Review: the Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston

First of all, an apology. I wrote this review ages ago and it has been stuck in Draft mode. I'm really annoyed about that because it's a book I've been telling friends to go out and buy right away! Luckily, it's not too late...

Web Goodhue is a jerk. He's down to his last friend, he's got no job, he sleeps all day and he is going nowhere. At least, that's what you see on the surface. There's a lot more to Web than you see at first glance - a lot of good in him, and a lot of hurt. When his best (only) friend Chev insists he take a job with their buddy Po Sin, Web doesn't have much choice and he's too tired to argue about it.

That's how Web ends up cleaning crime scenes. It's a gruesome job, but it has its own brand of humor. (Really, any job like that - crime scene cleanup, paramedics, embalmers, cops - you've got to have a sense of humor just to survive.) Web's better nature gets him sucked into the maelstrom, all to save the pretty girl.

The relationship between Web and Chev is the best part - if not the funniest part - of this book. On the surface, they're a couple of slackers, hanging out together and scrounging a living; dig a little deeper and there's a lot going on. Their lives have been intertwined since they were kids and it has brought them lifelong friendship, great joy and great tragedy. The reveal is very skillful - layer by layer, we get to see a little more of Web and what's happened to bring him to this point. By the end of the book he is a long way from the unemployed slacker we start out with.

The story is one wild ride - there are smugglers and tattoo artists and The Guild and blood and gore and sex and more. It was really, really funny (in a dark and morbid sort of way) and I genuinely liked Web and Chev, Gabe and Po Sin, and the crazy people they come up against. Mystic Arts had me rooting for Web and I was not disappointed. A great ride and a fun finish.

According to Wikipedia, Web's character will be further developed in future books. That's great news, because I loved Web and Chev, and I really want to see what happens to Web and what becomes of their friendship.

It's always a revelation to me when I read a book by an author who is new to me, only to find out there is a stack of older works out there that I need to get my hands on! Charlie Huston is the author of a number of books I am looking forward to reading: the Hank Thompson series (Caught Stealing, Six Bad Things, A Dangerous Man) and the Joe Pitt series (Already Dead, No Dominion, Half the Blood of Brooklyn, Every Last Drop and My Dead Body), among other books. You can also check out his blog, PulpNoir.com.

My copy of The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death was an Advanced Reader Edition; order yours at Amazon.com.

New to my library...

I have a lot of reading to do! I finished 5 books on my recent trip and I'm still not caught up - partly because three more ARCs came in while I was gone:

American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld
One More Year, by Sana Krasikov
Surviving Ben's Suicide, by C. Comfort Shields

New to my library

New ARC from Robot Binaries & Press:
I, Robot by Howard S. Smith. This appears to be an update of the Isaac Asminov story and I'm really looking forward to reading it.


Also...
Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why by Laurence Gonzales

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer

The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh by David Damrosch

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

This book is the fastest 600 pages I’ve ever read. I received the book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program and I have to admit that I was a little intimidated by its size. I am not a speed reader. I tend to dawdle - I re-read passages, linger over good descriptions and generally take my sweet time - but this book hooked me right from the start. I read the first 300 pages in a single sitting and was surprised at just how quickly it moved along.

The 19th Wife is a complicated braid of a story, reaching from today’s headlines back to the origins of the Mormon religion. It combines a modern-day murder mystery with the fictionalized account of a well-known plural wife and a wealth of “documents” telling her story. The research required would have been phenomenal and it could have been dry as dust. Instead, the mix of fact and fiction, narrative and document, cleverly tells a complex story in a very interesting way.

Jordan is a "lost boy": raised in a fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints community known as The Firsts, at age 14 his mother and two church elders left him along the side of the highway to fend for himself. Six years later, his mother stands accused of his father’s murder. As Jordan struggles with his mixed emotions about his mother, her faith and her crime, we learn the story of Ann Eliza Young, the 19th wife of Brigham Young, early leader of the Mormon Church. Her story is historical fiction but based on historical fact. Ebershoff’s “documents” - fiction, but written in the style of actual historical documents - provide abundant details of her life, her marriage, and her crusade to end polygamy in the US.

Ann Eliza’s story is by far the meatier portion of the book. There is so much to tell! The history is compelling and you can’t help but draw parallels - Ann Eliza and Jordan, both victimized by their mother’s faith. Their mothers - both 19th wives - unable or unwilling to see the pain they are causing or change their course. A host of people, male and female, whose lives were shaped by the words of a prophet. Their world has changed very little in the hundred years between the families in this book.

The 19th Wife was a fabulous read and I am already recommending it to people I know. I expect to find it on my “Best of 2008” list at the end of the year. You can order your copy here.