Character Connection

Doc Holliday. To most of us, it's a name out of legend. The Wild West. The Shootout at the O.K. Corral. Wyatt Earp. But there's a real man behind the myth and in this work of fiction, author Mary Doria Russell tries to find him. I must admit upfront that the O.K. Corral, etc. is not much more than a name to me. I've never seen Wyatt Earp or Tombstone or any of those movies. (I have, apparently, seen enough in channel surfing that I could not for the life of me get Kevin Costner's image out of my head as I read about Wyatt. And now that I've looked up Tombstone I see why Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer kept making appearances in my imagination too). That said, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I was a little taken aback at first by the style. It reads very much like nonfiction but the author says straight up at the beginning that it's not. I kept thinking that I was reading a nonfiction prologue and the story would begin later. But eventually I realized it was just the style of the book so I settled in and got comfortable. It worked. Telling the story in that way made Doc seem like more of a real person. The legend doesn't need more layers. This was a stripping away to get at the man underneath. And I liked him. A lot. The cards are stacked against him from the beginning. Born with a cleft palate before the Civil War, he shouldn't have stood a chance. But his family came through and shaped him to be a Southern gentleman. His uncle operated and corrected the palate. His mother taught him manners and music. A cousin taught him horsemanship and how to choose his battles. A--friend?…

Lee Smith's Oral History meanders through about three generations of Cantrells, an Appalachian family. The lynchpin of their history is Red Emmy, a woman named as a witch by the earlier generation. We're not told much about Red Emmy in the story. She might be present for about 20 pages. But she sets her mark on this family, alright. The "facts" are few: she grew up on "the wild side" of Snowman Mountain, where few people could go; her father kept her isolated; she had a head full of red hair, always a bit of a rarity; she "took up" with Almarine Cantrell for a few months; and when she was out of his life, the family luck went all to hell. In the remote "hollers" of Appalachia in the 1870s, you can see why she would get a bad reputation out of this. Of course, everyone claimed she was a witch and that she had cursed the Cantrells. It's never clear in the book exactly what was going on with her. In the author interview at the back of the book, Lee Smith says this was a deliberate decision to keep some mystery at the heart of the story. I think it was a good choice. I find myself thinking about Red Emmy. We're told the local legends in the book, that her mean old Daddy sold her to the Devil and she cast a spell on Almarine. He was lucky to escape with his life, but when he did get away from her, she cursed him and all his descendants. But if we discount superstition, what would her story really be? What kind of life would lead to this kind of legend? I think she would have been abused by her father in some way. He would have…

In Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae, late of the Texas Rangers, has retired to life on a cattle ranch. His partner, Captain Woodrow Call, does all the work and Gus does all the drinking and talking. Gus is happy that way and, truth be told, so is Captain Call. Gus sits around and drinks all day, watching everyone else work, then ambles into town at night for a game of cards and/or a visit with the town prostitute, Lorie. Gus would be pretty content spending the rest of his days this way. When Captain Call decides that he's going to uproot everyone and drive a herd of cattle to Montana, Gus loudly huffs and puffs and complains, but he goes right along with him. And that's when we get to see what kind of man Gus really is. The man who's happy lazing around the ranch is definitely a part of him, but he is at his best in a saddle and on a trail. He talks and talks and talks to anyone who will listen and to many who wish he'd shut up. His sense of humor cracked me up! He doesn't let reclusive Captain Call withdraw completely. He keeps up the spirits of the younger men. He gives a few inspirational talks, but mostly he just aggravates them until they do what he thinks they should do. He has a very strong, well-defined sense of right and wrong. He does not hesitate to enforce the law, even when it would be easier to let things slide. Personal loyalties do not come before his oath to uphold order. He's had many love affairs and even a couple of marriages, but the woman he thinks of almost constantly is Clara. She's the "one that got away." He…

Enzo, the narrator of The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, is a dog. But not just any dog; he believes that he has gained the wisdom to come back in his next life as a man. I agree. If anything, he's probably too wise to be one of us. I loved Enzo from his first sentence. I have to own up to being more of a cat person, but I do love well-behaved dogs too. I have zero patience for dogs who yap and bark and jump all the time. But the quiet ones who will have your back when you need them? They rock. Enzo is one of those. Enzo sees all the ways that people hurt each other, in big ways and in small. Denny, his owner, goes through some serious trouble with his in-laws after his wife's death. Enzo can't understand why people would act that way. Everyone is hurting in that situation. Why make it worse by lashing out and being nasty? He comments on the fact that people rarely just listen. Even when we appear to be listening, we're really just formulating our responses to what the other person is saying and then derailing the conversation in the direction we want it to go. He feels superior to us in that respect. He knows that he can't verbally communicate, but he knows that his value as a listener is unmatched. Enzo also sees that we spend too much time worrying about the past and the future instead of the here and now. That's where the title comes from. Denny, a race car driver, has won many races when rain started falling because he has a talent for letting all conscious thought go and just reacting to what's in front of him.…

Briar Wilkes from Cherie Priest's Boneshaker just tries to keep her head down and feed herself and her teenage son. The problem is, her life is overshadowed by her relationships to a couple of Seattle's most (in)famous figures. First of all, there's her father, Maynard. He's a legend for going back into the city during the evacuation and letting criminals out of the city jail. Briar doesn't know what to think of his motives, but most believe that he acted out of a spirit of fairness and justice. The men in the jail hadn't done anything terrible. Why should they be doomed to breathe in the Blight and either die a horrible death or be doomed to roam as mindless, insatiable "rotters"? On the other hand, when she was younger and more naive, Briar made the tremendous error of marrying Leviticus Blue. He's the one who basically destroyed the city. He was building a machine for the Russians that would be able to simultaneously break through the permafrost of Alaska and bring out the gold rumored to be hidden underneath. On a test run, he turned his "Boneshaker" machine loose on the city, headed straight for the financial district's vaults, killed at least dozens, and disturbed the earth so much that the gas known as the Blight burst forth, killing the lucky ones and zombifying the unfortunates. So you see Briar's problem. She's trying to forget the past, but those who know who she is just won't leave her alone. Constantly ruining her equipment at the water purification plant where she works and making snide comments to her, her tormenters just won't quit. She lacks the money to start fresh somewhere else so she just soldiers on the best she can.  She dreams about moving to another city where no…

CeeCee Honeycutt. Bless her heart. She's only twelve years old and her Mama's crazy as a bedbug. She runs around town in old pageant dresses and tiaras, making a laughingstock of herself. She's living in 1951 when she was the Vidalia Onion Queen and isn't taking care of her daughter; CeeCee is the caregiver in this relationship. When Mrs. Honeycutt tragically dies, CeeCee's deadbeat dad decides to let a relative on her mother's side take her to Savannah to live. CeeCee is a little too strong for her own good. Everyone knows that she must be hurting more than she's showing but she just won't let herself go enough to mourn, both for her mother and her own childhood. She's just used to hiding her feelings and being the strong one. And now she really feels abandoned by her dad and unsure of where she's landed. After the rocky beginning her life has had, now she has to start over and try to learn to trust this new family of women she's landed in. To her credit, she lets go and tries. She still has flashbacks to her time with her mother but she does her best to put those memories aside and live in the present in Savannah. She's not sure what to think of all the caring, slightly eccentric women she's now surrounded by. She sits back and watches for a while to see what she thinks. She's a lonely soul. Before her mother's death, all her schoolmates teased her about her crazy mom. No one would get to know her and give her a chance. She really wants a friend. Just one. She was friends with her 80-year-old neighbor but she wants a friend her own age. She's an avid reader and she wants one of those…

Oooh, Cal Morrisey. *sigh* The leading man in Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie, Cal is a dreamboat. Yes, it's an old-fashioned word but that's what he is. He's good-looking, he's effortlessly charming, he owns a successful business, he's a great cook and a loyal friend... He has it all. But the charm is more out of habit than a genuine desire to charm the woman he's with. He's a heartbreaker. He doesn't set out to be one, but women can't resist him and he's not ready to settle down so he's left a string of disappointed women in his wake. Then he meets Minerva Dobbs. Min puts him in his place. She sees that the charm isn't genuine and calls him on it. Cal is kind of angry at first but then she intrigues him. Who is this woman who sees through him? Does she see the real Cal underneath everything? He tries to stay away from her but they keep getting thrown together. I believe Cal was described basically as tall, dark and handsome.  Pierce Brosnan popped into my head and wouldn't leave.  So this is my Cal. Cal does have a deep insecurity. He's dyslexic and he struggled with it in school. His father was very hard on him. Anyone wanting to push Cal's buttons just calls him stupid. Stand back when it happens because he has a temper too. Cal sees past Min's apparent dislike of men and starts to rebuild her trust and her own self-confidence. Whenever she needs him, he's there whether she calls him or not. Min is very self-conscious about her weight. Some women are just born with curves and no amount of dieting will change that; Min is one of those women. She sees herself as fat because of her horrible mother…

Karou, the main character in Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone, is a 17-year-old girl attending an arts school in Prague. She has funky blue hair; a short and awesomely sarcastic best friend; a beautiful, arrogant ex-boyfriend; amazing artistic ability; and a double life. Karou carries around a sketchbook with her wherever she goes and her friends at school love looking through it every week to check out the continuing adventures of The Chimera, creatures cobbled together from bits and pieces of all kinds of animals. There's Esa the snake women, Brimstone with his ram's horns, a crow-like creature whose name I can't remember, and more. All of her friends think that Karou is making up The Chimera and their adventures. She's not--they're the closest thing to family that she has. Karou is just awesome. She and Zuzanna play off each other really well. Both smartasses but also genuinely caring about each other. She and the ex-boyfriend are fun to watch. He with his narcissism and she unrelentingly knocking him down a peg or two. She and Akiva are...magic. She manages to attend school and at the same time use this weird portal system to carry out errands for Brimstone, collecting teeth from around the world for him. She might be in Siberia one day and in Borneo the next. She questions Brimstone, but when he continually rebuffs her curiosity about the teeth, she mostly respects his wishes. But you can't blame a girl for being curious, right? She's hugely loyal to her adoptive family and is willing to go to the ends of the earth for them. Karou has a huge heart and she's not afraid to act on her convictions. She knows a tooth trader who wished for knowledge and got it, at the cost of his…

So we already know that I love Scout and Atticus. After my most recent re-read of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, I realized that I've never fully appreciated Jem. The book covers a pivotal few years in Jem's life, between the ages of roughly 10 and 13. Those are some pretty formative years for anyone, but the things that Jem sees set the course for the rest of his life. At the beginning of the book, Jem is a pretty typical 10-year-old. He likes to play and he's curious about Boo Radley, the neighbor who never comes out of his house. He's not aware enough of the outside world yet to realize that some of his actions, like playing about Boo's life, might hurt Boo's feelings if he realized what was going on. That slowly changes though. He's always pretty patient with Scout, a precocious younger sister who would try almost anyone's patience.  He gets frustrated with her at times, but overall, they play well together and she looks up to him.  He generally explains things so that she can understand them.  As he gets older, he starts to condescend to her a little bit, which she resents, but even then he seems to be genuinely trying to teach her what he's learned about life. Jem at first takes his father for granted. He's just Atticus, and he doesn't really do anything, like play sports or hunt or fish. But after one pivotal scene, Atticus gains Jem's everlasting respect. It's not really his actions, it's his explanation for why he chooses not to use his talent for shooting. He explains it in a way that Jem can understand, and Jem begins to emulate his father. ***SPOILERS (highlight the section below to read them)*** By the summer and fall…