Rex’s reviews of anything (but mostly books)

There must be a million coming-of-age novels, from classics like Emma and Tom Jones to modern novels such as The Secret Life of Bees. It’s a literary form that has been written from the viewpoint of both genders and from many an age, but it’s also a form that has a recognized structure and progression. At some crisis point in his or her life the youngster embarks on a journey, either physical or metaphorical, that takes him or her across the bridge from childhood to adulthood; concluding in realization of the powers and responsibilities of that adult. Sexual awakening is sometimes present, often hinted at, but not absolutely necessary. Note that I said “youngster”: coming of age usually focuses on the transition from chronological youth to adulthood; less often on transition from social youth to adulthood. And then there is the third form of transition: emotional… the probable topic of Scott Spencer’s Willing.

Avery Jankowsky’s personal crisis is palpable: Deirdre, the much younger woman with whom thirty-seven year old Avery lives, has dropped the bombshell that she has been and continues to be unfaithful. Said announcement rocks the freelance journalist’s tidy, circumscribed world; not least because his essentially hand-to-mouth finances mean that he’ll find it difficult to afford to live alone. What’s a boy to do? [note the personal disaster that is essential to a coming-of-age novel]

That’s when a white knight, in the form of Avery’s uncle Ezra, appears bearing an unusual, not to mention expensive, solution to both his fiscal and his personal difficulties. A bosom buddy of Ezra’s has comped the elderly gentleman for a two-week, all expenses paid sex tour. And not a sex tour to the unsavory brothels of Thailand; this one will… errr…. “introduce” its participants to a variety of gorgeous northern European women in such venues as Reykjavik, Oslo, Riga, and Copenhagen. Just imagine all those willowy, long-tressed ABBA lovers attentive to one’s every – and I do mean every – desire. How can Avery not leap at such a chance, especially when he can document the trip and sell his memoirs for a pretty penny – not to mention get even with the wayward Deirdre. And so that’s just what Avery does: he sells the rights to his story for the mid six-figures, climbs in a taxi, and heads for the Fleming Tours terminal at LaGuardia to join his fellow “tourists.”[note the journey (physical, if not also metaphorical) that is expected in the form]

A prime tenet of journalism is that the writer must remain outside the story, reporting rather than participating: “embedded” takes on an entirely different meaning for the freelancer surreptitiously (he hopes) recording his impressions of a journey that consists mainly of hopping from one bed to another; from pair of willing (financially, anyway) arms to pair of willing arms. Avery’s intent to remain a disinterested participant, however, will not last: Sigrid and then Nina will see to that.

But if Avery was envisioning an idyllic romp in a series of white-sheeted featherbeds with willing blond Barbies, his hopes are soon dashed: the romps are anything but idyllic, the beds aren’t feathered, and the local hookers aren’t Barbie-esque; and to make matters worse, there is strife among the ranks of the tourists – but Avery ain’t seen nothing yet: the biggest surprise of all is yet to come… [here’s where that “bridge” should be crossed] Read the rest of this entry »

Life can change forever in the blink of an eye. Edgar Freemantle learned that tidbit when the irresistible force that was his body collided with the immovable object that was a 100-ton crane. That meeting scrambled his brain, crushed his hip, and severed his right arm. Six months later, partially rehabbed and newly divorced, Edgar’s shrink suggested that he needed a hobby. “I used to draw a little,” he mused. Life can change forever in the blink of an eye, or it can take a little longer: Edgar Freemantle may have thought his changes were over, but he was wrong.

Edgar has departed the icy winter of Minnesota for Florida; taking up residence in an isolated beach house he’d rented sight unseen. “Big Pink,” as he calls his temporary home, has somehow become his Muse: from that very first night he began to draw and then to paint; works of a depth and power he’d never before sensed within him. It is as if something has flipped a switch inside his raddled brain: the art simply pours out of him. Some of it he could swear he’s painted with his right arm: those are the ones that frightened him…

The only other residents of Duma Key are Edgar’s landlady, eighty-something Elizabeth Eastlake, and her companion Wireman. These three disparate people are bound by more than mere geography, however; for a thing of great evil is awakening on the tiny island. Awakening for the first time in eighty years, awakening even as the only person who remembers how to defeat it slips slowly into the darkness within her mind.

If Edgar Freemantle thinks the changes in his life are done, he has another think a-comin’. Read the rest of this entry »