ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 1, 1996 TAG: 9609040130
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
Serial novel introduces cast of characters on death row |Reviewed by MIKE MAYO|
THE GREEN MILE: Part 1, The Two Dead Girls; Part 2, The Mouse on the Mile; Part 3, Coffey's Hands; Part 4, The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix. By Stephen King. Signet. $2.99 each (paper).
In a foreword to the first installment of his six-part serial novel, Stephen King explains the various forces that led him to this curious literary form. Of course, it's not a new idea. Dickens, the Stephen King of his day, built his career on it, and more recently Tom Wolfe published "Bonfire of the Vanities" in several issues of Rolling Stone.
King writes that he sees serial fiction as a challenge, and with two-thirds of the work in print now, it's safe to say he has met it successfully.
In subject matter, voice and setting, the book is a return to the novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," one of King's best works. It's set in 1932 at the Cold Mountain Prison, where guard Paul Edgecomb is the boss of E Block - death row, or The Green Mile. He also is the narrator, an old man who is telling a story from memory, and so tends to ramble a bit.
In the time he's writing about, the Depression is on and he's happy to have a job, even if it means putting up with some politically connected nepotism involving Percy Wetmore, a nasty piece of work.
The first book introduces John Coffey, a huge black man who's been sentenced to die for slaughtering two little white girls. It appears to be an open-and-shut case - the man barely escaped lynching - but Edgecomb senses something different about Coffey and becomes curious about him.
By the end of the fourth book, King has put together a vivid cast of characters (including a significant mouse) and involved them in intriguing, enigmatic conflicts both past and present. This reader is hooked and ready for more.
The following excerpts were taken from a Signet publicity interview with Stephen King about "The Green Mile."
"Ideas tend to come, for me, in waves, and each one builds a little more on the previous one. I started with an idea about a guy in prison who was going to escape by learning magic. And his last trick, after he'd made all these coins and oranges and apples disappear, was, before he was executed, to make himself disappear. The funny thing is, `The Green Mile' is not an escape story, per se; it's a prison story.
``I would say that writing the serial novel has been one of the most interesting challenges of my life ... The work is a lot different ... People still want to have characters they care about ... People still want to have a story that involves them. But with the serial novel, I find myself trying to build a sort of self-containment into each part ... I mean, my idea is to scare people, to discomfit people, to make them stay up late. So, as each of the segments ends, hopefully people will spend a month saying, `I can't wait to see what happens next.'
``I knew that if I had to deliver one of these a month, I would get the story done. I really wanted to make the story happen, and so far, it has. But the story is still not done ... Because what I think the ending is going to be almost never is what the ending will be.
``I love to write. I still can't believe people pay me for it ... I was living in a trailer with a wife and two kids. The phone company had taken the phone out because we hadn't paid the bill for a couple of months. I was teaching school and making $6,400 a year. And I got a telegram that said, `Congratulations - "Carrie" officially a Doubleday book, $2,500 advance, the future lies ahead.' What I remember best was that line: "The future lies ahead." So that was it. My first was still my best. A guy never forgets his first, you know."
- MARY ANN JOHNSON book page editor
Mike Mayo also reviews films and videos for this newspaper.
`Jury' joins fact, fiction
Reviewed by JOSEPH WILLIAMS
GRAND JURY. By Philip J. Friedman. Donald I. Fine. $24.95.
As Howard Cossell might have said, we have a plethora of books, factual and fiction, dealing with juries. The fictional ones seem to do more actual explaining than the so-called factual ones.
In his novel "Grand Jury," Philip Friedman spells out the operation of the New York state grand jury and points out its inadequacies and strengths. He then tells a story of corruption that reveals the ability of a prosecutor to manipulate a grand jury and the ability of a police officer to manufacture a case. He demonstrates, too, that there are police officers and prosecutors who do their best, for themselves and, fortunately, for the public. He also details the antagonism that seems to exist among law enforcement agencies and the jealousy that permeates these organizations.
The information about Chinese history and immigration alone is worth the reading of the book. The descriptions of Hong Kong and China tantalize. Being a New York lawyer, Friedman spends much time on the workings of that state's police and prosecution. Nonetheless, he also has done a tremendous amount of investigation into history and non-legal areas. The book is not only entertaining, it is educational.
Joseph Williams works in the justice system.
Political suspense novel entertains, intrigues
Reviewed by LYNN ECKMAN
EXCLUSIVE. By Sandra Brown. Warner Books. $22.95.
For suspense, surprises and superb plotting, Sandra Brown cannot be bested. "Exclusive," a zippy novel about contemporary politics and hanky-panky in Washington, D.C., keeps the reader guessing until the last page. Containing graphic sexual scenes, gutter language and people who have no regard for human value, it reflects our worst fears about the corruption of some officials in government and what they will do to gain and retain power.
Barrie Travis, a minor-league television journalist with almost no credibility, receives an invitation to have coffee with first lady Vanessa Merritt, who has just lost her only child to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). Travis becomes intrigued and dedicates a show to the subject. With a gut feeling that something is amiss, she begins her own investigation into the baby's death, and her life becomes a nightmare.
On a trip to Wyoming to interview Gray Bondurant, a formerly close friend of President David Merritt, she succumbs to his charm but continues to distrust him even when he follows her to Washington. Why is he there - to help her or to harm her?
Her house blows up. She is followed. Who is responsible? Was the Merritt baby killed? Is the first lady's life in danger? Is Barrie guilty of too much imagination, motivated mainly by ambition, or are her instincts correct?
Brown leads us through the labyrinth of truth and lies, of honesty and deception, revealing murder most foul and evil most impious. While some part of us knows that her story is grossly exaggerated and impossible, we are caught, nevertheless, like flies in the web she weaves so well.
"Exclusive" has already zoomed to the New York Times list of best sellers and seems destined for Hollywood, the land of what we hope is make-believe.
Lynn Eckman is a volunteer teacher for the Office of Refugee and mmigration Services.
BOOKMARKS
Miriam Levering's thoughts on world, everyday events in Southwest Virginia
Reviewed by LYNN ERWIN
LOVE, MOM. By Miriam Lindsey Levering. Edited by Wanda Urbanska and Frank Levering. Orchard Gap Press. No price given.
Miriam Levering raised six children, was an active Quaker, participated in establishing the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty and helped her husband of 57 years build Levering Orchard in Carroll County, Va. She was a special lady by anyone's standards, and that is evident in "Love, Mom."
Humor and compassion highlight these autobiographical essays written during the last years of her life in a creative writing course taught by her son, Frank, and daughter-in-law, Wanda, at Surrey Community College just over the state line in Dobson, N.C.
Levering's thoughts on world and everyday events, neighbors, famous folks and places many of us have heard of or passed through in Southwest Virginia offer the reader a delightful glimpse into her life. Also included are tributes by relatives and friends.
It is pleasing to know that Levering, a native of Pennsylvania, considered the Blue Ridge Mountains her sanctuary and home.
Lynn Erwin is a librarian at Hollins College.
Wanda Urbanska and Frank Levering recently published "Moving to a Small Town: A Guidebook for Moving from Urban to Rural America" (Fireside Books/Simon & Schuster. $12.) In it they describe Levering Orchard as the largest cherry orchard in the South. Orchard Gap Press, which they founded, specializes in "books on fruit, simple living and small-town life."
- MARY ANN JOHNSON, book page editor
Motel 6 spokesman writes novel
Reviewed by CHIP BARNETT
THE FREE FALL OF WEBSTER CUMMINGS. By Tom Bodett. Hyperion. $22.95.
At times this novel by "beloved radio personality" Tom (Motel 6) Bodett is wacky, heart-warming, satirical, lyrical, humorous and even suspenseful. It's also boring at times - not surprising in a novel that has no firm personality, as if Bodett never decided just what his purpose was.
The plot revolves around Webster Cummings, whose miraculous 4,000-foot fall from an airplane window jolts him into a search for his birth parents. Many of the seemingly random characters turn out to be related to each other, and Bodett handles the interconnections cleverly and subtly.
But touches of wackiness don't excuse interminable coincidence, nor do superficial views of serious family troubles elevate a flawed novel. Bodett simultaneously tries to do too much and too little, and it shows.
Chip Barnett is a Rockbridge County librarian.
Author repeats his advice on how sexes can get along
Reviewed by MARIE BEAN
MARS AND VENUS TOGETHER FOREVER: Relationship Skills for Lasting Love. By John Gray, Ph.D. Harper Perennial. $13.
John Gray is the author of the best-seller, "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus." The Mars/Venus metaphor has worked well for him; he has continued to use it in subsequent titles: "Mars and Venus in Love," "Mars and Venus in the Bedroom." And now he offers "Mars and Venus Together Forever" which is a rehashing of an earlier book, ``What Your Mother Couldn't Tell You & Your Father Didn't Know."
Gray's stated goal is to bring more compassion between the sexes as they understand their differences. He believes patterns in behavior can be changed by the application of new skills. He uses anecdotes, exercises and aphorisms to reinforce his counsel as he deals with such issues as why men thrive on appreciation and women thrive on communication; how a woman can nurture her female side and how a man can nurture his male side; why the most important intimacy requirement is monogamy.
Gray breaks no new ground here - much is repetition. For partners in the beginning stages of a relationship, this book could be a helpful primer or a useful review for long-termers.
Marie Bean is a retired college chaplain.
Author reads story of abuse and hope in Harlem
Reviewed by MARY ANN JOHNSON
"PUSH." By Sapphire. Random House Audiobooks. Abridged and read by the author. $18.
This harsh and heartbreaking story of an abused black girl in Harlem in the late 1980s is read so effectively by the author that oral narration seems its natural form. It loses nothing in the transfer to audio and, in fact, is enhanced by what the author brings to the medium.
"Push" may be even stronger on tape than it is in print. In either medium, Sapphire has given us a story not easily forgotten and a character forever remembered.
Mary Ann Johnson, book page editor.
LENGTH: Long : 211 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. (headshot) King. 2. Cover of "The Free Fall ofby CNBWebster Cummings.