Dark Money - Jane Mayer

Mayer lifts the veil on a small group of extraordinarily wealthy American iconoclasts who have achieved no less than the transformation of American politics. Focusing on the Koch brothers and their extended network of like-minded political activists, Mayer shows how many politically-conservative outcomes, from the Citizen's United Supreme Court case, to the rise of the Tea Party, have been driven by the goals of a select few. Much of the country's political changes have been largely treated as a series of semi-independent, grassroots driven, reactions by white Americans in response to the changing face and politics of the country. Mayer convincingly argues that many of these newly ascendant political currents are not nearly as bottom-up as the uninitiated might imagine. It is an achievement that Dark Money does not read as conspiracy theory; Mayer puts in the work to show how slowly these changes have come about, including the set-backs along the way and the intricacies of how new legal designations for foundations and non-profits shelter the identities of those who are broadly influencing discourse. Tying together climate change denial, lowered corporate and individual tax rates, and the rise of free market economics, Mayer accounts for not only the occurrence, but timeliness of changing discourse. Her closing evocation that this network of donors has functionally come to overshadow the Republican Party ties the threads of the story together. I started the book incredulous but it has added a new dimension to how I consider American politics.

The River - Peter Heller

Two young men on a canoeing trip in the remote Canadian wilderness. The story moves along as they encounter unexpected people and challenges along the way. Reminds even the most intrepid outdoor enthusiast that the enjoyment and excitement of the natural world is tied to its power and unpredictability. Heller vividly imagines a world come alive in mesmerizing and even terrible ways. Recommended as a good adventure story and cause for reflection on how one would fare when the unexpected occurs. The two young men at the center of the story demonstrate a competence which belies their age. But the challenges are great.

Summer of '49 - David Halberstam

In a time when there is no baseball to be had, its nice to go back to a time (long before I was born) when the game, and life, perhaps seemed simpler. The cast of characters from the 1949 Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees jump off the page. Unfortunately, even after so many years, the Red Sox still lose. It is clear that Halberstam favors the Yankees. A fun and quick read to prepare for (a baseball-less?) summer.

Saint Mudd - Steve Thayer

An old-fashioned novel of gangsters, newspapermen, whores, cops, and children. The story takes place in St. Paul, Minnesota during the Great Depression as prohibition is coming to an end. The city is overrun with lawlessness and crooked police. Part mystery, it is also a remembrance of the city's by-gone time. The details pop and invoke the streets, the hills, and the river.

Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake

A strange and difficult to categorize, sometimes fantastic work of a world unlike our own. Titus Groan takes places in the land of Gormenghast, a land that Peake has conjured whole-cloth. It feels at once alien and familiar. The work is populated with characters simultaneously medieval and modern. It reads like a fable and study of palace intrigue. Accessible on the first reading, I anticipate revisiting Flay and Rottcodd, Swelter and Lord Sepulchrave.

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

"He could think of no reason for the transponder sending unit to be in the hotel. He ruled out Moss because he thought Moss was almost certainly dead. That left the police. Or some agent of the Matacumbe Petroleum Group. Who must think that he thought that they thought that he thought they were very dumb. He thought about that."

This time through I was struck by the subtlety of Chigurh's mind and the falling-away of Bell. One of the terrifying things about Chigurh is the clarity of thought, and subsequent action, he seems to demonstrate. Rarely is he tripped-up or caught off-guard. This gives him an apparent single purpose to his actions. Bell, as he admits time and again, feels overmatched by what is coming. Ellis tells him that cannot be stopped, that you cannot get back what was lost. Bell's self-described story is one of failure. As narrator he may hold that the country has changed. Ellis suggests it has not. Its always been hard on people. We are left wondering if Bell, who seemed to model himself after his grandfather, would not have been better off paying closer heed to his father's example - who we hear little about. Perhaps. There are no clear answers.

"I knew he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there is all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up."

Suttree - Cormac McCarthy

Continuing my march through McCarthy's works. Suttree is surely the funniest of those I have yet read. In particular Harrogate's antics stand out - he bears similarities to Jimmy Blevins from All the Pretty Horses. Whether he is cadging change from payphones, dynamiting his way into a bank vault, or causing a small-scale prison riot, Harrogate brings a lightness and foolishness to Suttree's life which may be a tad self-important. McCarthy captures the mood of the river and the people who inhabit the margins of Knoxville. The characters come fully-formed, at once real and absurd. In this earlier work it feels like McCarthy is piloting techniques that are honed and refined in, for example, Blood Meridian and The Crossing. The book reads as episodic and its a bit unclear how each event contributes to a changing Suttree. But maybe that is the point, as a raft drifts in the river, so does Suttree drift. One of McCarthy's most enjoyable.