Notice of a Brief Service Interruption

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If you're going through withdrawal, you can amuse yourself by looking up stuff in the index or by browsing the brand new sister site, The Daily Wreck Collection.

Back next week!

[You can check out more gorgeous Hitchcock screenshots like the one above at "1,000 Frames of Hitchcock"]

Friday Flashback: Rec. #73: When the Messenger Is Hot

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: When the Messenger Is Hot is Elizabeth Crane's debut collection of short (some of them very short) stories. Most of them are written in the first person, and many of them come across as extra-chatty monologues.

Comparable to: Erika Krouse, with some of the confessional zeal of Alan Bennett's characters in Talking Heads.

Representative quote: 

"Someone finally took a picture of me I don't hate and since I was wearing a red shirt I thought it would be the perfect holiday card. I made fifty copies and put a special nondenominational greeting on there (Hey, Happy Holidays! I thought the Hey gave it a personal touch) and sent them out. Then I started to get some cards back with some peculiar responses like, Good for you!, even though I hadn't written any news worth praising on that particular card and then I finally got an e-mail from someone who said she hoped she'd caught me before I sent too many out because she didn't want me to embarrass myself and I looked at the card again to see if I was exposed in some way or if the printers said, Hey, Merry Christmas!, by accident. But the card was just right, and so I e-mailed her back and said I didn't understand what she meant and she e-mailed back that most people who send photos like that also have husbands or babies in the photo. I e-mailed her back again and said that I am not most people." 

["Good for You!" In its entirety. Really. That's the whole story.]

You might not like it if: You just read that story and didn't like it.

How to get it: I think it's out of print, but you can buy it used or get it from your library. It's also Kindle-able.

Connection to previous Wreckage: When the Messenger Is Hot got a blurb from Kate Atkinson! We love Kate Atkinson (Rec. #3, Rec. #69, Rec. #137, Rec. #192, Rec. #270, Rec. #282, Rec. #301). A lot.

Elizabeth Crane also wrote All This Heavenly Glory (Rec. #314) and You Must Be This Happy to Enter (Rec. #245).

Erika Krouse's Come Up and See Me Sometime was Rec. #122.

[Originally posted 3/13/11.]

Quote from a Fictional Character #33

"I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible."

--- Catherine Morland,

Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen, 1817

A New Way to Browse Content from The Daily Wreck!

The new sister site The Daily Wreck Collection has clickable cover galleries for book, movie, tv, and web recommendation posts from this blog, plus a bonus gallery of all of the lists created for The Daily Wreck.

Enjoy!

[You can check out more gorgeous Hitchcock screenshots like the one above at "1,000 Frames of Hitchcock"]

Rec. #344: Henrietta's War

What: In her semi-autobiographical novel Henrietta's War, author Joyce Dennys gives us World War 2 from the perspective of daily life in a Devonshire village, bombs and doctors and sewing and dogs and all. The tone is amazingly breezy, though, because the story takes the form of chatty letters punctuated with drawings by the author.

Comparable to: E.M. Delafield and Angela Thirkell, but plus cartoons!

Representative quote: "But in the matter of trousers, dear Robert, the war has hit us hard. Nobody can live in a seaside town without becoming more or less slack-minded."

Representative image:

How to get it: Buyable, borrowable, Kindle-able.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Similar-ish author Angela Thirkell's Cheerfulness Breaks In was Rec. #240 and Summer Half was Rec. #40. I've also featured quotes from two of her characters (QfFC #12 and QfFC #31).

Quote from a Fictional Character #32

"In 10 days, I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome."

--- Steve Zissou,

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, 2004

Friday Flashback: Rec. #47: I Married a Dead Man

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: In Cornell Woolrich's noir thriller, two pregnant women meet on a train. One is poor, abandoned, and desperate. The other is traveling with her husband to meet his wealthy family for the first time. When the happy married couple dies in a train crash, desperate Helen sees her chance. She builds a comfortable life for herself with the unsuspecting "in-laws" --- until her blackmailing ex-lover shows up. Because blackmailing ex-lovers always show up.

(Bizarrely, someone in the mid-'90s read this book and thought, "This is perfect for a romantic comedy with Ricki Lake, Brendan Fraser, and Shirley MacLaine!" I have no explanation for this.)

Comparable to: Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, other noir authors. Also, several of Woolrich's novels have been adapted into films that you might have seen, including The Bride Wore Black and a little picture called Rear Window.

Representative quote: "The door was closed. It had a look of pitiless finality about it, as though it would always be closed like this from now on. As though nothing in the world could ever make it open again."

You might not like it if: You think you'd actually prefer the romantic comedy version of this story.

How to get it: The book is out of print, but you can get it from a library, a used bookstore, etc. Also! An actual noir adaptation, starring Barbara Stanwyck, is available to watch instantly on Netflix (under the title No Man of Her Own).

[Edit: In a thrilling turn of events, this book is now back in print, with a kicky cover --- see below. The Barbara Stanwyck film adaption, No Man of Her Own, however, is not currently available to stream on Netflix.]

Connection to previous Wreckage: Like Cornell Woolrich, Frederick Knott had his work adapted into a popular Hitchcock film starring Grace Kelly (Dial M for Murder). One of Knott's other plays is Wait Until Dark, which is Rec. #26.

[Originally posted 2/15/11.]

Rec. #343: Stories We Tell

What: In the twisty documentary Stories We Tell, filmmaker/writer/actress Sarah Polley traces the threads of a particular knot in her family's history. Several of the people involved also happen to be actors and/or writers, and some of them had already mentally claimed this particular story for themselves. Tension ensues.

What could have been a kind of icky family exploitation is instead a thoughtful meditation on how we choose to narrate ourselves --- and who gets the right to tell someone else's story.

Representative quote: "When you're in the middle of a story, it isn't a story at all but rather a confusion, a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood ... It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all, when you're telling it to yourself or someone else."

How to get it: Currently available to stream on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Sarah Polley had a key role in the third season of Slings and Arrows (Rec. #287). Her dad, though, was in almost every single episode of the series. It's true. He's that one guy. You'll see.

Rec. #342: The Beginning of Spring (abbrev.)

What: Penelope Fitzgerald, print-works, Moscow, 1913, pre-revolution, British business, comedy of manners, Tolstoyan bookkeeper

Representative quote: "With the ruthlessness of the timid, Miss Kinsman was coming after him now to suggest that she would be suitable for the post of governess at 22 Lipka Street."

Connections to previous Wreckage: Fitzgerald also wrote The Blue Flower (Rec. #164), The Gate of Angels (Rec. #79), and Innocence (Rec. #243).

The Beginning of Spring was part of List #22: A Few of the Best Books I Read in 2012.

Quote from a Fictional Character #31

 "She's a great reader and anything literary she's down on like a pack of wolves."

--- Sam Adams [on daughter Heather],

The Old Bank House, Angela Thirkell, 1949

Also:

Cheerfulness Breaks In (Rec. #240)

Summer Half (Rec. #40)

Quote from a Fictional Character #12

List #41: Audrey Hepburn Runs Around Paris

Happy Birthday, Miss Hepburn! No one else runs around Paris quite so well.

1. Sabrina (1954)

Who/what she's running from: Teenage awkwardness.

Who/what she's running with: In Paris, a makeover montage sequence. After Paris, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden.

Representative Audrey quote: "Paris isn't for changing planes, it's... it's for changing your outlook, for... for throwing open the windows and letting in... letting in la vie en rose."

2. Funny Face (1957)

Who/what she's running from: The potential trappings of commercial success.

Who/what she's running with: Fred Astaire, playing a Richard Avedon-esque photographer.

Representative Audrey quote: "Take the picture, take the picture!"

3. Love in the Afternoon (1957)

Who/what she's running from: A woman-of-the-world past that she's completely made up.

Who/what she's running with: Gary Cooper, whose man-of-the-world past is entirely real.

Representative Audrey quote: "You know who I am, Mr. Flannagan. I'm the girl in the afternoon."

4. Charade (1963)

[Rec. #97]

Who/what she's running from: Several murderous bad guys.

Who/what she's running with: Cary Grant, who is not who he claims to be.

Representative Audrey quote: "Of course, you won't be able to lie on your back for a while but then you can lie from any position, can't you?"

5. Paris When It Sizzles (1964)

Who/what she's running from: Writer's block.

Who/what she's running with: William Holden, the writer who needs to be un-blocked.

Representative Audrey quote: "It's quite all right, really. I once worked for an American novelist who could only write in the bathtub. I'm used to anything."

6. How to Steal a Million (1966)

[Rec. #205]

Who/what she's running from: The police.

Who/what she's running with: Peter O'Toole, the best partner in crime a girl could have.

Representative Audrey quote: "For a burglar you're not very brave, are you?"

Also, not in Paris:

Wait Until Dark (Rec. #26)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #3: Case Histories

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Kate Atkinson's first foray into crime fiction was a massive success and an Orange Prize nominee for best novel of 2005. An award-winning literary novelist [currently being celebrated for Life After Life], Atkinson proves with Case Histories that genre divisions are, frankly, kind of silly. 

She introduces us to private detective Jackson Brodie, whose work on three cold cases we see through alternating points of view. Brodie's investigations continue in One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News? (my personal fave), and Started Early, Took My Dog.

Comparable to: There's a bit of a Deborah Crombie flavor in the characterizations, but approached through a Mark Haddon-ish tone.

Representative quote: "Rosemary, their mother, said that she wished Olivia could stay at this age forever because she was so lovable. They had never heard her use that word to describe any of them. They had not even realized that such a word existed in her vocabulary."

You might not like it if: You are a bit squeamish about stories in which kids get disappeared.

How to get it: Available at most libraries and bookstores. Plus, there's a BBC1 series based on the Jackson Brodie novels. (I'm afraid to watch it because unless it's absolutely perfect, I will hate it so hard.)

Connections to other Wreckage: To review, the Jackson Brodie novels go in this order:

1. Case Histories

2. One Good Turn (Rec. #69)

3. When Will There Be Good News? [thebestbestbest] (Rec. #192)

4. Started Early, Took My Dog (Rec. #270)

[Originally posted 1/2/11.]

Rec. #341: Exactitudes

What: Exactitudes.com is a mesmerizing photo project that captures how clothing choice signals social group identity. "I wear this, so I belong to this, not to that" is a universal language, separating the rebels from the vagabonds from the mohawks. Plus, you know, cool pictures, like whoa.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Exactitudes was part of List #21: If I Had the Sort of Job Where I Could Spend Time Doing Things on the Internet, Here Are Some of the Things I Would Spend Time Doing. It's a good list.