Book Review : "The Tale Of Halcyon Crane"

The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


One of the pleasures that propels me through to the end of a book like this is the anticipation of the joy I'll feel when I savage it in a review. Having arrived at the end of this turkey, here I go.

Hallie James's father passes away at just about the same time as a letter arrives informing her that her long-lost mother is alive and wants to reconnect with her except that unfortunately she has also just died. I hate when that happens. Nonetheless, our intrepid Hallie ups and treks from her home in Seattle to Grand Manitou Island in Lake Superior so that she can meet with the lawyer who sent her the letter.

Naturally, this lawyer turns out, much to her surprise (but not ours), to have blue jeans and blue eyes. Of course he does. Quick, raise your hand if you've ever heard of this storyline before: fresh from a bad patch in her life, Our Heroine returns to Ye Olde Home Town where ruggedly handsome so-and-so still lives, and sparks fly. Will Our Heroine give in to old fears or will she find love and a new life with Fabio? Oh my, so many hands went up!

Having had time for a latte and to learn she has inherited her late mother's fab house and considerable fortune, Hallie tries to settle in, but it seems that islanders blame her father for staging her death and his own in order to escape to a new life after having apparently murdered her little playfriend. And so, they regard her with suspicion. Oh, and there's ghosts and stuff.

I will admit right here that I quite enjoyed the first half of the book. This is pretty good, I said. The second half should really be fun, I said. Unfortunately, that's when the whole thing started getting laughably silly.

Let's start with Fabio. He's buff, he's nice, he digs her, he's perfect. Of course. After knowing Our Heroine for just three measly days, going to dinner twice, and being rebuffed from so much as a kiss after both dates, Fab finally gets to first base and starts blathering out the L Word like he has electrodes up his butt. But wait, there's more. He's supportive, sweet, present, he really listens and gosh he WORRIES when she's out in the rain for a few minutes. And so I rechristened him Woman-Man because no man acts like this guy. He's more like a best girlfriend with parts. Whee!

Then there's an ancient crone called Iris (get it? she sees all tells all, so IRIS like your in your eye.) She's about a hundred, does windows and floors, cooks a mean stew (really often, and without ever being seen doing it! Wee-oo!) and tells Hallie everything about her family line in a series of daily sessions, but only AFTER she polishes the brass fixtures and stuff. No really. Hallie found her lurking in an upstairs bedroom with the door shut, but she explained that she was Hallie's mom's housekeeper. Hallie just goes, oh, okay, and never inquires about this Iris, never discusses pay or anything, just takes her on without blinking. Moreover, this Iris skipped the chapter on Deportment & Boundaries in the Domestic's Handbook. She's bossy, abrupt and creepy. Jellyfish Hallie just lets herself be bossed and moved around like an old hat rack, with nary a qualm about leaving a total stranger alone in her house with her treasures. In fact, Hallie is a pushover in every scene but one, where she suddenly goes way off character and tells some snippy dopes in a coffee shop where to get off. Apart from that one scene, she accepts anything anyone says and repeatedly ignores her own gut reactions. Wonder Woman she is not.

This book is a mystery, especially to Hallie. About two chapters and 20-50 pages after the reader catches on to a thing, the penny drops for our Miss H. The Big Reveals are no surprise to anyone but her. Honestly, between her and Fabio I found myself laughing out loud at them both. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't take one teensy weensy moment to be petty before I wrap up this paean. Our Heroine hops. A lot. She hops in the shower, hops on her bike, hops hops hops like Peter Cottontail hopping down the haunted cheesy bunny trail. In fact, she and Woman-Man often talk in phrases one expects from toddlers and their stay at home moms. Near the end, she calls off her search for 1oo-year-old Iris lost in the blizzard because lunch is ready.

Do not read this book. I have read it for you, so you don't have to. You're welcome.




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Rumors Of Wars

image by Rebecca Sygnus

We were foreigners bloomed in exotic soil,
a kind of invasive pet.

Wherever we went, we had nothing,
and so performed and begged and stole,
spreading our arms in sheepish apology as our bellies growled.

We wore the emblems and baubles of our homeland,
as meaningless as gum wrappers here.
We were restless,
resentful,
thrilled to be free of all that constrained us at home.

None of us were ever going to wear
those conical hats
or our men grow those little goatees threaded gray with eastern wisdom.

Someone called my name, in accusation or greeting
and I looked up to see only my familiar ceiling.
There was no "we", no scraping sharp-edged survival,
and so I rose, fetched the morning paper from the step,

And searched through every page, as if for crumbs
to feed the thing I had felt
in the life I never lived at all
with the imagined companions upon whom there was no reporting

Though I missed them with a ferocity that held on for hours
like a dying foxhole brother.
_________

For Sunday Muse #77, from a wild and intense dream I had before waking this morning. Why I should dream of being part of a lost military expedition in Indochina is beyond me, but there it is. 

Robed Figures

image by mc__monster

Robed figures contemplate light and shadow,
involving themselves in the night's business.

Luminous bird, floating crescent moon
contain an offered curriculum
as momentary as new love.

It is in this milieu that I come seeking you,
long after any chance of discovery.

I call, I offer songs on silver plates
while disembodied watchmen persuade ashes to assume form
and name themselves, becoming hosts

For all that cannot touch, cannot hope
nor do anything but write night poems on water-paper
and eat stars to stun themselves beyond all curiosity.
_______

for Toads Art FLASH.

Itinerary On The Fly

Do not place

your piano on the tracks.

Do not bind to a base

A bird of any kind.

Still, facts are facts

and the unforeseen may occur

Without warning--without a word.

"I knew a tune," says the man.

"I knew the sky," says the bird.

And so they sit with what they know.

Man and bird at peace in place

with one stop left to go.

_____

for The Sunday Muse #74.

civil defense

concussions rain dust

on flowers in a fruit jar

steady in my palm

____

a fauxku for Out Of Standard "Gimme (Fallout) Shelter"

the image is from the movie "10 Cloverfield Lane"

Cacophony

Hey, it's crowded in here. 
I've got one's scaly dry elbow in my ribs
and another's Manolo Blahniks on my toes.

What? What? Speak up.
Tell me which one you want and I'll try to find her. 
Goddess knows if she'll be available, presto, just like that, though.

Whoa, back way the hell up.
Is that any way to talk to a child?
Okay, now you're patronizing me. I'm not twelve anymore.

Come and get it, sugar.
No wait, don't. I'm to old for this.
My parents are always telling me what to do, and now you.

Wait...what? I'm having trouble concentrating.
Talk to one, another might grab the mic and riff. Check it out:
the 754 ages of woman all talking at once behind my calm smile.
_________

for Sunday Muse #73.

Shell Game

Water is not the glass that holds it.
Words are not the lips that speak them.
A body is a shadow of one shape, then another, then none.

No one holds an apple and says, "Here is a peel, nothing more."
We eat the fruit and leave the ants the core.
"Simple insects," says the man.
Simple human, beneath the tree.
And on the ground when both have gone,
those humble and forgotten gods--the seeds.
_______


A meditation on physicality for Art FLASH at Real Toads.

"You are what you believe you are." --The Prophet Omega