Just received!

Today the letter carrier delivered GENTLEMEN'S HOUR by Don Winslow. It's the British version in trade paperback format since the book won't even be published at all in North America until 2011. Oh, just salivating thinking about the great reading waiting for me!

Don Winslow, crime novelist

I first read Don Winslow with the mm edition of THE DEATH AND LIFE OF BOBBY Z back in 1998. His publisher had packaged it with a fluorescent orange cover, the image being a yellow licence plate with a pot leaf between the Bobby and the Z. A quaote from Carl Hiassen, comparisons to Elmore Leonard, and the NYTBR's blurb of “Fast and funny” prompted me to include this in the comedic mystery vein. Good marketing, really, as GET SHORTY and STRIPTEASE had done well and this was intended for a similar audience. This was Winslow's seventh book, and his breakout novel.

It is a fun read. It has snappy dialogue, is indeed fast and funny, and feels like it was intended to be easily transformed into a film (which it was). While I recognized all these qualities at the time, I nevertheless did not particularly like the book. I realize why: I just never bought the underlying concept. Winslow presents Tim Kearney, a three-time loser on the Hell's Angels death list in a California prison, who is offered a deal by a federal agency to replace Bobby Z, a big-time drug dealer. Why? Because he looks like Bobby Z, enough like him to fool just about everyone.

I just couldn't find this believeable. So in spite of all its qualities, I never gave this book too much credit, and I was wary of trying another Winslow book. In retrospect I think the novel is well-written and deserves all the praise it received. It is still on my bookshelf, in fact, so that says something. I refused to read his next book, CAILFORNIA LIFE AND FIRE despite its good reviews and the urging of a friend whose opinion I trust.

Then came POWER OF THE DOG, a sprawling fictional history of the California/Mexico drug wars in the 1980s and 90s. It follows the intrigue inside the FBI and the cartels, portraying all the corruption and ultimate failure of the USA's War on Drugs. An ambitious work, very engaging and intricate. Lauded as Winslow's “comeback” book, and masterpiece which took six years to write. I liked it very much.

THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE. 60ish SoCal mobster who has a very regimented and comfortable lifestyle, 3 or 4 part-time jobs (mob-connected, natch), is well-respected in the community and is just enjoying life. Until he gets sucked far deeper into mob life than he has been for many a year, and the old hit man part of Frankie has to resurface. This is a wonderful novel; fast, tight, great dialogue and characters, excellent denouement. I loved this to pieces. Much more down-to-earth and personal than Winslow's previous novel, THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE is virtually perfect. I thought this was Winslow's crowning achievement.

That is, until I read THE DAWN PATROL. I wondered why Winslow would write a WWII-era novel about bombers, but this is about a group that goes surfing at dawn. Oh, I get it. The main character is Boone Daniels, a PI who lives very much a free-spirited hippy/surfer lifestyle, beholden to no schedule other than the one dictated by the tide. He and his Dawn Patrol gang get involved in a case involving a missing stripper, and complications ensue. Well, THIS book is Winslow's masterpiece. Everything he had in his previous books is here, in improved form: SoCal life, the drug trade and its effect on SoCal living, surfing, being a little bit different in this modern world, the effects of the past on this modern world, friendship, great dialogue and intrigue, it's all there better than ever before. A tour-de-force extraordinaire.

I am pissed off that his North American publisher is not coming out with the sequel, THE GENTLEMEN'S HOUR in 2010 but has instead opted for SAVAGES, a stand-alone novel that was optioned by Oliver Stone even before publication. While SAVAGES is a fine read, using language creatively and mining similar territory as Winslow's previous novels but with a younger set of characters (early 20s as opposed to early 30s or older). It's fine but didn't quite turn my crank as much as (I hope) THE GENTLEMEN'S HOUR will. Might just have to order the British edition of that one!

Olfactory memories

Funny how smells can be linked to specific memories. Yesterday my wife and I bought some tomatoes, a whole box of 'em actually. The box is in the kitchen. Today I caught a whiff of something as I was getting a glass of milk, and later realized that it was the tomatoes that I was smelling.

Fine, my lousy sense of smell finally registered something, big deal. But as the day progressed, each time I passed by the tomatoes and inhaled their fragrance something in the back of my mind was trying to work its way to my consciousness. At some point I asked myself, "Where do I know this smell from?" And lo and behold, it came to me: Grandpa and Grandma Playfair.

Grandma was diabetic, quite a serious one, insulin everyday. I used to go eat lunch at their house every Wednesday and she always made me Kraft Dinner. Always too soupy, and the milk was always too warm because she insisted that it had to sit on the table for 20 minutes before drinking otherwise it was dangerous. Anyway, Grandma and Grandpa always ate the same thing: lettuce and tomato on brown bread. They always seemed to have many tomatoes on the counter, and their kitchen smelled of them (the rest of the house smelled of mothballs, but I digress...). And that tomato smell has lain dormant in my brain for the last 32 years until today. I've obviously smelled tomatoes in the intervening years but never did I make that link back to when I first smelled them.

What other olfactory surprises lie hidden in my head? Time will tell...

My First Story

I read books. A lot. On a daily basis, and then some. Genre fiction. Mostly crime, but for many years science-fiction as well. Like many readers (most? all?) I secretly wish I could write as well as my literary heroes. But I lack the drive and dedication to sit down and do the writing.

Here is my first story, from waaaay back in grade 9. It's not good but I do think it displays some qualities. The teacher commented, "Good use of descriptive words. Well done!" and graded it 18/20 (-1 for late 1 day) so short as it is I guess it fulfilled the requirements of the task.

The Gorilla

He came striding out of the thick dense jungle, his muscular, fur-covered body gleaming in the hot sunlight. He let out a howl of fury as he saw me. His face was contorted with rage as he bared his fang-like teeth. He flexed all the muscles in his body and commenced beating violently on his chest. He then rose to his full eight feet of height, bent his furry head back and bellowed at the top of his huge lungs. His large hands grasped a snake-like vine suspended listlessly in mid-air.

He began to climb to a limb on the dead tree, using only his hands and his feet. He had reached the lowest limb when the old, withering tree collapsed under the simian's great weight. He fell to the ground with a shriek and landed on some green bush which cushioned his fall. He scrambled up and checked his furry body for injuries. As he found none, he grunted and kicked some limbs of the collapsed tree. He then walked slowly away, scratching his head as he went.

Grandpa's poems part 4 (sort of)

When I found those other poems by Grandpa I found the following work, written in his hand on a scrap of paper. At the bottom he wrote: "Poem by Keith". I have absolutely no memory of writing this, and it is in his handwriting.

Seals

As the seals bark
I watch them play
One was lazy
And decided to lay

The others all bright
Swam in delight
One hit another
And had a fight


So, did I really write this? At what age? Questions destined to never have answers...

Grandpa's poems part 3

Grandpa and Grandma Playfair had a cottage in Lake Connelly, a small town near St. Jerome. This is the southern part of the Laurentians, cottage country for Montrealers. Grandpa loved the place and apparently had to be persuaded to install electricity at the end of the 1950s. To this day there is no running water on the property, so delicate manouevers were taken care of in the hoosegow. Grandpa evidently loved the country, as can be understood in this tribute to that area so special to him.

Ode to the Laurentians

Mounded and moulded into shape,
Piled up higher and higher
Whilst the earth's crust cracked and heaved and groaned
O'er her heart's volcanic fire.
Gutted and scarred by the glacier's grind
In the ages long ago,
When fiery youth had given place
To the reign of ice and snow.

Warmed by Mother Nature's breath,
Soothed by her kindly hand,
Clothed in such robes of verdure green
As grace our northern land;
Set with many a crystal lake and wanton-flowing stream
That in your vales and down your slopes
Like polished silver gleam;

Oh sun-kissed green Laurentian hills,
Hoary with years untold,
You yet to those who gaze, a tale
Of eternal youth unfold.
As in the countless eons past
You will forever stand,
A monument unto the work
Of God's almighty hand.

Grandpa's poems part 2

Here's a poem Grandpa wrote for me when I got my tonsils out at age 4. This required a hospital stay in those days, and here is my grandfather's message to (and about) me.

A LITTLE SOLDIER

All of the pages of history
Tell us again and again
Of the endless list of heroes
Of sea and mountain and plain

St. George old England's hero,
Braving the dragon's flame,
Bruce the darling of Scotland
Who fondly cherish his name.

Tell, Switzerland's archer,
Coolly drawing his bow;
Nelson, Drake, and Wallace,
Brave men we all know.

But they were men fullgrown,
Forged in the furnace of life,
Moulded in body and spirit,
Ready armed for the strife.

Even the Biblical David,
He whom Goliath slew,
Was a sturdy youth of stature,
For many a summer he knew.

But Keith the sturdy-hearted
Four summers alone could claim,
When on the roll of heroes
Won the right to place his name.

For into the mystic realms
Which many a man doth dread,
The hospital halls he entered
With firm and steadfast tread.

And a steadfast little soldier
He remained his whole stay through,
Admired by doctors and nurses,
Loved by the patients too.

We're proud of you Keith, my darling.
Proud of you, one and all.
In body a tiny fellow,
In spirit ten feet tall.



Now, to hear tell from my parents I was quite the whiny kid, in this case crying my whole time in the Montreal Children's Hospital. But Grandpa always knew how to put a kind face on things, and in this poem pays me tribute that I almost certainly did not earn.

I love the part of verse six that starts "For into mystic realms Which many doth dread"; it makes me feel like I was Dr. Strange of to battle Dormammu! Grandpa, of course, had never heard of Steve Ditko or Stephen Strange so that's just my wishful thinking.

Grandpa's poems part 1

My maternal grandfather was Harold Clifford Playfair. He was funny in a crotchety-old-man way, was amazing at mental arithmetic, and liked to write poetry. He penned any number of tributes to subjects such as the Laurentian region, nature, and his family.

Here is a poem that he wrote to me on the occasion of my birth, way back when in 1965. I found this in a box in the attic and felt the need to share it. The poem is titled simply To Keith

Greetings little 'fellow me lad',

Hearty greetings and true,

All of the best things in life,

Is what we are wishing you.

Ther's a cozy home awaiting

With love and laughter and fun

And parents ready with care the best

For their darling baby son.

And a brother who will always share

The joys of each day with you,

Doing the hundreds of little things

That children find to do.

And if at times those parents of yours

Severe should try to be

Just pucker your mouth in a twisty smile

And wonders 'twill work you'll see.

So grow a little more each day,

Greeting each morn with a grin,

And you'll find, believe me, my bonny lad

'Tis a wonderful world to be in.

Thanks Grandpa!