Readers & Writers: What makes fiction work and a brave K-9
Insights into what makes fiction work and a brave cadaver dog. Two very different books by Minnesotans show the wide variety available to readers.
“Wonderlands” by Charles Baxter (Graywolf Press, $17)
All the stories we tell each other are hybridized: parts of them come from the “real world” (scare quotes attached) and parts of them come from somewhere else, a place I have called ‘wonderland,’ very close to the land of possibility and the land of dreams.
This wisdom is from the Preface to Charles Baxter’s “Wonderlands: Essays on the Life of Literature,” now out in paperback. Widely praised for his easy writing style and erudition, Baxter looks at his craft in ways that will interest writers and readers. He gives us the benefit of his long experience as author of 14 books, including short stories, novels and essay collections, written while teaching creative writing at the University of Minnesota until he retired.
In these essays, some of which were first given as craft talks at the Bread Loaf Writers’ conference, Baxter looks at how requests (Lady Macbeth to Macbeth or evil vampire asking something of an innocent) are at the heart of some stories, as are lists and inventories. He moves from thinking on the nature of wonderlands in the fiction of Haruki Murakami and other fabulist writers, while throwing in pop culture such as “an ape throws a bone” and it takes the reader a minute to figure out he’s referencing the film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Other “Wonderlands” topics include the writer as curator, narrative urgency, lush life in fiction, and toxic narratives and charisma, which brings in political figures such as the forty-ninth U.S. president.
Baxter’s also frank in his letter to a young poet: “(It) seems a shame to say so but the hardest part of being a writer is learning how to survive the dark nights of the soul. There are many such nights, far too many, as you will discover.”
Baxter will read from and discuss his book at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 2, at Next Chapter Booksellers, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul, in conversation with Sally Franson, author of “A Lady’s Guide to Selling Out.”
“The Lost” by Jeffrey B. Burton (Minotaur Books, $26.99)
The man in the leather jacket sped up, but my golden retriever sailed past me. She didn’t know what was going on, but the tension in my voice and the man’s aggressive movement kicked her into high alert…Vira knew something needed to be stopped. She flew down the block, leapt into the air, landed in front of the perceived aggressor, and came down snarling.
In St. Paulite Jeff Burton’s third K-9 mystery, Mace Reid and his best cadaver dog, Vira (Elvira), are called to the home of billionaire financier Kenneth Druckman, whose wife and daughter were thought to be kidnapped. But the dead body of the man’s wife, a former super model, is found and the search begins for the missing little girl. When Vira is set loose to follow a scent, she leads Mace and law enforcement back to the family’s mansion.
Some back story: Reid was working with Chicago police Det. Kippy Gimm when they rescued Vira from a bad situation in a previous book. Reid adopted Vira into his canine family (he calls them The Finders or, informally, “the kids”), and they both learned that this dog has some kind of strange power. She not only tracks individuals, she somehow senses if there is evil in their DNA. Besides Vira, Mace’s pack includes Sue, a male German Shepherd who’s been injured and spends his days on his “papal throne” watching television; farm dogs Delta Dawn and Maggie May, and a bloodhound puppy in training, Billie Joe, who spends most of his time rolling in every rotten thing he can find.
While Mace and the FBI are looking for Druckman’s five-year-old daughter, readers know she is in a cabin in northern Minnesota, looked after by a blonde who is nice to the girl but won’t let her leave. Who is the woman? Who hired her? Who is the Belgian who gives orders to a killer with a Russian accent, a man Vira hates?
Mace is a nice guy who knows Kippy, with whom he is in love, is way above his level and he’s as proud of her as he is of his dogs. (She would understand that statement.) Although there’s some violence in the story, there’s a laid-back feel to Mace’s life in a trailer outside of Chicago where he lives with the Kids and where Kippy visits a lot, bringing her really good potato salad.
You just cannot go wrong with a golden retriever.
Burton will sign copies of “The Lost” from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 6, at Once Upon a Crime, 604 W. 26th St., Minneapolis
