Pop culture round-up!
She was a prophet in a land that had been stripped of its gods: a healer of the sick, a beacon in the night. She reached into steel-dark clouds to control the storms of the rainy season, seizing lightning as her reins and bending them to her will to turn harvests into gold. She called the voices to heel and banished them.
The marketing for The Hacienda employs the phrase "Rebecca meets Mexican Gothic", and that's pretty good. It takes place in the immediate aftermath of Mexico's war for independence from Spain, and aside from being a pretty good debut novel in and of itself, it made me interested in finding out more about that period of Mexico's history. I tried to read Fehrenbach's Fire and Blood a few years back but got bogged down while I was still in the pre-Colombian era; that might be a good book to try an audio version of.
Speaking of audio books, I decided to kick off spooky season with Skeleton Crew, which has some really amazing voice talent: Will Patton, Matthew Broderick, Paul Giamatti, Michael C. Hall, Dylan Baker. Patton does a lot of audio work, including all the audio versions of James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels.
Riding in the car, I said a silent farewell. Farewell to the fantastic breakfasts, the pineapple like I’d never tasted and probably never will taste again. Farewell to the fresh mango and papaya, farewell to the Thai maid and the fresh, clean, cotton sheets on the king-size bed every night. Farewell to the incredible free lunches under the circus tent with fresh meat flown in from America every day. Roast lamb, roast potatoes and green beans at 110 degrees, in accordance with British Equity. Farewell to the cakes and teas and ices at four. Farewell to the Thai driver with the tinted glasses and the Mercedes with the one-way windows. Farewell to the single fresh rose in the glass on my bureau every morning. And just as I was dozing off in the Pleasure Prison, I had a flash. An inkling. I suddenly thought I knew what it was that killed Marilyn Monroe.
I honestly have no idea how I never read this as a teenager. I loved diaries; The Killing Fields was one of my favorite movies; and David and I used to watch Terrors of Pleasure, which we had on VHS recorded off HBO, over and over again. I'd love to see that again but it doesn't appear to be streaming anywhere. (See, this is why the shout of the olds is "Don't get rid of your physical media!", not that I still have a VCR I could play it on.)
Mike Flanagan's The Fall of the House of Usher seems like it departs even more radically from the source material than either Hill House or Bly Manor and I do not care.
Click to viewNew trailer for True Detective: Night Country.