BookOpinion

BOOKOPINION REVIEW: “House”, a highly stylized work of Christian fiction, is a collaboration between well-read authors, Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker.

Four individuals, in anguish of soul, bitter and disillusioned with their lives, find themselves lost in the remote back woods of Alabama and become stranded at the Wayside Inn, a seemingly peaceful, old world manor, a site of refuge. But within minutes of page turning, it becomes apparent that the Wayside Inn is no genteel haven but rather a house most haunted, which literally mirrors the desperate, hopeless issues and human flaws of each character.

Into this cauldron of unresolved problems enters White, owner of the house and a purely evil entity who unequivocally states that he has “killed God and demands one dead body….Game over at Dawn.” Desperate to escape, Jack and Stephanie and Randy and Leslie attempt to find a way out of a confusing mass of hallways and meandering, endless basement passages only to realize that there is truly no way out. Anguish, regret and bitterness rapidly become anger, malice and self-preservation as they attempt to choose who should die so that the others may live…a blood sacrifice has been demanded. Into this rather hysterical scene, appears a young, innocent girl, Susan, who promises to lead them to safety if they will but do exactly as she says. Will they place their pathetic lives into Susan’s youthful hands or succumb to the rapidly rising disbelief, panic and hateful manipulations rising in their hearts? Will anyone escape or will the House claim each of their lives?

If you are a Frank Peretti or Ted Dekker fan, this unusual book is probably a must read for you. However, the gap between the unredeemed, anguished soul and the merciful, atoning love of a welcoming God was never quite bridged. The story became slightly confusing, the dialogue stiff and the outcome, while satisfying to a degree, left me a bit frustrated. “House” has the makings of an excellent story but the book taken in its entirety is less than gratifying. Frankly, I gave it a C+ and admit to looking forward to a more readable, enthralling novel from Peretta and Dekker in the near future.

But don’t allow “House” to cloud your view of the fact that we have here two master storytellers whose books are vivid, exciting and inspiring. Perhaps this work was an experiment that went slightly awry in the authors’ desire to present divine atonement as an open offer to any who will accept it…let’s hope their next collaboration will achieve that.

– Rebecca Crosswy

The 12th Annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books starts this Friday. This year, the Festival is adding an online portion to its offerings for those who can’t make it. Among the additions will be live chat sessions with various popular authors.

Here is the tentative schedule for this upcoming weekend’s chats:

Saturday - April 28, 2007

• Cat Cora at 12 p.m.

• Greg Palast - 1 p.m.

• TC Boyle - 2 p.m.

• Walter Mosley - 3:30 p.m.

Sunday - April 29, 2007

• Neal Pollack - 12 p.m.

• Denise Hamilton & Janet Fitch - 2 p.m.

• Jane Smiley - 3 p.m.

• Michael Connelly - 4 p.m.

For information on the live chat, click here. 

For more on the Festival of Books, go to the site, here.

Harlan Coben's new novel, The Woods, was released this past week and is now listed in the Top 30 bestsellers on Amazon.

Coben said he got the idea for his novel recalling when he was a counselor at a co-ed summer sleep-away camp when he was 17 years old.

"It was a great deal of responsibility, but it is always the 'What if?' that I ask. In this story, Paul Copeland was a counselor at a camp when he was 17 years old," Coben said. "Four teenagers go into the woods and disappear — one of them is his sister. Twenty years has passed, he has never gotten over that moment and now he's a prosecuter. He's working on a rape case and something comes up that makes him think his sister may still be alive and may make them think that what happened in those woods years ago was nothing like they imagined."

The Library Journal says, "The exploration of ordinary people with life-shattering secrets is a common thread in Coben's novels. Instead of this premise becoming stale, though, he has created another surprising and emotional story that will remain with the reader long after the last page is finished. One of Coben's best, and a necessary purchase."

Here is an excerpt released from the prologue of The Woods. Or, listen to Scott Brick as he reads the opening of the novel. A video link is below.

I see my father with that shovel.

There are tears streaming down his face. An awful, guttural sob forces its way up from deep in his lungs and out through his lips. He raises the shovel up and strikes the ground. The blade rips into the earth like it’s wet flesh.

I am eighteen years old, and this is my most vivid memory of my -father—him, in the woods, with that shovel. He doesn’t know I’m watching. I hide behind a tree while he digs. He does it with a fury, as though the ground has angered him and he is seeking vengeance.

I have never seen my father cry before—not when his own father died, not when my mother ran off and left us, not even when he first heard about my sister, Camille. But he is crying now. He is crying without shame. The tears cascade down his face in a freefall. The sobs echo through the trees.

This is the first time I’ve spied on him like this. Most Saturdays he would pretend to be going on fishing trips, but I never really believed that. I think I always knew that this place, this horrible place, was his secret destination.

Because sometimes, it is mine too.

I stand behind the tree and watch him. I will do this eight more times. I never interrupt him. I never reveal myself. I think he doesn’t know that I am there. I am sure of it, in fact. And then one day, as he heads to his car, my father looks at me with dry eyes and says, “Not today, Paul. Today I go alone.”

I watch him drive off. He goes to those woods for the last time.

On his deathbed eighteen years later, my father takes my hand. He is heavily medicated. His hands are rough and calloused. He used them his whole life—even in the flusher years in a country that no longer exists. He has one of those tough exteriors where all the skin looks baked and hard, almost like his own tortoise shell. He has been in immense physical pain, but there are no tears.

He just closes his eyes and rides it out.

My father has always made me feel safe, even now, even though I am now an adult with a child of my own. We went to a bar three months ago, when he was still strong enough. A fight broke out. My father stood in front of me, readying to take on anyone who came near me. Still. That is how it is.

I look at him in the bed. I think about those days in the woods. I think about how he dug, how he finally stopped, how I thought he had given up after my mother left.

“Paul?”

My father is suddenly agitated.

I want to beg him not to die, but that wouldn’t be right. I had been here before. It doesn’t get better—not for anyone.

“It’s okay, Dad,” I tell him. “It’s all going to be okay.”

He does not calm down. He tries to sit up. I want to help him, but he shakes me off. He looks deep into my eyes and I see clarity, or maybe that is one of those things that we make ourselves believe at the end. A final false comfort.

One tear escapes his eye. I watch it slowly slide down his cheek.

“Paul,” my father says to me, his voice still thick with a Russian accent. “We still need to find her.”

“We will, Dad.”

He checks my face again. I nod, assure him. But I don’t think that he is looking for assurance. I think, for the first time, he is looking for guilt.

“Did you know?” he asks, his voice barely audible.

I feel my entire body quake, but I don’t blink, don’t look away. I wonder what he sees, what he believes. But I will never know.

Because then, right then, my father closes his eyes and dies.

Published by Duton on April 17 and at 416 pages, The Woods is now on sale for 40% off at Amazon.

NBC News anchor and bestselling author Tom Brokaw sits down with Google as part of their Authors@Google series. His book, The Greatest Generation, about those who came of age during the Great Depression and World War II and helped build modern America, was an overnight sensation.

"It resonated in a way that I could not have predicted, mostly with people this age — the children and grandchildren of that generation," Brokaw says. "And that generation will to this day say to me 'oh, but it wasn't about me, you should have known my buddy, or you should have known the family down the block what they went through.' The collective humilty and modesty and pride in what they did. They made possible, I believe, the lives we have to day. Final analysis, I describe myself as a doorman. I open a door and said there are some stories we need to hear, this way, please. And it's been very gratifying to have the response it did."

Brokaw developed the book by collecting stories and letters over 15 years from a cross-section people who lived during that era.

"I think it's the greatest generation any society has produced," Brokaw says. "Some people have challenged that. My easy answer is that's my story and I'm sticking to it."

And how is this current generation doing?

"I think they are doing exceptionally well. And the reason I think that is because I see evidence of it all around the world," Brokaw says. "I see young doctors, doctors without borders who are doing things. I see a lot of people in uniform in Afghantistan and Iraq, who are trying to win hearts and minds and kill the bad guys simultaneously. I see the work that is done in communities in this country. And the Greatest Generation will say of all of you that they are in awe of you — that you are so much better educated, you earn so much more money, you travel so much more these days than they did. Then they always kind of laugh and say…we had so little, we wanted them to have everything and we probably spoiled them a little."

Author Daniel H. Wilson discusses his humorous book “How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion” at the Google offices in this lengthy clip released by Google.

Wilson has a PHD in robotics and decided to tackle the subject that is a continual theme from Hollywood by asking fellow scientists what they would do in the event robots did attack.

Wilson says humans aren’t in any imminent danger from a robot rebellion or robots gone mad.

“Right now what we mostly see are robots that are just designed to do one thing,” Wilson says. “Let’s pretend you’re a Roomba and you’re like ‘I’m sick of this! I’m killing everybody!’ Then you’re like, ‘Wait a minute, I’m three inches tall. I’m a circular disc covered with suction cups.’ I just imagine that’s what it would think. So, it can be difficult.”

The possibility of a robot rebellion is still in the distant future, so humans need not worry, but Wilson says “There are robots that are designed to kill people. They call in ‘increasing lethality’.”

It’s not those robots that he focusses on in his book. It’s more of the consumer-related, I, Robot, type of creation that he hones in on.

“In my opinion if you are standing in front of a giant robot with tank treds and a gun aimed at your head and everytime you walk and the gun kind of tracks like that. It’s pretty clear what kind of a situation you are in. But if your Roomba is doing donuts and there is a red LED blinking on it and it’s covered in cat fur and you can’t find your cat or something — I don’t know, this is just sort of stream of consciousness at this point — you know, that’s a little more sinister because you live with it and it’s in your house. It’s happening more and more. We’re getting more consumer robots, so I tried to stick with that.”

With the final installment of Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events completed, fans can will soon get one more taste from author Daniel Handler with Lemony Snicket's Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid. The new book is scheduled for release in just a couple of days on April 24.

The book description from the publisher says, "Life is a turbulent journey, fraught with confusion, heartbreak, and inconvenience. Unfortunately, this book will not help. Instead, this book of wit and wisdom offers a selection of alarming but inescapable truths from the work of Lemony Snicket, along with selections from his unpublished papers and remarks he has made at dinner parties and anarchist riots."

The Lemony Snicket AuthorTracker also revealed the following about the book: "We're sorry to tell you that, at the end of April, Lemony Snicket will publish an unsettling new book called Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid. In it, Mr. Snicket serves up nearly a hundred inviolable life lessons that no else would dare admit. Many are drawn from A Series of Unfortunate Events, like, 'It is always cruel to laugh at people, although sometimes if they are wearing an ugly hat it is hard to control yourself.' Other wisdom has been prepared by Mr. Snicket solely for this solemn publication, such as, 'Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, and recite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator.' "

Pre-orders of "Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid" are available from Amazon, here.