The Black Isle by Sandi Tan - Review Published in Philadelphia Inquirer

Twists and turns in a tale peopled with dark forces

August 04, 2012|Reviewed by Karen E. Quinones Miller for The Philadelphia Inquirer

By Sandi Tan
Grand Central Publishing. 480 pp. $24.99

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She's an old Asian woman who lives by routine - making weekly visits to the store, to the laundry, doing what old women do.
Most important, she goes to the archive section of the library every Saturday to visit the book - the book that contained her photograph, surrounded by a story filled with lies but that revealed one truth: She can communicate with ghosts.
Then, one Saturday she finds the book she's been quietly visiting for decades has been vandalized. Most of the pages have been torn out. In the photograph, her head has been blackened out with marker. A feeling of dread descends upon her - someone, she decides, is trying to erase her life.
As she slowly makes her way back to her apartment, she sees two crows collide and then plummet to the ground. That, she decides, can't be good.
Later that evening, she receives a telephone call from a woman who identifies herself as a university professor writing a book on "superstition in 20th-century Asia," and asking for an interview. The professor punctuates her request with an ominous statement: "Someone - and this person or persons must really be obsessed - has been cutting you out of history."
The old woman hangs up, deciding she will not let herself be wiped out. "I will not become a ghost."

The Black Isle, the debut novel of Sandi Tan, tells the story of Ling, born to a middle-class family in 1922 Shanghai. She has a twin brother, Li, and a set of younger twin sisters. Ling's mother is agoraphobic, and her father is a quiet, hen-pecked schoolteacher.
She sees her first ghost when she's 7 - one of her mother's former housemaids who killed herself when Ling was an infant. The uproar created when she lets the household know about her vision leads her to vow not to mention her spiritual abilities again.
Shortly afterward, the family's fortunes take a drastic turn for the worse. The Great Depression that followed the 1929 American stock market crash makes its way around the world, and Shanghai is not spared. The family's savings are erased and the family patriarch loses his job. The only thing to do, the parents decide, is for the father to travel to the Black Isle to work and send his salary back to support the homestead. It is also decided that Ling and Li will accompany their father.
And it is while living in the Black Isle - actually, a band of tropical islands in the South Seas - that Ling's spiritual powers seem to go wild. She sees ghosts everywhere and spends most of her time trying to ignore their questions regarding their deaths or the whereabouts of their loved ones.
At one point, her father becomes the caretaker of a rubber plantation that is not only filled with ghosts that Ling alone can see, but that is supposedly haunted by pontianaks - spirits of women who die in childbirth. When a pontianak attacks Ling's family, she decapitates the supposedly mythical creature after it kills a visitor.
Shortly after, Ling separates from her brother and father and finds employment as a companion for the rich Wee family. World II looms, and the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Black Isle forever changes Ling's life - and she becomes an important part of the Black Isle's history. Her contribution is so important the few who know about her role realize the Black Isle might never have made it into the 21st century without Ling's help. So why would someone want her removed from the history books?
Beautifully written, with a storyline that spans 70 years, The Black Isle is a historical novel that is both breathtaking and haunting. The characters are vivid - some simply charming, some horrifyingly scary - and the plot has so many twists and turns it seems as though you're reading a winding country road.
There are some plot points, however, that some might find a bit more than controversial, including a somewhat incestuous relationship and an incident of bestiality that, to be honest, is so mind boggling it's hard to believe. And because the episode did nothing to move the plot forward, it probably would have been best to simply excise it from the story.
Minor flaws notwithstanding, The Black Isle is an engaging and engrossing novel that will absolutely captivate you and should not be missed. It will take you on a journey you will not soon forget.

Is There No Longer Honor Amongst Authors?

  Everyone knows I'm about my hustle when it comes to selling my books, so maybe that's why a young woman emailed me to boast about selling her own books in the parking lot outside the store where another author was having a signing.

I don't think that's hustling. I think that's some low-life stinky shit.

But maybe that's just me.

Me, however, being me . . . I told this author exactly how I felt about her actions. And while I always welcome other authors to my signings -- and always shout them out -- I asked to please make sure she misses mine.

I don't understand whatever happened to honor between authors -- but I find it more and more rare as time goes on.

I've always encouraged authors to help each other out by exchanging bundles of postcards and bookmarks. If one author is going to a book event in San Francisco and another is going to New York for a book event, then by handing out each others cards they are helping each other promote in places they may not otherwise be able to do so.

I've done this for years! Some of the authors whom I have supported and who have supported me in this include Gloria Mallette, Mary Morrison, Tracy P. Thompson, Zane, Victoria Christopher Murray, and many others.

So, I recently had lunch with a new author whose debut book I had read and enjoyed. She lives in New Jersey, but was in Philadelphia for a book signing. I couldn't make her signing, but I called her and arranged to take her to lunch to make up for it. Over lunch I gave her as much advice as she asked for, told her again how much I enjoyed her book. It was the weekend before the Harlem Book Fair, and I shared with her that I would not be able to attend. We then exchanged postcards and bookmarks, with the understanding that she would give mine out at the HBF and I would give hers out at the next events I attended.

Something came up, and I was able to attend the HBF after all, and I ran into the author. I was so excited, as I had arranged for one of my editors, Brigette Smith of Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster), to meet me with excerpt booklets for An Angry Ass Black Woman, but since Brigette wouldn't be there for another hour or so I hoped to get the postcards I'd given the author to give out.

The author seemed excited to see me, also . . . but then when I asked about the postcards, she turned and started talking to someone else. I waited until she finished talking, and then asked again. She again started talking to someone else. This time, I was rude . . . and broke in and asked if she had any of my postcards. She got a strange look on her face and said, "No, but if you can leave some here at my booth if you'd like."

I audibly gasped, and she averted her eyes.

If she had just said she'd forgotten them I would have understood. That happens. But for her to make believe she didn't know what I was even talking about . . . well! I thought it was rather disrespectful; and not a very honorable way to act.

I walked away, very upset. But upset or not, when I host my event next week that I will still give out her bookmarks.

It's the upright and honorable thing to do.

Book Review - Homer & Langley

Title: Homer & Langley

Author: – E. L. Doctorow
Publisher – Random House
September 2009

Reviewed by Karen E. Quinones Miller for The Philadelphia Inquirer

I need – yes, need – to start off this review of E. L. Doctorow’s latest novel, Homer & Langley, by saying that I’m a fan of Doctorow. I’ve read most of his books (Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, and Waterworks are my favorites), and have been looking forward to reading his new literary work for months.

When I read the very first line in the book, “I’m Homer, the blind brother, I didn’t lose my sight all at once, it was like the movies, a slow fade-out,” I let out a sigh of pleasure. The writing already proved to be exquisite. And the writing remained a masterpiece throughout the book; it was the story that I found lacking.


Homer & Langley is based on two real life brothers who died in 1947. Homer and Langley Collyer lived in New York City and became infamous as much for the way they died as the way they lived. Sons of a wealthy gynecologist and opera singer, they were raised in the lap of luxury, but when they died in they were the city’s best known recluses. Though they were quite wealthy they lived in squalor. When they died the city removed more than 100 tons of debris and junk from their Fifth Avenue brownstone.

Being born in New York, I was familiar with the Collyer story. My mother would often come into my messy bedroom and tell me that it looked like the Collyer brothers lived there. Knowing a bit of the history made me all the more eager to read Homer & Langley.

In Doctorow’s book, the Collyers don’t perish in 1947, but in fact live through the late 1970s or early 1980s, and Doctorow manages to weave historical events from Prohibition through Watergate, into his novel. He also takes further liberties, making Langley the older brother, though in reality he was the younger. Langley serves in World War I, returning home shell-shocked (though never diagnosed), somewhat bitter, and utterly cynical. Homer is made the younger sibling who loses his sight in his teens (in reality, he lost his sight in his forties). When their parents die in the influenza epidemic in the 1919, the brothers set up housekeeping in their inherited brownstone.

Homer & Langley starts off at a rather slow pace, but there seems to be a promise of excitement. The promise centers around the brothers’ (especially Langley’s) eccentricities. Like the idea to have tea-dances in their home during the Depression, much to their neighbor’s dismay. And Langley’s theory that history simply keeps repeating itself and people are simply replacements for people who lived before. Therefore, he reasons, if he keeps track of every newspaper article written in a three, four, or five year period he can write an eternally current newspaper – only one edition needed – that will provide all the information that anyone need ever know. Though the theory seems dubious to Homer, he accepts it, just as he accepts Langley’s eccentric junk collecting.

And In the beginning of the novel, Homer is shown to be quite independent, having a relationship with one of the house servants, befriending the coronet playing grandson of the cook, and developing a crush on an assistant hired to accompany him to his job as a pianist at a local movie theater.

But while these eccentricities and events are recounted, they’re never fully felt by the reader. Homer, the narrator, has a distant way of detailing events that never fully manages to draw the reader in. Even the scene where a quartet of organized crime members take the brothers hostage in their own home falls flat.

Instead of fulfilling its promise of excitement, the book actually becomes more and more depressing. And Langley’s descent from eccentricity to full-blown madness is never really explained.

I won’t reveal the last sentence of the book, but it is as depressing as the first sentence is beautiful. The only book I’ve ever read that disturbed me as much was Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun about a World War I soldier who has lost his arms, face, legs, tongue, and face in the war. I kept reading because I thought there had to be some kind of payoff ; like some kind of series of surgery that would miraculously -- if not make him whole – at least allow the soldier some semblance of a real life. It never happened. But at least that book had a social message; war is Hell.

Homer & Langley has no such social or moral message, so it just left me feeling sad and miserable.

An Accidental Affair by Eric Jerome Dickey - Review Posted in Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer

An Accidental Affair By Eric Jerome Dickey Dutton. 396 pp. $26.95

Reviewed by Karen E. Quiñones Miller for The Philadelphia Inquirer

James Thicke is rich. James Thicke is a successful screenwriter. James Thicke is married to one of the most beautiful women in the world, Hollywood star Regina Baptiste. And she just happens to be in the process of filming Thicke's latest flick to hit the silver screen alongside Johnny Bergs (also known as Johnny Handsome), one of the hottest actors in the business.

Then an anonymous person posts one of the scenes from the movie on YouTube.
A love scene.
A love scene that obviously has nothing to do with acting.
Johnny Handsome is actually — as in flesh-to-flesh — entwined with Regina Baptiste on camera.
The expression on her face, and the moans escaping from her throat, are just as real as the sex, and let the viewer know that she is undeniably loving every shameless moment — no acting required. And the realness of the moment was apparent to anyone. As the scene ends, the film crew can be heard giving a loud round of applause. And when Thicke sees it, he explodes.
Though master of the written word, Thicke is a man of few words when it comes to dealing with his own real-life situations. His response to this very public betrayal is to get into his quarter-of-a-million-dollar car, drive down Sunset Boulevard, practically run Johnny Handsome off the road, then pull him out of his car and beat him in the middle of oncoming traffic until the movie star is nearly unconscious. And handsome no more.
The next thing on Thicke's agenda is to change his marital status from married man to widower. With a .38 on the passenger's side of his Maybach, he takes off to find Regina Baptiste.
An Accidental Affair is the latest novel by New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey, a prolific writer whose works include 2008's Pleasure and 2009's Tempted by Trouble.
Originally from Memphis, Dickey moved to Los Angeles after college in order to pursue a career in engineering, and worked in the aerospace industry before catching the showbiz bug and starting a stand-up comedy act. Though his writing career started with his comedy skits, he soon began to branch out, eventually writing short stories and then novels.
Dickey has managed to avoid the pigeonholing that plagues so many authors' careers; his 18 novels include romance, detective stories, erotica, and suspense thrillers, and his graphic novel Storm, based on a Marvel Comics character, even won a 2007 Glyph Comics Award.
Dickey's writing has never been better, and readers will find themselves sucked into his latest book from the very first page — which just happens to be a copy of an MSNBC.com news item detailing information about the Baptiste/Bergs sex tape making its way around the Internet.
Unable to immediately find his wife, Thicke opts to rent an apartment in a seedy section of Los Angles rather than return to his Hollywood mansion, which is surrounded by reporters. He leases the apartment under a fake name, but his problems mount as he hides out.
For one thing, Johnny Bergs' family, which just happens to be involved in organized crime, is now after him. Then there's Regina's ex-husband, who is trying to blackmail him. And the zany characters who live in the apartment complex and complicate his life. There's the married sexpot down the hall, who can't wait to get the newest tenant in bed. The older man shacking up with a youthful woman who, he rightfully suspects, has the hots for Thicke. And another more mature woman to whom Thicke finds himself attracted. In addition there are the self-recriminations about the woman he gave up for Baptiste.
But in the midst of dodging thugs, bullets, women, and regrets, Thicke gets an unexpected visitor. His wife.
If you're looking for a book filled with drama and thrills, An Accidental Affair certainly fits the bill: adultery, beat-downs, extortion, lies, sexcapades, and even murder are all there. And the writing is superb; the characters are well-developed and the dialogue is on-point. I would even go so far as to say this is one of the best written of Dickey's many books.
An Accidental Affair is a book that all Dickey fans should read, but even if you've never heard of Dickey, grab this book. You won't regret being introduced to a prolific writer whose talents evolve with every new volume.

Here's The Real Deal . . .

If I had the time and energy to mentor everyone trying to break into the publishing world, I would. 

But the truth is I don't have the time and energy , and I can't. 

And I am very sorry for that. 

This is not a sarcastic status… It is a sincere and heartfelt apology.

Here's The Real Deal . . .

If I had the time and energy to mentor everyone trying to break into the publishing world, I would. But the truth is I don't have the time and energy , and I can't.
And I am very sorry for that.
This is not a sarcastic status… It is a sincere and heartfelt apology.

JaQuavis and Ashley Coleman Find Success Writing Street Lit

By Karen E. Quiñones Miller, For The Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted: August 25, 2011

JaQuavis and Ashley Coleman, both 25, are likely one of the youngest married couples to hit the New York Times best-seller list. And they owe all to their very colorful past.
His as a drug dealer. Hers as his ride-or-die chick.
He was pushing product. She was counting up the money. And that's what they do, still.
Only now the product is literary instead of illegal, and the money comes as royalty checks instead of crumpled dollar bills from the hands of a crackhead looking for a hit.

The Colemans are among a group of authors who write Street Lit, a genre that many considered a bastardization of African American literature when it first hit the bookshelves a dozen years ago. Street Lit is urban fiction but written in a grittier style, focusing on a subculture of drugs, prostitution, and street violence. Accusations that it glorifies those things abound.
One well-known African American author, Nick Chiles, even wrote an editorial for the New York Times in 2006, stating in part: "I was ashamed and mortified to see my books sitting on the same shelves as these titles."
Other African American authors echoed Chiles' views, and a prevailing thought in the literary community seemed to be that Street Lit perpetrated the worst stereotypes of African Americans and that the novels glorified drug dealing and street violence.
JaQuavis Coleman bristles at the criticism.
"We came up in Flint [Michigan], and where we grew up the dope king was the top man," he said in a phone interview. "He was like Obama, so of course they were our role models. They were who we wanted to grow up to be. That may not be others' reality, but that's our reality. And we're writing our reality. And, yeah, it's Street Lit. I embrace the term."
"Make no mistake about it," he added. "We're screaming from the gutter."
It was a source of pride in the African American literary community, but not a big surprise, when Terri McMillan's Waiting to Exhale - a novel about four middle-class African American women in Phoenix dealing with relationship crises - made the best-seller list in 1992. That book is credited with opening the floodgates for African American commercial fiction.
But when Philadelphia native Teri Woods made the list in 2007 with True to the Game II - a sequel to her 1999 novel, True to the Game, about a young woman from the projects in North Philadelphia who falls in love with a dope dealer and gets involved in drug trafficking and murder - there were gasps.
Street Lit as an authentic genre could no longer be ignored, said Vanessa Irvin Morris, a professor of library and information sciences at Drexel University.
"Making the New York Times best-seller list gives the genre a credibility that it deserves," said Morris, whose book, The Readers' Advisory Guide to Street Literature, will be published by ALA Edition (American Library Association) in October.
"It makes a statement that Street Lit is readable on a mainstream level. And that their mostly African American and Latino followers are reading and buying books on par with everyone else."
Thanks to the Colemans - writing together as Ashley JaQuavis - and Wahida Clark, author of the Thug Loving and Payback series, Street Lit has had a presence on the highly acclaimed list in 2009, 2010, and 2011.
Clark hit the list in 2008 with Payback Is a Mother, published by Grand Central Books, and this year with Justify My Thug, published by Cash Money Content.
"I always enjoyed writing and being an author, but when I hit the New York Times best-seller list, my new publishing company really rolled out the red carpet for me," said Clark, who wrote her first book, Thugs and the Women Who Love Them, while in prison for white-collar crimes, including money laundering and mail and wire fraud.
When Street Lit icon K'wan Foye - author of 14 Essence best-selling books, including Gangsta and Welfare Wifeys - first read the Chiles editorial, he said, he was disappointed that Chiles had felt he had to write it.
"I've never met the brother, and he was just talking so greasy about the genre, and I was like, 'We're all writers, man,' " said Foye, whose new book, Eviction Notice, will be published by St. Martin's Press next month. "I'm trying to feed my children just like you. I'm trying to get a message across just like you. You may not have come from where we come from, but that doesn't make our stories any less legit."
Ashley Coleman agreed.
"How can you say one genre is legitimate and another is illegitimate? One thing that JaQuavis and I don't do is sugarcoat where we come from. And we write about where we come from," she said. "I don't think that we ever had the New York Times best-seller list in our sight. But look: We made it!"
Not once, but twice.
Their Cartel II: Tale of the Murder Mamas and Cartel III: The Last Chapter hit the list in 2009 and 2010.
Murderville: The First of a Trilogy was released in July by Cash Money Content, and speculation is that it, too, will find its way onto the list.
"We have the best fans ever," Ashley Coleman said with a sigh.
Murderville tells the tale of Liberty and A'shai, who fall in love as children in Sierra Leone and are captured by human traffickers when they run away from their village. Forcefully separated when they reach the United States, they go through a mind-blowing journey that includes drug cartels, brothels, and arranged marriages before finally reuniting as adults.
The story has an ending that readers will not see coming, and leads straight into the second volume of the trilogy.
The titles and the release dates for the last two books of the trilogy have not been released, but Urban Books will publish the couple's Murder Mamas in September.
"Being on the New York Times list is a major accomplishment. It actually established our career," said Ashley Coleman. "We're established writers now. It's guaranteed that we will be doing this for the rest of our lives."
She took a deep breath and added, "Instead of grinding to the top, we're at the top."

Get Started Writing Your Novel Workshop - Philadelphia

Hello All . . .


I'm writing to notify you that I will be holding a 5 1/2-hour "Get Started Writing Your Novel" workshop in Philadelphia on Saturday, January 29, 2011 . . .

For those who are not quite familiar with me, my name is Karen E. Quinones Miller, and I'm the author of seven novels published by major publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Kensington Books, Warner Books, and Grand Central Books. All of my novels have been Essence bestsellers, and I've also been nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary - Fiction.

In addition, I'm a nationally known literary consultant, and I head Eveningstar Writer's Group. I'm also CEO of Oshun Publishing Company.. Please feel free to visit my website at www.karenequinonesmiller.com  to find out more about me.

Topics for the Get Started Writing Your Novel seminar include:

Getting Started

Story Structure
Point of View
Character Development
Showing Versus Telling
Writing Realistic Dialogue
Setting a Scene
Self-Editing
Overcoming Writer’s Block


Admission to each seminar is limited to 15 people so that everyone has time to ask questions, and have them answered to their satisfaction.

The cost for this 5 1/2-hour seminar is only $90.00 -- although the information is given is worth MUCH more, I try too keep my prices low so that more people have the opportunity to attend (I KNOW what's it like to be a struggling writer!).

You can obtain information about registering for this seminar by contacting me at authorkeqm@aol.com.


If you're a writer, and you're serious about improving your writing, and getting your work published . . . then this is the seminars for you! And if you're not a writer, but you know someone who is . . . be a true friend and pass this message on to them!


Karen 

Testimonials from others (ALL ON FB) who've attended the Get Started Writing Your Novel seminar

  
In June of 2010 I attended the Philadelphia Writers Workshop and took a class with Miss Karen E. Quinones Miller. I don't think I've ever had a religious experience as a writer until that day. Karen spoke to a packed house and dealt with the tricky issue of character development, passive voice, and a few other topics. I had to take a good look at my writing, and myself. Karen explained to me the very building blocks of a great story and how to use them. For the first time, I had a glimmer of an idea of what development was really about.</span>

Ciuinin Ferrin 

Karen E. Quinones-Miller is full of information, experience, and knowledge and I am so happy to have attended her writing workshop and cannot wait to see all she has taught me put into action! Thanks, Karen!</span>
Dennis Maurice

The Get Writing Starting Seminar was conducted in a small close knit setting, opportune for questions and answers, we discussed staying true to your character, showing vs. telling and the difference between active and passive writing.  Attending the seminar not only provided priceless information but meeting with Karen herself was invaluable as she has remained a consistent resource in my writing career.  Since our meeting Karen has continued to be unselfish with the knowledge she has gained.   An old adage I once heard that says, “When you climb the ladder of success don’t forget to reach behind.” Karen Quinones Miller has embodied that mantra and used it as a selfless practice in her encouragement and advancement of new writers.
Sharai Rucker


 Thank you for your invitation to your writing semiar back in July. My experience was enlightening and knowledgable. The backwards check mark made so much sense. My ah ha bells rang like sunday morning catholic church bells....loud and clear. Connecting with other writers near and far was a plus as well. Because of you I have a few more people in my circle who understand me as a writer.


Kendall Prophet

Scrooge of the Year Award!

National Jobs with Justice's annual

Scrooge of the Year Award -
And the winner is . . . .





Each year, national Jobs with Justice gives an “award” to the greediest, most cold-hearted company or person of the year.  Nominations for the 2010 Scrooge of the Year are in, and it's time to vote. Please read about the candidates below and then VOTE for your favorite greedy Scrooge! We'll announce the winner on December 20th.

This year's nominees are:

Ku Klux Klan Snowman Built as Holiday Decoration by Iowa Man

 10-foot Ku Klux Klan snowman

Mark Eliseuson  decided he wanted something different in his frontyard this winter. Something to reflect his political/social commentary tastes, perhaps. Whatever the reason, the Hayden, Iowa resident decided to use the snow dropped by the latest storm to erect a 10-foot Ku Klux Klan snowman --  complete with a noose dangling from his arm --  as a way to entertain his neighbors.

His neighbors, however, were not amused. They complained to deputy officials, and the Eliseuson was told that he could possibly be charged with creating a public nuisance. Notice I wrote COULD BE CHARGED since no charges have yet been filed. I guess they offiicials had to go get an okay to file the charges.