“Black Moon” by Kenneth Calhoun (Hogarth)

An interesting premise, well-executed, but still slightly flawed

“A black moon had risen, a sphere of sleeplessness that pulled at the tides of blood-and invisible explanation for the madness welling inside.”

The world has stopped sleeping. Restless nights have grown into days of panic, delirium and, eventually, desperation. But few and far between, sleepers can still be found – a gift they quickly learn to hide. For those still with the ability to dream are about to enter a waking nightmare.

Matt Biggs is one of the few sleepers. His wife Carolyn however, no stranger to insomnia, is on the very brink of exhaustion. After six restless days and nights, Biggs wakes to find her gone. He stumbles out of the house in search of her to find a world awash with pandemonium, a rapidly collapsing reality. Sleep, it seems, is now the rarest and most precious commodity. Money can’t buy it, no drug can touch it, and there are those who would kill to have it.

I hadn’t heard of this novel before it arrived through the post. As someone who has a soft-spot for post-apocalyptic novels (and the various sub-genres that covers), and also someone who has always suffered from varying degrees of insomnia, Black Moon’s premise jumped out at me. Given its slim length, too, I decided to read it right away. What I found was a novel that is, strangely, both excellent and also wanting.

Books on Film: “Warm Bodies” by Isaac Marion (Vintage)

A brilliant zombie love-story…

Movie Synopsis: Life for Julie (Teresa Palmer) and R (Nicholas Hoult) couldn’t be more different. R is a zombie; with a great record collection; limited vocab and an overpowering love of brain food. Julie is a human; beautiful; strong; open minded and all heart. When R makes an unexpected decision and rescues Julie from a zombie attack, his lifeless existence begins to have a purpose. As the unlikely relationship develops, R’s choice to protect her sets in motion a sequence of events that might just change both of their worlds forever. Directed by Jonathan Levine (50/50) and based on the debut novel by Isaac Marion, the heart-warming Warm Bodies is 2013’s zom-rom-com with a twist.

Director: Jonathan Levine | Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Corddry, John Malkovitch

I stumbled across Isaac Marion’s novel when I was in New York. I read the synopsis in the Union Square Barnes & Noble (one of my favourite places in the world…). Despite being intrigued, I wasn’t in a zombie-mood at the time, so I passed over it – rather unfairly, as it turned out. After the movie was released on DVD, though, I decided to watch the movie first – not something I usually do, but given the vast array of books I have to read, I wanted to squeeze this in. And I’m very glad I did.

All of the actors do a great job, and Nicholas Hoult does a wonderful job of making “R” an engaging and even sympathetic character. He’s funny, he’s awkward, and his internal monologue is wonderfully relatable to anyone who has ever felt stuck, awkward, or like their lives need a change. It’s brilliantly done, all-round, and as we see R’s evolution (“re-evolution”?) we realise just how brilliant Hoult is as an actor. It’s a peculiarly sweet love story, and I loved how it was both true to zombie lore and also unexpected and original, as well as paying tribute to some of the greatest love-stories (Romeo & Juliet, for example). It also has a superb soundtrack…

Very highly recommended. I will have to move the novel up the tottering TBR mountain.

Book Synopsis: “R” is a zombie. He has no name, no memories, and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.

Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows – warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can’t understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.

This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight...

“The Secret History” by Donna Tartt (Vintage/Penguin)

I finally get around to reading the mega-hit novel of a mysterious group of college friends

Richard Papen arrived at Hampden College in New England and was quickly seduced by an elite group of five students, all Greek scholars, all worldly, self-assured, and, at first glance, all highly unapproachable. As Richard is drawn into their inner circle, he learns a terrifying secret that binds them to one another...a secret about an incident in the woods in the dead of night where an ancient rite was brought to brutal life...and led to a gruesome death. And that was just the beginning....

Another quick review, this (I’m still trying to figure out how best to review literary fiction). The Secret History has been an international mega-hit, and is frequently listed on Must Read books of the decade, your life, and so forth. As a result, it has been on my radar for years. But, because I am never lacking in reading material, I just never got around to buying it. After a particularly acute bout of book-restlessness, I decided it was time for a change from the SFF genres, and picked this up. I read it over a few very satisfying days, evenings and one night (I ended up finishing it at around 3am). It’s not perfect, but it is certainly engrossing and well-written.

Guest Post: “How a Cult Tried to Get Me” by Koethi Zan

Koethi Zan is the author of The Never List, which was published this week by Viking. To celebrate the release of the novel (and in advance of the review), here is a guest post from the author…

***

When I was eighteen years old, my college roommate and I were lured into a cult. It isn’t what you might imagine. We didn’t move to a commune somewhere in Texas with some charismatic leader who had a cache of weapons and multiple wives. They were much too sophisticated for that. They drew us in slowly with very innocent “study sessions” that were part self-help, part group therapy, and part meditation class.

It started with my college boyfriend’s parents who had been involved with this “philosophy study group” for many years. They urged my boyfriend to go so my roommate Ann and I decided we’d tag along. We were up for anything and curious about what we’d heard.

“American Adulterer”, by Jed Mercurio (Vintage)

A provocative new novel about the life and times – & sexual dalliances – of JFK during his administration

Like any womanizer, the subject of this novel must go to extraordinary lengths to hide his affairs from his wife and colleagues. But this is no ordinary adulterer – he is John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. Yet he is also a virtuous man enslaved by an uncontrollable vice.

With empathy and a dark wit, American Adulterer takes inspiration from the tantalising details surrounding President Kennedy’s sex life and medical secrets to weave a provocatively intimate portrait if the man’s affairs, illness, courage and idealism – and in JFK’s love for his wife, recreates one of history’s most fascinatingly enigmatic marriages.

JFK is one of the presidents I actually know the least about – the over-exposure of his presidency, his assassination and his place in popular culture always made him less interesting to me, beyond Oliver Stone’s superb movie, JFK (date). Given my considerable interest in the US presidents and their characters as well as their actions while in office, however, I thought this novelisation of JFK’s personal life might be worth a look, and be a more entertaining reading experience.

Sadly, having gone through it, I’m not really sure I liked it. The premise is interesting – Mercurio writes in the style of a clinical or psychiatric appraisal of JFK and Jackie Kennedy. This lends itself to a somewhat detached novel, always referring to JFK as “the subject”, but never really by name (Jackie merely referred to as “the First Lady” or “the subject’s wife”). This proved to be an interesting and intriguing read to begin with, but it quickly lost its novelty and started to become tedious – by its detached nature, it was difficult to care much about “the subject” after a while, even though the first chapter I found really very good.

Mercurio provides a short bibliography at the back and, being somewhat familiar with many of them, it becomes clear which sections of American Adulterer were influenced by which books. The more negative passages, scenes and scenarios were (in all likelihood) influenced by Seymour Hersch’s The Dark Side of Camelot, while the more complimentary segments were probably inspired and adapted from Robert Dallek’s superb An Unfinished Life. Mercurio notes that he’s taken some artistic license to write this book, which is completely fine and understandable (not to mention necessary, given the lack of a JFK autobiography).

This does not excuse some of his overly florid prose at times, whenever he veers away from the clinical detachment he seems to have wanted to maintain. For example, in a scene between JFK and Marilyn Monroe, Mercurio writes this (which frankly is just terrible):

“He glances at her blonde hair and the heft of her breasts, and soon he coughs his poison into her.”

There are interesting chapters – Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, but ultimately this is a book you will definitely need to be in the mood for, and I wouldn’t say this is anywhere near everyone’s taste. I imagine the fact that JFK is the subject helped get this book published and a fair amount of attention from the press (the laudatory pull-quotes on the cover are… misleading, in my opinion).

Thoughtful and insightful passages sprinkled among some pretty weird sections and scenarios; a weird writing style; and an erratic portrayal of the Subject make this a strange book that, while readable, will probably leave you either disturbed or irritated. When Mercurio tells us about JFK’s sense of entrapment, living in the presidential bubble – as opposed to the freedom he had pre-election when he could pursue his compulsive philandering without scrutiny, greater autonomy and freedom – the reader is instilled with some sense of empathy for JFK, but ultimately this is short-lived.

Not for everyone, I’d recommend reading one of the non-fiction biographies of JFK – definitely the aforementioned An Unfinished Life, but also the most recent, Vincent Bzdek’s The Kennedy Legacy, which discusses all the Kennedy brothers.

Could have been a lot better, but ultimately a flawed execution of an intriguing premise.