Broken Shifts

Alright.

I've had it.

I couldn't finish with David Baldacci's First Family.  I just lost interest, that's all.  I couldn't say that there were a lot of substories within the stories of the story because with Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot, there were a lot of them, too.  It's just that I couldn't find anything to look forward to and couldn't care less what happened to the president's nephew.  I couldn't also say that the story is common these days, but I felt like murder and abduction are being committed at least once in a day and it's all in the news.

So, I decided to start with another.

It was hard because  have several books in line.  I have been wanting to read The Godfather and it got a little more intense when I started playing Mafia Wars on Face Book.  But this good friend of mine was able to borrow Stephen King's Night Shift from her husband's accommodation's library so I couldn't put it off because of the due date.

I started about a few days ago...

Then stopped.

Because it's really scary.

I didn't know if it's the story, or the way SK has written it (wonderful!) or is it my age that's affecting me.  They say that one acquires a lot of fears as one ages.  So, it might be true with me after all.  I tried to determine what is it that scares me.  If it was the story, I have been reading SK's books and there are a lot as scary or even scarier but it didn't affect me during my youth.  It might be my age.  I get scared that I might have nightmares as I did with Duma Key.  Or it might wake me in the middle of the night thinking about the story.  Or it might keep me awake at night because I think about the story.

Whatever it is.

I must face my fear.  [to quote one passage from the book, Dune]

I like the way Jerusalem's Lot is written.  I thought at first it wouldn't be effective for me, but again, I was wrong.  I began to like it that it is written as letters to someone.  The first time I have encountered such a 'format' of the story.

This is a book of 20 stories.  I might read it alternatively with The Godfather.  But it will all depend how scary they would get for me.

Dear Bones,
How good it was to step into the cold...

I like the 'hooker' REALLY!  They call the beginning sentence as 'hookers.'

First Family, Fourth Reader

I am the third fourth reader of this book, assuming that the owner finished it - which I hope he/she did - before my room mate found it somewhere.

*Image cropped from Shelfari

The wife was next but she didn't get too long.  She had commented that she didn't like the alternating chapters between the events.  I do not have a problem with this.  Blaze was written in such a way that past and present were alternately presented which actually made perfect sense to me... It was like revealing secrets as it affect the story.

So this is the story about a president's family.  I am pretty sure that this was written before Obama won.  But I am not sure if it was started before even rumors came out that he would run for office.  But whichever is the case, I just brought it up because the president in the story happened to be black.

Willa, the president's nephew, was abducted by Quarry.  The intent and relation of the abduction is not yet revealed so far but the private investigators - Michelle and Sean - hired by the First Lady herself do have their theories that actually involved Willa's father.

The line of relationship between Quarry and Tuck (Willa's father) is not yet presented - that is, if there is any.

I have read two books by David Baldacci years before.  The first was Simple Truth, and then, much later, Wish You Well.  I didn't get to finish Wish You Well.  I just lost interest, that's it.  I was only half-way through the book and I couldn't pick up the sense of continuing any further.

This one though, is something I am engaged so far.  I hope my hopes wouldn't wither.

What You Want?

Another book came in today.

My friends know that I love reading so they let me know if they have a book that they can lend me. Last night, a friend brought me "Night Shift" which is actually an old book by Stephen King. Yeah, they know, too, that I am into SK's books. So, to give me a background of what the book's all about, I read the introduction, not by SK but by someone named John D. Macdonald.

And here I quote him ( his reaction when people say: they want to write):

If you want to write, you write.

The only way to learn to write is by writing. And that would not be a useful approach to brain surgery.

Stephen King always wanted to write and he writes.

So he wrote 'Carrie' and 'Salem's Lot' and "The Shining,' and the good short stories you can read in this book, and a stupendous number of other stories and books and fragments and poems and essays and other unclassifiable things, most of them too wrteched to ever publish.

Because that is the way it is done.

Because there is no other way to do it. Not one other way.

Compulsive diligence is almost enough. But not quite. You have to have a taste for words. Gluttony. You have to want to roll in them. You have to read millions of them written by other people.

You read everyting with grinding envy or a weary contempt.

You save he most contempt for the people who conceal ineptitude with long words, Germanic sentence structure, obstrusive symbols, and no sense of story, pace, pr character.

Then you have to start knowing yourself so well that you begin to know other people. A piece of us is in every person we can meet.

A damn good piece of advice for me!

Blaze

If it was his childhood, then Blaze's father was to blame.  If it was the life he lived after his fall, would it be his fault?

Blaze had a very difficult life.  But meeting George changed it all.  Although it did change, it wasn't from difficult to easy.  It was just from being alone in a difficult life to having someone share his already difficult life.  But hard as it is, he at least felt he belonged or let's just say, he had someone to watch over him; at his dumbest times, which is actually most of the time.

When George died, it never was the same... again.  Although George is still very much present with him.  Yeah, something like a ghost.  But ghost or not, Blaze wanted to fulfill George's dream - to get inside the Gerard's house, and probably even get into their nerves.

And Blaze did.

I thought he was tough.

But later on...

As most of us are, he had a soft spot.  So soft that it became the culprit of his doom.

He fell in love.

Those blue eyes, the soft skin, that cute grin, the smile, those [two] teeth.

He didn't want to let go now.  Not this time, not ever.  Not after all those he loved left him alone - alone and scared.

Although this time, he wasn't scared anymore.

He fought - and fought hard.

But he never saw those blue eyes again.

===============
My Rating:  ****

Image copied from Wikipedia

Image

Part of Blaze's childhood or youth was spent blueberry raking where they were sent for the rest of the harvest days at the farm of Mr. Bluenote.  Here, they lived with some girls from a correctional and some boys from some another end of the town.  This lasted for the season that began from the second week of July to the third or fourth week of August.  This went on until some guys from somewhere started to question Mr.  Bluenote's income and all.  I couldn't forget what Mr. Bluenote said.  I remember having thought of something like this way back.  I tried searching my blogs because I remembered I wrote it down [or thought I did] but I never found it.

But anyway, here's what Mr. Bluenote said [and something that I agree with; back then and now]:

All I want to do is show these kids what a good life gets you.  What they do about it after they've seen it is up to them.  Ain't none of you ever been stuck in the mud and needed a push?

This is so beautifully said.

Every kid needs someone to look up to; to show him what a good life is, to let him know that there is a good life out there, if we just work hard enough.  All we need, too, is an image to look up to to lead us to a life.  In this case, I think Blaze wasn't really into much of a good life.  He found an image that would lead him to life, but not an entirely good image after all.  But just the same, it's George who made him feel good; feel good that at least there is someone out there to remind him to cut his hair, to brush his teeth, and that his clothes need washing.  He needed someone for all these simple things.

And it made him very sad that George wasn't there for him anymore.

Blaze is now all by himself; again.