cc licensed flickr photo shared by Daniel Semper

My name is Salmon. Like the fish. First name Susie.

Ah, and with those words, one of my most beloved novels has come to the big screen.

Gotta tell you that with all my film reviews, spoilers may occur. Deal with it. If you’ve not already read this wonderful book, go do it and then come back.

In 2005 I wrote a novel about a dead girl living through the lives of those still alive in her high school. A book where you don’t even discover how she dies until the waning pages. At the time, several people mentioned a little book to me called The Lovely Bones that I should read since it sounded like I was copying Alice Sebold. I assured them I wasn’t, wrote my entire book, and then picked up this gem.

I adored the irony of the conclusion to the novel and subsequent film, but I was hesitant to push this one towards my wife. See, my own daughter was just born and the rape scene before the murder still haunts me. I suggested that my wife never read the book because of that scene, and I sure have read some wild stuff over the years.

I had no idea how Peter Jackson, director, would handle this early scene, which, in part, was based on the author’s own experience in college. Fortunately, it was unlike my novel but anyway I still fell in love with such a wonderful book. After hearing it was on its way to the silver screen, I waited patiently. And waited. And waited. Wow, did I wait for a long time. But today I got to see it.

That rape scene? Cut out and barely even implied (and maybe I only thought it was implied because I knew the narrative beforehand).

Awards season is upon us and art direction stood out for me, to the point where it didn’t stand out which was perfect. There were a few scenes where I paid particular attention to the authenticity of the frame and I was pleased. The costumes (especially Ronan’s outfit) worked very well for me, and this “era” just worked for me.

People always talk actors when reviewing any film, and I went knowing that Tucci has been getting rave reviews for this film (and has been nominated in several awards so far). I didn’t realize quite how wonderful his performance was until he spoke in the film. He almost fell into the character to the point where I no longer watched Tucci. I watched a sad, depressed killer. He played it perfectly subtlety.

Even the subtlety of his lightened eye color, whose similarity to Ronan’s mesmerizingly pale blue, didn’t escape me. As for Ronan, I was lost in those eyes, albeit I’ve never seen her previous work for which she’d been nominated for an Academy Award. While Ronan’s performance here has the critics talking, for me, Rose McIver as Lindsay Salmon, Susie’s younger sister, stole the film. McIver began as the younger child like sister but after Susie’s death Lindsay matures into a woman, almost as obsessed with finding the killer as her father Mark Wahlberg is. Her onscreen transformation worked very well through the development of the plot, and I am eager to see her future dramatic work.

I enjoyed Wahlberg’s performance perhaps because I too am close to my daughter, Sarandon was hilarious as Susie’s boozy, chain-smoking grandmother but I never stopped wanting to shout “Damnit, Janet!” at the screen. Weisz and Imperioli round out the class. I enjoyed Imperioli’s role (no matter how small it was) but Weisz’s talents were terribly under used. Having seen much of her former work, I expected more from the role although I did understand that Susie’s mother’s healing required her to fall into herself.

I agree with the critics that Peter Jackson could’ve done more with the film and the special effects were well done (more than half of the film was a blue screened Susie-styled purgatory) but the film, if nominated for an Oscar for special effects, cannot beat Avatar in this category.

As with any book made film the critics will lambast certain perspectives and lack of development, and my only concern really lay in the characters of Ruth Connor and Ray Singh. If memory serves Sebold gives more time to these two characters, and while Singh moves in and out of the narrative as Salmon’s almost first love, his relationship with Ruth and then Ruth’s posthumously relationship with Susie could’ve been more fleshed out. Here was my single disappointment with the film. Albeit Jackson’s subtlety of the relationship of the two living teens works well and did well to not overshadow Susie’s tale. Moreover, while the irony of Tucci’s demise is not lost on Sebold or Jackson, some audience will leave the theatre scratching their heads; hopefully, to only return again and again to see this wonderful film.

Claire and I drove over to Changing Hands Bookstore today to pick up a copy of the new children’s book by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary fame. He’s going to be at Changing Hands on Sunday signing and singing. This conversation below is a true story.

As we walked in the door:

Claire, “Dad, what’re we doing here?”

Me, “Getting you a book.”

Claire, “Awesome! I love books. Which one?”

Me, totally clueless, having no idea the name of the book. “Dunno. Can’t remember the name. Let me find someone to ask.”

Claire, stopping me in mid-aisle, “Is the book Day is Done? Is that the one, Dad?”

Me, floored. Finding my voice and suddenly remembering the title, “Why, yes Claire that is the book.”

Claire, “ok, there it is.” Pointing to the poster selling Peter Yarrow’s new book Day is Done.

Not only did she read the title, she then proceeded to get in line to go ask the cashier for a copy housed behind the counter.

My response to her mother when I got home. “How ’bout I just give her my wallet and car keys, too.”
Claire listening in and needing the last word, “Yes, and I already read it to myself in the store.

From time to time over the course of the past year I’d see Jodi Picoult books on the shelves at my favorite Barnes & Noble, or I’d read reviews of books like My Sister’s Keeper in my "Entertainment Weekly" magazines I keep in the bathroom. But I never really thought I’d read any of her books. Nothing actually caught my eye, until last weekend.

While in Baltimore a colleague’s young daughter mentioned that Picoult had a new book dealing with a high school shooting. Was it too soon? I don’t think it was. 9/11 was more recent and they had three movies about that, and this book doesn’t attempt to be Columbine (or the plethora of other school shootings) but it does address the same issues. Upon my return to Arizona, I went on Amazon and searched for the book. I knew it was fairly new and Picoult wrote it. Scanning her titles, I came across Nineteen Minutes and immediately knew it was the correct book. No one needs to be told where she got her title.

A few days later when I opened the book to begin it, the first page said "March 6, 2007" and chills crawled up my spine as I glanced at my own watch that read "March 7, 2007". Even before I began the book, I knew it could be now. It can be here. It can be anywhere. My wife hated high school and I, personally, relive it daily, but what would happen in this book? It began with a journal entry from Peter Houghton, a slight boy who was terminally teased in a small New Hampshire town by everyone from his best friend from kindergarten to his own older brother. The novel begins in media res with the school shooting and then we begin our story of how he got to this point. Picoult simply tells us where we are in the narrative with chapter titles like "First Day of Kindergarten" or "10 Days After".

As I began this book I was confused by the plethora of characters introduced immediately, but as I read, I realized they would all play important parts to the narrative of the novel. For example, Alex Courmier is the mother of one of the survivors, a girl named Josie, who witnessed the murder of her boyfriend, Matt. Alex a law student and later a defense attorney who got pregnant out of wedlock and didn’t want to keep her baby. Eventually she gave birth to Josie, and later became the sitting judge on the shooting trial. And Lacy, the midwife who loved watching babies born into her arms, commented on how much potential children had, but later when she raced to the school to make sure her only living son was ok, she was informed he’d been taken into custody for killing 10 students and wounding 19 others. And Patrick the investigating detective who lived alone and had no real life outside his job; the man who rushed into the school, arrested Peter Houghton, and carried the blacked out Josie out the front of the school. And Jordan, the defense attorney, who agreed to take the case while holding his own infant son because everyone should have a fair trial.

The book weaves these characters and several others through the narrative that led up to "That Day" and then forward in time through the trial and culminating in the one year anniversary, as two characters stand at the old site of the shooting where, in a newly renovated atrium, 10 white chairs sat for the 10 victims. They watched the world continue around them and discussed the hopes, dreams, and despair from a town trying to heal itself from years of hurt.

We had dinner and Red Lobster tonight after finally breaking down and buying our first umbrella stroller, and while we waited for our deep friend shrimp and shoved Cheddar Bay Biscuits into our daughter’s gullet, I mentioned how much I loved reading Alternadad by Neal Pollack last weekend. Donna told me I should write a review and send it to Doug at dadbloggers.com. Even though I recently posted there, I wrote the following review after we got home. I am sure Doug will post it soon, but I wanted to put it here, too.

Pollack, Neal. Alternadad (2007)

 As a high school teacher I come across new books all of the
time, and recently when I was reading Time magazine on my throne there
was a column written by one of my favorite columnists (James
Poniewozik). The topic of that article was about
Gen-Xers growing up and having children, while trying to maintain their youth
and ideals. Poniewozik mentioned a new book called Alternadad
by Neal Pollack, whose most recent book is about coming to terms with marriage
and having children while still maintaining his own identity.

 My wife and I have read Dooce.com for years now, and we use
to talk about Jon & Heather Armstrong like we knew them personally.
Pollack, in Alternadad, writes like he could be the male version of
Heather Armstrong. I began this book on a cross country flight and read over
half of it before I landed. That weekend while I was at conference I finished
the entire book. It began with Pollack dating various women and running around
town to a plethora of concerts. It continued to him meeting his wife and her
getting pregnant. And it culminated in the experiences of trying to raise a
baby and toddler on the Austin city limits.

Pollack, who has written several non-fiction books, pours
his own experiences as a stay-at-home father trying to raise his son and live
his life with his family. It details the time they lived in Texas before moving to Los Angeles, and, as a father of a toddler, I found the book strikingly funny and sincere.
From the travesties of day care to the in-laws brushing his kid’s teeth with Bordeaux’s butt paste, we should all read this book.

I don’t really know what to say. After work I sat down at a student desk and opened iTunes. I began to write and listen to Ministry’s A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste. An hour later I had 2,000 words! I have some kids who have over 35,000 words and I wish I were still that person sometimes. My next book will be better, but I need to get this one on paper and done. I’ve had this damn idea in my head for 14 years, I really did. It’s been there for the whole time. So now I am writing it, and I’d rather not say much about it yet. But I will say I am about to kill one of the main characters. Boom. You die, and it’s a sad death. Oh well.

Ok, so I don’t usually tend to do this here, and if people are receptive, maybe I will do it more. So I watch the way culture shifts and mutates in today’s society, and I am congnizant when conglomerates attempt to persuade people to do something, buy something, or feel something. And recently Starbuck’s did two things that I think are suspect albeit interesting. One is promoting the recent film, Akeelah and the Bee, and the other is the recent promotion and sales of Mitch Albom’s For One More Day.

I mentioned this book to a friend tonight, and she said "My Starbucks doesn’t sell books!" And since I am certain that her Starbucks is also my Starbucks, I nodded profusely that yes, they did sell that book there. And I am certain since I recently chatted with the barister about that book. As she took my order, she commented "At least it’s not as sappy as his last two books."

Now mind you, I’ve never wanted to read this guy’s books before, but For One More Day was intriguing. It’s the story of Chick Benetto, a former professional baseball player, whose total brush with fame was winning the pennant with the Pirates, before ultimately losing the Series. After middle age encroaches on Chick, he decides to take his own life after losing both of his parents (in two dissimilar ways), losing his marriage, and not even being invited to his daughter’s recent wedding. Since his mother’s death 8 years earlier, he slowly drank himself to the brink of total despair. For some cosmic reason, Chick decides to visit his parent’s boarded up home one last time before he puts the gun to his head. When he let’s himself into the house that he and his sister never had the heart to sell, he finds food cooking and a stocked house.

As he turns a corner, Chick’s mother is standing there welcoming her son with open arms.

The books continues from there. As the title suggests, Chick has one last day with his mother. A day to watch her work, to talk with her, and to once again be her son. The narrative of this surreal day is enmeshed with short chapters entitled "The Day I stood up for my Mother" or "The Day I did not stand up for my Mother", which shed light on his upbringing and his mother’s strained relationship with his enigmatic and absent father, who earlier during Chick’s life, forced Chick to choose to be a momma’s boy or a father’s boy. He chose his father, but as his mother will point out, a child should never need to choose.

And in this book, Albom chose to write a refreshing, emotionally laden tight novel. He takes few risks until the very end of the book, and has pleasantly moved away from the sappy histrionic drool of his last two tales.