Month: June 2025

Appointment with Disappointment: When Great Authors Misfire

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Uber Photography/Crown

Once in a while we’re surprised to read a not-great book by a great novelist.

My latest experience with this: Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty. The Australian writer is one of my favorite living authors (along with Margaret Atwood, Lee Child, John Grisham, Kristin Hannah, Elin Hilderbrand, Barbara Kingsolver, Val McDermid, Walter Mosley, Kate Quinn, and J.K. Rowling, to name a few). I loved Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, Apples Never Fall, The Husband’s Secret, and The Hypnotist’s Love Story — all A+ or A novels “in my book.” 🙂 Then came 2024’s Here One Moment, which I finished a few days ago.

Or, rather, struggled to finish. Here One Moment features an off-putting premise — a woman having a “mental episode” walks down the aisle of a packed in-flight plane telling passengers and crew members when and how they’re going to die. (Among the recipients of these unwanted predictions are children and 20-something adults informed that their lives will end in a few months or a few years — especially alarming news for young people.) Then, as the novel goes on, some of the seeming prophecies start to come true.

Another reason I wasn’t a huge fan of Here One Moment is that it jumps around to focus on quite a few characters, so it’s hard to get invested in them. Ambitious fiction, but scattered fiction. The only person who gets the full treatment is the supposed psychic, who has had a difficult life. So this repressed, not particularly likable woman is “humanized” more than the rest of the book’s cast.

Still, Here One Moment is very well-written, has some compelling sections, offers a “live life to the fullest because you never know when it might end” message, and does get better as it goes on. Also, I have to give some props to Moriarty for coming up with such a wild story line.

Despite the negatives, I’ll read the next Moriarty book when it’s published. No author writes a masterpiece each time; inspiration can come and go, life events can interfere, etc. And I should add that other readers might of course have different feelings about a novel; Here One Moment has a pretty high average of 4.3 stars (out of 5) on Amazon. Some of the 1- and 2-star reviewers who didn’t like the book sounded rather incredulous about all the positive ratings. 🙂

As I’ve mentioned in a couple of years-ago posts, there are other examples of past and present authors I love who’ve written what I consider not-great novels. Among them (with their disappointing books in parentheses) are Willa Cather (Sapphira and the Slave Girl), Wilkie Collins (A Rogue’s Life), James Fenimore Cooper (The Spy), the aforementioned John Grisham (Skipping Christmas), Stephen King (Cell), Jack London (A Daughter of the Snows), Carson McCullers (The Member of the Wedding), Herman Melville (Mardi), Richard Russo (Chances Are…), Erich Maria Remarque (Shadows in Paradise), Martin Cruz Smith (The Siberian Dilemma), and Edith Wharton (The Touchstone).

Sometimes the misfire is a debut novel as the author is trying to gain their creative footing. Sometimes it’s a final novel when the author is in ill health or perhaps low on ideas. Sometimes a disappointing novel happens in mid-career. And, again, people might differ and be fans of books others don’t like so much.

Any novels, written by favorite authors, that you weren’t thrilled about?

Misty the cat says: “The 5th Dimension sang ‘let the sunshine in’ in 1969, and it’s still here!”

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for my book features a talking cat: 🙂

I’m also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about my younger daughter’s June 26 high school graduation and more — is here.

You Know You’re a Book Addict When…

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Inside my local library in Montclair, New Jersey. (Photo by me.)

You know you’re a book addict when…

…despite a broken big toe, you make a hobbling visit to the library to borrow a new bunch of novels. (Which I did on June 13.)

…you read while waiting in line (at a store, the post office, etc.) even though you might be also holding something else (a purchase, a package, etc.).

…you uncomfortably grasp a large hardcover to read while on an exercise bike.

…you read even if you’re in a room with poor lighting.

…you read while a passenger in a car even though that makes you feel kind of sick.

…you bring a novel to a doctor’s appointment and are almost disappointed on the rare occasion when you’re summoned from the waiting room on time.

…you try to read in an eye doctor’s waiting room after your pupils have been dilated.

…you read almost as much as you usually do despite an eye infection. (Happened to me last year.)

…you read a novel while watching something on YouTube even though splitting one’s attention in half is not wise, so you only do this for a little while.

…you know the year of birth for many novelists.

…you know the year of death for many novelists. (I don’t think this includes living authors, but I’ll ask the supposed psychic in Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment novel. 🙂 )

…your brain practically breaks when you’re forced to reduce your book collection by two-thirds because of moving from a house to an apartment. (As I did in 2014.)

…you’re upset when a screen adaptation doesn’t do a novel justice.

…you exult when a screen adaptation DOES do a novel justice.

…you’re chagrined on the rare occasion when a screen adaptation is better than the book(s) it’s based on.

…you continue reading a compelling novel late at night even though you’re tired and should go to sleep.

…you delay posting on your literature blog for an hour or two because you’re so engrossed in a book.

Any additions or comments? 🙂

Last-minute postscript, after last night’s disgusting/dangerous/unprovoked bombing of Iran by the United States: You know you’re a book addict when you wish Trump and the officials in his administration were also avid novel readers — which would perhaps give them a bit more empathy, decency, common sense, and historical knowledge. Actually, perhaps not. 😦

Misty the cat says: “I’ve used an inhaler since 2018, a year after asthma was invented.”

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for my book features a talking cat: 🙂

I’m also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — which includes an election postmortem, discussion of a large local “No Kings” protest against the Trump regime, and more — is here.

Reading Dystopian Fiction During a Real-Life Dystopia

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It feels like a dystopian time as we witness the dictatorial Trump regime’s multiple vile actions, Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran (probably with U.S. approval and U.S. weapons), Israel’s 20-month genocidal war (again with U.S. backing) on innocent Gazan civilians after the horrors of October 7, Russia’s continuing war on Ukraine, yesterday’s assassination of a liberal Minnesota politician by a right-winger, the existential threat of climate change, and more.

Trump this month of course sent over-the-top military force into Los Angeles against the wishes of California’s governor (despite Republicans often blathering about “states’ rights”) to crack down on a small, mostly peaceful resistance to his administration’s brutal roundup of people of color — whether they’re undocumented immigrants, documented immigrants, or longtime American citizens. Which has broken up families, and served as another test for Trump to see how far he can install his Republican brand of fascism. U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who’s the son of Mexican immigrants, was even thrown to the ground and handcuffed by agents for trying to ask a question of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, the Trump cabinet member best known for heartlessly shooting her 14-month-old dog. Then came yesterday’s grotesque (and grossly expensive) military parade in Washington, DC, that was held partly to “celebrate” the cruel Trump’s birthday. A parade, by the way, that drew many fewer spectators than Trump wanted — though his constantly lying administration is already inflating the numbers.

All quite convenient for distracting Americans from things like Trump’s support of a Republican congressional tax bill that would mostly benefit the already wealthy and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s recent post on X (formerly Twitter) saying Trump is in the Epstein files for repugnant past pedophile behavior with underage girls.

Anyway, my thoughts in our ultra-depressing era naturally turned to dystopian fiction and a desire to do a post about that genre — which can also include apocalyptic novels. But there was the nagging recollection that I had focused on dystopian literature before, and, sure enough, a search turned up a piece by me for The Huffington Post book section way back in 2012 — two years before starting this WordPress blog. So, I decided to post a revised/updated version of that 13-year-old piece today. Here goes:

War. Death. Despair. Oppression. Environmental ruin. Yup, when it comes to demoralizing literature, dystopian literature is a downer of downers. Yet some of us find that genre soberly appealing. Why?

For one thing, we read about rather than live through dystopian lit’s fictional bad stuff — though real life is plenty negative now (as this post has noted) and fictional bad stuff is often an extrapolation of a troubled actual world. Still, many 2025 readers are not as much “in the arena” as the beleaguered characters in Suzanne Collins’ dystopian The Hunger Games.

And there’s a certain “rightness” in reading about a harrowing society. Why? Because we know that politicians, military leaders, and corporate moguls are capable of doing awful things — meaning dystopian novels feel kind of honest.

In addition to The Hunger Games, excellent dystopian/semi-dystopian novels filled with carnage, inhumanity, hopelessness, and more include (among others) Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s 1984, H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, Stephen King’s The Stand, Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, (Ms.) Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Albert Camus’ The Plague, Franz Kafka’s The Trial, Nevil Shute’s On the Beach, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Jack London’s The Iron Heel, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam.

The above books of course take different approaches — some very dramatic, others understated, some set in the near future, others in the distant future, etc., etc.

Sometimes, authors of dystopian literature temporarily ease the tension a bit with humor, as Atwood does with the clever genetic-engineering terms she coined for Oryx and Crake. And dystopian books can have seemingly utopian elements — with things appearing not too bad even though they ARE bad; Brave New World is a perfect example. There are even novels, such as H.G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come, that mix dystopian and utopian elements.

We admire the best dystopian novels because they’re written well and depict people with whom we can relate. We can be fascinated by the terrible things those characters face, and by how some react bravely and some react cowardly or with resignation. We, as readers, have a hard time averting our eyes from the misery even as we’re enraged by what despots and other vicious officials are doing to citizens. And we’re compelled to turn the pages as we wonder if rebels and other members of the populace can somehow remake a wretched society into something more positive. We also wonder who will survive and who won’t.

Last but not least, some of us might admire dystopian fiction because, by giving us worst-case scenarios of the future, we have a smidgen of (in vain?) hope that our current society can be jolted enough to avoid those scenarios starting or continuing in real life. Like some of the characters in dystopian novels, we might feel a little halting, against-all-odds optimism — such as that inspired by yesterday’s 2,000 or so anti-Trump-regime “No Kings” protests attended by millions of Americans in all 50 states, the resistance of politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the resistance of institutions such as Harvard University, the holding to a belief in the rule of law by some judges (including a percentage of those appointed by Trump), and so on. But it’s a difficult fight against very powerful forces.

All that said, I don’t blame anyone for preferring escapist fiction during a time like this. I’ve upped my quota of those kinds of books myself, while making sure to still read some weightier literature.

Any favorite dystopian novels? Why do you like or not like that genre? Thoughts about the current situation in the world?

Misty the U.S. cat: “I nap in the morning near an Australian novel because it’s night in Australia.”

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for my book features a talking cat: 🙂

I’m also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — containing election results, news about smartphones in classrooms, and more — is here.

A Kitty Tries to Be Witty

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“Perhaps I should wake up and write a blog post,” says Misty. (Photo by Maria.)

I, Misty the cat, guest-blog for Dave every two months. I last did this on April 13 and today is June 8, so that’s…hmm…actually not quite two months. Reminds me of when Dave returned some novels to the library five days before their due date, and the indignant book drop expelled said novels with such force that they traveled back in time and landed on the heads of the three Karamazov brothers. Fortunately, each of the books was under 400 pages.

But Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 824-page The Brothers Karamazov is even longer than my average nap, during which I experience “Dreams” more often than Fleetwood Mac did at their 1977 concerts. And Dostoevsky’s 1880 novel might have been the first volume of an even longer work if the Russian author hadn’t died in early 1881. Perhaps a trilogy of sorts — like Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (about me nudging my cat-food bowl so that each serving lands in the exact center) and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (about my epic quest to be a male feline version of the Ernestine telephone operator played by Lily Tomlin).

I recommend shopping at Pop Culture R Us for all your celebrity-name-dropping needs.

Speaking of decades-ago entertainment, do you remember the 1978 movie Same Time, Next Year about a married woman and a married man who have a multi-year annual affair? That film partly inspired the long-term romance of Mallory Blessing and Jake McCloud in Elin Hilderbrand’s 2020 novel 28 Summers, which I read last week and found to be a wonderful, poignant book. It’s 422 pages in hardcover, which explains why various other 19th-century Russian fictional characters are donning helmets to avoid concussions. Helmets with stickers saying “Please Don’t Name Your Cat Anna Karenina.”

I’ll add that 28 Summers has an alternate-history element, with Jake’s wife Ursula DeGournsey running for President of the United States in 2020. Reminds me that my aforementioned cat-food bowl is shaped sort of like the Oval Office, and even has a tiny edible desk.

Other novels featuring politicians? Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy, Fannie Flagg’s Standing in the Rainbow, and Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, to name a few. When my cat-food bowl was empty for five seconds, you know what I screamed? Yes, I screamed “It can’t happen here!!!”

A century ago, Lewis had quite a run of notable novels: Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), and Dodsworth (1929). It Can’t Happen Here was published in 1935, eight decades before my 2015 birth year — which means that in 2025 I’m now…furry.

I’m sometimes asked how I, the kitty Misty, consume literature. Smeared with tasty cat food, of course. But, seriously, I read novels in the traditional print-book format rather than via eBook or audiobook. I guess I’m “old school,” like the 1636-founded Harvard University. I expect only a few members of The Class of 1640 to be at Harvard’s 2040 alumni reunion; they’re the ones who reside with cats, who help humans live longer.

Long-lived humans in literature? The over-2,000-year-old Lazarus Long of five Robert Heinlein novels; Ayesha, who also clocks in at about two millennia in H. Rider Haggard’s She; the 250-year-old High Lama of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon; etc. I assume they had well-funded retirement accounts.

One of the oldest of my fellow cats is Garfield, who has starred in Jim Davis’ 1978-founded comic strip for 47 years! Which reminds me that my next guest blog post will appear in 47 years — minus 46 years and 10 months. So, August 2025. That’s also when my teen human Maria is starting college, which means her bedroom will be…mine!

Dave will reply to any comments because I, Misty the cat, am busy consulting with an interior decorator about changes in Maria’s room (where you see me in the photo atop this post). A kitty can’t have enough scratching posts, treat dispensers, and paintings of hairballs playing poker.

Misty the cat says: “That railing’s shadow means 4,378 more days of spring.”

Dave’s comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for Dave’s book features a talking cat: 🙂

Dave is also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more.

In addition to this weekly blog, Dave writes the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about New Jersey’s upcoming primary election and much more — is here.

Restrictions Need Not Cause Conniptions

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Credit: Random House

Authors dealing with restrictions can find their literary creativity stifled or stimulated. This post will discuss several examples of the latter.

Some fiction fans know the story behind the iconic Green Eggs and Ham. Dr. Seuss was challenged to do a children’s book containing a maximum of 50 different words (albeit all of which could be used more than once). The author struggled with that parameter, but eventually created what has been an enduring bestseller since 1960.

Moving to adult novels, Margaret Atwood was asked to write a book retelling a classic myth of her choosing — so the Canadian author obviously had a limitation on subject matter. She decided to do a feminist take on Homer’s Odyssey, focusing on Odysseus’ wife Penelope and other women. The result was 2005’s The Penelopiad. Not one of Atwood’s most compelling novels, but worth reading.

Another way of working within a framework is writing a novel in verse. Such was the case with Eugene Onegin (1833) by Russian author Alexander Pushkin, whose titular protagonist is a young, selfish, arrogant dandy. While one wouldn’t expect an all-poetry work to be as gripping as a more traditional prose novel, Eugene Onegin holds one’s interest and then some.

Russian-turned-American author Vladimir Nabokov also gave himself a challenge with Pale Fire (1962), which contains a lengthy poem along with prose. A brilliant novel, but not exactly a warm novel — despite having fire in its title. 🙂

Then there are novels written in countries ruled by dictatorial regimes, meaning that if the authors want to satirize said regimes they need to be indirect and allegorical to try avoid possible prison or death. One example is The Master and Margarita, a rollicking novel that Mikhail Bulgakov wrote between 1928 and 1940 in the Stalin-led Soviet Union.

There are also the creative restrictions involved with co-authoring a novel, because it’s not “the baby” of just the usual solo writer. Among such books is 1873’s The Gilded Age by Charles Dudley Warner and Mark Twain. Each man mostly wrote separate chapters, though they reportedly jointly penned a few. The result was an awkward fit; one could tell that the satirical chapters were Twain’s, although Warner’s serious/more-conventional sections weren’t bad.

Finally, I recently read Past Lying (2023), the seventh installment of Scottish author Val McDermid’s series starring cold-case detective Karen Pirie. McDermid imposed restrictions of a sort on herself by setting the novel during 2020’s Covid lockdown, which gave Pirie and her police colleagues quite a logistical challenge investigating a twisty case of murder committed by a crime author. But McDermid pulled it off; I think Past Lying is the best of the Pirie series.

Any comments about, and/or examples of, this topic?

Many thanks to “The Introverted Bookworm” — talented blogger/author Ada Jenkins — for the wonderful review of my 2017 literary-trivia book she posted this past Tuesday, May 27. Very, very appreciated! 🙂

Book Review: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time: The Book Lover’s Guide to Literary Trivia by Dave Astor

Misty the cat says: “Every cat needs a vacation home.”

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for my book features a talking cat: 🙂

I’m also the author of the aforementioned 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about Memorial Day, a local food pantry, and more — is here.