A Cure for Night: A Novel by Justin Peacock

A Very Solid First Novel

Published in 2009.

The last two novels I read before this one were from solid "name brand" authors. And...they were disappointing schlock. Justin Peacock is a new author and perhaps because he is new, he has put some care into his work and created a strong book that I can easily recommend.

The title A Cure for Night comes from this little exchange between two defense attorneys:

The author

"That's what the criminal law is: it's how the day tries to correct the night's mistakes. Most of my cases, people have done something they never would've dreamed of doing in broad daylight."
"What does that make us?" I said. "The night's janitors?"
"We're absolutely that," Myra said, sipping her cosmo. "What else do we do but clean up after it? That's why we'll never run out of work. Not unless someone invents a cure for night."

This gritty, dark book features a New York City Public Defense Attorney, Joel Deveraux, that has his own troubled past (with drugs) that has caused him to fall from the fast track in a big-time, big money law firm. Joel is working himself up through the system and he is tapped to be second-chair on a murder case that involves an inner-city drug dealer, a Jewish college student and a lot more.

On a real positive, Justin Peacock has gone out of his way to include correct-sounding dialects - the people from the projects sound authentic to my ear. Although I am not "in the life", I have taught in urban schools for  more than 10 years and Peacock's a lot more accurate than most of those that even bother to try to catch the dialect.

Fans of Robert K. Tanenbaum (Reckless Endangerment) will like this one.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Cure for Night.

Reviewed on September 20, 2008.

The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of The Little Bighorn by Nathaniel Philbrick

Well-written, I learned quite a bit probably more than when I visited the battlefield

Published in 2010.

You just cannot talk about George Armstrong Custer without stirring controversy. Depending on the writer, Custer was a true American hero who was betrayed by his superiors and failed by his subordinates or he was a self-absorbed crazy racist imperialist that finally found someone that could fight back and taught him a lesson.

Our movies have shown this as well. Errol Flynn's They Died With Their Boots On (1941) made a hero of Custer while Little Big Man (1970) makes out to be a delusional nut.

Sample of how Little Big Man depicts Custer:


In The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of The Little Bighorn, Philbrick notes these views and takes more of a middle road. Custer comes off as a more nuanced man. Ambitious, impetuous and overly confident, but not a fool. Plus, he had reasons for that confidence - the audacious, unexpected move had always worked for him in the past.

Sitting Bull, his opponent at the Battle of The Little Big Horn is similarly portrayed without much nuance in the literature. He is a symbol of resistance and Sioux culture, but not really portrayed as a thinking, living, breathing man. Sitting Bull was one of many Sioux leaders. He advocated rejecting white culture as long as possible, but realized that this was only possible for a certain amount of time. In this respect, this icon of resistance was, in fact, a realist that understood that, in the end, such resistance was futile.

George A. Custer
(1839-1876)

Philbrick's title, The Last Stand, refers to two last stands - the famed last stand of Custer and, ironically, he notes that the same battle was really the last stand of the Sioux. Never again would they have so many warriors in one location - after the battle they scattered. Some went to the reservation, some left for Canada and some fought and died in smaller groups.

Sitting Bull
(c. 1831-1890)

In many ways, The Last Stand is a well-written dual biography of Custer and Sitting Bull, and that additional background information makes the telling of the tale of the battle all that much more interesting.The background on Major Reno and Captain Benteen also heightened the drama of the tale.

Like I said in the title, I've been to the battlefield and I left no more informed to the actual timeline of the battle and how it transpired over the space than I was when I arrived - it is just too vast and there were not enough maps (this was more than 20 years ago so maybe things have changed at their interpretive center). Of course, with the actual troopers involved in the Custer's Last Stand, as opposed to those who were with Reno and Benteen, their movements in the battle are bound to be speculative.

The real strength of this book is Philbrick's ability to make a history read like a novel. The story is told with drama, is well-researched and does a good job of tying in other things that were going on in American history at the time. The information about the steamboats that traveled the Missouri was fascinating - I had no idea that they were so cleverly designed.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of The Little Bighorn by Nathaniel Philbrick.

Reviewed on July 11, 2011.

Sentinels of Silence

Chichen Itza

A short, breathtaking look at Mexico's Indian ruins

Filmed almost entirely from a helicopter, Sentinels of Silence is a double Academy Award winning documentary is narrated by Orson Welles. This movie is shown in by the Mexican government in embassies around the world and serves as a fantastic 18 minute introduction to the Ancient Indian Civilizations of Mexico. Orson Welles, dramatic photography and an equally dramatic soundtrack combine to make this a memorable movie. A must-see and must-have movie for all fans of Mayan and Aztec history.

5 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on September 21, 2008.

Passion Play DVD

Starring Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox and Bill Murray.
Movie originally released in 2010.

Passion Play tries very hard to be a BIG movie - one with lots of big themes (such as love conquering all, redemption and love causing a person to grow and become more than they were before) but it just falls short. It goes through all of the motions but not enough things click to make the movie work.

Mitch Glazer wrote and directed this movie and he enlisted his high school friend Mickey Rourke and his wife (Kelly Lynch) to be in the movie. Bill Murray stars as a mafia boss named Happy. Murray puts a spark into nearly every scene and might have the most interesting character in the entire movie - the mob boss with a love for art and beauty. Rourke's character (Nick Pool) is a down and out jazz player that has been sleeping with Happy's wife. Happy orders Rourke to be taken out to the desert and executed. As Pool awaits a shot to the forehead the mobsters are killed by Indians who run away into the desert.

Pool runs as well and stumbles onto a creepy carnival in the middle of the desert. He goes into the freak show tent and discovers that the woman with wings display is not fake - she really has wings. The carnival owner has raised her from childhood and both uses and protects her - but he is clear that he will kill to keep her.

Nate and the winged girl Lily (Megan Fox) escape and Nate makes plans to sell her to Happy in order to get back in Happy's good graces. Along the way Pool and Lily fall in love and they work to figure out a way to be together and escape from the carnival owner and Happy.


As I noted, Bill Murray did a great job of playing the ironically named Happy. Mickey Rourke was absolutely believable as the down and out musician - let's face it, he lived it as a down and out actor. But, Megan Fox as Lily was merely a pretty face and attractive body to attach the wings to and there was no spark between the two. I kept wondering what she would see in Rourke's shuffling, sometimes slow-witted character. Since the pivot point of the movie was the love between Lily and Nate and there was just no spark there the movie just flows along on auto-pilot until we get to a conclusion that explains some of the surreal scenes and the heaven and hell references that abound.

I rate this movie 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Passion Play. 

Reviewed July 10, 2011.

Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam 1862 (audiobook) by James McPherson

Does a brilliant job of looking at the meaning of the battle of Antietam

Published in 2002 by Recorded Books.
Read by Nelson Runger.
Duration: 5 hours, 48 minutes.
Unabridged

I have nearly 90 books that cover the Civil War on my bookshelf. Most books that cover the Civil War compartmentalize the battles into little chapters with titles like "Chancellorsville", "Antietam" and "Shiloh". The battles are thoroughly covered but the feel for the larger flow of the war is sacrificed.

In Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam 1862, McPherson dramatically sweeps the reader along and I was left with a renewed sense of amazement and respect for the fact that Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was able to fight, let alone go on the offensive against two separate armies and fight multiple, large battles from June through September of 1862.

McPherson does an extraordinary job of tying in many of the political and military threads of this war to demonstrate that Antietam was the day that determined the outcome of the war, and not the more popular belief that it was July 4, 1863 with the dual losses for the Confederacy at Vicksburg and Gettysburg.

George B. McClellan, the victor
of the Battle of Antietam despite
his many mistakes

McPherson provides multiple quotations from those involved in the political and military events of the time. In fact, at times the story is told mostly through choice quotes from generals, ambassadors and prominent private citizens such as Frederick Douglass and Horace Greeley.

The audiobook was well read by Nelson Runger. The audiobook lasts about 5 hours and 45 minutes and was a joy to listen to.
 
I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam (Pivotal Moments in American History)  

Reviewed on September 26, 2008.

Life in the Big City (Astro City, Vol. 1) by Kurt Busiek

It was okay

Originally published in 1999 by Wildstorm.

Let me start with this: I am not a big comics fanatic. I read some of these bigger collections from time to time for entertainment, but I've never been to a comic book shop, I don't own a Green Lantern shirt and there's no Superman sticker on my car.

But, I do know what I like and, for me, Astro City was an "okay" collection of new superheroes. This collections includes 5 stories, 2 of which I found tedious. In the intro, Busiek claims to want to get back to basics and stop the "deconstruction" of the superhero. Get out of the superhero's head and back to the action. But, the first and last stories are all about getting into the superhero's head. They were interesting stories, but they went against the spirit Busiek claimed to have been wanting to avoid.

In short, kudos to Busiek for creating a whole new world of superheroes, but this still didn't grab me enough to make me look for further adventures of these new superheroes.

I rate this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Life in the Big City (Astro City, Volume 1).

Reviewed on September 26, 2008.

Secrets of Ancient Empires: The First Armies DVD

Limited range, no real secrets, despite the title.

DVD released in 2006.

Although it purports to tell "secrets" of the first armies, most of the world is left out of Secrets of Ancient Empires: The First Armies and there really are no secrets told in this documentary DVD. The wars featured are:

A) The Trojan War
B) The Punic Wars
C) The Persian Wars

Yeah - that's right, they're out of timeline order and only Greece, Rome, Carthage and Persia are represented. There are no secrets revealed in this DVD (don't tell anyone but the Greeks are using a fake horse to sneak into Troy!) and there is no real study into how these large armies evolved, the economic mobilization involved or anything of the sort, despite the claims of the text on the back of the DVD that it "tells the powerful story of the origins of organized warfare" and "how sophisticated tactics were introduced."

I'm also bothered by the fact that most of the world is not included. No Egyptian, Chinese or Indian armies even though all of these would have preceded the Greeks and the Romans.

I give this DVD a two star rating because it promises all sorts of new insights when in reality, it is only slightly more informative than the average high school world history textbook. This movie should have been given a more appropriate title such as "Wars of the Greeks and Romans." There are better DVDs out there about the Greeks and the Romans.

I rate this DVD 2 stars out of 5.

This DVD can be found on Amazon.com here: Secrets of Ancient Empires: The First Armies.

Reviewed on September 27, 2008.