July 2019 – Benjamin L. Clark, writer

I saw it was Clive Cussler’s birthday today so I thought I’d share a review I wrote years and years ago for the first book of his historical thriller/mystery series starring Isaac Bell, a private detective of considerable private means. So, here it is, from the archives:

A cold-blooded bank robber has had astounding success throughout the western states and the Van Dorn Detective Agency has been hired by the US Gov’t to stop him. Van Dorn sends their best — Detective Isaac Bell, an independently wealthy detective who is hyper-competent and whose intuitions are never wrong.

US cover for *The Chase* by Clive Cussler. Original painting by Maurizio Manzeiri.

The story was, unfortunately, more predictable than I like. A little bloated too. Of course, you know early on that a train is a main focus for the story — and the fact it has this amazing cover with a train at the bottom of a lake is also pretty cool, but … Cussler left a lot of potential for suspense on the table, I felt. Even with the built-in ticking time bomb realizing a large part of the story is set in the spring of 1906 … in San Francisco.

Also, I didn’t love the main character Isaac Bell. I’ve not read a lot of Clive Cussler’s books in my life — I know fans of his read dozens, but I’ve read a couple, and have listened to one or two on audio while road-tripping with my father. Bell is just like the other Cussler heroes, and frankly, I found him kind of dull. I liked the supporting cast (what little we see of them), even though I expected several of them to shout “Golly!” at any moment. The shifting locations helped keep a lively pace. Honestly, I enjoyed reading the villain more than the hero in this one.

The history info dumps are what writers like Cussler are known for — cool car on the scene boom he writes an essay on the car’s technical details. That’s OK with me, I’m here just as much for the history as I am for the story. The random, purposeless historical cameos — not so much. It gives historical fiction a bad name, I think, and these particularly clanked off-key. One was OK (John Barrymore), another (Jack London), was sadly pointless.

So, if you like your historical thriller with some action, but not a lot of mystery, check out The Chase. I’ll probably read more of the series myself (it’s my favorite era at the moment), but it won’t be a high priority, especially with others starting to come out in this era. But the books are easy to get a hold of, and almost always a few to be found when the library starts weeding shelves.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

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Cover of book Writers Dreaming by Naomi Epel — *Writers Dreaming* by Naomi Epel from 1993.

What an interesting book. It is literally about the dreams — the hallucinations of slumber — of writers. Not so much about daydreams, or aspirations, or anything other than the literal dreams of writers.

Naomi Epel worked as a driver/helper of visiting writers in San Francisco. She’d pick them up, drive them to book signings, talks, etc. Naturally, they’d talk, and she was keenly interested in dreams. She later hosted a radio show on the subject as well, eventually putting together this book. 20 years later, it’s still a fascinating read. A couple of the essays sounded familiar — especially Sue Grafton’s. Grafton edited a book about the process of mystery and thriller writers, including herself, and she talks a lot about how dreams play a part in her process.

Gloria Naylor, in her essay in Naomi Epel’s Writers Dreaming, says that writers are a work’s first audience. The idea stuck with me, and I’ve been thinking it over. I think it may be true. It feels true at least, and that’s not the worst test.

I know some writers get huffy when other writers say that their characters take over, that they have no idea where ideas come from, that they are just along for the ride, etc. Abdicating responsibility for their work with what sounds like a projected false humility.

The writers that get mad about these statements resent members of the tribe going out and making light of our work. Writing as work is frequently minimized, unacknowledged, even denied. Who wouldn’t be mad about that?

Gloria Naylor in Writers Dreaming, 1993.

As (one of my writing heroes) E. B. White said to his step-son, Roger Agnell when he proposed that White might “have fun” revisiting the city and write a little piece about his old haunts in New York for Holiday Magazine (of which Agnell was an editor). E. B. White replied, “Writing is never fun.”

But I also see what Naylor was saying in her essay. We open the taps of creative flow, and like a kid playing in the rainwater rolling toward a gutter, we put in little sticks and leaves and watch them go. We pull up clumps of mud and find big rocks to try and redirect the flow of water. This is writing, in a way.

It must be connected to the part of our brain that makes faces out of things and the stew of you, all the bits and pieces, the ingredients that have become you. Your genetics, your upbringing, your talents, and fears. Your love and failures, the rivers you have drunk and mountains you have stood upon – the deserts that lay ahead and behind.

Stories are the same. All the makeup is outside of you trying to get in but it may first be run through you – sieved into you to become whatever it will become. And as it becomes, we create and watch, creator and first spectator together – as always a multiplicity of identity in any given moment — human.

What artist/ writer/ creator, hasn’t been surprised by the product of the pen or brush? If you never have, you should write more. Surprises await. What do you think? Hit reply and let me know!

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

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Month: July 2019

Book Review: The Chase by Clive Cussler

Writers Dreaming, Writers Musing