Podcasts

Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

Winnefred Ann Frolik

The Wages Of Sin – The Seedy Side of Victorian Era Edinburgh

03/16/2017

While the first-year students numbered well over a hundred, only a dozen of us were female.  A dozen too many, if our critics were to be believed.

The Wages of Sin, the debut novel by Scottish journalist Kaite Walsh, will be a welcome new find for any fan of historical mysteries.  Protagonist Sarah Gilchrist, a London gentlewoman with a traumatic history, becomes one of the first group of female students to attend University of Edinburgh’s medical school in 1892. Sarah’s beset by difficulties on all sides; not only are women unwelcome by professors and classmates alike, but Sarah has been unfairly marked out as a ‘fallen woman.’ At best most of the other women avoid her company; at worse,  like aristocrat Julia Latymer or proud, proletarian student Moira, they call her a slut.

Which is why, while volunteering as a nurse at the Saint Giles Infirmary for Women in order to get more experience, may be grueling duty, it’s also a welcome reprieve for Sarah. The destitute, the downtrodden, and the whores who frequent Saint Giles may not be genteel company, but as Sarah notes they at least talk to her. But when prostitute Lucy, turns up on the dissection table of the school the very day after Sarah saw her as a patient, Sarah becomes obsessed with learning the truth about her death. Her journey takes her from brothels, to opium dens, to homes for wayward girls, while Sarah also reluctantly navigates her way Edinburgh society. Along the way she makes new allies but also encounters new threats.

With The Wages of Sin, Walsh delivers not only an engrossing historical mystery, but also an insightful look into how gender, class, and female competition, as well as sisterhood, all interact in the real world. It’s also compulsively readable and I finished it in practically one sitting. The ending suggests that this is intended to be the start of a series of novels starring the indomitable Sarah and, if so, I for one am down for the ride.

The Wages of Sin
Katie Walsh

Kong: Skull Island – Where Monsters Rule

03/12/2017

This planet doesn’t belong to us.  Ancient species owned this earth long before mankind.  

Kong: Skull Island directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts (hitherto best known for indie hit The Kings Of Summer) is from the producers of Godzilla and fans of the latter will recognize the ominous phrase “Project Monarch.” The prevailing philosophy of both films is that humans are insignificant little insects compared to the massive, ancient, nearly god-like creatures of legend who haunt our nightmares. This is as it should be; what’s the point of a monster movie where humans can contain the monsters by being ‘alpha’? (I’m looking at you Jurassic World.)  The primal appeal of monster films lies in the fact that we cannot control nature and it is folly to try.

What I didn’t expect was that Skull Island besides being a great, example of B-movie monster making, would also owe so much to stories about man’s inner darkness. The intro takes place in 1944 just as WWII is starting to wind up with a battle on the beach between a Japanese pilot and American one, which ends when everyone’s favorite giant ape crashes the party. Kong is animated by Toby Kebbell of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes who plays a great secondary character in the film as well.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND

Flash forward nearly 30 years to 1973, in the last days of the Vietnam war, an expedition is authorized to explore Skull Island primarily so the Russian’s won’t get there first. Geo-politics in this movie are as much a character as the subterranean lizard abominations are. A number of the visuals of Vietnam era choppers exploding napalm seem right out of Apocalypse Now. Our main hero, former RAF pilot turned mercenary tracker (Tom Hiddleston) is named Conrad in a clear homage to Joseph Conrad author of Heart of Darkness. The Colonel Kurtz figure here is Colonel Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) a veteran soldier embittered by the notion that the U.S. is ‘abandoning’ the fight in Vietnam. He blames the media and war photographers like Mason Weaver (Brie Larson of Room) for the loss of public support.  Packard craves a new battle and new enemy and he finds one in Kong.

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John Goodman and Corey Hawkins (Photo credit: Church Zlotnick)

We also get a ton of other great supporting characters as well, from John Goodman’s scientist obsessed with proving monsters are real, to John C. Reilly as the WWII crash-landed American pilot trapped on the island for thirty years, to Corey Hawkins as Yale-educated geologist whose work is crucial to Project Monarch, and many, many more. It’s not that Skull Island skimps on the action or set pieces; far from it! But they spend a remarkable amount of time establishing their characters personalities and dramas, which makes their fates far more engrossing on screen. Rest assured this is a monster movie with heart, and it is worth sticking around to see the after-credits stinger.

Photo credit, top: Chuck Zlotnick

All Photos courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures

Marked for Revenge – The Return of KER

03/07/2017

Last year, Swedish author, Emilie Schepe, took us all on a wild ride with her debut novel Marked for Life where we met Jana Berzelius aka KER; a prosecutor with a hidden past as a child assassin. This year, Jana/KER is back in part two of a planned trilogy.

Marked for Revenge picks up six months after the events detailed in Marked for Life. Jana’s managed to keep her past secret, but her old nemesis (and fellow child assassin), Danilo, is still out there as the one loose end she has to fear.  When one girl from Thailand overdoses smuggling drugs into Sweden and her fellow drug mule goes missing, it sets off an criminal investigation and chain of events that make it vital for Jana to find Danilo before anyone else does. Along the way, Jana makes unexpected further discoveries about her past; and possible new connections for the future.

As a middle chapter of the trilogy, Marked for Revenge inevitably has some awkwardness to it. People trying to start here without reading the first book first will inevitably become confused and the ending is of course a cliffhanger to set up part three. Also, an attempt to add further tension among Jana’s work colleagues with a love triangle at one point feels contrived. Schepe is far stronger when she focuses on those psychological demons she’s already set up within her main cast like self-destructive policewoman Mia Bolanger and happily married policeman who’s sympathetic to Jana (possibly even nurturing a crush,) but begins to have nagging little doubts about her. The main center of course remains Jana herself, that icy, impenetrable killer who constantly skates on the edge of discovery or death in a manner that while not always plausible is always entertaining. As a series, it practically screams for a screen adaption and readers will find themselves impatient to turn the pages.

Marked for Revenge
Marked for Life
Emilie Schepe

Top photo: Bigstock

Logan –  Mutants Rage Against the Dying of the Light

03/06/2017

The world is not the same as it was, Charles.  Mutants they’re gone now.

Logan, co-written and directed by James Mangold (Walk the Line, Girl Interrupted), is an X-Men movie in that it takes place in the mutant universe with familiar characters like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier.  But in most other senses it doesn’t feel like an X-Men movie at all.  It’s the first such film where we never see the beloved Westchester Mansion, but rather Charles and Logan have been reduced to living in shacks and water tanks in Mexico. With a great deal of the movie taking place around the Mexican and Canadian borders, the film’s setting invariably feels incredibly topical.

The reduction in Charles’ and Logan’s living standards speaks to their reduction in other areas. Logan is slowly dying, poisoned by the metal inside him. His every gesture shows a combination of rage, sorrow, and inexpressible weariness. Charles is sliding into dementia.   Both Jackman and Stewart give absolutely heartbreaking performances here; if this wasn’t a comic book franchise people would be talking about Golden Globes and possibly Academy Awards. Their caretaker and ally Caliban (Stephan Merchant of Cemetary Junction in an awesome scene stealing turn), is an albino tracker who literally must hide from the light. Their ill health echoes the fact they are a dying race; no new mutants have been born in over twenty years.

But new hope appears for the mutant race and for Logan and Charles in particular with the arrival of Laura (fantastic child actress Dafne Keen) a mutant born and bred in a lab and now on the run. Made with Logan’s DNA, she has both his abilities and his striking lack of social skills. Despite Logan’s own reluctance and the very bad men pursuing them, Logan, Laura, and Charles manage to forge a surrogate family on the road that provides some of Logan’s most affecting moments, between the inevitable spurts of violence.

And what violence it is! Logan is rated R, and unlike previous X-Men films it doesn’t shy away from what it means to do battle with metal claws. Blood spurts, limbs are severed, heads literally roll…and not all the people who die aren’t all bad either. This may be a ‘comic book’ movie but it’s far from escapism and in fact its themes of infirmity, poverty, ostracism, prejudice, genocide, aging, and entropy seem more vital than ever. Like the Western classics, Logan pays homage to, the film’s greatness lies in its embrace of both hope and heartache.

Top photo: Laura (Dafne Keen), Charles (Patrick Stewart) and Logan (Hugh Jackman). Photo Credit: Ben Rothstein courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

Five Great Takes on Classic Fairy Tales

02/25/2017

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist.  Children already know that dragons exist.  Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.

G.K. Chesterton

It recently came to my attention that February 26th is Tell a Fairy Tale Day!  Why not?  Fairy tales from the original, dark, bloody stories told by the Brothers Grimm to the cheerful, movie musicals, made by Disney are one of the key components of our culture.  But perhaps in the spirit of Tell a Fairy Tale Day what we need are some new takes on the standard tropes we all grew up with.  Like one of the following.

Silver Woven in My Hair By Shirley Rousseau Murphy (1977) This re-telling of Cinderella stars Thursey a strong willed girl living in medieval times who refuses to be broken by either the cruel treatment of her stepmother and step-sisters or their accusatory taunts that her father was a coward.  Befriending an old monk and a young goatherd, Thursey becomes determined to attend the Summer Ball held in honor of the Kingdom’s Prince.

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast By Robin McKinley  (1978)  Beloved children’s book author McKinley made her debut with this vivid and enchanted novel of the timeless French fairy tale La Belle et La Bete.  In this case “Beauty” was originally named Honor, but self-styled herself as the former because the latter was pretty dull.  Much of the story’s shape is direct from the original storyline though, McKinley depicts this Beauty’s sisters in a far more favorable light.  The book is beautiful and captivatingly written, even though the ending is a foregone conclusion and won the 1998 Phoenix Award honor.

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen (1992) Based around the German Fairy Tale of Briar Rose aka Sleeping Beauty it alternates between flashbacks and the present day. Rebecca Berlins learns that her recently deceased grandmother Gemma (who was obsessed with telling her granddaughters an odd take on Sleeping Beauty), was a Holocaust survivor sent to Chelmno extermination camp.  Becca travels to Poland and meets a man named Josef who tells her the tragic story of Gemma aka Briar Rose.  It was nominated for the Nebula Award and won Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature in 1993.

Mirror, Mirror By Gregory Maguire (2003)  Gregory Maguire of Wicked fame here takes a trip to 16th Century Italy to take on the tale of Snow White.  Life is peaceful for Don Vicente de Nevada and his beautiful daughter Bianca until Lucrezia Borgia and her brother Cesare come for a friendly visit-and to give Don Vicente an important mission for a holy relic.  While Don Vicente is away Bianca grows into an great beauty and Lucrezia becomes jealous.

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth (2012)  This historical novel blends the classic story of Rapunzel with the true life story of the woman who first told the tale; 17th century French author Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force who was exiled from the court of the Sun King Louis XIV.  It won the American Library Association Award for Best Historical Novel and was shortlisted for the Aurealis Award, the Ditmar Award, and the Norma K. Hemming Award.  It was also chosen as one of the Best Historical Novels by Library Journal.

Top photo from Bigstock

Five Great Novels About Truly Terrible Worlds

02/22/2017

As the recent blockbuster success of The Hunger Games proved the only thing people may like more than envisioning the perfect society is envisioning an imperfect one. In fact hellish landscapes and cityscapes have been a staple of speculative fiction for over a century.  Consider the following classic works.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895) One of the earliest entries in the genre by one of the founding fathers of sci-fi. Wells anonymous protagonist known only as the Time Traveler is a scientist and a gentleman inventor who travels hundreds of thousands of years into the future. Once there he finds that humanity has evolved into two separate species according to class divisions. The leisure classes have become the attractive but child like and helpless Eloi, while the working classes have become an underground ape like race known as the Morlocks. The Time Machine has spawned three film adaptions, two television versions, comic book adaptions and has been one of the most influential novels in its genre, inspiring countless other works.

It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (1935)  This semi-satirical novel was published during the rise of fascism in Europe, and Lewis speculated how similar movements could gain power in America. Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip is elected president on a campaign espousing patriotism and traditional values with the endorsement of a major religious leader. Once in office he consolidates power and establishes totalitarian rule along the same lines as Hitler and the SS. The novel’s protagonist Doremus Jessup tries to warn people every step of the way, only to constantly have his fears dismissed with the statement, “It Can’t Happen Here!” The novel inspired a hit play and is currently enjoying a massive resurgence in popularity.

1984 by George Orwell (1948) Set in Airstrip One (formerly Great Britain) in the super state of Oceania a society racked by never ending war, constant surveillance and public manipulation.  The main protagonist Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth actually the government’s propaganda unit only to begin an illicit affair with Julia who introduces him to the Underground Resistance.  Considered THE novel on totalitarianism and living in a police state, being the one that coined the classic phrases “Big Brother,” “Thought Police” and “We Have Always Been at War With Eurasia.”

A Canticle for Leibowitz By Walter M. Miller (1960) Set in a Catholic monastery located in what once part of the American Southwest and now a nuclear wasteland, the novels spans thousands of years.  The monks of the fictional Albertian Order of Leibowitz have the sacred trust of preserving the few remaining shreds of mankind’s scientific knowledge until man is ready once more to receive it.  But will mankind ever truly be ready?  It won the Hugo award in 1961 for Best Science Fiction Novel, and has never been out of print with over 25 reprints and new editions having been published.  It is thought to be the best novel ever written about nuclear apocalypse and is considered not only a masterpiece of science fiction but of literature period alongside the works of Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene.

The Handmaid’s Tale By Margaret Atwood (1985)  Set in the Republic of Gilead (formerly known as New England) where a massive drop in the white fertility rate has led to the rise of a totalitarian theocracy and the thorough subjugation of women.  The narrator Offred alternates between her current life as a ‘handmaid’ used to reproduce children for a Commander and his infertile wife Serena Joy, and her past which included a husband and daughter.  Along the way we learn of several classes of women under the new regime-none of whom have a very good deal.  This one’s become a staple of women’s studies classes and a new highly anticipated tv series will be airing on Hulu in April starring Elizabeth Moss, Alexis Bledel, Joseph Fiennes, Max Minghella, and Yvonne Strahovski.

Top photo: Bigstock

Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts 2017

02/15/2017

As regular readers might know, one of my favorite annual traditions is reviewing the Oscar Nominees in the Category of Best Animated Short. I find the animated shorts each year to offer new opportunities for creativity where the sky’s the limit.  However, I must say that this year I found the nominees…not necessarily disappointing but certainly more depressing it seems than past years. There was less of the usual whimsy and romance that had enchanted me in years past and a darker tone to the nominees in general. Perhaps this was just a fluke or perhaps it speaks to our times. But the longest ‘short’ by far coming in at over a half hour was the Canadian Pear Cider and Cigarettes a fatalistic tale of addiction and self-destruction. There’s no doubt of the artistry of the animation but to say the storyline was grim would be like saying the Himalayas are a little steep.

Pear Cider and Cigarettes may have been the most extreme example but it wasn’t the only one. Borrowed Time (clocking in at 7 minutes) has an old Sheriff confronting horrific childhood trauma. The French Canadian The Head Vanishes (9 minutes) is a melancholy allegory about aging, memory loss, and dementia. And Blind Vaysha (also from Canada) tells a story of a girl with a horrible disability; her left eye sees only the past, her right eye only the future and the present never exists for her.  It is, the narrator informs bleakly, a story that can have no happy ending because these two visions are irreconcilable.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though; by far my favorite offering of the evening was Piper from the USA. This computer animated skit measuring in at just 6 minutes about a sandpiper hatchling trying to leave the nest for the first time was quite delightful, and a rare ray of hope and optimism in what otherwise felt like a journey through darkness.

Top photo: Bigstock

Presidents Day Reading

02/11/2017

Besides being an occasion for federal employees to get a three day weekend, Presidents Day is also an occasion to reflect upon our nation’s history including our past Commander in Chiefs.  And as the popularity of Hamilton shows, there’s actually quite an audience for learning about the Founding Fathers and the shaping of our Democracy.  Given today’s volatile political times, an understanding of the past seems more vital than ever.  So in that spirit here are five good reads on past Presidents.

John Adams By David McCullough (2002) Renowned Historian McCullough offers us a biography of the brilliant, Yankee, lawyer, Adams who would become not only a revolutionary leader but also the second president of the United States.  McCullough’s exhaustive and compelling portrait won the Pulitzer Prize AND inspired the acclaimed tv series from HBO starring Paul Giamatti in the title role and Laura Linney as his beloved wife Abigail.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln By Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005) Cited by former president Barack Obama as one of his favorite books, Goodwin offers not only a biographical portrait of Lincoln but of some of the men who served in his cabinet as well.  Three of Lincoln’s Cabinet members had run against him in the 1860 election; Attorney General Edward Bates, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, and Secretary of State William H. Seward.  Goodwin focuses on Lincoln’s often difficult task of reconciling highly disparate personalities and political factions while enacting abolition and facing our nation’s greatest crisis during the time of the Civil War.  Team of Rivals won the 2006 Lincoln Prize and the Inaugural Book Prize for American History of New-York Historical Society.  It was also the basis for Steven Spielberg’s 2012 biographical film Lincoln.

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan (2009)  Egan (who won a National Book Award for The Worst Hard Time about the Dust Bowl) returns to recounting how environmental issues in the Midwest collided with politics.  The Great Fire of 1910 burned three million acres.  At that point the U.S Forest Service was a newborn department on the brink of cancellation but thanks to the heroism shown by the firefighters, (and Teddy Roosevelt’s own dedication to conservation)  the US Forest Services status was cemented and secured.  The Big Burn won a Washington State Book Award and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award.

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (2012)  James Garfield is mostly forgotten these days, (except of course for his famous cartoon cat namesake,) which is a shame.  Born to abject poverty, he became a scholar, a Civil War Hero, an distinguished congressman and eventually President of the United States…only to be assassinated months after his inauguration.  Millard’s account of Garfield’s life and death went on to become a best-seller as well a Booklist notable book of 2012.

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War That Changed American History  by Brian Kilmeade (2016)  Thomas Jefferson became President in 1801.  For fifteen years, the United States by pirates from the Barbary Coast who routinely captured American merchant ships and took the sailors as slaves for ransom.  Realizing that negotiations just weren’t getting the job done, Jefferson sends the US Navy and Marines to blockade the pirates in what would be America’s first foreign policy adventure overseas.  Kilmeade offers a fast past writing style to go along with the exciting events recounted here.

Top photo from Bigstock: Statue of Thomas Jefferson outside Cleveland’s county courthouse.

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