Andersonville by Edward M. Erdelac

Published by Random House/Hydra on August 18, 2015

The first quarter of Andersonville is extraordinary. After that, the novel drifts into the conventions of horror fiction. Although the novel as a whole does not live up to the promise of its beginning, it remains a well-told tale.

A black man named Barclay Lourdes sneaks onto a train and assumes the identity of a captured Union soldier. Confederate soldiers take Barclay and their other prisoners to Camp Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia. It is a brutal place. Edward M. Erdelac describes the stench, disease, starvation, and cruelty that pervade the prison camp in vivid language. It is a place more suited to lice, maggots, and vermin than the prisoners who inhabit it.

The premise of Erdelac’s novel is that Andersonville (an actual prison camp during the Civil War) was intentionally made into a place of depravity so that demons would have an earthly environment in which they could thrive. Barclay, a practitioner of hoodoo and voudon, has been asked to investigate the camp by Quitman Day, whose western magic (the kind that involves pentangles) is ineffective inside the camp. The fact that Barclay and Day support opposites of the war provides a source of tension despite their childhood friendship. The fact that Barclay blames Day for his sister’s death creates more than tension.

Like many novels that rely upon magic and the supernatural to fuel the plot, I think Andersonville might have been a better book without the magic. The dramatic setting and Barclay’s multifaceted personality lend themselves to a more serious work of fiction. Still, the story is fun. It goes the way a horror fan would expect it to go. That might disappoint readers who are looking for surprises, but strong characters and fast action overcome the story’s weaknesses.

RECOMMENDED

A Poet of the Invisible World by Michael Golding

Published by Picador on October 6, 2015

Fate sends a baby with four ears flying into the arms of Habbib, who raises him in the Sufi lodge where Habbib sweeps floors. The dervishes view Nouri as blessed although Habbib conceals the child’s extra ears until Nouri’s seventh birthday. Nouri’s education begins at that point, guided by a Sufi master.

While he is devoted to his lessons, to the master, and to Habbib, Nouri prefers solitude until the arrival of a young fellow with golden hair named Vishpar. While Vishpar wishes to become a Sufi, Nouri isn’t quite sure about his own desires, although he knows they have something to do with Vishpar.

A Poet of the Invisible World is described as a “spiritual journey” in the tradition of Siddhartha. Unlike Siddhartha, who consciously pursued enlightenment, Nouri is carried along by events ... or perhaps by fate. In addition, Nouri’s quest is more about achieving self-awareness than spiritual enlightenment, although the two (at least in this novel) are clearly related: “the Sufi Way is the way of self-knowledge.”

The best part of the novel follows Nouri as he travels from place to place and encounters different cultures and philosophies. He experiences pleasure and horror. His journey has a physical as well as a spiritual element, given that Nouri is a young man who (like all young men and most older ones) has little control over the serpent between his legs. In various ways, the novel points out the connections that people of different backgrounds make due to the bonding power of emotions, even when they lack a common language.

Nouri’s path repeatedly and coincidentally intersects with that of another Sufi who is something of a nemesis, and that character’s story -- his own spiritual journey -- stands as a contrast to Nouri’s. They are both “tainted vessels” but they are tainted in different ways. I never quite understood or believed that character’s deep animosity toward Nouri, which eventually becomes the source of the novel’s (limited) dramatic tension. That struck me as both a contrivance and a relatively serious flaw.

Some of the things that happen after Nouri leaves the lodge are not well explained. Why isn’t he killed by marauders? How does he end up as a servant for the Sultan’s Right Hand? The story builds upon one contrivance after another that force the plot forward, but none of it is convincing.

To an extent, the book explores spiritual teachings and hypocrisies. To an extent, the novel is about the development of a poet and the things (like love) that inspire poetry, although it is disappointing (and a cop-out) that we see so fewof Nouri's verses. To an extent, the novel is about the series of journeys, the false and fresh starts, that comprise a life. To an extent, it is about accepting oneself and accepting others, even if the others have extra ears and are attracted to members of the same sex. The world is full of judgmental people who want to poison joy, and to an extent, the novel stands as a condemnation of narrow-mindedness, including prejudices that are based on on religious teachings.

The story is pleasant. Although it lacks the depth and complexity of Siddhartha, there is a virtue in its simplicity. I think Michael Golding sometimes tells the reader too much, particularly the tallying of all the times that Nouri feels closer to God or bonded to someone as the result of sharing an experience or a private thought. At other times, Golding doesn’t tell the reader enough. Golding often writes something like “Nouri’s understanding deepened,” prompting me to ask, “How exactly?” Much of Nouri’s progress along his spiritual path he keeps to himself, which again struck me as a serious flaw.

As much as I like the book’s message and admire Golding’s elegant prose, I can only give A Poet of the Invisible World a guarded recommendation. The plot is forced, most of the characters are insubstantial, and the messages are obvious. The novel works well enough if it is read as a lengthy parable, but it is a full-blown novel, not a parable, and there should be more to it than Golding delivers.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen

First published in Denmark in 2014; published in translation by Dutton on September 8, 2015

The Hanging Girl is tied with the first Department Q novel as my favorite entry (so far) in this excellent series. The mystery is complex but credible. The story builds suspense but doesn’t skimp on character development. Humor and drama are carefully balanced. The book is long but it never moves slowly and it ends in a burst of excitement.

A police sergeant on an outlying island finally gives up on a case he could never solve, but not without asking Department Q for help. Carl wants nothing to do with it. As usual, Rose bullies him into investigating the case, an unsolved hit-and-run that left a young girl’s body hanging from the tree branches in which it was entangled.

When Carl, Rose, and Assad look into the old case and a more recent death, Carl sees nothing worth investigating and wants to go home. As is the custom in these books, Carl is outvoted by his subordinates and the subsequent investigation leads to a deepening mystery.

As that investigation progresses, alternating chapters fill us in on a story of several missing women and of rivalries for the attention of Atu, a charismatic fellow who worships the sun. Another woman, not yet missing, is at risk.

An ongoing storyline in these novels concerns an incident in which Carl and his colleague Hardy were shot. Carl blames his cowardice for the fact that Hardy was left paralyzed. That subplot is advanced a bit in The Hanging Girl, more than it has been in recent novels. Jussi Adler-Olsen seems to be setting up a significant development in that subplot in an upcoming novel.

Also advancing is the evolving mystery of Assad’s background. Assad is my favorite character in the series, an outwardly gentle and decent man (most of the time) who clearly has a violent history. Each novel teases the reader with hits of Assad’s past, but it is the Assad of the present who plays a heroic and self-sacrificing role in The Hanging Girl.

I always learn something when I read one of these novels. This one features a good bit of interesting information about the intersection of astrology, astronomy, and theology. More importantly, it features a surprising plot that continues to twist until the truth is finally revealed.

RECOMMENDED

The Book of the Lion by Thomas Perry

Published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road on July 14, 2015

This is another entry in Mysterious Press’ Bibliomystery series of short stories that relate to books, bookstores, libraries, or manuscripts. Joyce Carol Oates, Jeffrey Deaver, and a number of other popular crime writers have contributed to the series.

A professor who is a leading expert on Chaucer gets a call from a mysterious stranger who claims to possess the only existing manuscript of Chaucer’s Book of the Lion. The manuscript is thought to have been lost, or possibly it never existed. Is its sudden appearance a hoax? A prank? A fraud?

Rather than offering to sell the manuscript, as a con artist might, the mysterious man has another scheme in mind. Of course, the scheme involves money. With the help of a wealthy friend who has a literary bent, the professor strives to learn the truth about the manuscript.

Thomas Perry peppers the story with snippets of history from the Middle Ages. The characters and tidbits about Chaucer’s works and medieval history make the background more interesting than the plot, which is fun but leads to an unsurprising ending. Still, the fast-moving story is a worthy entry in the series.

RECOMMENDED

A Clue to the Exit by Edward St. Aubyn

First published in Great Britain in 2000; published by Picador on September 1, 2015

Charlie Fairburn has six months to live. He’s a writer and he’d like to write about his impending death, but death is depressing so his agent (who wants him to continue writing screenplays) tells him to write something upbeat. Instead, Charlie sells his house, moves into a hotel, and begins work on a novel called On the Train, snatches of which appear as A Clue to the Exit moves forward.

As every starving artist intuits and as Charlie soon learns, luxury inhibits ambition, so Charlie embarks on a course that will relieve him of the burden of wealth and inspire creativity. His quest takes him to a casino, where parties and a beautiful gambler interfere with his ability to solve “the riddle of consciousness” via the literary exploration of death.

At some point, the beautiful gambler asks him why he’s writing what he’s writing -- what the point of it is -- and it’s a question I was asking, as well. She wants Charlie to meet his death by writing a celebration of life. Instead, he’s writing a story in which pretentious characters discuss the philosophical implications of quantum physics. While the questions they ask are worth pondering -- from Charlie’s dying perspective, the question is how to live consciously -- I agree with the gambler that the story is dry and lifeless. But that’s probably the point. As Charlie provides a pedantic explanation of the novel’s goals and the techniques he is using to achieve them, it becomes all the more clear that Charlie really doesn’t know what he wants to say.

It takes a shocking amount of time for a guy with six months to live who loves but is estranged from his daughter to figure out what is important in his brief remaining life. He gains some other worthwhile insights (people should not hurt others to make themselves happy) but they are less than profound. He also arrives at the conclusion that “consciousness and experience are synonymous.” I take his meaning (I feel the sun warming my face, therefore I am) but the words really aren’t synonymous.

I think Charlie's ultimate realization is that life is a collection of experiences which, again, is hardly a momentous epiphany. His last great insight is “the thing that is closest to us is the most mysterious” which made me wonder when Charlie was going to get around to dying. Someone who is devoting the end of his life to deep thoughts might want to come up with something more meaningful. Or better yet, opt for hedonism, since he’s still young enough to enjoy it.

Near the end of the novel, Charlie goes on something like a vision quest that struck me as laughable. Maybe it was intended as humor. My greatest reservation about this novel is that, while some scenes are amusing, I can’t tell whether it is meant to be taken seriously. If so, I can’t. If not, too many scenes are pointless to justify reading it as a comedy. There is an abundance of good writing here, but it never adds up to much.

NOT RECOMMENDED