MY READER'S BLOCK: Foul Matter

SCAM artist alert

Apparently there is someone calling themself "Luigi Calloway" out there who is claiming to be associated with the Mount TBR Reading Challenge. He is contacting authors and telling them if they pay him, then their books will be used for the challenge. It's possible he's also telling people they must pay to participate in any way. Please know that there is absolutely no charge associated in any way with this reading challenge and that this person does not represent me or anything associated with my blog. There will NEVER be a reason for anyone to have to pay for participation in any way for any of my challenges. If only people who exert this much time and effort on scamming people would put it into something worthwhile....like reading their own books!

Monday, April 26, 2010

Foul Matter

Foul Matter is turning out to be quite different from Martha Grimes' other books. I see the humor and satire....but what I'm really tuning into is the focus on the past. Ned Isaly, one of the primary characters, seems to me to be almost obsessed with the idea. In one scene he is contemplating the past and thinks: "The past--there was hardly anything it wasn't or couldn't be. It could aim straight as an arrow, or walk like a drunken lout, cavort, dissemble, deceive, seduce: anything to be let in." And later when he is visiting his friend, who has a legacy of several generations living in one house, they contemplate the portraits of the ancestors gazing down on them and Saul (his friend) decides that Ned has "cracked the code" of the past. But in truth--so far--neither of them have done so. One lives with the past and one dwells on the past, but neither have come to the understanding they seek.