Review: The Water Cure

Click here for an interesting review of Percival Everett's new novel The Water Cure.

Here is an excerpt from Jim Krusoe's excellent review:

"The narrator of The Water Cure is a man whose 11-year-old daughter has been raped and killed. He now is in the process of torturing her murderer, but this, as they say, is only the tip of the iceberg. True, as a subject it's plenty disturbing in itself, but through a variety of devices -- including drawings, mini-lectures on language, philosophy, politics, theology and nature, and even excerpts from a romance novel called "The Gentle Storm" -- Percival Everett has made his new novel much more than a simple horror show or self-righteous rant."

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The Great Swaddling Debacle

Virginia is depressed. It seems apparent to her that the years and money she put into fashion-design school and starting her own line would soon be wasted unless Christians came to their senses and borderline psychos lost more of theirs.
After graduating in the top of her class at from the Raymondo Dior School of Fashion in Topeka, Kansas, Virginia took the inheritance her grandmother had left her, borrowed some more money from her parents, and took her dreams and designs to Kansas City to break into the big time fashion world. She prayed about her fashion future a lot and felt with money and God behind her, success would be in front of her.
Virginia’s business plan included the knowledge that about 90 percent of Americans were Christians, and Satan was spreading a lot of mental illness around to try and destroy them. Vowing to use her design gifts for a higher purpose, Virginia prayed some more and was rewarded with a divine inspiration: swaddling clothes. A voice came to her in the night and said, “Virginia, make some swaddling clothes.”
When Virginia arrived in Kansas City, she rented a small studio and set about creating a line of swaddling clothes she felt sure the country would embrace. Of course, she began with baby clothes because swaddling babies was a biblical tradition; what better endorsement could swaddling clothes have than Jesus himself? Virginia worked day and night sketching her visions of modern swaddles; she even produced styles such as punk, hip-hop, redneck and neo-Arabic. However, Virginia didn’t limit herself to designing baby swaddles, she decided to bring swaddling clothes into haute couture. Gold lame, silk, velvet, linen, seersucker and cheap polyester were but a few of the materials she stitched and sewed and puckered and hemmed in an effort to create new, young, hip, old-testament fashion for a modern world.
Since the word swaddling also means, “to restrict,” Virginia, in order to broaden her chances at financial success, started a line of institutional swaddles she felt would replace straightjackets. The rise in Satan-caused mental illness had increased the demand for restrictive garments for lunatics, and Virginia felt being embraced by a terrycloth swaddle would have a more calming effect on the insane and make it easier for them to find Jesus.
After months of preparation, Virginia opened a retail store in the Big Corn Shopping Mall and hired a sales manager named Sammy Dandy to handle the institutional part of the business. She named her store “Swaddles” and took out ads in the Kansas City Star to promote the grand opening.
That was three months ago. Since that time, the inventory at Swaddles has only diminished by two baby-swaddling outfits and one swaddling chemise (which was sold to an S&M transvestite). The institutional line fared worse. On his first, and last, sales call, as Sammy Dandy was demonstrating the terry-cloth, lunatic swaddle, he was viciously attacked by a schizophrenic patient named Mr. Cheese, and had his ear bitten off. Mr. Cheese thought Sammy was Satan.
So, Virginia is depressed. She knows she is going to have to close her store and pack her dreams, but she also knows there is hope. She’s been praying a lot, and the other night, the same voice came to her and said, “Swimming suits for dogs.”

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Orwell On Writing

I ran across this essay by George Orwell. In it, he discusses his motives for writing and what and what he believes all writers face.

Excerpt:

"I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:

"1. Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen—in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all—and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

"2. Æsthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.

"3. Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

"4. Political purpose.—Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude."

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The Barleyville Baseball Incident

Robbie Stockbreath was a godsend to coach Edwin Nardlinger’s little-league baseball team. The kid was a 10-year-old phenom. The team, the Barleyville Rangers, had played four games so far this season, and Robbie had gotten a hit every time she came up to bat. Eleven of the hits had been home runs. But, young Miss Stockbreath’s prowess on the diamond was not limited to swinging the bat; she could rifle the ball into home plate from center field, run the bases with exceptional speed, and in two appearances as the team pitcher, she had not allowed a hit. With the 81-pound, 4 foot, 10 inch, blond-haired, blue-eyed baseball wizard on his team, Coach Ed had hopes they would win the district playoffs and maybe, just maybe, the Little League World Series in Cooperstown would be in their future.
The Rangers were in first place in the league going into today’s game against the Logan’s Ferry Lizards, last year’s district champions coached by Saul Persimmon, the county prosecutor and Coach Ed’s second cousin on his mother’s side. Ed disliked his cousin. Even as a child, he found Persimmon to be an odious, unethical, lying little scumbag, and the prosecutor had done little in the intervening years to alter that opinion. It was rumored he had railroaded more than one innocent man onto death row at the state prison. Coach Ed also didn’t like the way his cousin’s team played ball. He felt they played dirty, tried to hurt opposing teams by throwing at them. With Robbie in the lineup, Ed was sure his team would clobber the Lizards today.
While the kids were warming up, Coach Ed sat in the dugout filling out the starting lineup for the game. He decided to start Robbie in center field, and then move her to the pitcher’s mound in the third inning. In this league, pitchers could only pitch a maximum of four innings, and he wanted Robbie to close the game strong. Her fielding skills should prevent any long balls from driving in runs, and once on the mound, he didn’t think the other team would be able to get wood on the ball.
Coach Persimmon was starting his son Starmo as the Lizard’s pitcher. The kid was good, with an earned run average of 1.2. At 5 foot 10 inches and weighing 198 pounds, the hulk-child would usually dominate the smaller players with his fastballs and curves. He was also a terror with the bat, but his fielding was not impressive. He was 12-years-old, and already had a gut that hung over his belt like a tired dog. That made him slow.
The head umpire blew a whistle, and the kids came off the field for last minute instructions from their coaches and the flip of a coin to see which team would bat first.
The Lizards won the toss and headed to their dugout while the Rangers took the field. Coach Ed started Chico Escuela III on the mound, and he told the boy to relax and “keep it in the strike zone.”
The first Lizard batter, Davy Minnow, went down swinging on three consecutive pitches. Batter number two, Chad Vlad, connected on an outside slider, but it was easily fielded by second baseman Sud Nord, and Vlad was thrown out at first. Escuela retired the side on the next pitch when Doug Church fouled a pop-up down the first base line, and Stallworth “Stally” Chance, cradled it in his glove.
The Rangers first inning at bat was not much better. Starmo struck out the first batter, Stally Chance was hit by an inside pitch and got on base, but Peter Ming grounded into a double play.
In the top of the second inning, Starmo, the clean-up hitter, came to the plate. His beady-eyed, pit-bull face seemed to unnerve Escuela, and he served up a floater across the plate. Starmo jumped on it and smashed a long fly ball out to center field. The ball’s trajectory looked like it would take it over the fence, but at the last moment, Robbie Stockbreath leaped high into the air and snagged it with one hand. Starmo had already rounded first when he saw the girl’s amazing catch. He took off his helmet, threw it to the ground, and stomped his feet. Good sportsmanship was not one of his strong suits. When he got back to the dugout, he sat on the bench and pouted. The next two batters were both thrown out at first.
As the Lizards were taking the field, Coach Persimmon grabbed his son and whispered in his ear. The boy got a devilish smile on his face and trotted out to the pitcher’s mound.
“Here we go,” thought Coach Ed Nardlinger. Robbie Stockbreath was first up, and she hadn’t missed getting a hit yet. Starmo stared her down, then wound up and threw a screaming fastball on the inside. Robbie jumped back as the ball narrowly missed her, and the umpire called, “Ball one.” Starmo figured he had her scared now, so he aimed another fastball at the outside corner. Robbie watched calmly as the pitch went by, missing the outside corner by inches. “Ball two,” the umpire called. Back on the mound, Starmo was getting a little frustrated. He caught the ball returned by the catcher, kicked the dirt around the mound, and tried to settle down. He stared down the alley again and shook off a called slider from the catcher. “No,” thought Starmo, “this little girt is going to get a curve ball.” The ball left the pitcher’s hand and started breaking right. By the time it reached home place it was high and two feet inside. Robbie had to dive in the dirt or she would have had her chin busted. “Ball three,” said the umpire.
Coach Ed came out of the dugout and protested to the umpire that the pitcher was trying to throw at Robbie. Saul Persimmon came rushing over and said, “Bull.” Starmo stood on the mound picking his nose, and Robbie calmly stood up and waited for the next pitch. The umpire issued a warning to Starmo, and his dad walked out to the mound. He put his arm around his son and said, “Remember what I told you, girls have no place in baseball. Now, do what needs to be done.”
“But dad,” Starmo protested.
“But dad nothing, this little girl is not going to beat us. Now, do what I told you.”
Coach Persimmon returned to the dugout, and Starmo nervously began his pre-pitch ritual: wiping the ball on his pants, touching his cap, and loosening his shoulders. Robbie stepped into the batter’s box showing no emotion. She stood there at ease and took a couple of practice swings, staring at Starmo the whole time.
Before starting his wind-up, hulk-boy looked over at his dad, who nodded to him. Starmo locked his eyes on Robbie, wound his arm, kicked his left leg high in the air, and let loose with a blistering fastball. He put every ounce of his strength into the throw, and when the ball left his hand, the heft behind the pitch carried him forward and he fell face down in the dirt.
Robbie picked up the trajectory of the ball, but it was traveling at such speed, by the time she determined it would arrive high and inside, it was already there. A loud crack of hard leather on plastic rang out as the baseball smashed against Robbie’s helmet, just above her ear. Silence exploded in the ballpark, and all eyes turned towards home plate. For a moment, no one moved; the sight of Robbie’s little body standing in the batter’s box still holding the bat stunned them. Her head was dangling down her right side, stopped at her elbow an assortment of wires and tubes tenuously attached to her neck. Coach Ed shook off his disbelief and ran to her. A lone cry went up from the stands. “Oh God,” yelled Dr. Berk Stockbreath, Robbie’s father, as he shoved people out of his way trying to get to his daughter.
By this time, Starmos Persimmon had picked himself up off the ground, and when he looked at the batter’s box, he wailed in a high-pitched voice, “Oh Jesus, I killed her, I killed her.” Starmos turned and ran towards left field where he jumped the fence and tore down Cutter Street screaming in terror.
When Ed Nardlinger reached Robbie, he fell to his knees. He wasn’t sure what to do; he grabbed her wrist to see if she had a pulse. The umpire stood by mute, an awed expression on his face. When Coach Ed pulled Robbie’s arm toward him, it caused her head to swing around towards the front of her torso, directly in front of him. Robbie’s eyes opened and stared at him. Before Ed could react, Berk Stockbreath arrived and gently cradled Robbie’s head in his arms. “It’s Ok baby, don’t worry,” he told her.
Dr. Stockbreath turned to Coach Ed and said, “Can someone go to my car and get my bag out of the trunk?” Before Ed could answer, Todd Mogger, the umpire, stammered, “Uh…I’ll go.” The doctor tossed him the keys, and the returned his attention to his daughter. Ed told his assistant coaches, Brad Nurn, Betty Nolan and Lionel Mason, to keep people away and have someone call EMS. Dr. Stockbreath quickly countermanded Ed’s order, “No EMS, I can take care of this.”
“But her head’s been knocked off, she could die,” said Ed incredulously.
“Please coach, I’m a doctor, I can take care of this.”
“But she could bleed to death.”
“She won’t bleed to death. Do you see any blood?”
Coach Ed looked over Robbie’s body and the ground surrounding it. He hadn’t noticed before, but there was no blood. Her uniform was wet on the left side, but it looked like sweat stains. “This is nuts,” he said. “What is happening?”
Before he got an answer, Todd the umpire arrived with the doctor’s bag. Stockbreath opened it and retrieved a few odd-looking tools and ointments. “Coach Nardlinger,” said Dr. Stockbreath, “I want you to hold Robbie’s head for a few minutes while I work on her neck.”
Ed was flying on autopilot and did what was asked. He gently took the girl’s head from her father and gingerly held it in his hands. He almost fumbled it when he heard her whisper, “Don’t worry coach, it’s gonna be Ok.”
“Ok,” he said, but he was thinking, “This is not real. This has got to be one of those deals where I’ll wake up shortly and puke last night’s clams into the toilet bowl.”
As Stockbreath worked on Robbie’s neck, the girl’s blue eyes would flicker occasionally. Her lips twitched once. Finally, Dr. Stockbridge told Ed, “Ok Ed, now help me lift her head and place it on her neck.”
Ed had little choice but to do what he was asked. Interestingly, as they placed Robbie’s head back on her neck, Ed noticed there was a clean break where the head had detached. In fact, there seemed to be a gasket lining her neck and head. The skin was torn, of course, but it didn’t look like torn skin. Once the head was in place, Dr. Stockbreath pulled out what appeared to be a small caulking gun and ran a bead of opaque material around Robbie’s neck. Suddenly, her eyes opened again, and she spoke. “Thanks dad, I think everything’s fine now.”
Saul Persimmon came charging through the crowd that had circled the girl about ten yards out. He was yelling, “Forfeit, this game is a forfeit. They lose. This girl is a robot, and robots are not allowed in baseball. Nardlinger, you son of a bitch, you thought you could get away by using a robot ringer, didn’t you? Well, that just ain’t gonna fly. You lose, we win.”
Dr. Berk Stockbreath stepped in front of Persimmon, “She’s not a robot,” he stated.
“Blow it out your blowhole, Stockbreath,” shouted Saul Persimmon. “I know what I saw. She’s a damned robot. Look at her, she’s a freak.”
Coach Ed had heard enough from his loudmouth cousin. “Saul, shut up. Leave that girl alone.”
Robbie Stockbreath walked over to Coach Ed’s side. “It’s Ok coach, really.” She turned to face Coach Persimmon. “I’m not a robot Mr. Persimmon, I’m a PHIIL, a Post Human Intelligent Integrated Life-form. I carry human genes and brain cells as well as microchips and solenoids. I may not be fully human, but I’m not inhuman either. I think, feel, hope, dream, smell, taste and I love playing baseball. As far as I know, there aren’t any rules about PHIILs playing baseball.”
Chico Escuela III, Stally Chance, Peter Ming and the rest of Robbie’s teammates came up and stood behind her. They said in unison, “Yeah.”
Coach Ed turned to Todd the umpire for a ruling. Todd shrugged his shoulders and dug out the rulebook from his back pocket. The crowd was hushed as Todd leafed through the book. After several minutes, Todd announced, “There’s nothing in here about no PHIILs. The rules don’t even say anything about robots either.”
The Barleyville Rangers let out a cheer. Most of the people in the crowd followed suit. Todd the umpire yelled, “Play ball.” Saul Persimmon screamed, “This is crap. We’re not playing, and I’m going to sue.”
“Forfeit,” said Todd. “Rangers win.”
Later that afternoon, Starmo Persimmon was found crying hysterically at a Krispy Kreme donut shop. A month later, his mother Laura filed for divorce from Saul and is getting the boy the help he needs.
Saul Persimmon was indicted two months later on charges aggravated weaseling and supplying steroid to his son. All of the cases he prosecuted since his time in office are under official revue.
The Barleyville Rangers went on to become district champs and advanced to the little-league regional finals. Coach Ed Nardlinger’s dream of a trip to Cooperstown for the Little League World Series was dashed when the Rangers lost the regionals to a team from Roswell, New Mexico that went on to win the Series. There was some controversy when it was found that the Roswell team’s all-star third baseman was, in fact, a Kraykax from the outer moon of Celtius 6. The losing team sued, and the case was taken before the United States Supreme Court, where it was unanimously decided the rules of baseball did not prevent alien life forms from participating in the sport and order the little-league commissioner to change the name “World Series” to “Intergalactic Series.”
Robbie Stockbreath did not compete in little-league baseball he following season. After the incident at the Lizards vs. Rangers game, Dr. Berk Stockbreath decided to re-build his daughter into a 24-year-old young woman. These days, Robbie now plays quarterback for the St. Louis Rams professional football team and serves as the spokeswoman for BAPOP (the ‘Bots Androids and PHIILs Alliance for Peace.)
As for Chico Escuela II, baseball been berry, berry good to him.


.

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Barry Eats Sheep

Last week, I started old school, and tomorrow, my first homework assignment is due for my class in memoir writing. I’ve already completed the assignment, and anticipate a fairly decent grade, but I’m worried about my classmate Barry.
Barry is 81 years old, and up until 11 years ago, he was in the poultry technology field for more than 50 years. He says he is gay even though he has never had sex with a man…or a woman. His statement made me a little wary, so I asked him if he had had sex with a chicken. He assured me that that was not—nor would it ever be—the case. I dropped the subject.
I’m worried about Barry not because of his gayness, but because I think he might receive an F on his homework assignment. Our teacher asked us to write about our favorite childhood foods. After class, Barry confided in me that he wasn’t very keen on revisiting his childhood and recalling the slaughter in which he participated. “You see,” Barry told me, “I was raised by wolves.”
Now, I was raised by a military officer, and I don’t think being raised by wolves could be any more traumatic than that, but Barry insists he will be ridiculed and persecuted if he puts down on paper the somewhat grizzly meals he consumed as a child. “I just know that other people are going to write about fried chicken, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and stuff like that,” said Barry. He looked around to make sure no one else was listening, and said, “You know, Em, I wish I could have eaten that kind of stuff, but mostly what my parents gave me was raw, bloody sheep. Damn, to this day, I can’t even wear a wool sweater.”
“Well,” I told Barry, “why don’t you just write that you liked mutton as a child, even if it is a lie.”
“Oh, I couldn’t lie.”
“Ok…uh…I’m sure you probably ate something else besides sheep once in a while; there must have been something you liked.”
“Well…yeah,” said Barry with a guilty look on his face. “There were a few treats.”
“Then write about them,” I suggested.
“I don’t think people would understand Em. I mean wolves have different appetites than humans.”
“How bad could it be Barry? People eat animals all the time.”
“I’ll tell you, but you got to keep this to yourself, Ok?”
“Sure Barry, no problem. I think you’re blowing this way out of proportion, but go ahead.”
“Well, when I was a kid my favorite things to eat were aliens.”
I just sort of stared at Barry, thinking Alzheimer’s hat set in. “Aliens?”
“Yeah, the wolf pack I lived with was based in the hills of southern New Mexico. About once a month or so, dad and my uncles would go out for a sheep kill, and as they were stalking, they’d run across and illegal alien who had gotten lost. He didn’t stand a chance. It was sure a great change of pace from sheep, and I always got the ankle.”
I think class tomorrow is going to be real interesting.

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The Big, Huge Thesaurus

A reader passed along a link to The Big, Huge Thesaurus. This site is based on source data from the Princeton University WordNet database, the Carnegie Mellon Pronouncing Dictionary, and suggestions from thousands of people on the internet.
It is filled with synonyms, antonyms, rhymes, writing prompts and blog-post suggestions.

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The Surprising Un-Surprise Birthday Party

A bellicose parrot thundered in my right ear, “Try the damn fajitas.” Startled, I reflexively stepped to the left, which caused me to make full-body contact with a waitress named Sula, who was carrying a tray laden with bowls of hot, steaming chicken caldo. Sula went down hard, and the soup she was transporting took a northwest trajectory, landing on a party of four sheriff’s deputies, causing first-degree burns on one of the deputy’s fireplug biceps. This was not the sort of entrance I wished to make at my birthday dinner at Cantina Felipe.
I was unscathed, but I could feel accusatory eye darts fired in my direction. “It wasn’t me,” I explained desperately, “The bird yelled at me, and I got scared.” My excuse did not seem to be playing well; I doubt it was even heard over the howling of the napalmed deputy. I helped Sula off the floor as Manuel, the assistant manager, called EMS to transport the lawman to a local hospital. I was looking around for my party when one of the uninjured deputies approached me with malice and asked for my identification. “You’re in a heap of trouble boy,” he snarled.
I was both terrified and flattered. I felt I was about to be sucked into the nightmare of our legal system, but today I was 61, and he had called me “boy.” As I slowly reached for my wallet and ID, a young girl, about six-years-old, came up and said to the cop, “I saw it. I saw what happened, and it was the bird’s fault. That’s a mean bird, he scares me.”
The deputy smiled at the little girl, frowned at me, and then stared at the parrot. The bird just bobbed its head. By this time, the clamor had begun to die down in the restaurant, and relative calm was being re-established. It appeared the lawman might dismiss the incident and send me on my way when Pathetic Bob walked out from one of the small banquet rooms. “Jeez Em, where the hell have you been? Everybody’s waiting on you. They won’t let me have any food ‘til you get here,” he complained. “Who is this cop?”
I hadn’t realized my wife had invited the dog to my surprise party that was not really a surprise party but had become a surprise party after all. “Never mind Bob,” I quickly responded, hoping to get him out of the deputy’s presence, “Why don’t you just go back into the room, and I’ll be along shortly.”
“Is that your dog?” asked the cop.
“Well, he lives with me, but he’s his own dog,” I tried to explain.
As I launched into a further explanation about it being my birthday and the unsurprised-surprise party, the little girl went over to Bob and starting petting him. “Have you washed your hands?” he asked her. She giggled.
I was talking to the deputy, the girl was talking to Bob, Bob was talking to the girl, and the parrot was bobbing and weaving like a professional boxer. As the officer finally handed my ID back to me, Bob came up and said to him, “I think you ought to arrest that bird. The kid told me what the bird did. It’s a menace, take it away.”
“Bob, I don’t think…”
“To hell with that Em. I’m fed up with birds getting away with everything. They need to be held accountable. Every time I go out on the deck at home, birds gangs fly by and drop poop bombs on me. I’m sick of it. This city locks up dogs and cats just for wandering around not hurting anyone, but birds, they get away with any damn thing they want to do.”
The deputy looked Bob, then back at me. “Are you a ventriloquist?” he asked.
I laughed nervously. “Uh, yeah. I was just fooling around, you know, I was entertaining the little girl. Look sir, I really appreciate your understanding. I’m gonna take Bob, and we’re going to go have a nice birthday dinner. I hope your friend will be Ok.”
I picked Bob up and headed towards the banquet room, but before we had gone two steps, he turned around and yelled at the parrot, “We’re gonna have chicken!”

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