many questions that I try to answer as best as I can. 

An editor must pay attention to detail. But it is inevitable that mistakes will slip in. One must forgive oneself in the end. Nobody's perfect. We try to be. AI is available. My MSN Word keeps bugging me about the CoPilot AI program. No thanks, I keep saying. Will that ever become a necessity in the publishing world? My daughter uses ChatGPT when writing her college papers. The professor says it is OK as long as it is noted. Good grief. I might have used it when tasked to compare and contrast the Early and Late English Romantic Poets. In fact, I may just go to CoPilot and propose this very topic, see what the bits-and-bytes say. It might be fun. 

Not sure how the late Dr. Alistair Duckworth might respond. 

Oh yes I do: Off with his head!

In Percival Everett’s historical novel “James,” the whole world relies on the naming of names

I spent the past couple weeks with James. I knew him in my youth as Jim, Nigger Jim, from Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.” On the eve of the Civil War, Jim and Huck go on a spree down the Mississippi. In Percival Everett’s novel, “James,” Huck’s name remains the same while Nigger Jim becomes Jim and then, at long last, becomes James. No accident that these are the last lines of the book:

“And who are you?”

“I am James.”

“James what?”

“Just James.”

I guess that I should issue a spoiler alert, that the main character is speaking at the end of the novel. But you don’t know where he is or what he’s doing. You don’t even know if it’s not an imagined scene, something from the always creative mind of Everett. So I’ll leave it at that.

James is a slave on a journey, sometimes with his white pal Huck and sometimes not as he and Huck get separated. We revisit a few of Twain’s characters, the Duke and the Dauphin among them (I’m thinking of you Jason Burge, The One True Dauphin of Mississippi) and others are new creations.

But as the Kindle pages turned, I was less interested in Everett’s Twain trail as I was by what Everett was doing with his own creation. It’s crystal clear early on when James is still in Hannibal talking to other slaves about proper diction. And it’s hilarious. Slaves know how to speak white man’s English (I would say proper English but this is the South) but they also need to master slave’s English. A hilarious scene, one that caused me raucous laughs that awoke the family. Slaves must dumb down their language to make sure white people are not offended by the possibility of a smart Negro. Even language is a slaveholder’s weapon. That scene really nails down what’s at stake in “James.” If you are a slave, everything you do must conform to the white man’s image of you and the owner’s sense of mastery over you. To challenge that leads to death.

As a slave, James sneaks into Judge Thatcher’s study to read. He knows Voltaire's "Candide" and John Locke even appears to James on the trail for verbal sparring matches. This journey is so much fun that you almost forget the stakes. But not quite. As I read, I thought deeply about slavery and its continuing hold on America. We are in the midst of a fascist coup by the same white men who gave us slavery and the KKK and Auschwitz. Massa Ron DeSantis gloats over his concentration camp in the Glades and plans to open more. Trump’s White Nationalist Stephen Miller plots the creation of a white nation, one without those pesky people of color.

But back to the book. It’s clear why it won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. A work of genius. I cringed in spots but I fear that not cringing would make me unrecognizable to me and to James, Just James.

A couple things about Everett. He grew up in South Carolina, educated in Florida and Rhode Island, but went West as soon as he could, as the saying goes. He spends time and writes about the West of Wyoming and New Mexico. I look forward to reading “Walk Me to the Distance” and “God’s Country.” There’s a funny Twain quote that might have come from Everett. “I’ve only been as far West as California.” It sounds like Twain but I can’t find confirmation that he said it. He traveled in what we know as the real West: Wyoming, New Mexico, Nevada, the gold-mining fields of California. But the quote has been used sarcastically by those in the inner West who say “California ain’t West.” Twain knew it. As you see in Everett’s books, he does too.

In the “James” acknowledgements, Everett writes this:

“Finally, a nod to Mark Twain. His humor and his humanity affected me long before I became a writer. Heaven for the climate; hell for my long-awaited lunch with Mark Twain.”

Always read the acknowledgements. You find gold nuggets there.

Post #4,000

Purple Mountains Majesty, 1919

In my novel manuscript, “Zeppelins over Denver,” three sisters from Ohio travel west in the summer of 1919. Their first goal is to negotiate the rough roads to the Rocky Mountains and drive to the summit of Pikes Peak to see what inspired Professor Katherine Lee Bates to write the poem that became the famous song “America the Beautiful.” This excerpt is from Chapter 10. 

Colleen looked to the west. She was grateful for the hat brim that shaded her face from the afternoon sun. Wispy white clouds had gathered to the west but they didn’t look like the dark storm clouds of her home. Colorado’s July sun was relentless. A different sun than the one she was accustomed to. It came up lazy in Ohio, sometimes shrouded in river mists, and the trees were always a barrier. Here, it erupted from the east, announced itself as a glowing orb that shot out fingers of light to illuminate every living and non-living thing. The air seemed to crackle with the light.

Colleen noted that there was something funny about the clouds. They didn’t move. She sat in her flivver and watched for the landscape to change but it did not. And then she noticed the clouds’ irregular shapes that seemed to be propped up by a horizon which was darker than the sky above.

“The Rocky Mountains,” Colleen said.

“Where?” asked Pegeen.

Colleen pointed.

Ireen got out of the car. She looked west and shaded her eyes with both of her hands. “Those clouds…”

“Are not clouds.”

Pegeen hit the ground. Colleen switched off the motor and got out. “See,” she said as she joined her sisters. She pointed. “Those things that aren’t clouds are patches of snow and ice – glaciers. All the tall mountains have them.”

“In July?”

Colleen laughed. “All year,” she said. “Those mountains will be all-white in January. This whole place will be one big snow field.”

“Blessed be,” said Pegeen. “How do you drive in that? You’d need a sleigh.”

Colleen hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe they plow the roads.”

“Or people just stay home,” Ireen said. She looked over at Colleen. “Can we go up there? Do they have roads?”

“Of course they have roads,” Colleen said. “There are gold and silver mines all over those mountains.”

“Still? Even in these modern times?” Ireen asked.

“Yes. But we want to go up there to see what it’s like. I bet it’s grand.”

“Beautiful.”

“Just like Mrs. Bates' song.”

They stood and watched. Cotton ball clouds drifted overhead. A gentle wind rattled the cottonwood leaves. A hawk screeched.

Look for "Zeppelins over Denver" this fall from Hummingbird Minds Press.

For book and bookstore fans: "Bloomsbury Girls" probes the inner workings of a 1950 London bookshop

I can see why a few members of the Historical Fiction Book Lovers Facebook group wrote “DNF” when discussion rolled around to “Bloomsbury Girls” by Natalie Jenner. It’s about books and bookstores. The time is 1950, a very boring year which launched a million Boomers me included. In London and all over the world, the war is over. Women are finding jobs but it’s a hard slog through male-dominated society. A few years earlier, these women were building ships and planes and tanks. Those warmaking items are no longer in demand so neither are working women. Bookshops in London’s better neighborhoods attract workers who love books and may even be writing one of their own, as happens in “Bloomsbury Girls.” Patrons come from all economic levels but tend to be well-educated with money to spend on books during a post-war period when necessities such as fuel and foodstuffs are still being rationed.

The book’s conflicts do not come from warfare and skullduggery and shady politics. Women try to claim their places in the working life and men stand in their way. It’s another form of warfare that the female characters in the book have to negotiate with skills equal to army strategists.

As the story progresses, Jenner features cameos of female literary figures of the era. Daphne Du Maurier, Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair (widow of George Orwell) and Peggy Guggenheim, one-time lover of Samuel Beckett who also shows up at the bookshop just as he finished writing his new play, “Waiting for Godot.”

There is a bit of a Wyoming connection. Ellen Doubleday was mother to the late Neltje Blanchan Doubleday whom we in Wyoming know as Neltje of Banner, Wyo., artist and arts patron. Neltje founded the Jentel Artist Residency Program along Lower Piney Creek and adjacent to her homestead and studio. She endowed writing fellowships in the names of her grandparents. She willed millions to the University of Wyoming for its arts and culture programs.

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and read lots of books. I am a writer. I once worked in a chain bookstore in a dying mall. Barbara Cartland sold better than James Michener and Irwin Shaw. We sold more romances than any other category. Classic literature gathered dust on the shelves, although an occasional high school kid might wander in looking for “Catcher in the Rye.” I loved it when patrons bought books I loved so we could conduct a book discussion right there at the cash register.

I have fond memories of those days. But the daily workings of the Paperback Booksmith were not high drama. Somehow, Natalie Jenner turns the proceedings of a London book shop into a series of interpersonal dramas. In good hands, any situation can be exciting.

Jenner also is the author of “The Jane Austen Book Club.” Book clubs? Kill me now! It’s not always a soul-stirring topic although World War II dramas have hung on the concept. I’m thinking about you, “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.”

I have been reading a lot of books on my Kindle. Not this one. I found it in my local Albertson’s Grocery Store while waiting for prescriptions. A small book bin is located nearby. Bins for discontinued items are located through the store. This one features lots of children’s books. I recently picked up “Pop, Flip, Cook!” for $5, a nifty interactive tutorial on cooking including a cardboard slice of toast and knife to spread jam with. It’s almost like if you have a book, you don’t even need a computer.

I found “Bloomsbury Girls” in the same bin for $3.99. The enticing cover features three young women – the book’s main characters – strolling down a street in what must be London, bookshop in the background. Big problem: the characters are decapitated. I have begun to notice cover art with headless characters. Sometimes, they are shown from the rear so faces are hidden. Members of the Historical Fiction group say the publishers do this so as not to spoil the characters’ image we have in our imaginations. I get it. Publishers must have no faith in readers’ imaginations. Stop this trend immediately. It reminds me of the ridiculous trend on house-flipping TV shows to show bookshelves with pages showing but spine hidden. I am told that this is an attempt by realtors to not prejudice a sale when you see when you see a row of books about Trump. What kind of idiot lives here? They must be hiding something. Check the basement for bodies!

One thing about bargain bin books. Authors make nothing from the sale. At one point, the books were sold new and the writer ended up with a few pennies. The book supply chain is a long and weird one. Get your bargains when you can so you can go to Cheyenne’s new bookstore, Bonsai Books, and buy a new book at full price and begin reading it while sipping a latte in an easy chair. Bonsai Books debuts the same week as the new Barnes & Noble opens in the space that once housed Natural Grocers which now is in the original Barnes & Noble building on Dell Range.  

A buried cold case comes to light in Icelandic crime thriller "Reykjavik"

The closest I’ve been to Iceland is the Maine coast. No recent volcano eruptions in Maine. Maine weather can be cold but Iceland has it beat. If you speak Icelandic as do 330,000 of the island’s inhabitants, you may be really good with languages but have few people to converse with in Portland or Kennebunkport. Both places offer great seafood and rugged terrain. They share another facet of life: fiction, mainly atmospheric thrillers. Maine claims Stephen King. Iceland claims Ragnar Jonasson.

If you watch Netflix, “The Valhalla Murders” may have popped up on your much-watch streaming series list. Valhalla is Norse heaven or their version of it. A majority of Icelanders share Viking DNA and Iceland was once part of Norway. But the Valhalla in the series written by Thordur Palsson -is, to paraphrase one former resident, “a living hell.” It’s a facility for troublesome youth. It’s also home to predatory adults. You won’t be surprised to find out that one of its youthful residents is now an adult and bent on revenge for beatings and torture and rape by staffers. It takes eight episodes for the police to get their culprit. Along the way, you get many views of snowbound landscapes and slate-gray skies; frigid small towns and one big gray city, Reykjavik.

You don’t need me to tell you that the countries of Scandinavia have a reputation for gloom and doom. Norway claimed Iceland until 1944. Vikings were bloodthirsty conquerors (great sailors though). Icelandic sagas feature much bloodshed. You’ve seen Ingmar Bergman movies. There are also the bizarre worlds of Lasse Hallstrom in “My Life as a Dog” with a 12-year-old’s ruminations on a dying Soviet dog in space and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” with its Iowa teen protagonist as caretaker of his intellectually disabled brother and morbidly obese mother. Also, Sweden is known for the graphic violence of Stieg Larsson, author of three posthumously published novels that begins with “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” It gave rise to films in Sweden and the U.S. that were not designed for family popcorn night.

The latest energetic crime thriller from Iceland is “Reykjavik” by Ragnar Jonasson and Katrin Jakobsdottir. The title is important as the 1986 scene for most of the narrative. It also is the setting for the city’s 200^th anniversary bash and the famous summit meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikeal Gorbachev. Murder happens against this dramatic backdrop along with the investigation of a 30-year-old cold case. On the way, we meet a terrific roster of characters and a plot that kept me guessing.

“Reykjavik” was translated by Victoria Cribb. Hats off to her for keeping the author’s pace and vision. Also, all the Icelandic names of people and locations. We get lots of details of everyday life which includes lots of coffee drinking. This story of death hums with life and makes it an enjoyable read. I have a feeling a filmed version is in the works for the streaming services. The author creates scenes that cry out for the cinema. We shall see what transpires.

One more thing: the co-author of Reykjavik holds a master’s degree in Icelandic literature. She wrote her master’s thesis on another Icelandic crime fiction author, Arnaldur Indridason. She now is prime minister of Iceland and previously was the Minister of Education. So there’s that…

Kudos for the books authors and editors who include a pronunciation guide to the characters’ names and also placenames. I’d like to see more of that in translated works.

Naomi Hirahara weaves a murder mystery into a 1940s historical novel and it's swell

Just when I think I’ve read every World War Two-era novel….

“Clark and Division” by Naomi Hirahara brings us into the life of Aki Ito. She’s a spirited young woman, smart and attractive and a bit self-conscious living in her talented older sister’s shadow. She yearns for just the right job and boyfriend, likes to hang around with friends, and knows how to dance the Lindy Hop.

So, she’s just like any other Southern California teen. But you add in the setting conjured by Hirahara and things get serious. Aki is Nisei, born in the U.S. of Japan-born parents. In 1942, her entire family is shipped to Manzanar internment camp, leaving behind their home and property and all-American dreams. Aki spends two years at Manzanar and, at 20, lucks out when selected for the government resettlement program which allows Nisei to move to middle America away from the coasts and start new lives. Aki chooses Chicago because that’s where her sister Rose has resettled. Before Aki and her parents can get off the train, her sister is dead, ostensibly by suicide. She allegedly jumped head-on into an El train and is killed instantly. Nobody knows why. Aki is crushed.

A great set-up for a mystery. Aki is still in shock when she discovers the secret behind Rose’s death and realizes she seems to be the only one interested in figuring out what really happened. She plods along at first but then discovers the strength to take the risks that will solve the case. Along the way, we meet the Nisei of the Clark and Division neighborhood. She has to hide her quest from her very traditional Issei parents. Along the way, we learn about Japanese-American lives, the foods they eat, their jobs, their dreams and fears. The most charming thing about this book are life’s daily details. Hirahara writes the Japanese terms for food, clothes, and many other things. I felt the crushing heat of a Chicago summer. I know how people got around in the city. Some especially good details about riding the El or Elevated Train. I got to see the workings of the famous Newberry Library. I know, the details of a library aren’t exactly high drama. But maybe they are. All this makes the book so down-to-earth and thrilling.

The ending is heartbreaking but also guides Aki into the future. And into the just-published sequel, “Evergreen.” In it, Aki has become a nurse’s aide and returns to southern California where she and other Japanese-Americans have to start from scratch – again. There’s also a murder, of course. While the book is listed under mystery, I’m sure it’s filled with the cultural and location detail that also makes for great historical fiction. Hirahara now has a series on her hands which she’s done before with her earlier books: Mas Arai and Leila Santiago. "Evergreen" is now the second book in the Japantown Series. I’ve ordered a copy. You should too.

In the good ol' summertime, we hear about The Great War and Scott Joplin ragtime

Last time I was in Casper, I could walk on my own. August 21, 2017, the total solar eclipse cut across a swath of Wyoming that ran from Jackson, across Casper, and on to Torrington and a slice of Nebraska and into Kansas and beyond. My first total eclipse and maybe my last as they rarely take the same path. On April 8, 2024, you’ll have to travel to Dallas for totality. In 2033, a slice of Alaska will have totality, and in 2044, it’s northern Montana. On Aug. 12, 2045, your best bet will be Colorado Springs or somewhere in central Utah. In 2045 I will be 94. I may not see it in person although my spirit will be floating around the Rocky Mountains.  

Casper staged a big downtown party with vendors, food trucks, and live music. My wife Chris and I drove up to `stay with our friend Lori. We watched the eclipse from Lori’s backyard, looking through special glasses you could buy anywhere that summer. It was magnificent. I blogged about it here. 

Monday night, my daughter Annie and I traveled to Casper for Poetry & Music, a summer series sponsored by Artcore that features music interspersed with a writer’s reading. I was the writer that night. Music and writing share some commonalities but some obvious differences. Both stir our souls, when done well, and that’s always the case.

The setting is the Bluebird Café at the Historic Cheese Barrel. The brick building dates from post-World War 1 with first the Bluebird Mercantile and then the Bluebird Grocery. The latter served as one of Casper’s corner groceries, of which there were many but only one remains as a grocer. The Cheese Barrel was a restaurant serving fantastic breakfasts and lunches. I ate there many times. The breakfasts, when you could get a seat, were divine. Catered lunches made their way to many Casper College events such as the annual literary conference that I helped organize. 

Owner Jacquie Anderson has rehabbed the place to look like the grocery store of the 1940s and it is charming. Tables are scattered through the main room. For the Artcore series, Jacquie and her staff line up 50-some chairs facing a small stage. There’s a lights-and-sound tech on hand to make it cozy. This was especially important Monday. On my way in, I noticed the Primrose Retirement Center van. “My people,” I joked with Annie. Sure enough, the place was packed with people my age. This is a challenge for me – acting my age. I can’t quite get that I’m 72 and disabled. My spiffy red rollator walker reminds me daily as does my drop left foot and back pain. Neuropathy tingles my hands and feet. My mind is active as ever although I sometimes can’t remember an actor’s name in an old movie and have to dredge the info up from the Internet.

The reading went well. Some acknowledged they also had grandparents from that time, some of them serving overseas during WWI. One was a retired nurse. People our age really seem to like historical fiction maybe because they’ve lived through so much history and it connects to their past. Wasn’t sure how all of these white folks would take to the relationship between Frannie and African-American character Joe Junior or the sex references but they seemed to take them in stride. They laughed in the right places. We took an intermission right before Frannie goes up for her speech, one woman even asking me to give a clue about it but I just said, “Cake first.” Annie says I should read before more people of an advanced age because they connect with it in different ways than some of the younger folks in the room. Carolyn Deuel and Artcore, sponsors of the event, said her grandmother’s card-playing club volunteered on the home front during WWI and even rolled bandages for the soldiers overseas. All these people from previous generations are gone now and people our age may be the last generation that actually knew the grandparents with connections of The Great War.

The night’s bill began with a classical music performance by woodwinds quartet Rara Avis. In then read the first section. Then came the cake break (the chocolate was chocolicious). I then read the second part of the story and took a few questions. Rara Avis closed the night with performances of some American classics such as Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” and “In the Good Ol’ Summertime.”

Keep in mind that all events like this take a lot of time and energy to set up. Funding, too, as writers and performers get paid. Supporting the arts has never been more important. Writing, in particular, has been under fire by the MAGA-inspired Moms for Liberty who attack books and librarians. They are fascists and must be stymied in their bid to transform us into bobblehead dolls.

I will let you know when my book is ready to be read and/or banned.

On stage in Casper: Historical fiction and woodwinds with a Baroque emphasis

So excited to be featured at the Artcore Music & Poetry Series on Monday, Aug. 14, 7:30 p.m., at The Bluebird at the Historic Cheese Barrel, 544 S. Center St., Casper. I'll be on stage with Rara Avis, a quartet of musicians that "explores music for woodwinds with an emphasis on the Baroque." I will be reading a chapter from my newly completed novel, "Zeppelins Over Denver" that explores life in post-World-War-1 Colorado. Here's a bit of a teaser:

Nurse Lee Speaks to the Garden Club

Nurse Frannie Lee clutched the pages of her speech as she sat at a round table with her mother and two sisters at The Old Line State Garden Club in Baltimore. Her mother had talked her into this. As March 1919 stretched into April and then into May, Frannie’s home-bound boredom was showing. As the spring days grew longer, she saw no end in sight for her ennui.  The Army had mustered out its civilian wartime nurses and now she didn’t know what came next. One day her mother suggested a speech to “the girls” at the garden club. This struck Frannie as hilarious since most of the club’s members hadn’t been girls for decades. She and her sisters once referred to them as The Stale Old Ladies Gabbing Club. Now her married sisters both were members.

To be continued...

For info and tickets ($8): https://artcorewy.com/mec-events/music-poetry-rara-avis-michael-shay/

Elmore Leonard: great stories, memorable characters, and snappy banter

There’s magic in Elmore Leonard’s writing. In his novels, he tells a whopping good story and entrances the reader with the banter among characters. I can’t get through one of his books without laughs and a few sighs. Audiobooks do justice to his work and I’ve passed a few engaging hours with “Out of Sight” and “Tishomingo Blues,” among others that I’ve listened to driving through miles of Wyoming sagebrush. The wide-open spaces figure in Leonard’s early writing, when he wrote westerns as stories (“3:10 to Yuma”) and novels (“Hombre”). I’ve seen the movies, too. “Out of Sight,” “Get Shorty,” and Tarantino's “Jackie Brown” (based on “Rum Punch”) were delightful.

Just finished “Cuba Libre,” a bit different from most of his work. Cuba during the Spanish-American War is the setting. Just a snippet of Cuba’s long and violent history. I sometimes forget that Havana was capital of Spain’s New World Empire going back to the 1500s. It was a thriving city while Seminoles ruled the Florida Glades and panthers roamed the forests. Air conditioning was just a distant dream. Leonard sets some of his books (“Maximum Bob,” “Be Cool,” "Pronto" which led the “Justified” series) in South Florida. And why not – kooky characters and Florida are a match made in heaven and/or hell, depending on your POV.

“Cuba Libre” begins in 1898 with one of the main characters surveying the wreckage of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor. I won’t tell you how it ends – it’s a wild ride, and worth reading. Intriguing characters encounter one another and all hell breaks loose. There’s an American cowboy escaping a shady past, a young marine from Arizona who survives the Maine sinking, a rich American expatriate, bad guys from Spain, barefoot Cuban revolutionaries, a hotel filled with U.S. reporters trying to drum up a war, many horses, and many, many guns.

Leonard keeps the story moving. Along the way, he violates all the rules that seemed important in MFA writing workshops. That’s something I’ve been learning reading historical fiction. Keep the story moving. No Proustian monologues. No settings in academia. I had just come from reading Ann Beattie’s stories featured over the decades in The New Yorker. Way too much academia. I liked the early stories better. They were leaner and meaner and more fun. Maybe they had the caring attention of a good editor? I did like the one story I read from her new collection which all center on the Covid-19 Emergency. I want to read the rest of those. Lauren Groff teaches writing at my alma mater UF yet writes amazing stories of Floridians in wild places. Check out her collection "Florida" that features a panther as cover art.

Look, I have an MFA in Creative Writing. I wanted nothing more than a career in the academy but that wasn’t in the cards. I still love teaching but take my writing cues from other sources, other lands, other time periods. The most fun I had recently was watching “White Noise,” a send-up of academia as well as American life. Don DeLillo – that guy can write and the folks who did the movie like it too. Hitler Studies! Airborne Toxic Event!

Go read Elmore Leonard. Plenty to choose from at your local library. Better get them before Moms for Liberty get their grubby mitts on them for the big book burning. 

What's really in that Paris apartment, and why is it so important?

“The Paris Apartment” by Kelly Bowen is the second book recommended on the Historical Fiction Book Lovers Facebook site to take me back to France in World War II. “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah was the first. They both impressed me with the sacrifices made by women behind the lines. They are well-trained operatives such as Sophie in “Paris,” or small-town young women such as Vianne and her sister Isabelle in “Nightingale,” women who lose husbands to the war or best friends to Nazi death-camp roundups. They all did the right thing when they resisted the Nazi onslaught. Some paid with their lives. Others emerged from the experience forever altered.

I’m a bit of a newcomer to the category of historical fiction and I’m particularly impressed by women’s stories. My childhood reading about the war were books by men about men. I read first-hand accounts such as “Guadalcanal Diary” by Richard Tregaskis and “Brave Men,” Ernie Pyle’s accounts of men in combat in Europe. I read war novels and watched war TV (“Combat”). I watched war-era black-and-white war movies, many of them featuring John Wayne. Most were hokey, not that I cared about that when I was 12. A great one is “They Were Expendable” about PT Boats fighting the good fight against the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. My father told war stories which were mostly unwarlike. He carried a rifle for four years but more importantly, he was in charge of the radio, his unit’s link with the rest of the army.  

Meanwhile, brave women fought the good fight. It was “The Good War,” as Studs Terkel labeled it, because the enemies were so evil and we were so good. The Nazis were cruel fascists and the Japanese cruel militarists (also, they were a different shade of people). Even Donald Duck hated these guys.

But it’s not the global issues that motivated these fictional women. Sophie was not waving the flag for democracy. She was getting even for Ptior, her new husband killed at her side when the Nazis terror-bombed a Polish village in 1939. Estelle Allard’s best friend, a Jew, was rounded up by French collaborators and shipped to Auschwitz. They join the fight for personal reasons but find themselves enlisting in a righteous cause. It’s always personal. This time, the women tell the story. One compelling aspect of this book is the two time periods that move the story forward. One if the war itself, with Sophie and Estelle, the other is told from the POV of Estelle’s granddaughter who inherits the abandoned apartment. She thinks she is getting a luxury apartment in the City of Light. What she’s really getting is a history lesson. Lots of art history, too, as one of the main story lines of the book has to do with the massive art thievery by the Nazis.

The books mentioned above aren’t the only ones. The group site takes the big view of historical fiction. For more targeted lists, go to this group site: “BOOKS - 𝘽𝘼𝙎𝙀𝘿 𝙊𝙉 𝙏𝙍𝙐𝙀 𝙎𝙏𝙊𝙍𝙄𝙀𝙎: About Women, By Women Authors.” You’ll sometimes find yourself in the midst of discussions about what is true historical fiction and what is not. It is great to argue about books instead of politics, although that sometimes enters the fray. Have at it. You’ll discover some great books in the process. 

Sallie Kincaid finds her inner moonshiner in Jeanette Wells' "Hang the Moon"

I participate in the Historical Fiction Book Lovers site on Facebook. I have discovered some real gems set in the 1920s suggested by members of the group. A few clunkers, too. But one I did see was "Hang the Moon" by Jeanette Wells. You may recognize her name from her memoir, "The Glass Castle," in which she recounts her wild family life and her success at transcending it. I recently watched the movie on one of the streaming services. Woody Harrelson is very good as the father with a million dreams that never pan out. It leaves a mark on Wells and her siblings.

The setting of "Hang the Moon" is one reason I chose the book. I'm writing a series of novels set in post-war Colorado, the first in 1919 and the second in 1922. I read books from that era to absorb the atmosphere but also the process of driving a Ford Model T. The moonshine world of the South is fascinating and violent. Prohibition brought new opportunities for those who lived in the hills. But making whiskey was going on before 1920 due to the South's blue laws and other restrictions on getting schnockered. That tradition continued after prohibition was repealed due to the same Bible-Thumpers who proposed it in the first place. Many of the first racers on the NASCAR circuit learned how to drive avoiding revenooers on the twisty roads of the Appalachians. One of my early memories was "Thunder Road" and Robert Mitchum hotrodding down winding roads to get the hooch to market.

Wells has seen rural poverty first-hand and puts that background to good use when she writes about growing up in Prohibition America. It's a gritty historical novel. I ran into a couple of slow stretches in the narrative and thought of quitting but it was a good story so I kept on and glad I did.

In it, a young woman named Sallie Kincaid bucks the odds and becomes the only woman rumrunner in Virginia during Prohibition. Haven't read many books with this story line. It takes the author a long time to get to the rumrunning. Sallie Kincaid likes fast cars. She has a derring-do spirit. I would have liked to see more action during what must have been a harrowing profession. She takes us along the first time the drivers risk capture to take five cars filled with shine to Roanoke. An excellent chase scene. There's also a showdown at a rural hospital between the rumrunners and the thug sheriff brought in to stop it.

It took awhile to get a fully-formed picture of Sallie. Her Aunt Mattie is rough on her but we don't get a good look inside her to see her motivation. Why does Sallie stick around her large small-town family when she has other options including marriage or just moving to a new place to make a fresh start? I'm being grumpy, I know, but the book left me wanting more. Cover art shows a young woman in a dress working under a 1920s-era automobile. But the author doesn't get her under (and into) that car for a couple hundred pages. 

The novel really picks up its tempo when Sallie takes over the family businesses and finds her inner moonshiner. She's almost as ruthless as her daddy but we do see her conscience at work throughout. There are some key revelations as the novel approaches the end. It was a worthy read. I checked it out at the Libby site. I was pleasantly surprised to find it there.

Making, transporting and drinking whiskey were boys' clubs -- no girls allowed. That's what makes Sallie Kincaid so special and so exciting. Her Hatfield/McCoy-style battles with the gritty Bond brothers has a bigger impact when a mere slip of a girl threatens the status quo. She finds new and interesting ways to wage war on the Bonds. A few of them borrow tactics pioneered in the Great War. Tom, her friend who’s been to war, melts down with shell-shock when the gunplay starts.

The Great War changed everything.

He may be "A Gentleman in Moscow," but he doesn't get out much anymore

In a May 16 post, I was only a few hours into reading Amor Towles "A Gentleman in Moscow." Things seemed especially grim at that juncture so I blogged this:

The Count is charming and it’s great fun to read about him and his situation even though you know it’s going to end terribly. Not as terribly as it did for the Romanovs but still terrible. The ending of Book 1 clued me in on a possible fate for the Count.

It helps to read a novel to the end before commenting. I won't spoil the ending but will say that it was not what I foresaw. Towles has a way of planting clues that may be MacGuffins. Very clever. He's also a great writer with a flair for language that I only see in the best books. When I open a book, I want to go for a ride and Towles takes me on an extraordinary one.

The world is filled with intriguing cities and Moscow proves to be one. But it's not a locale I turn to automatically. "I feel like reading a big Moscow book today, one from the scintillating Soviet era." Most of us know Moscow through one of the long-dead classic Russian writers. Others have been fascinated with its dramatic World War II battles, me included. The real stories behind the battles for Moscow and Stalingrad are gruesome and uplifting. Remember, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were allies then.

Alexander Rostov is an aristocrat. Many of them were sent to the gulag or executed during the regime's early years. Count Rostov is threatened with both until it comes to light that he did a favor once for one of the Soviet bosses now in charge. He is sentenced to a house arrest at the Metropol Hotel, the swankiest inn in Moscow. The Count already lives there in a luxurious suite. The bosses move him out into a cramped room in the attic. If he leaves the hotel, he will be shot. So Count Rostov tries to make the best of it. Beginning fiction writers are often told that a compelling character faces a challenge. The story is in how that character reacts. And that's what we have in this novel. He's no longer a world traveler and man about Moscow. His bank accounts have been frozen. He is persona non grata to those Soviets who know which side their bread is buttered on (it's the Red side).

The long journey through the count's life is worth it. Many surprises await you.

Lynda Rutledge takes us on a magical mystery tour in West with Giraffes

I meant to post this as soon as I finished the book. Here it is.

A runaway teen – Woodrow “Woody” Wilson Nickel -- is fascinated with two shipwrecked African giraffes and signs on with a crusty Old Man to transport them from the East Coast to the San Diego Zoo. The year is 1938. The Depression is still loose upon the land and evil lurks overseas. A road trip with giraffes seems like just the thing.

The book opens with a prologue from the year 2025. A healthcare worker in a VA hospital comes across a deceased patient’s old army footlocker. In it, she finds a porcelain toy giraffe from the San Diego Zoo and a stack of writing tablets. It’s the saga of Woody’s trip. The writer intersperses scenes from the journals with a look at Woody at 105 struggling to write it all down. He writes, talks gibberish, fends off hovering healthcare workers, and imagines a giraffe outside the window. The reader roots for him to get down his story and we know he will as the tale depends on it.

During the journey in a specially-outfitted truck, Woody encounters charlatans, circus freaks, hobos in Hoovervilles, and a budding love interest. His mentor, the Old Man, works overtime to keep the trek on track. There’s a love interest, too, in a young woman Augusta (Red) who pretends to be a Life Magazine photographer and accompanies the giraffe convoy in a stolen Packard.

As I’ve written before, I dig road trips, going on them and reading about them. It was rough travel, suited to the realities of 1938. But I loved reading about it. It did drag in some spots – the always difficult middle section of the novel -- and the journey’s ending seemed a bit anticlimactic. But it’s a trip I’d go on again.