I couldn’t resist checking WHACK JOB: A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James out of the library given the title, but I can’t say the book was as fun as it sounded.
This is two books in one, really. One book is a Cliff’s Notes history of axes, tracing their role from ancient times when they were a tool with a 1,001 uses to today, when there are multiple other tools as good (chainsaws for chopping trees, for instance) and even if we have an axe we rarely use it. That was interesting, though slight. The second book traces how axes have dealt death in ancient Egypt, China, Henry VIII’s reign, Lizzie Borden and more. This, however, is a bit too scattershot to be a history, especially as going to the executioner isn’t technically murder. All the information in individual sections is interesting, but taken as a whole, it’s unsatisfying.
SING LIKE FISH: How Sound Rules Life Under Water by Amorina Kingdom takes a good topic — how sound is a constant under the surface of the water, even if we can’t hear it ourselves — and made it boring. Kingdom presents much of the information through personal experience, interviews with scientists, scientists explaining stuff — as I’ve said before, I don’t care about the writer’s personal journey, I just want the information. I didn’t finish.
I had high hopes for the magical realist CITY OF LAUGHTER by Temim Fruchter which starts with a mysterious stranger changing the fate of a clown in a 19th century Jewish community. Unfortunately by the time I got halfway through the book there’d been no more magic (though some interesting discussion of folklore) and a lot of angst as three generations of Jewish women gaze into their navels and wonder about the secrets the older generation aren’t sharing. Another DNF.
A gay writer realizes I MIGHT BE IN TROUBLE (by Daniel Aleman) when he wakes up in his bed after a Grindr hookup and discovers his lover is not only still next to him, he’s dead.
What follows is a blackhumored variation on Weekend at Bernie’s as the writer and his agent try to covertly transfer the corpse somewhere else to be found. Then it shifts into more suspense territory as the protagonist writes a roman a clef thriller based on what happened, then discovers the dead man’s husband is starting to catch on. Fun.
Cover by Nick Cardy. All rights to images remain with current holders.
