BookReview: Blacktop Wasteland

I don’t do a lot of reviews on this blog, but this reminds me that I really should do more.

I just finished reading Blacktop Wasteland by Shawn Cosby. I received a free electronic copy provided by the publisher (Flatiron Books) and this is my honest review.

I’ve known Shawn for only a short while. I first met him at a local “Noir At The Bar” event where we were both sharing readings for the crowd. I told my wife at the time I thought he was the best writer there. Now that I’ve finally read Blacktop Wasteland, I’m happy to report that my first impression was right on the money.

To say I liked Blacktop Wasteland would be an understatement. I loved it. The book is crime fiction and it is a gritty and realistic example of that genre. I write mostly mysteries. These two genres are cousins, and they both give the reader a peek at similar issues, but each uses a different focus. My experience with mysteries provided a good backdrop for enjoying this story because so many aspects of it were sub-mysteries of their own.

Cosby waltzes around plot structures in both standard and unique ways, the way Fred Astaire could dance an amazing solo, but then pull a mop into the mix and make you think the mop was dancing just as well as he was. Cosby makes effective use of flashbacks as well, and they weave in and out of the story the way Beauregard weaves in and out of the mess he has made for himself.

I am wary to share too many details because I in no way want to spoil this story for you, but in short, Beau has done his best to put a criminal past behind him and forge a family life on the straight and narrow. But the universal truth “life is hard” rears its ugly head and he figures just one more “job” might provide the easy money he needs to right his ship for clear sailing.

Then another more pertinent universal truth pops up: there is no such thing as “easy money.” It’s a deep well and Cosby effectively plumbs the depths of that well just until you think it can’t go any deeper, but you have to keep feeding the line because neither he nor Beau has reached the bottom yet.

Blacktop Wasteland is fast-paced and the plot employs a sinister intricacy that slides into your brain the way your feet can slide into a comfortable pair of old slippers. But don’t get too relaxed … you will need to strap on your reading comprehension hat real tight because even the tiniest of details may pop up to surprise you later. Cosby zinged me in this way several times and even made me laugh out loud more than once.

Be warned, the book is about lowlife individuals who lurk on the dark edges of society, so there is a bit a language, but I thought he used a measured amount that fit the dialogue. It’s a crime thriller so there’s violence too. If you are turned off by either of these I’d have to say, everything fits the story and this story is well worth reading on so many other levels. At the least, you should revel in experiencing this breakout novel of a gifted writer.

As a writer myself, I want to hate Shawn because I don’t need this kind of competition, but I can’t hate him, not at all, simply because I love his insight and skill so much. Look for Blacktop Wasteland in mid-July. If you can catch him reading at a bookstore or a local “Noir At The Bar” — catch him there, his readings are not to be missed. I’ll finish by just saying: WOW! Just WOW! A well-deserved Five Stars!

I’m sure it will be sold all over the place but an Amazon link is easiest right now … put this on your TBR list. Blacktop Wasteland.

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Thomas Fenske is a writer living in North Carolina. His most recent novel, THE HAG RIDER, is available at Amazon. Be on the lookout for his mystery thriller PENUMBRA, coming in August.

WeekendCoffeeShare

If we were in some way able to meet for coffee today I’m sure we’d be drawn to the events of the past week. The overbearing question is, why are we still at this point? Frankly, it amazes me that we haven’t figured it out yet … Rodney King put it plainly:

“People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?”

It was a profound statement from a guy whose suffering at the hands of heavy-handed police officers was broadcast far and wide. Yet this continues and continues and continues.

Frankly, I have only had good experiences with law enforcement, even when I was on the short end of their efforts. I have always found them polite and supportive. Frankly, I am white.

I grew up in the South. I grew up knowing two branches of racism. I did not grow up in a blatantly racist home, I grew up in a home that more practiced paternalistic racism. Many people don’t see any difference but understand, I did not grow up thinking poorly of people of color. Sure, we had a black maid. Believe me, I knew a LOT of kids whose families wouldn’t hire a black maid, they had white maids. My folks hired a black contractor too, to build an addition to our house. In many ways I think my mother wanted to provide jobs and opportunities where she could.

When I was about eight I was with some friends riding our bikes around a nearby shopping center (the early 60’s, right?). It was a hot day, and I was thirsty and I saw a water fountain so I stopped to get a drink. My friends were horrified.

“What are you doing? You can’t drink from there!” he said, pointing at a sign on the fountain. “Colored Only!”

I just shrugged and took a drink. “You can be arrested for that,” I was told. I look back now and can only say, “Yeah, right.”

I wasn’t raised to really care about such distinctions. Am I perfect? Nope. Bias is a deep wound that is not easily healed but you know what? I’ve always been aware of it and I try to keep myself on an even keel and rise above it.

A few years ago I worked in a convenience store and this cemented my overbearing current view of blacks: they are just folks, like anybody else. They work, they love, they hurt, they cry. Just like me. Just like you. When you look at someone in this country, you need to not see white or brown or any other color, you need to see a person who deep inside is pretty much just like you.

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Thomas Fenske is a writer living in NC … his novel THE HAG RIDER will be published on June 1, 2020. More information: http://thefensk.com

Weekend Coffee Hurricane

If we were having coffee today, a storm out in the Atlantic named Florence would be on my mind.  I keep watching the forecasts and it apparently is aimed at the coast of the Carolinas.

I live a bit inland, but these storms are so big we can get some impact here, depending on where it hits.  In 1996, Hurricane Fran hit the coast just south of Wilmington NC.  In looking at historical tracking maps it looks like that area between Myrtle Beach and Wilmington is the sweet spot as regards deep inland penetration to this area.  Fran caused great damage in the area where I live, mostly wind damage.  Note: wind damage means long-term loss of power.

Here’s a link about Hurricane Fran:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Fran … there’s an interesting graphic on that page that details the ranking of the ten “Most severe landfalling Atlantic hurricanes in the United States” … in looking at that I realized that I have been affected by FOUR of the storms on that list.  Hurricane Carla in 1961 I remember very well.  I don’t remember Audrey but I know it affected the area I lived in but I was 5 and we were on the fringes of it.  Hugo didn’t have a huge impact here in central NC but it was so big we got the fringes of it and they were significant. And, of course, Fran.

We lived in a single-wide mobile home in 1996.  Yes, don’t ride out the storm in a mobile home.  I know that.  We also didn’t have any place to go.  We lived in a mostly rural county.  The evacuation center they set up was 25 miles away down an awful road I didn’t like to drive on in clear, dry weather.  By the time we knew it was going to be bad where we were, it was too late.  Even worse, the storm hit in the middle of the night.  The power went out pretty early.  I remember sitting in on the couch watching a half-empty 2-liter bottle of Coke on the coffee table.  Remember that scene in Jurassic Park when the Tyrannosaurus was approaching and the coffee in a cup had ripples in it with each step?  This bottle of Coke did the same thing.  Huge gusts would hit the mobile home and cause ripples just like that, again and again.  Things hit the walls.  Unidentifiable sounds in the blackness of night were terrifying.  Eventually, I drifted off to sleep and woke up to birds chirping. I looked out to a stark reality.  We lost a huge tree in our backyard (one of the terrifying sounds in the night) but it miraculously fell away from the house.  It would have crushed the mobile home and probably killed me where I was sitting.  My neighbor on that side had a stand of pine trees on his lot. This one tree took down SEVENTEEN of his trees (most with a trunk diameter of 8-10 inches).

So, I’m watching this storm.  I bought a generator yesterday.  I’ve been meaning to get one for a long time.  Here we also have ice storms that result in lengthy power outages so it is something I’ve meant to get for a long time.  In the time I was at the store, I saw four other generators purchased.

I’ll stock up on nonperishable supplies today and tomorrow.  I’ll pick up debris around the house.  I just had a roof leak patched.  It hasn’t been completely tested.  I guess it will be tested.  I’ll have a tarp and bricks ready.  Gas in the car, gas for the generator.  With my luck, all of these preparations will likely steer the storm away.

Oh, coffee, I should lay in some coffee as well as some water (but our rural water system supply seems pretty stable).  The one bright spot after Fran: our kitchen range was propane and I had plenty of gas. I also worked at that time as a barista for a high-end coffee purveyor.  We had really good coffee.

Just as I was finishing this post I saw another forecast … bullseye on the NC/SC border.  It’s still almost a week out.  We’ll see …

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Thomas Fenske is a writer living in North Carolina.
Please go buy his books!    http://thefensk.com

Transplants … Fascinating

Albert Jefferies (Al-J) and Ashley Larimore continue to recover from last week’s back-to-back heart transplants. Both of these brave young people have endured a lifetime of health problems and now have a chance to change that. They both still have a ways to go … it is major surgery and like any major surgery they have some serious recovery time. I continue to remember them both in my prayers and wish them the best.

This weekend I found myself contemplating why I was so fascinated with these two stories. It was pure happenstance that I even found out about Al-J, and Ashley came to my attention because she responded to Al-J’s story like a lot of people did … but in her case it was to tell him that he was not alone, she was in the same situation.

Anyway, I am surprised I hadn’t thought about this before, but I have several coincidences in my past that serve to link me to things involving transplants. I just didn’t consciously put them all together until this weekend.

Well, I actually had thought about the most recent coincidence. This was my on-line friendship with Susan Steinsapir. Hers was likely one of the first heart disease/transplant stories that was chronicled in depth on-line. The world-wide internet community rallied around her, there were even articles written about the power of the internet bringing people together for this one common purpose. A bunch of us knew her from postings on internet interest groups called newsgroups. She kept us informed of her status via emails, and eventually web pages popped up. Compared to today, it was quite primitive, but we keep up with her case in almost real-time. But her case also had a sad ending … it turned out she was simply too ill to survive the operation. That was twenty years ago this past January. You can read about her on this tribute page a mutual friend has kept since that time: http://www.mimimart.com/susan/obit.htm (given the age .. some links may no longer be valid).

But there were three other coincidences in my life I hadn’t considered in this context. For some reason these all popped into my mind this weekend.

Two of the most famous pioneers in the realm of heart surgery worked in my hometown, Houston, Texas: Doctors Denton Cooley and Michael DeBakey. When the first heart transplant was announced in 1967, by Dr. Christiaan Barnard, I was fascinated by it. I read everything I could and local news stories concentrated on the two famous local surgeons.

The first coincidence … I went to grade school with Dr. Cooley’s daughter for a while. It’s true. Okay, I hardly knew her but we were in the same class! I didn’t realize that until after his first transplant, but I still remember her. Okay, it is pretty lame, but it IS a coincidence, right?

After Barnaard’s transplant, there were several transplants in the US, but Dr. Cooley completed what is regarded as the first successful heart transplant in May of 1968, when he operated on a gentleman by the name of Everett Thomas. Mr. Thomas lived for about seven months with that heart. Without the transplant he would have been dead in days. The reason I remember this was for one simple reason. Like I said, I was fascinated with the subject … so I had kept up with the news and read everything I could about his progress. Shortly after I read that Mr. Thomas had been released from the hospital and was living in Houston to be close to Dr. Cooley, I went to Catholic Mass one morning. I liked to get up and walk to the early service. This one Sunday morning, a family filed into a pew two rows ahead of me. It was Everett Thomas. I recognized him because of my fascination with the story and had seen his picture dozens of times. I respected their privacy and after Mass they quietly filed out of the church with their secret intact. I never saw them again at that service. In reality I was too shy to have ever even thought about approaching him, but I was amazed that here was this famous guy, with somebody else’s heart, sitting almost within arm’s reach. It had quite an impact on my fifteen year old brain.
Okay, third coincidence … years later I worked closely with a woman … we shared an office for seven or eight years. Years earlier she had been a secretary for Dr. DeBakey. I mean, she worked for him for years. She knew him. He called her by her first name. Sure, for me it was an association removed by a couple of degrees, but how strange is that … two associations with two famous heart surgeons?

Okay, so maybe I’m stretching the psychological boundaries of newsworthy fascinations, but who cares? I will continue to check on the progress of my newest heroes, Al-J and Ashley. Their recovery continues … small issues with blood pressure and pain, so everybody keep the prayers up. These kids deserve a long and happy life.
Keep up with Al-J here: http://www.teamalj.com
Ashley’s Heart Journey FB page: https://www.facebook.com/ashleysheartjourney/