Brothers Keepers - Donald Westlake

   1975; 257 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Hard-boiled Crime; New York City Fiction; Urban Life.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    The Order of St. Crispin is certainly not the biggest group of monks within the Roman Catholic Church.  Indeed, at their monastery in New York City, there are only sixteen of the brethren.

 

    But they have found peace there.  Their abbey sits on a large plot of land, with high, windowless walls that make its monks forget that they live on busy Park Avenue.  It’s an island of calm in a sea of urban hustle-and-bustle.

 

    Technically they don’t own the site, but they’ve been paying a nominal annual rent for nigh unto two centuries.  It’s quite the pittance for some very valuable property, but everyone is happy about the arrangement.  Until now.

 

    Someone wants to buy the old monastery and the land it’s on, tear it down, and build stores in its place.  Holy Smokes!  Surely there’s a lease, and surely it specifies some sort of protection the Order has against this!  Let’s check it to make sure.

 

    Erm, yeah.  The only copy of the lease the monastery has seems to have disappeared.

 

What’s To Like...

    Brothers Keepers is told from the first-person POV of one of the monks at the abbey, Brother Benedict.  He’s actually the one who first uncovers the takeover plot, since one of his duties is to leave the monastery every Sunday, go to the local newsstand, and purchase the Sunday New York Times edition.

 

   The main storyline is of course figuring out how to save the monastery’s present location, but other plot threads crop up as well.  Finding the missing lease is critical, and if that can’t be done, then let’s see if we can find a copy of it.  The owner of the property certainly has one. 

 

    But there is an equally intriguing personal side thread.  Brother Benedict is asked to accompany the head abbot, Brother Oliver, when they go to discuss things with various worldly people who can influence the decision whether to raze the monastery or not.  This leads to Brother Benedict “Traveling” (the word is always capitalized in the story) by himself.  He’s exposed to “the Ways of the Flesh”, something he gave up years ago when he entered the brotherhood.  This leads to an additional plotline: will Brother Benedict recant his vows and leave the monastery?

 

    I liked the way Donald Westlake portrays life in a monastery in the modern world.  We get convincing glimpses into the lives and history of all sixteen monks, plus one very bedraggled priest who stops by once a week to take confession from each monk. 

    I also enjoyed going back in time—Brothers Keepers was written fifty years ago—to a very different world.  One with typewriters, smoking in public places, Ford Pintos, telephone operators, and a Sunday New York Times issue that will only cost you 60 cents.

 

    The ending resolves the main storyline and all of the secondary ones, although the door is left open as to whether Brother Benedict spends the rest of his life in a monastery.  But since Donald Westrlake passed away in 2008, I suspect this will remain a one-and-done novel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 340 ratings and 35 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.81/5 based on 723 ratings and 89 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    The Solinex Building was one rectangle repeated seven million times.  In glass, in chrome, and in what might have been but probably was not stone.  It was set back from the public sidewalk, leaving space for a fountain with a statue in it.  The statue was an abstract, but seemed to represent a one-winged airplane with measles which had just missed its landing on an aircraft carrier and was diving nose-first into the ocean.  At least that’s the way it looked to me.

    Apparently it looked otherwise to Brother Oliver.  “Lot’s wife,” he commented as we went by.  (loc. 966)

 

    “You’ve discussed this with Father Banzolini?

    “Only certain aspects of it,” I said.  “In confession.”

    “Oh.”

    “Father Banzolini thinks I’m temporarily insane.”

    Brother Oliver gave me a look of utter astonishment.  “He what?”

    “Well, he didn’t phrase it that way,” I said.  “He just said I wasn’t responsible for my actions at the moment.”

    Brother Oliver shook his head.  “I’m not entirely convinced a Freudian priest is a viable hybrid.”  (loc. 2104)

 

Kindle Details…

    Brothers Keepers presently sells for $7.99 at Amazon.  There are a couple dozen Donald Westlake novels available in e-book format, a majority of which fall in the $7.99-$9.99 price range.  Alternatively, you can wait and hope for them to be discounted, which happens on occasion.

 

“What a lot of Buildings there are,” I said.  And yet they want more.” (. . .) “It’s an edifice complex,” Brother Oliver explained.  (loc. 958)

    There’s very little profanity in the first half of Brothers Keepers, when Brother Benedict spends most of his time in the abbey.  Later on, when he’s immersed in worldliness, and has resumed using his birth name, the rate of cussing picks up.  Still, I only counted 33 instances in the whole story.  Plus one adult situation.

 

    The bigger issue was the ending.  I envisaged three or four possible ways to resolve the set of plotlines, and very much looked forward to seeing which path was used.  Instead, Donald Westlake comes up with a different one, which normally is a plus.  But here it’s unexciting, felt rushed, and disappointing.  At least to me.

 

    Still, the story kept me interested up until the end, with plenty of subtle wit and keen insight into living in the heart of New York City in a spiritual retreat.  But if you've never read anything by Donald Westlake, just don’t make this your introduction to his work.  Instead, choose one of the books in his “Dortmunder” series.  Every one of those is good.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  I was pleasantly surprised by nod to one of the most cutting-edge comedy acts tin television history: The Smothers Brothers Show.  It was one of my favorite TV shows at that time, and that still holds true.

Edgedancer - Brandon Sanderson

   2014; 268 pages.  Full Title: “Edgedancer: From the Stormlight Archive”.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Action-Adventure, Epic Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Meet Lift.  A child of the streets, and just ten years old.  Although that’s a bit misleading, since she’s claimed to be that age for three years in a row now.

 

    She survives on the streets by the use of her wits, plus a couple of handy talents she’s somehow picked up along the way.  Her traveling companion, Wyndle, is also a creature (a “spren”, actually) with some unusual abilities.

 

    Lift and Wyndle prefer to avoid attention.  As long as they can find a bit of food to eat and a place to sleep at night, they’re content.  When they can’t find those things, Lift uses one of her talents to find food and shelter.  For instance, she’s an excellent pickpocket and cat burglar.

 

    As is true with any street urchin, most people go out of their way to pretend not to notice her and Wyndle.  With one exception.  Lift calls him the Man in Black.  He’s been trailing them for quite some time now.  Doggedly.  Like a bloodhound on a scent.

 

    What could he possibly want?

 

What’s To Like...

    Edgedancer is set in Brandon Sanderson’s “Stormlight” fantasy world, but it is not technically part of it.  Instead, it's apparently a plot thread tangent featuring a minor character from Book 2, Words of Radiance.  The book opens with a 57-page-long Prologue (22% Kindle), and reportedly is a retelling of a portion of Book 2.  I’ve only read the first book, The Way of Kings, so it was all new to me.

 

    Both the Prologue and the main story follow the adventures of Lift and Wyndle.  The storyline is YA-oriented, which means I'm not the target audience.  Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed Brandon Sanderson’s storytelling.  The thrills-&-spills were nail-biting, and the banter between our two protagonists was witty throughout.

 

    The character-building is equally superb.  One expects the protagonists to be well developed, and indeed they are.  But the secondary characters, such as “the Stump”, the old philosopher, and “Darkness” (the Man in Black) are deeply detailed as well.

 

    There is also a coming-of-age aspect to the story.  Lift may have some fabulous talents, but she’s not a master of any of them, and almost certainly has other yet-to-be-discovered ones.  And she finds herself facing a bunch of formidable challenges, ranging from actions that will determine who rules, to caring about the poor and homeless.

 

    I liked the way the magic system worked.  Lift has been endowed with some powerful spellcasting (she labels them “Awesomeness”), but they have limitations and are not foolproof.  For instance, Awesomeness gets used up rapidly and is only replenished by eating lots of food.

 

Kindle Details…

    Edgedancer sells for $5.99 right now at Amazon.  The five full-length (and I do mean “full-length”) e-books in the series will cost you anywhere from $11.99 to $20.99 apiece.  This may sound pricey until you look at the page-count of each volume.  Brandon Sanderson has lots of other series and standalones for your reading pleasure, generally in the $8.99-$12.99 price range, many of which also have hefty page-counts.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 18,637 ratings and 782 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.14*/5, based on 153,409 ratings and 11,131 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “He told me tonight was a good night for sneaking.  I owed it to him.  Besides, I wanted to be here in case he got into trouble.  I might need to help.”

    “Why bother?”

    Why indeed?  “Someone has to care,” she said, starting down the hallway.  “Too few people care these days.

    “You say this while coming in to rob people.”

    “Sure.  I ain’t gonna hurt them.”

    “You have an odd sense of morality, mistress.”

    “Don’t be stupid,” she said.  “Every sense of morality is odd.”  (loc. 296)

 

    “What body part do you feel that you are most like?” he asked.  “Are you the hand, always busy doing work?  Are you the mind, giving direction?  Do you feel that you are more of a . . . leg, perhaps?  Bearing up everyone else, and rarely noticed?”

    (. . .) 

    Lift eyed him.  Great.  Angry twig running an orphanage; weird old man outside it.  She dusted off her hands.  “If I’m anything, I’m a nose.  ‘Cuz I’m filled with all kinds of weird crud, and you never know what’s gonna fall out.”  (loc. 1175)

 

 “Guard, do something!  There’s a dirty refugee in my grain!”  (loc. 888)

    I didn’t note any profanity in Edgedancer.  When the situation call for it, Brandon Sanderson uses the euphemisms.  “Starving” and “storming” replace f-bombs, and if you want to invoke a deity, you say “by Yaszir himself”.  I really like this way of handling fantasy world cussing.  There also were no “adult situations” that I recall. 

 

      Several reviewers felt the ending was rushed and incomplete.  They have a point, but I think such a finale is inherent when you’re penning a tangential storyline.  Edgedancer chronicles a phase of Lift’s life, but is not indispensable to the overarching storyline in the Stormlight series.

 

    Edgedancer is both a standalone book and set in what is one of Brandon Sanderson’s most popular series.  Although it’s technically true that, thanks to the Prologue, you don’t have to read the whole series first, I didn’t, and this is one of the few cases where I wish I had.

 

    Still, an author with the writing skills of Brandon Sanderson can make this work, and yey again, I found his storyline completely mesmerizing.  Despite me not being in the target audience, the book held my attention from start to finish.  Now I just have to get motivated to read Book 2 of the series.  It is a mere 1,328 pages long.

 

    9 Stars.  Speaking of lengthiness, can you think of any other book that’s 268 pages long and described as a “novella”?  I can’t.  But each of the five books in this series is about 1,300 pages long, so I guess in this case that label is applicable here.