THE BONE VAULT

FICTION:  THE BONE VAULT – LINDA FAIRSTEIN/SCRIBNER – 2003

 This is another book from the Strand bins, but from its markings, it came with the stamp, “Discarded” from a New Jersey Library.  Giving the provenance is apropos, since the novel deals with a murder that involves a cast of scholarly characters from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cloisters and the Museum of Natural History.

 

Fairstein, the real-life former prosecutor of sex and domestic violence crimes in New York County, immortalizes herself in fiction as A.D.A. Alex Cooper.

 

The plot is fairly complicated, but here’s a thumbnail sketch:  Cooper is summoned from a museum gala to a freight yard in nearby New Jersey.  A female body has been discovered in a shipping container.  The body is in an elaborate Egyptian sarcophagus.

It is quickly determined that the ancient box is in the process of being shipped from the Met to another museum.  Museum officials assure her that it is a frequent practice for pieces to be shipped and received from institutions around the world.  It is determined that the dead woman had been an intern at the Cloisters, an affiliate of the Met.  The unwinding of this mystery is quite complex and the resolution leads to ethical questions about changing attitudes in society and how collections are presented or not at museums throughout the world.

 

To Fairstein’s credit, an immense amount of research went into this book, providing too much information.  She provides some vivid characterizations in her creations of a couple of people, but generally, her characters are paper thin.  Surprisingly, the weakest depiction is of the protagonist, herself.  I cannot say that Fairstein is compelling writer; perhaps it is her prosecutorial background that relies more heavily on factual information than emotion. 

 

I could see this book as a film, though, because of some of the suspenseful and scary investigations in the various vaults at the Museum of Natural History.  The museums certainly provide an interesting backdrop for mystery.

FICTION: The Summer We Got Saved

FICTION:  THE SUMMER WE GOT SAVED – Pat Cunningham Devoto – Warner Books/2005

Finding this book in the dollar bin at the Strand Book Store in Manhattan, I had no idea what to expect, but the price was certainly right.  Little did I know that this book, whose cover depicts a drive-in movie and vintage cars in the foreground, would reveal some very serious subject matter.  Set in the early 1960s, this is a story about the civil rights movement in Alabama and Tennessee.  What’s wonderful about this book is that it tells the story of two young girls, one black, one white, not the sweeping story of history as we know it.

Tab, the white girl, comes from a traditional Southern family and her descendants were very colorful:  one fought in the civil war and the other founded the KKK.  She and her sister are spirited away one summer by her ‘radical’ aunt, now a California resident.

Maudie, the black girl, is the victim of Polio and spends most of her formative years as a patient at Tuskegee Polio Clinic.

Although Maudie and Tab had known each other as children, their stories are told on separate tracks, both involving the civil rights movement.

Devoto weaves real events into her fictional story, making it very compelling.  Aunt Eugenia pulls a bait and switch, and the two sisters find themselves at the very controversial and much maligned Highlander Folk School.  The politically passionate aunt has put the siblings in grave danger, which is known locally as a hotbed of communism.

 Maudie, after recuperating as much as she can at Tuskegee, is recruited by a minister.  She had high hopes of being a big part of the civil rights struggle in a city like Birmingham, but finds herself in a rural backwater.  She arrives at a very rundown black church and is expected by the pastor to set up a ‘voting school.’ 

Tab, who had been a sheltered little girl from a small town, suddenly found herself in the eye of the storm.  It started to intrigue her as she met such interesting, different and passionate individuals.  She was ‘pranked’ by her black roomate and found herself at a sit-in at a Woolworth lunch counter in Nashville.  She was humiliated by the treatment she received there, understanding what black people endured every day.

Maudie started to gather a group of congregants to her ‘voting school’ and her efforts drew her and the others into serious danger as the participants decide to enter a float in a Labor Day parade.  We find out that there were black people who, for their own reasons, also opposed change.

This is a book about the smaller efforts to change the hearts and minds and laws, from segregated drive-in movies to individual attitudes slowly changing in both blacks and whites.  I recommend this book very highly.

Thoughts on Susan Boyle

ESSAY:  SUSAN BOYLE

 What a sad situation.  This woman has been catapulted to fame for all the wrong reasons.  Sure, she is a strong singer, but there are a million strong female singers, most of whom will get nowhere and eventually realize that their day jobs will carry the day.  Others will be more determined and, if lucky, will work the lounges of their respective airports.  It’s a tough, heartbreaking business, in which newcomers seldom gain a foothold.  Unfortunately for Susan Boyle, her claim to fame is that she is frumpy and quite homely, but with a singing talent.  One has to wonder whether her often inappropriate mannerisms and seeming lack of self control are indicative of brain damage or other intellectual impairment.  Poor Susan had a fantasy life, despite her luckless appearance.  Don’t we all?  Susan, the girl, had to have been bullied; Susan, the woman, existed as best as she could in a simple Scottish village, living a matronly life, taking care of her mother until she passed, volunteering in church and singing locally.  It was a life Susan could manage.

I heard that it was her mother who urged Susan to enter a talent competition on the telly – a loving mother’s advice to a talented daughter.  Maybe Mum thought it would be therapeutic for the odd-duck, middle-aged daughter; maybe her mother never saw Susan as she was.  Obviously Mum never guided her daughter to fix herself up – strange not to have that maternal instinct…  Susan entered the Britain’s Got Talent competition in an extremely vulnerable state.  I think the producers saw their angle, to promote this fish out of water extraordinaire to the nth degree.  Susan was really exploited like a freaky sideshow performer.  And we all responded accordingly, with a mixture of horror, disgust and awe.  The Elephant Man sings!  Oh God!

 

Since she was so removed from the mainstream, she must have prayed with all of her heart that her talent would prevail, despite how she had been treated throughout her life.

With her mother gone, she had no basic support system, not even a job.  To her simple, fairy tale way of thinking, she had finally prevailed.  She had been touched by a magic wand and only good could come her way now.   

 

Susan had never experienced much pressure in her life, but she was instantly thrown into a boiling cauldron.  It had to be very confusing to her emotionally.  More people ridiculed her at one time than her limited defenses could take.  Many said she was a brilliant singer, many didn’t think much of her voice. All agreed that she was profoundly unattractive. She was hounded like. Princess Diana, with paparazzi acting like vultures. No one was there to protect her emotionally. She was a gold mine, ripe for the taking.  Second place wasn’t good enough.  She had to WIN.  As she faced a brutal, inhuman pressure cooker in the final week of the competition, she was starting to become unhinged.  People were turned off.  The singing monstrosity was reported to behave in an unseemly way.  I think it comforted people to turn against this person who was such a contradiction.  Their world was in order again.  Perhaps that’s why this odds-on favorite came in second, losing to a dance act that no one seemed to notice before. The voting public opted for an attractive, young, technically proficient winner, not the unsettling Susan Boyle.

 

Unprepared for the consequences of what was a failure in her own mind, she snapped and now she is in a psychiatric hospital, fighting her demons.  I hope that somewhere, somehow, someone does what’s right for Susan Boyle.  Poor soul.