The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen by Thomas Caplan

Published by Viking on January 10, 2012

“It’s as though Matt Damon really were Jason Bourne” says one of the characters in The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen.  That pretty well sums up the plot.

The novel begins with the shooting of a banker by a credit card holder who is understandably miffed by the bank’s unconscionable 30 percent interest rate.  The true motivation for the murder remains a mystery while the rest of the story unfolds.  The plot is standard James Bond fare:  the theft and sale of nuclear weaponry must be thwarted.  This time the thief is an American providing disarmament expertise and assistance to the Russian government.  Thomas Caplan deserves credit for designing an interesting plan to steal the nuclear material that appears to be credible (having no such expertise of my own, I don’t know if the plan is realistic or sound, but I had no trouble accepting it at face value).  The bad guys are a banker turned diplomat named Philip Frost and a wealthy but unscrupulous financial wizard named Ian Santal.  The good guy is a military intelligence officer turned superstar actor named Ty Hunter.  Unlikely though it may seem, the president himself recruits Hunter to spy upon Frost and Santal.

Early on, the novel compares Hunter’s lodgings to those that might be favored by Sean Connery or Cary Grant.  Hunter is clearly in that mold:  sophisticated, good looking, charming while remaining a bit aloof.  He is, of course, irresistible to women, except (initially) for Isabella Cavill, the elusive romantic interest he can’t have and therefore desires (he has a similar experience with the “very delicious” Maria Antonia Salazar).  Sadly, characters crafted from a mold tend to be unoriginal, unimaginative, and uninteresting, all adjectives that apply to Ty Hunter.  The other characters are equally bereft of personality.

The plot is somewhat more entertaining than the shallow characters who propel it.  Caplan is either well-traveled or good at faking it; as Hunter bounces around the globe, Caplan’s descriptions of terrain, customs, and local libations add color to the story.  There isn’t much in the way of intrigue or suspense:  Caplan tends to tell the reader what the bad guys are doing (and why) as they’re doing it, shortly before the good guys intuit the answers on the basis of scant information.  This leaves little room for the reader’s imagination to exercise.  Fortunately, the story becomes more interesting as it progresses, becoming moderately engaging as it moves into the home stretch.  Unfortunately, it culminates in a surprisingly dull ending.

Caplan’s writing style is serviceable if sometimes ponderous.  Dialog is occasionally stilted and often banal (a screenwriter will need to step in and smooth it out when the book is filmed -- and it practically screams “film me!”).  Romantic scenes are sappy.  At least initially, the pace is slow for a thriller/spy novel.  It’s never dull but it doesn’t begin to sizzle until the second half.  Even then, action scenes are lackluster; they read as if they were copied from a tae kwon do training manual.  Characters engage in unrealistically glib conversations while trying to escape from explosions and fires.

The conclusion seems to set up another novel featuring Ty Hunter and some of his supporting cast.  If Caplan writes it, I intend to skip it.  The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen isn’t wholly unlikeable but it didn’t leave me in eager anticipation of its sequel.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Liminal People by Ayize Jama-Everett

Published by Small Beer Press on January 10, 2012

The Liminal People oozes atmosphere from the first tense scene, as Taggert, doing a drug deal for his boss, is double-crossed in an unfriendly environment. Fortunately, Taggert can take care of himself: he has the ability to read and alter bodies; he swims in the biorhythms of the people who surround him. He can induce sleep, inflict pain, grow tumors, cause death. He can produce the same changes in his own body: increase muscle mass, boost adrenalin, toughen skin, deaden nerves, heal wounds. He isn't Superman but he's a tough dude. He can also manipulate his cellular structure to alter his appearance.

When Taggert returns to his Moroccan home, he finds a message from Yasmine, the woman he loves even though she rejected him as a freak. Yasmine needs help and Taggert is soon jetting to Marseilles to find her. Taggert's quest takes him to London in search of Yasmine's child, Tamara, who turns out to have powers of her own -- as do other people he encounters on his journey. Some of them are equally anxious to find Tamara, setting up action-filled fight scenes that are at least a notch above standard thriller fare.

In his ambition to locate and cultivate individuals gifted with unusual powers, Taggert's boss is like a criminal version of the X-Men's Professor Xavier. Yet The Liminal People doesn't have the feel of a comic book; this is serious science fiction. While Ayize Jama-Everett isn't the first novelist to write about people with extraordinary abilities (A.E. Van Vogt, Larry Niven, and Joan Vinge all come to mind), parts of this novel are completely original.

Liminal people are (according to the text) those who are always on the threshold. The empowered people envisioned by Jama-Everett are, in a sense, apart from "normal" humans -- not just in their powers and experiences but in their attitudes. In another sense, however, they are very human, craving what we all crave, the things that come more easily to "normal" people: love, trust, friendship, family. Jama-Everett's point, I think, is that no matter how far some people are from an established norm of attractiveness or intelligence or sociability, they remain fundamentally the same as everyone else. Paradoxically, they can also be monsters, as can those who more closely adhere to society's definition of normal. This isn't a new lesson, by any means, but Jama-Everett found a fresh and entertaining way to convey it.

The Liminal People is a short novel, in part because it isn't padded. Jama-Everett makes every word count. The plot is suspenseful; the writing is poignant and powerful. Jama-Everett writes with barely restrained, seething energy. The story proceeds at a rapid pace but Jama-Everett doesn't skimp on characterization, particularly in his complex rendition of Taggert. Taggert is more intelligent, more philosophical, than the typical empowered character in a science fiction novel. A conflict with his brother that shaped Taggert's personality is a smart addition to the story, as is the defiant attitude of Yasmine's daughter.

A warning: many of Jama-Everett's characters are from the streets; they speak accordingly. Readers who are timid about profanity might be offended by some of the language in this novel. Readers who appreciate that a foul mouth is sometimes necessary to give credibility to a character won't be bothered. There is also a mildly steamy scene that is more likely to turn readers on than off. Of greater concern is that Taggert can be a bit sadistic; the descriptions of his ability to inflict pain aren't for the squeamish. But then, there probably aren't many squeamish people reading adult sf.

The ending of this dark novel leaves open the possibility of redemption and hope. Perhaps more importantly, it sets up a second novel featuring Taggert and other liminal people. I hope Jama-Everett writes it.

RECOMMENDED

The Fallback Plan by Leigh Stein

Published by Melville House on January 3, 2012

As a theater major who took the role of Blanche DuBois a bit too seriously (becoming something of a depressed lush in order to better inhabit Blanche), Esther was destined for unemployment. Jobless despite her freshly tendered degree and lacking a fallback plan, Esther moves back home with her parents, where she hopes to contract an incurable but painless disease that will let her collect disability checks while spending her days in bed rereading her childhood books. Instead she begins babysitting for a couple named Amy and Nate who have suffered the loss of their other child. When she's not working or hanging out with friends, Esther halfheartedly constructs a script for a movie about The Littlest Panda. She fantasizes about a bad boy named Jack but Jack already has a girlfriend, a situation that does nothing to alleviate her ongoing depression. Will Esther manage to get her life together, to find the purpose that is eluding her? That's the question that animates The Fallback Plan, a short and very funny first novel.

Parts of The Fallback Plan are familiar -- the inexplicable attraction women often feel toward men who are jerks, Esther's crush on the father of the child she babysits, the insecurity that comes from being young and aimless -- but Leigh Stein manages to give old themes a fresh spin. Other aspects of the novel, including The Littlest Panda's recruitment to save Hanukkah and Amy's artistic attempt to cope with the loss of her child, showcase Stein's creativity.

Stein has a freewheeling sense of humor that should appeal to most readers. It's alternately subtle and goofy, occasionally provocative, and always amusing. Yet underlying the comedy are serious themes. Amy and Nate are burdened with guilt and loss. Esther isn't as tragic as Blanche DuBois but she clearly has issues of her own. She wonders whether the turning point that so often characterizes fiction -- the point where "the hero has to step up and risk it all" -- is illusory, whether she will still be clumsy and depressed in middle age, only more so. Working through the screenplay is a way of working through some of her issues -- a smart device that makes the panda's story shed light on Esther's life.

Stein avoids easy answers and simplistic platitudes. Esther gains some insight from her relationship with Amy and Nate -- if only the knowledge that no matter how troubling one's problems might seem, there are always people who live more painful lives -- but happy endings are the stuff of movies (The Littlest Panda included). Still, the novel's ending is far from unhappy; there are lessons learned, progress made.
Stein's writing style is well suited to comedy. Her prose is clever but unobtrusive, never getting in the way of the fun. There is enough depth to the story to give it substance but Stein deftly balances seriousness and humor; she keeps the tone light and avoids the beginning's novelist's tendency to lose focus by chasing a profound message.

RECOMMENDED

Tina's Mouth by Keshni Kashyap

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on January 3, 2012

To fulfill a requirement of her English honors class in existential philosophy, and having rejected the other options as “new age malarkey,” Tina is keeping an “existential diary” that is designed to help her understand who she is and who she is becoming.  She considers the project worthy while confessing that she doesn’t care that much.  The more immediate question that obsesses her concerns her mouth:  particularly, whether she will ever put it to good use by kissing Neil Strumminger.

Tina is fifteen.  Her parents are from India.  Her father is a cardiologist, her mother a homemaker.  She attends Yarborough Academy, which she regards as a fancy name for a high school populated by kids from prosperous families.  As befits a teenager, her life is filled with drama.  Her best friend has deserted her and she despises the cliques to which all the other students belong.  No wonder she finds Sartre appealing.  The diary entries, in fact, are written in the form of letters to Sartre.

While the story is cute and often very funny, the question it poses -- “how do you really know who you are?” -- is one of life’s enduring riddles.  Tina considers answers that seem superficially true (“Like if I do something stupid at a party and make a fool of myself then that’s me”) but aren’t particularly useful.  She considers unoriginal advice (“be true to yourself”) that might be useful but is difficult to implement.  Perhaps kissing Neil Strumminger isn’t her purpose in life but it may furnish a clue to life’s meaning.  Perhaps (as many believe) the meaning of life is love -- yet, as Tina learns, that notion is easier to embrace when love is fresh, before it leads to heartbreak.

As Tina copes with the daily trauma of teenage life, she puzzles over the difficulty of knowing (much less becoming) “who you are.”  Even at fifteen, we are many different things and aspects of our persona are frequently in conflict with each other.  Tina writes:  “I am east, west, happy, sad, normal, freakish, plain, pretty, Indian, American ….  Do you see how complicated it gets?”  Tina draws parallels between her life and the lesson taught by Rashomon:  there are so many ways of perceiving the truth that an objective truth may be beyond our ken.

Keshni Kashyap avoids simplistic answers to these weighty questions, settling instead for a witty, droll story that dabbles in serious thought without striving for depth.  This isn’t intended to be a work of existential drama on the level of No Exit; it’s meant to be a light and humorous look at the existential world from the rather unsophisticated perspective of a bright fifteen year old.  Viewed in that light, the novel works.

The diary is illustrated, which effectively makes the book a graphic novel, although some pages are text-heavy while others balance text and art more evenly.  I am a better judge of writing than of drawing, but I found the simple illustrations to be interesting and amusing -- the same description I would give to the novel as a whole.

RECOMMENDED

Smut by Alan Bennett

First published in the UK in 2011; published by Picador on January 3, 2012

Dry British humor enlivens the two stories/novellas in Smut, a book that, despite its promising title, has little to do with smut.  Its mildly salacious content is more funny than smutty -- which, I suppose, makes the title amusing in light of the book’s content.  In any event, the two stories are charming, wise, a little silly, and very funny, at least for fans of dry British humor.

The newly widowed Mrs. Donaldson takes a job as a “simulated patient,” feigning illness so she can be examined by medical students, a profession Alan Bennett milks for its tremendous comedic potential.  To make ends meet, Mrs. Donaldson takes on a medical student and her boyfriend as boarders.  When they fall short of funds for their rent, they propose to provide Mrs. Donaldson with a voyeuristic thrill in lieu of payment.  The typical British reserve with which Mrs. Donaldson greets the performance is hilarious, yet there’s a serious note here:  what does it take to give an aging widow a sense of freedom, of life renewed?  For all its humor, “The Greening of Mrs Donaldson” has moments of sweet sadness as Alan Bennett puts the reader inside Mrs. Donaldson’s lonely mind.  But don’t worry too much about Mrs. Donaldson:  the unexpected ending is both hopeful and hilarious.

The other story is more about narcissism than voyeurism; Graham likes to look at himself rather than others.  Graham and Betty are mismatched, at least in the opinion of Graham’s doting mother.  Graham is handsome and dashing; Betty is plain.  But what Graham knows (and his mother doesn’t) is that Betty has inherited a large sum of money.  This, in Betty’s opinion, entitles her to marry someone out of her league, someone like Graham.  Shortly before their wedding Graham realizes that he might actually like Betty, but a secret is soon revealed that makes it difficult to believe the marriage will be entirely successful.  Yet Betty is even more doting and accepting than Graham’s mother, and a better cook as well.  Will Graham’s interest be sufficiently sparked to make a marriage work, or will his predilections and self-absorption ultimately lead to the sort of behavior that destroys a marriage?  The story offers an entertaining contrast between the “modern” marriage of Graham and Betty and the more traditional (i.e., all but dead) version endured by Graham’s parents.  By the end of the story more than one secret is being kept, if only because of the “distaste for disturbance” that characterizes married life.  Fun though it is, “The Shielding of Mrs Forbes” concludes a little too neatly and lacks the punch of the first story.

In style and content Alan Bennett reminds me of the American author Jim Harrison (although Bennett is more generous in his use of commas). Both milk the relationship between age and sex for its tremendous comic potential.  Both spice their stories with pithy observations about modern life and its myriad participants.  Bennett’s characters are even quirkier than Harrison’s; the obnoxious ones are a delight to know.  His minor characters play important roles as Bennett holds them up for ridicule.  My only serious complaint about the stories in Smut is that there aren’t more of them.

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