I’ve had a great run of luck with books lately (maybe not my own, with regards to finding it an agent, but I’m working on that still). Starting with Swash!, by Brendan Myers, and then the whole amazing Last Policeman trilogy from Ben H. Winters, the post-apocalyptic former garbage man in Adam Sternbergh’s Shovel Ready, Sandman Slim crawling up out of Hell into Los Angeles in Richard Kadrey’s series starter. And Simon Rich’s excellent short story collection, The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories. But I wanted to highlight Claire North’s amazing The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. So here’s my review of it. Enjoy.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book.
I’ve always loved this book.
Each and every lifetime in which I’ve read it.
In fact, I loved it so much that the next time through I visited Claire North (pseudonym) in 2005 — it took me a while to find her pseudonymous self — and handed her a partial outline of an idea for a book about a kalachakra, a person who lives their lifetime over and over again.
She told me she’d already gotten an idea like that and called her patent lawyers.

So in my next life I tracked her down more quickly, came prepared with better notes. Saw her in 1990. Dropped off my scribbled notes in her school bag on a fine Scottish morning. The sensation of a five year old publishing a book which such a fun, imaginative plot and ripe characters made ripples that probably caused some odd things to happen downstream through the ages, but at least I got to read it earlier.

In my next life I tried giving the same notes to her father, but nothing came of it. He didn’t care for the visceral descriptions of the tortures Harry August endures, yet endures with a type of detachment. The next after that I tried it out on her mother in 1981, but that, too, had no effect. The very next life I tried publishing the book myself, which is when the publisher pulled me aside, in the grimy halls of the printing room.
“You can’t publish this book.”
“Why not?” I may have stuttered a little.
He peered at me over the top of his glasses, which never seemed to sit well, as if the cloud of ink in which he seemed to walk prevented his glasses from adhering to his face.
I flapped the manuscript.
“Claire wants you to know that she knows.”
“But… but she hasn’t even been born yet.”
The publisher simply looked at me, his hand held out for the manuscript.
“Aw.”
“Is this the only extant copy?” He waggled his fingers at the manuscript I could tell was already slipping out of my hand. “Don’t lie, now, she’ll know. You know she’ll know.”
I nodded, and handed over the pages and skulked off and just waited and waited and waited until 2014, when the book would finally be published.

Except I didn’t have to wait. Because I had one last copy because I’d spent the previous life memorizing the book and read it over again in my mind. In fact, I even wrote this review back in 1978, I just had to wait and wait for someone to come around and invent Goodreads.com.

I thought the plot was a lot of fun, the characters an excellent cast with whom you could spend a few lifetimes. There were beautiful moments when kalachakra meet each other in passing (Joseph Kirkbriar Shotbolt’s story is a good one — ‘”Oh God,” he groaned, seeing me read. “You’ve trained as a doctor, haven’t you? Can’t stand bloody doctors, especially when they’re five years old.”), the mysterious Cronus Club saving its members, and sometimes not. The book was a spy novel, a time travel novel, a story about a couple of friends. What a fantastic read.

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So, for whatever reason, I subscribe to One Story, the magazine. You may, too, for all I know. If you don’t you may want to. It’s a short story a month (plus one extra, I believe, daylight savings story, we’ll call it), which I think I enjoy because of the high risk the publishers have taken. One measly story per month? What if it’s a dud? There goes a whole month with that dud of a story on your hands, like a bloodstain you just can’t get out and then there are these witches at the door and Lady MacBeth… You can see how it could spiral out of control.

So I’ve been meaning to mention the last story they published, because I think you, whoever you are (hi, Mom!), will get a kick out of it. It’s called “Mastermind,” by Jen Fawkes. I loved the concept and the voice Jen Fawkes uses for the story. It’s endearing, in an evil genius kind of way. The conclusion of the story left me a little bit wanting — it seemed a bit over the top for such a finely constructed scenario, but, as she mentions in her Q&A, she sort of substituted Chekhov’s gun with a volcano, so there you have it.

This month’s issue is the first shot in the B.J. Novak barrage which seems to be well-timed to detonate for the publication of his collection of short stories entitled One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories.
His story is called “A Good Problem to Have,” and again, I loved the premise. Loved the old man in the story, who is the original inventor of the “a train leaves Chicago for Cleveland at 2pm, traveling at 60 miles per hour, at 3pm, a train leaves Cleveland heading for Chicago at 3pm, traveling at 85 miles per hour…” problem. There were a few sentences that I recognize from my own tendency to run on a bit that didn’t seem to get left on the cutting room floor, but overall it was a cute, fun story.

Based on the One Story entry I’m not entirely sure whether or not I’ll pick up his short story collection, but I caught his book trailer for the collection today. For the trailer, alone, I should probably pick up the book. Between the trailer and his upcoming appearance at Symphony Space for Selected Shorts I’m very, very jealous of B.J. Novak.

I cannot urge you enough to go and grab the “Ghosts and Angels” Selected Shorts podcast episode now, like RIGHT NOW, before it goes away.

I’ve made it through two of the stories so far, and both of the readings are excellent, but the late founder of the Selected Shorts program, Isaiah Sheffer, reads a James Thurber short story and it just sparkles and is more than worth the cost of the bandwidth it will take to download the podcast.

More often than not, when I imagine a short story of mine read aloud I imagine Sheffer’s voice — he was just an amazing reader and takes such an obvious delight in Thurber’s very funny story about the ghost in the apartment.

Go directly to WYNC, do not pass ‘Go’, do not collect $200, just go listen, quick.

I was given a review copy of this book (The Hereafter Gang, by Neal Barrett, Jr). Joe Lansdale gave it a plug on Facebook, asking people to drop the publisher a line to help get this book the attention it deserved. So I dropped them a line and got my copy. This is the first book by Neal Barrett, Jr. that I’ve read.

So the book starts out a little like 50 Shades of Grey for Men. I say this having not read* 50 Shades of Grey.
But it’s what I imagine 50 Shades of Grey would be like, were it told from the point of view of a man.
But (like that’s off-putting, for some reason, and for some people it may be), Doug Hoover, the protagonist, has got a great voice. A great, authentic Texan/Oklahoman voice. Now, I’ve got to warn you, I’ve only accidentally been to Texas before, and that only on the inside of an airport, a hermetically sealed airport.** So I have no idea if this is a true authentic Texan/Oklahoman voice. But it was to me. Doug’s having trouble with his wife, Erlene and her unfortunate lineage (though that may only be a part of the problem), and that part of the story, the unraveling marriage, is interesting enough, and understandable enough, given Doug’s proclivities, but the journey just sizzles, along the way. In particular I enjoyed the part in chapter 6 in the bar where they start discussing Cherokee Indians and new black Stetson hat. In Kindle terms, and I have no idea what this really means***, it’s at location 522 or so.
I loved the little anecdotes like that one, and when a particular habit of Doug’s involving the rich Texas soil is revealed as the secret to his youthful glow the story gets even more interesting.
It soars, however, when Doug meets Royce, the young boy at the Hanging Judge Barbecue #7 and stumbles upon James McArthur Dean Hill, the possible cautionary tale, and finally Sue Jean, his perfect little package
I like the history of the Old West and feel like a complete ignoramus compared to the vast knowledge that Neal Barrett, Jr. slops out there without a second thought, along with a good heaping of World War fighter plane battle history, but I enjoyed the quick lessons through osmosis.
I suppose I won’t go into the second half of the book for fear of ruining it for you, but it was my favorite part, by far. Barrett captures Doug’s disorientation as his life falls just a little bit apart and I love the humor and imagination and tenderness with which he handles the aftermath. The basketball-playing (or obsession with it) and tennis games in the latter half of the book had me laughing out loud.
I hadn’t expected much from this book, to be honest, even though the recommendation came from Mr. Lansdale. But, in the end, this was a great read, and I’m glad it’s getting new life as an ebook. This is the second zombie ebook I’ve read this year where an older, out of print book that simply faded away, the first time around gets a second chance (the first being Michael Joyce’s amazing “Going the Distance“), and I’m very glad I got the chance.

* I swear.
** I also swear.
*** I really do swear, and I swear that this is the first time I’ve ever had a book crash on me. I was reading this on a borrowed Kindle Paperwhite. The future!