Short Story Wednesday: "The Terrapin" Patricia Highsmith

 

Several times, Patricia Highsmith named this as her favorite of her short stories. It appeared in the October 1962 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. 

Victor, at eleven, lives with his mother in New York City. She insists that he wear short pants, recite poetry for her friends, and in many ways humiliates him. One day she brings home a terrapin with the idea of making turtle soup. Victor, friendless himself, begins to play with the terrapin. But his mother quickly begins preparation for her soup. She mercilessly throws the animal in hot water and carves him up. That night...well, you can guess if you haven't read it yourself. 

Many claim the mother in this story bore a strong resemblance to Highsmith's mother. Mary Highsmith told everyone she had tried to abort Patricia using turpentine.  Patricia did not attend her mother's funeral. 

 George Kelley

Kevin Tipple 

Steve Lewis 

Jerry House 

Crimereads 

 

Monday, Monday

                                                                 COVID

                Missed Kevin's graduation, Megan's visit, yes, all of it. 

                Who gets Covid a week after recovering from the flu? That red line shot up in a                                                                             second.

                                                        But tell me about you.  

FFB: ORDINARY GRACE, William Kent Krueger

 (from the archives)

ORDINARY GRACE won just about all the awards the crime fiction community has to offer that year, and it is easy to see why. In this book, Krueger takes a break from his series detective and steps into a story that is timeless, and the crime, although not incidental, is not the primary attraction here.

The story takes place in a small Minnesota town in 1961. (The period detail is superb). Nathan Drum is a minister. He was set to be a lawyer until the war took any desire for courtroom combat out of him. This career change doesn't sit well with his wife, an atheist, who saw her life unfolding differently. But the family grows, with a daughter and two sons. Our narrator is Frank, a thirteen year old, who also serves as our detective when things begin to go awry. Much of the drama concerns the Drums' relationship with a family down the road that represents the life Mrs. Drum hoped to have.

This is book is about prejudice, the striving of ordinary men to do good, the misreadings that children make of adult situations, the conflict between the religious and the nonreligious, the rush to judgment both a town and its ill-prepared police force almost makes.

It is a deep and lovely written book that is worth your time. Highly recommended.

Short Story Wednesday, Ron Scheer looks at LIVIN' ON JACKS AND QUEENS,

 

Robert J. Randisi, ed., Livin’ on Jacks and Queens

This is an entertaining anthology of 14 stories about gamblers and gambling in the Old West. Editor Randisi has assembled a notable gathering of western writers, providing an array of storytelling styles and imaginative treatments of the subject. The names of several contributors will be quickly recognized: Johnny Boggs, John D. Nesbitt, Matthew P. Mayo, Nik Morton, and Chuck Tyrell.

To these he has added a story of his own, plus the yarns of two women writers who may be new to some readers: Christine Matthews and Lori Van Pelt.

My favorites of the bunch include Ms. Matthews’ “Odds on a Lawman,” which tells of a succession of sheriffs who each assumes a tenure of service to a frontier town, before dying or disappearing for various reasons, on which the townsmen place bets until the turn of events claims one of them the winner. It’s an amusing and well-written tale that brings its Dickensian cast of characters to entertaining life, while we wait to see the fate that befalls each of the town’s series of sheriffs.

For a colorful portrayal of the daily life and business of a riverboat gambler, Nik Morton brings that world vividly to life in his story, “Hazard.” In “Acey-Deucey,” John D. Nesbitt’s central character is hired by a woman to retrieve an emerald pendant once given to her by a paramour. Finally locating the current owner of the gem, he has to win a game of cards before he can take possession of it.

Robert Randisi

Randisi’s story, “Horseshoes and Pistols” is so quirky, I kept thinking that it qualified as Twilight Zone material. In it, two men are forced to bet their lives on a game of horseshoes. Matthew Mayo’s “Pay the Ferryman” veers off in another direction, as a man on the run escapes into what might well be called “the heart of darkness.”

My favorite story in the collection was penned by a favorite storyteller, Chuck Tyrell. His “Great Missouri River Steamship Race” evokes a period of river travel from the point of view of a youngster working as a fireman aboard a steamship with a regular route between St. Louis and Fort Benton. Tyrell brings his gifts for characterization, dialogue, and suspense to this story with its echoes of Huckleberry Finn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

TracyK

Monday, Monday

 Reading RIPLEY UNDERGROUND, which is enjoyable. Love the linear, single POV plot.

Just recovering from the flu and jetlag so a very quiet week. Watching YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS, MURDERBOT, THE STUDIO and a Danish thriller series, SECRETS THEY KEEP, which was pretty good if scary.  

Rewatched BEFORE SUNSET. Always enjoy that trilogy. 

There was a nice article about Megan in the Washington Post. If you can get by the paywall. "Megan Abbott and the lure of private worlds" Lots of cool photos.

Finally feels like Spring here.

How about you? 

How about you? 

FFB: MICHIGAN ROLL, Tom Kakonis

 
Forgotten Books for May 30, 2008

Ken Bruen’s Forgotten Book

Michigan Roll by Tom Kakonis

The great neglected forgotten writer in my opinion is Tom Kakonis.

He wrote a wondrous series of novels featuring an ex professor who'd served time and is now eking out a precarious existence in Las Vegas under the dubious mentorship of a very shady acquaintance.
The writing is dark dangerous poetry and the violence when it comes, is sharp and shocking, an air of doomed menace looms over the novels like a palpable cloud.
Michigan Roll, perhaps the very best in the series,, is a true forgotten classic.
Kakonis abandoned this stunning series and now writes under a different name.
The atmosphere of being damned, of no hope, of no redemption is noir like you rarely read.
The characterization is superb and the sheer agony of seeing a decent man who never caught a break and knows he is screwed is heart wrenching.