→ November 9, 2017
→ By

Wise Children.

Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1984, and then won a special Best of the James Tait Black award in 2012 as the best of the 90-odd winners of the annual honor in its history, beating out such widely acknowledged classics as Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter (which was shortlisted), Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Robert Graves’ Claudius duology, and E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. I read it in April of 2016 and found it impenetrable, between her recursive prose and her seamless mixture of unreality into the realistic narrative, without any core characters to whom I could relate or with whom I could empathize. It’s been only a year and a half since I read it and I’d have a hard time telling you what it was about.

Her last novel, Wise Children, is completely different in everything but prose style – but here the almost Proustian prolixity is far more effective, as it reflects the effusive, vivacious personality of the narrator, Dora Chance. Dora and Nora are twins, the illegitimate offspring of the stage actor Melchior Hazard (I trust you’ve noticed these surnames already), who grow up in and around the theatre and whose lives intersect regularly with those of their biological father, their uncle Peregrine who pretends to be their father when he’s not wandering the globe, and Melchior’s various wives and other children, the latter of whom also come in pairs. The book is a bawdy, boozy, life-affirming comedy, told by Dora as she, her sister, and Melchior’s first wife, the Lady Atalanta, prepare to attend Melchior’s one hundredth birthday party.

Carter employs a ton of wordplay in the book, with double meanings, allusions, and rhyming. Referring to a little closet where a lost cask is found at one point, she has Dora call it “the place where the missus could stow away the master if the master came home plastered.” Her prose is musical, and the puns can be auditory or visual (Peregine calling his nieces “copperknobs,” a deviation from the British slang term for a redhead “coppernob,” and then referring to them getting the “key to the door” when they turn eighteen). I’m sure I only caught a fraction of the references to Shakespeare, English poetry, Greek mythology, and more.

The narrative itself is also unorthodox; it’s written like a memoir, but Dora can’t exactly walk a straight line (unsurprising, given her self-professed alcohol intake) when delving into the past, and her reliability is questionable – or Carter is employing a little magical realism, especially when Peregrine is involved. Much of the comedy is situational, as Carter weaves a web of love/hate relationships among the various half-siblings, parents, uncles, and associates, complete with mistaken identities and the Chances taking advantage of others’ inability to tell them apart. There’s a lot of booze, a lot of sex, and a fair amount of confusion over who is actually the father of each set of twins – much of that fostered by Melchior himself, as his interest in fatherhood is directly tied to its utility in his stage career.

This book appeared on the Guardian‘s list of the top 100 novels of all time, rather than Nights at the Circus, and although that opinion seems contrarian I’d have to agree with it. This is more accessible, funnier, and far more engaging. I’d challenge anyone who reads this to not adore the Chances, who make effrontery their primary coping mechanism in a world that would often rather forget their existence, and who turn the randomness of life into a series of opportunities. It wouldn’t make my top 100 novels list, but it is an incredibly fun, erudite book that regularly had me laughing out loud.

Next up: I’ve got 100 pages to go in Dan Vyleta’s Smoke.

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→ November 8, 2017
→ By

City of Ghosts.

City of Ghosts, now available on amazon Prime, follows the citizen-journalist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which began disseminating information online about the atrocities committed by the Daesh, also known as ISIS and ISIL, during their three-plus year occupation of the once-prosperous Syrian city. RBSS won the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists in 2015, even as some of its leaders were being hunted down and executed by Daesh supporters in Syria and in Turkey. The group continues to operate, with its leadership in exile, relying on anonymous contributors still in the city, which was just liberated from Daesh control by Kurdish-led anti-government forces three weeks ago.

(The group that occupied Raqqa goes by many names, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, but the RBSS members interviewed in this documentary appear to favor the term Daesh, which ISIL leaders themselves dislike. As that is what the RBSS members use, I’ll follow that convention here.)

Raqqa was the sixth-largest city in Syria, with a population of 220,000 in the 2004 census (per Wikipedia), and hosted many anti-government protests during the Syrian portion of the Arab Spring, with the toppling of a statue of the late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad coming when a mixed coalition of opposing forces took the city from the Syrian army. In less than a year, however, Daesh forces took control of Raqqa, setting up a sharia court and executing opponents in the middle of the day in the town square. The journalists and activists who formed RBSS began almost immediately to document the conditions in the town under the Daesh, including the executions and the extreme privation, by posting videos, photos, and written content to social media and Youtube. With no foreign journalists on the ground in the city, RBSS quickly gained credibility as one of the few reliable (non-Daesh) information sources there, and a film directed by RBSS co-founder Naji Jerf helped them win the aforementioned award from CPJ. RBSS were quickly targeted by the occupying forces, who threatened to kill every member they could find – and the family members of those they couldn’t. They executed several members still in Raqqa, and assassinated several others outside of the country, including Jerf, killed in broad daylight in Turkey in 2015.

City of Ghosts follows the remaining leaders of RBSS, walking back to the group’s origins and carrying the story forward about two years, through the losses of several group leaders, the flights of many others into exile, and their continuing work to tell the world of the conditions in Raqqa – and to try to contradict the Daesh’s recruiting videos, which, shocking as it is, don’t exactly depict real life as a member of the jihadist group. Director Matthew Heineman manages to give the viewer the information s/he needs on the actual progress of the civil war and the occupation of Raqqa as foundation, while still centering the documentary itself on the individuals, all men, who are risking their lives and even those of family members to fight the Daesh with information. Each has his own story, whether it’s specific reasons for joining the effort or the very personal cost paid for his involvement. Watching them flee to exile in Germany, only to be confronted by neo-Nazis and anti-immigrant protesters, only serves to underscore how incredibly lonely this existence must be.

The film did leave me with one question, although it may have been too dangerous to answer. Someone has to be funding the group; we never see these courageous men discussing money, but they have laptops, smart phones, video cameras, and obviously are eating and buying the essentials. The effort may have started organically, but somewhere there must be a source of funds that allows them to continue to live, and thus to work on informing the world that Raqqa is burning. Of course, identifying any funding sources could have put them in jeopardy, and thus jeopardizing the group’s work. At the time of the film’s release, Raqqa was still under Daesh control, and their efforts remained as important as ever.

Documentaries about the ongoing catastrophe that is the Syrian civil war are everywhere now; The White Helmets won the Oscar for short-subject documentary last year, and Last Men in Aleppo is a full-length feature on the same topic (and in my queue to watch). Sebastian Junger’s Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS is supposed to take a more direct look at the state of the war and the failed state of Syria. HBO’s Cries from Syria focuses on the human cost and humanitarian crisis. As obsessed as much of our polity here is with the Daesh and the occasional terrorist attack abroad by adherents, there’s still so little happening to stop the crisis; even if the Daesh, who control a fraction of the territory they did at their peak, are totally removed from power, there will still be a civil war in Syria, with Kurds at odds with the central government, and numerous other rebel groups vying for control of the country. By putting a few young heroes at the heart of its story, City of Ghosts provides a new lens on the disaster while testifying to the relentless human desire to be free.

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→ November 7, 2017
→ By

The Days of Abandonment.

Before Elena Ferrante wrote her bestselling, critically acclaimed Neapolitan Novels – and long before her true identity was outed by a man who decided she didn’t have a right to pseudonymity – she wrote a few other less-known novels that presaged many of the themes of the tetralogy that made her name. One of those, The Days of Abandonment, is a slim novel that overflows with the rage of a woman whose husband has left her and their two kids to shack up with a much younger girlfriend, showing her declining mental state in the face of this betrayal. It’s a primal display of feminist indignation, and given how worthless her husband appears to be, rather satisfying in a perverse way.

Olga and Mario have been married for about 16 years, with two kids, and although they’ve had the normal vicissitudes of any marriage of that length, she’s floored when he announces he’s leaving. He gives no reason, and seems callous in his disregard for the family. At first, she thinks he’ll come back, and manages to hold herself together to a reasonable extent when it feels temporary. When it becomes clear that he’s not coming back, and she learns that he’s left her for an acquaintance about half her age, she spirals out of control, to the point where she can’t take care of herself or her kids as her rage at this treason expands to fill every available space.

While there are specific scenes that give the audience some cheap satisfaction – and I’m not going to lie, when she sees Mario with his girlfriend and tries to beat the shit out of him, I enjoyed it – the power of this narrative comes from her internal cycling. Olga gave everything up for Mario, who was manipulative and controlling enough to deny her any chance at a career, who put his own career ahead of any of her interests, and who now has saddled her with sole responsibility for their two kids. She built an adult life around him, never anticipating that he might pull the rug right out from under her like this, and when he first returns after leaving, he has the temerity to lie about his reasons and to try to paint himself as a sort of victim. Her rage is raw and uncomfortable to watch, but it is entirely justified.

Olga and the kids eventually end up unable to exit their apartment because of a problem with the new locks on their door, installed after Mario left, although given Olga’s deteriorating state of mind, I wondered if their imprisonment was in her head or merely metaphorical. Other scenes are clearly real within the narrative but no less shocking; Olga’s failed tryst with a neighbor reeks of desperation and debasement, although it provides the first nudge that allows the novel’s conclusion – which isn’t as dark as I expected – to stand.

Mario is a joke of a man; husbands cheat, wives cheat, couples divorce, but how Mario cheats and leaves and just ignores his kids for weeks is so callow that you can’t see any redeeming qualities in his character, and he further squanders this by taking something from the apartment without Olga knowing. So it’s really Olga’s narrative, and Olga’s chance for character growth, and Ferrante sells it. If you want to convince a young woman not to center her entire life around a man, this is probably the book to do it.

Next up: I’m halfway through Dan Vyleta’s dystopian novel Smoke and enjoying it tremendously.

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→ November 6, 2017
→ By

The Lost City of Z.

The Lost City of Z is based on David Grann’s bestselling 2009 book about Percy Fawcett, a renowned British explorer who disappeared in central South America sometime after 1925 during an expedition to find the remnants of a long-gone advanced civilization there. Starring Charlie Hunnam as Fawcett, the movie hews relatively closely to Fawcett’s true story and offers many compelling scenes from his first two expeditions to the Amazon basin, but doesn’t give us enough understanding of its protagonist to create real interest in the character’s fate. The movie is available free on amazon prime.

Hunnam plays the dashing hero, complete with a Poirot-esque mustache, whom we first meet as the Royal Geographical Society asks him to journey to the center of the continent to help map the disputed border between Brazil and Bolivia. (If you don’t know much South American history, here’s a good summary: Bolivia kept picking border fights with its neighbors and lost every one of them, including one fight that cost the country its narrow coastline on the Pacific.) He’s reluctant to take on a non-military mission, but does so in the hopes of restoring his family name – the film has his father as a degenerate gambler and drunk, although that may be fictional – and sets off with the help of Coatson (Robert Pattinson) to chart the border and eventually find the source of a major river. The journey is perilous, many redshirts don’t survive it, and even the men who do are in sad shape when they reach the river’s source, but they do and return home to a heroes’ welcome. That spurs another expedition that doesn’t go quite so well, but the two combine to convince Fawcett of the existence of the city of Z, and he yearns for one more chance to go discover it.

Hunnam himself is a charmless man in the lead role – he probably knows his claret from his Beaujolais – and the movie truly suffers for it. Benedict Cumberbatch was originally attached to the project, and his charisma is sorely missed here. Pattinson steals every scene he’s in with Hunnam, thoroughly inhabiting his character’s rakishness and loyalty right to the very end of his arc. Sienna Miller is similarly blank in her role as Fawcett’s wife, looking pretty but feeling one-dimensional – she’s the suffering wife, no, she’s the loyal little lady, no, she’s the proud wife and mother, as if we see three different women at different points in the film.

The scenery, however, is stunning – it is an expertly made film, with gorgeous, expansive shots of the jungle and the rivers. There’s real action and suspense when they’re on expeditions, and the scenes in London feel more like interstitials. There’s a short subplot, based on actual events, around another explorer who comes on their second mission and is badly injured, giving Fawcett a real antagonist but also ending abruptly (as it did in real life). When Fawcett came home, as a father and husband I couldn’t understand his willingness to leave his wife and children, but as a viewer I wanted him to get back to the jungle and do stuff.

Of course, the movie suffers from the unknown: Theories abound as to what happened to Fawcett and his son on their final mission, and Grann used a legend he heard from one of the native tribes in the region to craft a new hypothesis, but we just don’t know. The script doesn’t deal well with the uncertainty, giving us an ambiguous egress for the two men and a sentimental ending for Fawcett’s wife. Perhaps fabricating a specific outcome would have gone too far, but charting their progress and disappearance from London may have served the film better.

This is a very solid, competently made film that just lacks the extra level of emotion that would connect viewers to the story or the main character. We learn so little of Fawcett’s background that his wanderlust is a bit hard to grasp, and Hunnam plays him so clinically that, if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was an American actor trying too hard to nail the upper class British accent. (Hunnam is English.) More prologue might have helped – or less, if perhaps we’d started in the Amazon and skipped some of the home scenes. It feels very much like a movie that could have been great, but isn’t.

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→ November 4, 2017
→ By

Stick to baseball, 11/4/17.

My one ESPN piece this week is not Insider: I spoke to Jharel Cotton and Jabari Blash about the hurricane damage and recovery efforts in their home territory, the US Virgin Islands. It’s bad, yet it’s getting virtually none of the attention here that Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico are getting. If you’d like to help, you can donate to the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands, St John Rescue, or Family Resource Center, all of which are heavily involved on the ground on the islands.

I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Smart Baseball makes a great holiday gift, or at least I think it will, since this is actually the first holiday season since its publication. Also, please sign up for my free email newsletter, which is sort of weekly, and includes some mini-essays that don’t appear elsewhere plus links to all my writing.

And now, the links…

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→ November 3, 2017
→ By

Waiting for the Barbarians.

I’d sort of avoided J.M. Coetzee for a while, given his reputation for dark, depressing themes; one of his two Booker Prize-winning novels, Disgrace, involves rape as a significant plot point more than once in the book. I was in a used book store in Manhattan in June, however, and saw Waiting for the Barbarians, which made the Guardian‘s list of the 100 greatest novels ever written, on the shelf for a few bucks, and figured at 156 pages it would at least be over quickly if I hated it – and maybe it would surprise me. I can’t see it as a top 100 all-time novel, but I got more out of the book than I expected, as it’s a fable that seems to combine some of the best of Italo Calvino and Kazuo Ishiguro (the latter of whom won the Nobel Prize for Literature, as did Coetzee), in a work that I’d call the better Darkness at Noon.

The story is set in an unnamed frontier town at the edge of the Empire, where the main character, the Magistrate, has served his country for some years when a Colonel arrives and “interrogates” some prisoners, including a father and son, about the activities of nearby barbarians who might threaten the town or the Empire itself. The Magistrate is dubious about the actual level of the threat, and is disgusted by the Colonel’s use of torture, which kills one of the prisoners and leads to questionable answers – likely the ones that the Colonel wanted anyway to justify a military effort against the barbarians. When the first effort yields a new set of prisoners, who are further tortured, the Magistrate takes pity on one woman among them who’s been blinded by the Colonel’s men. This decision and a journey to eventually return her to her people pits the Magistrate against the Colonel, who declares him a traitor and makes him a political prisoner and pariah in his own town.

Waiting for the Barbarians was first published in October of 1980, winning the James Tait Memorial Prize for that year, but it certainly seems to presage the United States’ two invasions of Iraq (1991 and 2003), especially the latter which, as we now know, was predicated on questionable intelligence about the Iraqi regime’s possession of or attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Coetzee’s use of nameless towns and characters only emphasizes its fabulist, universal nature; he’s discussing core features of leaders who operate without viable opposition and exposing how functionaries may work to provide the answers desired by their superiors rather than the correct or just ones. Coetzee exposes the worst of humanity here, but it’s all well-grounded in actual events that preceded the book’s writing, in dictatorships and democracies.

I read Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, considered one of the peak novels of anti-communist literature, back in 2008, but couldn’t connect with any of the characters and found the narrative to be distant and cold. Coetzee infuses the Magistrate with more complexity; he’s flawed, a little bigoted, or at least mistrustful, but also highly empathetic, and less disdainful of women than the government officials or soldiers who come to the village and do as they please. The submissive response of the residents of the town, who seemed to respect the Magistrate until the Empire turned on him and labeled him a traitor, mirrors the inaction of many residents of past aggressors, including the Axis powers of World War II, who stood by while their neighbors were arrested, tortured, or murdered. The Magistrate seems to hope that if he stands up for what he believes to be just, others will support him; instead, people he thought were his friends act as if he’s not even there, until later in the novel when the tides shift the other way again and it’s safer to come out on his side.

This is a very grim worldview, but it’s an accurate one, and the 37 years since the book’s publication haven’t dulled its (deckled) edges one iota. Leaders continue to provoke conflicts and pursue wars on spurious grounds to distract their citizens or stage some patriotism theater. Had Coetzee made the Magistrate more of a one-dimensional martyr, it would have come at a great cost to the story’s staying power, but because his protagonist is so thoroughly human, it seems like a story that, while depressingly real, will have staying power for decades to come.

Next up: Angela Carter’s Wise Children, also on that Guardian list.

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→ November 2, 2017
→ By

Klawchat 11/2/17.

While you’re here, check out my free email newsletter, sent weekly or just whenever I feel like it, but not more than weekly, really.

Keith Law: I was dumbfounded by truth. Klawchat.

Jake: Seems like Dodgers fans are looking to pin the blame on someone. Is it supposed to be Darvish?
Keith Law: Never a fan of putting the blame for the loss of an entire series on one player, or even just on a manager. Darvish hurt them, probably more than any other individual player, but he was far from alone. Roberts had a bad series, especially Game 5. The Dodgers’ LHB had some atrocious at bats in high-leverage spots last night. Bellinger’s error in the 1st was critical. And yet they still came within a game of winning.

J.P.: What do you make of this new complication between the Ham Fighters and the MLBPA with regards to Ohtani?
Keith Law: I actually think it’s a positive sign that everyone is trying to find a workaround. Maybe he will come over after all.

Tim: Shane baz? is it true he has plus fastball, plus slider plus cutter and average to above curveball and average change?
Keith Law: No.

Eric: After the Vegas shooting, Trump is suspiciously quiet. After the NYC attack he tweets immediately – to blame someone else. Your thoughts?
Keith Law: I think he’s playing to his base and they eat it up like soylent.

Chris : What would your offseason plan look like if your mets? Other than pray for health of Conforto, Wheeler, Matz, Harvey, Thor, Familia, and Cespedes, I’m kind of puzzled on how this team improves that much this offseason. Their health alone is what separates them from 70 and 90 wins, no?
Keith Law: I think that’s fair – their health is a bigger source of potential gains than any offseason acquisitions would be. I also would guess that would make them reluctant to spend this winter, assuming they had any money to spend, because they could spend well and still fall flat.

Pat: Hi Keith, thank you for your prospect coverage. Why is Sandy Alcantara not missing more bats? Is it lack of elite secondary stuff, little deception, is his fastball too straight? I would just think a guy that throws 100 would strike out more batters. Thanks Keith.
Keith Law: Fastball is pretty true, just hard, but velocity alone doesn’t miss bats. You need deception, movement, or spin. He will show you above-average secondary stuff but it’s not consistent. He’s also pretty young, so I’m not terribly worried.

Ed M.: Hi, Keith. I just finished reading Smart Baseball and loved every page. I’m a 36-year-old lifetime baseball fan and I love learning as much as I can about the analytical aspect of the game. One question for you: the phrase “reach/reached base safely” often comes up in your book. This isn’t meant to be a smartass question, but when does one NOT reach base safely? Aren’t all batters/runners who reach base also safe?
Keith Law: We tend to exclude reaching on an error from calculations of times on base.

Harold : Now that teams that blatantly tanked have won the the WS two years in a row, should MLB change the draft rules to eliminate Tanking?
Keith Law: They did condense the slot values of the top picks in the most recent CBA, which I think would discourage deliberately losing … but I don’t think Houston deliberately lost so much as they realized it was stupid to spend money on mediocre veterans. Buster & I discussed this on the podcast today.

Peter : Is Bobby Witt Jr closest thing we’ve seen to Harper in terms of pure talent coming out of high school? Not saying he’s just as good or that type of generational prospect.
Keith Law: No, he’s not in Harper’s class.

Lark11: Defensive shifting makes logical and intuitive sense; places fielders where hitters have higher probability of hitting the ball. That said, I’m somewhat struggling with its effectiveness. MLB BABIP by Year: 2013: .297; 2014: .299; 2015: .299; 2016: .300; and 2017: .300.
Keith Law: BABIP includes home runs, which have increased over that time period, but aren’t affected by defensive shifts. Also, aren’t exit velocities and launch angles increasing? Those should affect BABIP, or at least expected BABIP.

Eric: Thoughts on J-Up’s 5-year deal with the Halos?
Keith Law: Love it for the Angels. Yes, he’s risky, lot of volatility in his performance, but he’s a potential 5-win player and still in his peak years. He was my #1 free agent going into the winter.

Ralph: Would you rather have Pence or Trump as president?
Keith Law: I would absolutely take Hunter Pence as President over the current occupant.

Junkyard Dog: Who do you like more between Justus Sheffield and Max Fried? Who has the higher ceiling?
Keith Law: Sheffield.

Ben: We have officially arrived in an alternate reality, where fossil fuels can prevent sexual assaults and the air is TOO clean. Children need to breath dirty air to build up immunity for Christ’s sake! …..I weep for humanity.
Keith Law: The reality is that these anti-science “scientists” can say whatever they want, and their followers will just accept it.

Adam: The Braves and Coppolella drama has me thinking; Is it an open secret within your industry which GMs are despised by their peers, and what role does the media have in skewing the public perception of these men?
Keith Law: I tend to hear if people don’t like dealing with a certain GM or agent, or even a scouting director, but I think what you hear through the media lens is distorted.

Keith Law: Some food no one cares about is really good and your favorite player is awful.
Keith Law: Wrong. Everyone cares about good food.

Microsoft Excel: So do all the computers and spreadsheets in Houston get WS rings? Asking for a friend
Keith Law: Yes, one ring per vacuum tube.

Rick: Loved your newsletter, but I couldn’t help thinking how much your decision might have changed baseball history. If you had gone to the Astros, they surely would have drafted Kris Bryant, and the Cubs never would have won the World Series.
Keith Law: You’re very kind, but you failed to consider the possibility that I’d have given terrible advice and the Astros would never have sniffed the playoffs.

Hey there: Do you have a favorite/least favorite kind of player to scout (other than assholes like Chapman, or guys that can’t play)?
Keith Law: I love athletes. Granted, I can’t stand it when they have physical tools and no instincts or feel, but there’s absolutely something electric about seeing players who can do things with their bodies that even an average professional athlete can’t do.

Mike: I was wading way too deep into this with my wife last night, but now that it’s complete, where do you think this World Series ranks among those since 2000?
Keith Law: The blah game 7 hurts; I’d put this behind last year’s and 2011 for sure, probably 2001 as well. I could argue for 2002 and 2014 in there somewhere.

Roger: Should the Astros add Whitley and Tucker to their 25 man roster to start the 2018 season, or let them work in the minors for a few more months than bring them up mid-season?
Keith Law: That’s very premature.

Jim Nantz: I’m worried Conforto’s shoulder injury is going to sap his power for next year? Do you share this concern?
Keith Law: I don’t think we have any evidence either way on this.

Dr. Bob: As a Dodgers fan, I’m bummed at the end result, but I’m hopeful looking to the future. Friedman has built the right kind of organization. The team’s deep pockets has allowed it to eat dead money without hampering its ability to sign other players. We’ll see if the process adjusts the “book” that Dave Roberts seemed to be working from.
Keith Law: I wonder if Roberts is the right guy going forward, which I know sounds weird given the season they just had, but it does appear that he’s not a very good tactical manager, and I don’t know that he’s a good developmental manager, at least with young pitching. I don’t think firing him is some panacea or even a good idea, but the more I see him, the more I think they can do better. And, building off that, they’re going to have to develop young pitching soon, so they don’t have to go trade for a Darvish each July.

Roger: Do you ever really get an offseason since minor league ball is essentially now year round?
Keith Law: I’m done. The minors ended in mid-September, and I’ve already gone to the AFL.

David: Cardinals GM John Mozeliak has said an impact bat is most likely going to have to come via trade. There’s speculation the Cards will be in on Christian Yelich and Josh Donaldson, maybe even acquiring both players. Cards fans are worried two such acquisitions will deplete the farm system. Do the Cards have enough surplus prospects to make a couple of deals and not be barren? Who in this system is untouchable in your eyes? Thanks.
Keith Law: Not sure anyone could trade for both those guys and still have depth – maybe Atlanta, but even they’d have to pay with quantity – but the Cards do have a lot of prospects with value to other clubs and I don’t think they have anyone untouchable right now.

Andy: Did I miss it, or was the atrocious strike zone in the Series glossed over?
Keith Law: Nope, it came up, and I know the teams had a lot to say about it. It was game to game, though. Bill Miller’s was by far the worst. Last night was no picnic either.

Daniel: This is obviously not a small ‘if’ but if Kaprielian returns to form and stays healthy, could you see him becoming the top pitching prospect in baseball? Seemed to have that profile before he went down. Just hadn’t pitched enough yet.
Keith Law: He has #1 upside if he’s healthy. He hasn’t been healthy for a full season in pro ball, which would probably eliminate him from consideration for #1 overall.

Josh: Besides Ticket to Ride, any game recommendations for a newly-reading kid? Shorter play times would be preferred.
Keith Law: Depends on age, but I get the sense you’re talking 4 or 5, and there are now kids’ versions of TtR, Carcassonne, and Catan.

Ridley Kemp: Howdy Keith,

I have a long-ish Charlie Morton question. I’ve always been a fan of his because of his extreme ground ball rates and his ability to avoid the long ball. He’s definitely become a different pitcher this year, working up in the zone, getting more strikeouts at the expense of allowing more home runs. My question is: Is he really a better pitcher now? His ERA and FiP this year is about the same as what they were in most of his healthier years (2011,2013, and 2014). He certainly LOOKS better, but are the results that different?
Keith Law: He did just post the lowest FIP of his career, and that’s not adjusted for league/year … his ERA- was a career best, and it was just his second ERA+ over 100 (which is average) in any season over 20 IP. So yeah, I think he’s better.

Chris: Can I get an FYEAHBASEBALL!
Keith Law: Fuck yeah, you can.

Tracy: Hi Keith, I usually ask you questions related to books or current events but I actually have a baseball question—an odd one, but here goes: If you were able to go back in time and survey a particular baseball era, not just scouting players but also observing the way the game is played at that time, which would it be? For me, it would be going back to the height of the old Negro Leagues and seeing what we really missed out on.
Keith Law: Oh, 100% on that. There’s so much myth around those guys and so little facts that I’d love to see what it really looked like.

Ben: GOP tax bill apparently allows churches to endorse political candidates. Unless they plan on taxing churches, that should be illegal, no?
Keith Law: Of course it should, but nobody cares – and good luck getting anyone to agree we should tax churches. (Reminder that the Church of Scientology harassed its way into tax-exempt status.)

Jim Nantz: When will your top FA list comeout?
Keith Law: Monday.

Michael: Hi Klaw – thoughts on the Gabe Kapler hire? While I was initially in the Wathan camp, the more I have read the more I like this move.
Keith Law: I’ve known him a few years and I’m a big fan. Ideal hire for a club that will be full of young players for the next few years. Brings energy & new ideas. And he’s actually managed a year in the minors, which puts him ahead of a lot of recent managerial hires.

Bobby: Keith – thanks in advance. Love these chats. I have always thought that managers in baseball don’t move the needle much. Clearly, Cashman thinks otherwise as he is taking a risk moving on from a very good manager in the hope of finding a great one. What do you think in general re manager importance and specifically re the risk Cash is taking and the commitment he is showing (to the concept that a manager is very important).
Keith Law: I’m not clear that this was Cashman. Couldn’t it have been ownership? It feels too impetuous to be Cash.

Archie: Do you think the game is trending too much toward the 3 true outcome model? If so, what would you do to “fix” things?
Keith Law: Tighten the manufacturing specs on the ball, and raise the bottom of the strike zone (which already happened a little this year).

Casey: On a scale of doesn’t matter to existential dread, how much consternation should Dombrowski’s hiring of LaRussa give Sox fans?
Keith Law: Doesn’t matter. Doubt he has any influence.

Zach: What do you make of hearing that Darvish was tipping his pitches (according to Beltran on postgame show)? After he was traded to Dodgers, they apparently “fixed” that issue.
Keith Law: Eduardo Perez said the same for us last night – he specifically saw a hand movement. If that’s true, then the question would be why no Dodger coach picked it up after the first inning.

Michael: Hey Klaw – What do you think is the actual deal with all of the anti-sabermetrics comments across the board. These people are so angry, you’d think someone kidnapped their kids. Do you think it’s just a matter of: this is what I know, this is what I am used to, math is hard, I’m not getting younger, get off my lawn, and waaaaaa, waaaaaa – ?
Keith Law: I think many people view technology as an existential threat. And they’re not entirely wrong – Houston is replacing pro scouting with video work and analytics. Automation is affecting all industries. Beat writer jobs are disappearing because of technological changes. So I get it. But it’s evolve or die. You can’t just will away analytics because they bother you.

Mika: Do you believe it’s likely we’re living in a computer simulation? On a scale of 1-100, how full of crap is Elon Musk?
Keith Law: I think the ratio of media attention Musk receives to the quality of his commentary is too high and increasing exponentially. (And yet he’s doing some legitimately good work, like Tesla getting a hospital in Puerto Rico back online with solar panels.)

Podcast: It’s kind of funny how Game 7 pretty much turned on exactly what you said to Buster on the podcast about Hinch being more flexible than Roberts
Keith Law: I thought Hinch managed a great game last night and a great series in general, whereas Roberts didn’t seem to have a clear plan if Darvish was out that early.

Bobby: Where would you rank the Tiger’s farm system right now? Middle of the pack? Who else is likely to be dealt this winter? Thanks!
Keith Law: I haven’t started any prospect work at all, but eyeballing it, I’d say below middle of the pack.

E: Have you seen Trumps’s quote on the tax cut? Every time his words are written down and read, it reinforces just how little he knows about, well everything.
Keith Law: If this issue matters to any of you, I would suggest ignoring what the President says and focusing on what the actual tax cut/reform proposal says – and what experts say it will do. For example, they’re proposing cutting the mortgage interest deduction dramatically. The way it’s shaped, it will adversely affect homeowners who financed very expensive houses … and homeowners in very expensive real estate markets, which almost all happen to be in blue states. And that, in the longer term, would likely slow the acceleration of house prices as the real cost of buying & financing houses above the threshold increases because you lose some of the tax break. That’s one tiny bit of the proposal and already its effect is complicated.

Todd: Domingo Acevedo the next Betances or is he a legit starter?
Keith Law: Reliever for me. Out of control delivery.

Drew: First of all, thank you for all of the work you do throughout the season. I particularly appreciate your appearances on the BBTN podcast, and wanted to ask you something about that. While I agree that Darvish’s two world-class clunkers in the WS shouldn’t costs him tens of millions of dollars, do you think it makes a reunion with The Dodgers unlikely? As analytically savvy as the front office is, do you think they’re keeping fan blowback in mind?
Keith Law: No, I don’t think that would affect them, but if having him for three months told them something about him – his psyche, his preparation, whatever – that they didn’t like, that would affect their decision beyond what the data suggest.

Walt: How difficult would it be for a team to go 11-0 and break the 2005 White Sox record?
Keith Law: Entirely doable. If we had another 200 postseasons before the end of the world, which seems unlikely, some team would do it.

Andrew: Any books you can suggest on how to manage time?
Keith Law: I’ve seen books on the subject but have never read any. My advice to people who ask about my own time management is probably not great, but it’s to look at how much time you use on unproductive things each day. If you watch 2 hours of TV each night, that’s obviously your choice … but it’s 2 hours you’re not doing something that might be more productive, whether it’s work, learning, reading, being with family, whatever you value. And maybe you value TV time. Maybe you’re Alan Sepinwall and TV time is work. It’s all about what you want to accomplish during the day.

Willy: I’ve read that Eloy is a protypical RF, and I’ve read that he’s barely a LF who may and up at 1B. What do you think?
Keith Law: He’s a good RF. Anyone who said he’s barely a LF hasn’t seen him.

Joe: How easy are in-game adjustments to make for a player? I’m thinking specifically of Bellinger laying off the breaking ball down and in but am asking if that is something we should expect from players?
Keith Law: I think in-game adjustments are tough. Maybe half of MLB hitters can do that. Probably less than that.

CapePorpoise: Any opinion on the meal delivery services HelloFresh and their ilk? For couples like my wife and I with limited menu imagination, It is kind of fun to be working with fresh tarragon and dill and rosemary in these meals, and we’re definitely getting the kind of variety we’d otherwise never experience.
Keith Law: Never tried them, but I also work from home, so i have the time to go shop for food, and I actually enjoy it.

ck: Not necessarily my opinion, but if Kershaw was available for 4 IP, why not start him?
Keith Law: It’s an excellent question. I might argue that the Dodgers had 3 options to start, and they chose the worst one. (That’s a bit of a conceit – I don’t know that they knew that beforehand or that we did, and Alex Wood hasn’t really been the same guy since the last DL stint.)

Todd: Am I wrong in saying that last off season the Yankees were under rated, but now next season they’ll be way over rated? See it all the time in sports, an upstart team has a big season ahead of schedule and everyone inflated expectations.
Keith Law: Yes, that’s the typical pattern, but they could alter their fortunes depending on what they do in free agency, especially for pitching.

Andy: If you’re Cleveland, what decision are you making about Bruce, Santana, and Brantley?
Keith Law: Brantley has an option that I assume they’ll decline. The other two are just free agents, so the decision is made.

Lark11: Any early thoughts on Griffin Conine and where he’ll go in the 2018 draft? First rounder? Top half of the first round? Thanks!
Keith Law: I have been told first rounder, not top 10 type, although the college crop is weak enough that some guys will be pushed up into that tier. The UVA hitters weren’t supposed to be top 10 prospects coming into spring 2017 and ended up going 7 and 8.

Chris: Book question: I have To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis next on my to-read list. Having read your review, do you think you missed a lot by not reading Three Men in a Boat first?
Keith Law: I read Three Men in a Boat right afterward, but the other way around would have helped. It’s a quick read and in the public domain if you have a Kindle or iBooks.

CKS: Given the blatant disregard for the international free agency rules by most teams, is there any push to finally fix the problem? Or will this continue to be an issue for years to come?
Keith Law: The lesson of the Atlanta scandal is, as always, don’t get caught.

Hinkie: I know it’s very early … but … could you give us a top of the draft mock (shot in the dark guess): 1 Tigers _______ , 2 Giants ________ , 3 Phillies ________
Keith Law: Nope. It would be pure bullshit.

Kris : Should the Braves go young in rotation or trade for a pitcher?
Keith Law: If they trade, it should be for a power bat. The system has a ton of pitching but little to nothing at the corners or with power.

Alan: Favorite movie of 2017?
Keith Law: So far, Dunkirk, but I’ve only seen 12 movies so far.

Philip: If you were in charge of the A’s, would Bruce Maxwell still be in the organization?
Keith Law: If he’s guilty of threatening someone with a gun, then no, I would cut him loose.

Jeffrey: Orioles should move Machado in the offseason or mid-season? And how can they justify bringing back their whole coaching staff?
Keith Law: Should move him and Britton this winter, don’t get the sense they plan to do either (yet).

Jason: Keith, I have never had anxiety until a couple weeks ago an intruder attempted to enter our home a few weeks back. Now I feel very nervous and anxoius going to sleep. Any advice?
Keith Law: Wow, I’m sorry that happened to you. That’s a discussion to have with a doctor; when I had my worst anxiety/panic, I took Xanax to help me sleep for about a week until I could get used to a regular sleep pattern.

CapePorpoise: Have you read much John Fowles? Granted, I was much younger, but French Lieutenant
Keith Law: Only read that one. Didn’t love the unique ending.

Derek: Thoughts on Dave Martinez as the Nats new manager?
Keith Law: I’ve only heard good things about him, other than that he doesn’t interview well, which as I’ve said before is a terrible way to evaluate a manager hire anyway.

Hinkie: What do hear about Gabe Kapler, both as a new manager and as a person ?
Keith Law: O AN HE SEXY

JJ: I’m guessing this was Carlos Beltran’s last ride. If so, is he a HOFer?
Keith Law: I think he’s a borderline guy by historical standards. I’d probably vote for him.

Cindy: Austin Riley has had some great results in the AFL. I’ve read a scouting report here or there that says that he has cut down on his swing, lost some weight, and is now able to catch up with high velocity fastballs….something he couldn’t do before on a regular basis. Have you heard anything about this? How far away is he from the majors?
Keith Law: Saw him. That’s just not true – I saw velocity blow him up again, as his bat is still slow. He’s gotten better at third base, though; that was true during the season as well.

Craig: Thanks for the chat Keith, really enjoy your work. Any feeling on if Tanaka opts out or not? Would you if you were him?
Keith Law: It depends on the health of his elbow, and I doubt anyone has a great read on that other than him and the team doctors.

JJ: Three playoff managers got the axe after their post-season was done: Baker, Farrell, and Girardi. Are any of those three “game changers” that should hired elsewhere immediately?
Keith Law: No, but all three did fine jobs and none deserved to be fired based on team performance or the jobs they did on the field. (We often don’t know off field factors.)

Todd: Better in 2 years? Bregman or Moncada?
Keith Law: Bregman.

Bobby: Would anyone in their right mind actually make a play to deal for Miguel Cabrera? I’ll never say never after seeing Prince Fielder dealt but this seems impossible
Keith Law: That would be bonkers.

Josh: Thanks for answering the kid game question. I’m actually talking about a 1st grader who can handle Ticket to Ride but isn’t quite where she can read and comprehend quickly enough to make competitive decisions in real time. And our lifestyle is such that long play time like TtR is too much.
Keith Law: Splendor might be pushing it a little … but maybe not. It’s largely a color-matching game and the graphics & tokens are kid-friendly.

Corey: Also, Americans are increasingly terrible dealing with gray area or nuance. Everything in the US including obviously our politics has grown either/or, zero-sum, us vs them. People can’t accept that analytics is one tool among many. That somehow, you can only run a team with “the nerds” or the “baseball guys” but not both.
Keith Law: This would apply to many issues in our society outside of sports. But yes, the idea that using analytics means you hate scouts or coaches or humans is wrong.

Bobbo: The blurb you did for Farlight in your Paste – Best of GenCon 2017 enticed me. Also the one for Echo. did you play/obtain them? any chance of full reviews for either? thanks for the chatting!
Keith Law: I haven’t seen Farlight beyond that demo, but I hope to catch them again at PAX Unplugged. I don’t know which game you mean by Echo, sorry.

Karl in Utah: Was this year from Whit Merrifield an anomaly or do you think it is sustainable (assuming the juiced ball stays in place)?
Keith Law: I do not think it’s sustainable.

Eric Reiners: I’ve read reports that eliminating the mortgage interest deduction entirely would be one of the easiest ways for the government to boost revenues while keeping the effect on the middle/lower class as light as possible. Real estate values would initially take a hit across the board, but it’d be an effective way of tackling the deficit. I’m surprised they even took this step, to be honest, as it mostly affects rich white people. But on the other hand…they had tax cuts to rich white people to fund.
Keith Law: It would affect the middle classes more. US tax policy has encouraged home ownership for decades. Pulling that deduction entirely would amount to a regressive tax that hits the lowest-income homeowners more than the highest-income ones.

Ryan: Has Randolph progressed at all for the Phillies? For someone drafted for his pure hitting ability, he has struggled.
Keith Law: Not really. It is disappointing.

Drew: My daughter just turned three today. Any book recommendations from when yours was that age?
Keith Law: I believe that’s when I read her the first two Mary Poppins books and the first two Winnie-the-Pooh books.

Jason: It appears Keaton Huira played the field without any issues with his elbow. Assuming that continues would he skyrocket up your Top 100 lists? How high?
Keith Law: Skyrocket? He’ll be on the top 100. Let’s leave it there for now.

Harold: Sounds like you don’t want to pay your fair share.
Keith Law: On the contrary, I have no complaints at all with what I pay in taxes; if anything, I think our local/state taxes here in Delaware are too low. But I don’t see the economic benefit to reducing my taxes while raising those on lower-income households, or of giving me more of a reduction than the lower-income households get.
Keith Law: Thanks as always for all of your questions. The top 50 free agent rankings post will go up on Monday for Insiders, and I’ll be around at some point next week to chat about it. Enjoy your (sadly baseball-free) weekends.

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→ November 1, 2017
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In This Our Life.

Every decision, right or wrong, must be reached alone, and enacted in complete loneliness.

Ellen Glasgow won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1941 for her novel In This Our Life, which was adapted into a 1942 film starring Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland that altered key plot points while causing controversy by keeping the novel’s portrayal of racial discrimination in the South. The novel is depressing as hell, really, as nobody ever really gets what s/he wants out of life within its pages, despite the fact that the two generations follow entirely different paths in search of an elusive happiness.

The novel centers not on the two sisters played by Davis and de Havilland, but on their father, Asa Timberlake, who is married to a possibly-hypochondriac woman, Lavinia, in a totally loveless marriage to which he feels honor-bound because of her illness and their modest financial condition. He’s in love with a widow, Kate, whom he’s known for decades, and who keeps two dogs of which he’s also very fond, as Lavinia never permitted him to have a dog in the house. His two daughters, strangely named Roy and Stanley, are polar opposites to each other, Roy the practical, mature older sister, married to a young doctor named Peter, while Stanley is spoiled, immature, and demanding, using her looks to try to get whatever she wants, even if what she wants belongs to Roy. Stanley is due to marry Craig as the book opens, but ends up running off with Peter, setting in motion a series of calamities that ruin almost every life involved, including Asa’s.

The racial discrimination story is secondary to the novel’s plot, but by far the most interesting aspect of the book today, given the change in social mores around divorce and infidelity since the novel’s publication. Parry is an ambitious young black man, the son of one of the Timberlakes’ servants, who wants to become a lawyer and is hopeful that Lavinia’s cousin William Fitzroy will help finance his education. Parry works occasionally as a driver for the families, but when Stanley, driving drunk, hits a family and kills a young girl, she and her mother conspire to frame Parry for the crime – something which Asa can’t abide, which triggers the one real inflection point in the story, where he’s forced to consider taking an action against his family for what seems to be the first time in his life.

Glasgow’s prose around Parry and his family is dated, but the ideas are still relevant – social and economic discrimination, differential treatment by law enforcement, the understanding that opportunities for black youths would be limited in a still-segregated south. The racism of the whites in the book, especially Lavinia and William, is less overt than even in contemporary Pulitzer winners, but no less insidious for its talk of keeping black people “in their place,” and discouraging Parry from aiming at a profession because, in reality, the idea of an educated black man scares them. This subplot stays in the background of most of the book, but it’s far more interesting than watching the machinations of the pampered, entitled Stanley, and the way everyone – including her uncle William, with whom there are intimations of inappropriate attentions (or worse) – bows to her wishes. She damages everything she touches and has the audacity to put on a “why me?” act, which directs all the reader’s sympathy to Roy, who at least has some complexity to her character and shows growth through the series of crises precipitated by her husband’s betrayal.

Apropos of nothing else, I enjoyed this quote, which Roy says to her father about Craig:

I mean, he notices. He can see the color in the sky, and he knows that the change from baseball to football isn’t the only way to tell when it is autumn. Some men don’t know any more than that about seasons.

I’ve got just two Pulitzer winners left to read – James Cozzens’ Guard of Honor and Mackinley Kantor’s Andersonville.

Next up: Angela Carter’s Wise Children, which appears on the Guardian list of the 100 best novels ever written.

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→ October 31, 2017
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Music update, October 2017.

Happy Halloween! Lots of great new tracks and albums this month, including a few totally unexpected returns from artists who’ve appeared on my playlists before, plus one metal act I haven’t really bothered with since I was in high school. If the widget below doesn’t appear you can access the Spotify playlist directly.

Django Django – Tic Tac Toe. Huge comeback single for the Mercury Prize-nominated act after the mild disappointment of their 2015 album Born Under Saturn, which had a few good tracks (notably “Shake and Tremble”) but no breakout hits like “Default” or “Hail Bop.” This song is a promising tease of their third album, especially the swirling, textured chorus where the song’s structure is turned inside out.

Wolf Parade – You’re Dreaming. Cry Cry Cry, their first record since the band reunited, came out on October 6th, but I found it overall a bit weak – but I was never a huge WP fan the first time around. This was the best track to my ears.

DMA’S – Dawning. Compared to Oasis after their first record, this Australian band goes more Britpop on this lead single from their upcoming second album. I admit to a bit of nostalgic affection for the song, given how much it reminds me of that late-90s movement that by and large never caught on in the U.S.

Quicksand – Cosmonauts. Their first album since 1995, Interiors, is due out on November 10th. They’re still touring, but without guitarist Tom Capone, who was arrested and charged with trying to steal over 40 items from a Phoenix-area CVS and then resisting arrest. Song’s good, though.

Bully – Kills to Be Resistant. Bully is fronted by Alicia Bognanno, who seems way too young to be producing music that is so reminiscent of the less-polished side of 1990s grunge. Their first record earned quite a bit of positive press, but I found it lacking in actual musical interest – not enough hooks, not much connection between vocals and music, etc. This track, from the band’s just-released second album Losing, is my favorite from Bully so far.

Beck – Colors. The title track from Beck’s latest album is one of a half-dozen bangers on the record (which includes my #1 song of 2015, “Dreams,” in two versions), which is a complete departure from the sound on his Grammy-winning last album Morning Phase. This is the Beck material I love – inventive, layered, genre-crossing.

Blushes – To the Bone. I’ve seen reviews comparing Blushes to Foals … okay, yeah, this sounds a lot like Foals, or at least like Foals’ best stuff, so we’re good here.

Porches – Find Me. Porches is led by singer/multi-instrumentalist Aaron Maine, and they’re weird – that’s mostly a compliment, although it sometimes doesn’t work very well (like on “Country,” another single off their upcoming third album). “Find Me” is more in line with their haunting 2016 single “Hour,” a nicely creepy track for Halloween.

Gulp – Morning Velvet Sky. Gulp is Scottish vocalist Lindsey Levin and bassist Guto Pryce, who’s better known as the bass player for Welsh rock icons Super Furry Animals. This track is less rock, more synth and bass, with a hypnotic, driving bassline throughout the ethereal song.

Sampha – Blood on Me. Sampha Sisay just won this year’s Mercury Prize for his debut album, Process, which gives us an unsteady marriage of classic R&B sounds, especially in the vocals, and current electronic/drum-and-bass sounds. This song, my favorite from the album, actually first appeared as a single in August of 2016 in the UK; it’s more uptempo and I think more intense than the rest of the album.

MisterWives – Never Give Up On Me. This was a surprise, given that MisterWives just released their second album in May, without this track on it. This might be their poppiest song yet, but it’s also a great showcase of what Mandy Lee can do with her voice when she lets it rip.

Prides – A Wilder Heart. Prides’ “The Seeds You Sow” was my #8 song of 2014, but it didn’t even appear on their disappointing debut album the following year. Their seven-song EP A Mind Like the Tide, Part 1, just dropped on Friday, including the single “Let’s Stay in Bed All Day,” which I included on my September playlist, and this slow builder with a strong finish.

Tune-Yards – Look at Your Hands. Tune-Yards are probably best known for the alternative hit “Water Fountain,” which has a fantastic chorus and some great drumwork, but which loses me in the verse. I still don’t love Merrill Garbus’s singing voice, but this track is more evenly mixed between vocals and music, and her musical inventiveness gets higher billing as a result. It doesn’t quite have the huge hook of “Water Fountain,” though.

Alice Merton – No Roots. I’ve been remiss with this track, which I had earmarked for my September playlist and forgot to include, so I’m putting it here for completeness’ sake even though you’ve probably heard it. It’s already hit the top ten in several countries in Europe and is #14 on the next Billboard Alternative Songs chart, still trending up.

Sleigh Bells – Rainmaker. Yep, that’s the drum loop from “Paid in Full.” That’s all I’ve got here.

Liam Gallagher – I Get By. I’ve seen more praise for the Oasis singer’s solo album As You Were than I could possibly muster; it is long, and it certainly tries to recapture the peak Oasis sound, but it only barely scrapes the bottom of what his former band was able to do over its first three albums. Lead single “Wall of Glass,” which made my June playlist, is solid, as is this song, but the rest feels like filler, like an artist who wants to mimic a specific sound rather than write compelling singles.

Versing – Body Chamber. If you listened to just this song, and I asked you their home city, you’d probably guess it on one try. Their debut album, Nirvana (we’re not even pretending, are we), just came out at the very end of September.

The Dear Hunter – The Right Wrong. This song is the lead single from the prog-rock act’s new six-song EP, All Is As All Should Be (which, by the way, is definitely NOT true), with some clear nods to progressive icons like King Crimson and Marillion but within a manageable running time.

Catholic Action – Propaganda. The Glaswegian quartet just released In Memory Of, its first album of punk-tinged jangle-pop, on Friday; it’s hit-and-miss, with short, quick bursts of guitar-driven melodies that don’t always click, with this song the best track on the record.

Sleater-Kinney – Here We Come. They’re back, and they’re still angry, and why wouldn’t they be?

Helloween – Pumpkins United. I admit to a certain fondness for Helloween’s two late-80s underground classics, parts one and two of the Keeper of the Seven Keys series, which contained a number of surprisingly catchy power-metal tracks that seemed to bridge the gap between Iron Maiden and other NWOBHM acts that still brought big hooks and the less melodic thrash bands that were coming out of California at the time. This new track is the first song to feature original guitarist Kai Hansen since he left the band after the second Keeper album.

Moonspell – Evento. Moonspell is a Portuguese gothic/melodic death metal act who are consistently big sellers in their home country, with four different #1 albums in Portugal, but little recognition outside it. Their 11th album, 1755, drops on Friday; it’s a concept album about the Great Lisbon Earthquake of that year (which also inspired a new boardgame, Lisboa, that just came out this summer), sung entirely in Portuguese, with symphonic elements along with the expected death growls. Stuff just sounds more menacing when it’s not in English.

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→ October 30, 2017
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The Westing Game.

A mystery novel aimed at kids, Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game is perfectly charming even for (much) older readers. I tackled it to vet it for my daughter (who then said she wasn’t interested, but I bet she’ll come back to it at some point), finding myself caught up in how the author packed such a clever, intricate plot in a short novel. It won the Newbery Medal for the year’s best work of children’s literature; I think it’s only the fifth winner I’ve read in its entirety (along with The Giver, A Wrinkle in Time, The Graveyard Book, and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH). Although it takes a temporary turn towards the dark in the middle, I’ll spoil it just a little bit to say that Raskin wraps up the entire story very nicely, and shows the reader just how many clues were right there the entire time for the characters and the audience alike.

The start of the book is a bit of a slow burn, but once you get about a third of the way into it, the pace picks up dramatically, once the long setup is done. Samuel Westing, a reclusive millionaire and owner of Westing Paper Products, dies right at the beginning of the book, and has set up an elaborate scheme for his sixteen “heirs” – most of whom are unrelated to him and surprised they’re even mentioned – to compete in teams of two for the prize of the inheritance. Many of the heirs have unspoken connections to Westing or his family; some are in the apartment building where the story takes place, Sunset Towers, under false names. Each team gets a set of five one-word clues and must try to follow the oblique instructions in Westing’s will to identify which of the heirs killed Westing and thus win the prize.

The star of the story is the youngest heir, “Turtle” Wexler, a mischievous, astute thirteen-year-old girl who will kick the shins of anyone who pulls her hair braid, and who plays second billing to her older sister Angela within the family. Turtle and a judge, J.J. Ford, an African-American woman who is open about her connection to Westing, do the bulk of the real investigating, Turtle to win (and also to make money in the stock market), Ford for the thrill of the hunt. The narrative jumps around to other pairs as well, which I think helps to obfuscate the actual answer to the mystery by giving the reader too many ideas about the various clues, enough to send me in the wrong direction for about half of the book. There’s no other character as magnetic as Turtle, who seemed to me to be a direct ancestor of another of my favorite child protagonists, Flavia de Luce.

The real gift of this book is how Raskin has her characters playing with words, thinking about their meanings, the order, even messing with pronunciations or misspellings, all to try to decipher the clues. It’s a subtle encouragement to the reader to do the same – to expand one’s thinking about how we use words, and how tiny shifts can alter the meanings of anything we say or write, including, to pick one relevant example, the irregular will of an eccentric millionaire.

There’s one scene that might be disturbing for younger readers, although it’s eventually resolved in a way that should satisfy everybody. The remainder plays out as a fairly straight mystery novel, with a structure that certainly recalled Agatha Christie’s ‘bigger’ novels, where she uses a larger cast of suspects and moves the narrative around frequently with shorter chapters. The Westing Game feels in spots like a mystery for adults that was slimmed down – not dumbed down, just made shorter – for younger readers, given how quickly the narrative jumps, often with one character noticing something or coming to a conclusion right before the switch. It works, and might keep younger readers more engaged, although given how many mysteries I’ve read for adults I did get the occasional sense of watching a video with too many jump cuts.

Next up: I’m halfway through Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment, her second novel, written before the Neapolitan quartet that begins with My Brilliant Friend.

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