smillas-sense-of-snow

May the May Authorial Force Be With You

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Daphne du Maurier (Hans Wild/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images).

It’s May 31, so I think I’ll belatedly focus on fiction writers who were born this month!

Given that I read or reread three Daphne du Maurier novels (Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, and Frenchman’s Creek) during the past 31 days, I’ll start with that author. She was born on May 13, and lived from 1907 to 1989.

Now I’ll go chronologically by May birth date, listing only writers I’ve read at least something by:

May 1: Joseph Heller (1923-1999), who of course wrote the famous satirical antiwar novel Catch-22.

May 7: Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the renowned poet, novelist, playwright, painter, composer, etc.

May 8: Thomas Pynchon (1937-), the reclusive author of some pretty challenging postmodern fiction.

May 8: Peter Benchley (1940-2006). Jaws!

May 9: J.M. Barrie (1860-1937). Peter Pan!

May 9: Richard Adams (1920-2016). Watership Down!

May 11: Sheila Burnford (1918-1984). Author of the absorbing animal adventure The Incredible Journey.

May 11: Stanley Elkin (1930-1995). Author of satirical novels such as The Rabbi of Lud.

May 15: L. Frank Baum (1856-1919). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

May 15: Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940). Author of the fantastical The Master and Margarita.

May 17: Peter Hoeg (1957-). Smilla’s Sense of Snow, etc.

May 19: Nora Ephron (1941-2012). I haven’t read any of her books, but did watch several of the movies she wrote and/or directed — including When Harry Met Sally…

May 19: Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965). The acclaimed A Raisin in the Sun playwright.

May 20: Honore de Balzac (1799-1850). The prolific author of compelling novels such as Old Goriot and Eugenie Grandet.

May 22: Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Sherlock Holmes!

May 23: Margaret Wise Brown (1910-1952). Writer of the Goodnight Moon classic many parents have read to their children.

May 24: Michael Chabon (1963-). The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, etc.

May 25: W.P. Kinsella (1935-2016), whose books include the Shoeless Joe novel made into the movie Field of Dreams.

May 25: Jamaica Kincaid (1949-). Annie John, etc.

May 27: Herman Wouk (1915-2019). Wrote the riveting The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance, and the memorable Marjorie Morningstar.

May 27: Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961). Author of The Maltese Falcon novel starring iconic private eye Sam Spade.

May 27: Tony Hillerman (1925-2008). Best known for his mysteries featuring Native-American characters.

May 27: John Cheever (1912-1982). His “The Swimmer” short story remains amazing.

May 28: Walker Percy (1916-1990). Best known for his novel The Moviegoer and for helping John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces novel get published posthumously.

May 30: Colm Toibin (1955-). Author of the novels Brooklyn, The Master (a fictionalized take on Henry James), etc.

May 31: Walt Whitman (1819-1892). The highly influential poet.

Other May-born writers I didn’t mention? Any thoughts on the ones I did mention?

Misty the cat says: “I’d be taller than this tree if I puffed out my fur.”

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 Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for the 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, including many encounters with celebrities.

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 criticizes the ending of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show (he lives in my town) — is here.

Remote Isn’t Just What Turns On Your TV

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The Isle of Lewis (© Manel Vinuesa).

Novels with remote settings can be highly populated with elements fascinating to readers. Challenging weather. Lonely characters. Intense interactions between a relatively small number of people. Heightened danger because of the remoteness. And more.

The Blackhouse and its first sequel The Lewis Man, two riveting Peter May novels I read this month, mostly unfold on the isolated Isle of Lewis off Scotland. This setting gives the books lots of atmosphere amid murders and interesting (at times pathological) relationships between various three-dimensional characters.

I also recently read Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier, who uses a remote setting as a backdrop to an intriguing love affair between a dissatisfied upper-class woman and a charismatic pirate.

Pirates have ships, of course, and many novels with remote settings unfold on boats, islands, or other isolated places near water. Among the examples I’ve read are Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (obviously), Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (which chronicles a surreal journey to the South Pole), Herman Melville’s Typee (whose escapee sailor protagonist enjoys Polynesian island life), and Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (a key part of which is set on a prison island off Marseille).

Also: Aldous Huxley’s Island (as utopian as that author’s Brave New World is dystopian), Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (murders on an island), Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (boy and tiger overboard), Martin Cruz Smith’s Polar Star (the ship-set first sequel to Gorky Park), M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans (about the troubled life of a married couple on an island off Australia), and Peter Hoeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow (partly set on an island off Greenland).

Other remote locales in fiction can be mostly on land — including Canada’s Yukon wilderness in Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, the Alaskan wilderness in Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, the New York State wilderness in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer, the Siberian wilderness in Louis L’Amour’s Last of the Breed, and the African desert in J.M.G. Le Clezio’s Desert and Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky.

There’s also the bleak end-of-the-world landscape in the concluding pages of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, and of course lonely settings in many sci-fi novels — such as Andy Weir’s The Martian and Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Your thoughts on this topic (which I also covered, in a partly different way, seven years ago) — including your favorite fiction with remote locales?

Misty the cat says: “My back legs and gasoline prices are both up.”

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 Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for the 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, including many encounters with celebrities.

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 discusses a welcome downzoning decision in my town — is here.