The Glass Key

Detective/gangster novel The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett was next up on this journey. It's got Perry Mason combined with Mare of Easttown combined with Law & Order vibes, with ballsy, sharp-witted Ned Beaumont charmin' his way toward the end of a murder mystery.

Though the central story centers around the death of a senator's son, the biggest mystery at any point of this novel is what Ned will do next. Not only are characters constantly getting the rug pulled out from under them, but the reader too, is often blindsided by relationships that Ned has made—shrewdly omitted from the narrative until the vital moment it deemed fit to be revealed.

It's exciting, sure. But also playful and blasé at the same time (because it's Ned we're following around the entire time, after all). I'm not sure I would have ever picked this book up on my own, but it's sure got character, and never edged on boring. Try it, or whatever. Ned Beaumont couldn't care less—no matter what kind of loyalties were held in the past. 

In the Forest

The development of a "wayward" child (was it the child who was "wrong", or the people who made him)...society's fear of "different"...a caring mother still full of sexuality...the confusing workings of a madman's mental state. Edna O'Brien's In the Forest touches on a lot, but doesn't exactly hit any one directly on the head. The imagery is beautiful, quiet (reflective of the scenery), and captivating; and it's easy to fluidly move from feelings of sympathy to disgust for O'Kane—an artful manipulation on the complex workings of human/societal emotions. However, chapters written in random perspectives across so many characters made it hard for the reader (at least me) to develop any real attachment to them. 

I guess the success of this work isn't so much in the narrative as much as in the thoughts and emotions it draws out. You get fragments of "truth" out of order through quick exchanges by characters ingeniously presented like an afterthought. You feel the rage of the women in the woods, yet also perhaps understand the forgiving-ness of the doctor. With all of these things adding together, the memory of the real-yet-fictional Eily and Maddie hang like a ghost in your memory before the book even ends, and probably will longer still.