AJ Dunn Reads

  Searching for Marilyn Monroe: Parables and Other Animals by Pae Veo My BookTube friend Pae Veo was kind enough to send me a signed copy of his book a few weeks ago. After much anticipation, it finally arrived! This is a collection of stories and parables that explore hope and loss of hope, imagination, isolation, failure, addiction, and moral dilemmas. It is a creative exploration of the modern condition. Two of the stories in the first section were standouts for me: "Searching for Marilyn Monroe" and "The Song of Erebus." "Searching" asks, "Is there room for hope in life?" and, "The only ones who ever truly give up are the ones who never had anything, in which case, what is it they are giving up? It is not giving up, it is simply accepting." Both of these sentiments resonated with me and my own journey through life. "The Song of Erebus" had a strong religious vibe for me as a reader, and I identified with it on that level -

Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones This novella tells the story of Junior, an Indian boy living with his mother and younger brother, Dino. Junior is a sleepwalker who awakens one night to see his dead father walking across the room. He believes his father, in full dancing regalia, has come back to make them a whole family again. Dino suffers from seizures and Junior thinks his father is there to protect Dino, to make him well. But this thinking changes as Junior gets into a scrape with the neighbors dogs and the four canines end up dead, torn apart. Junior starts to think his father has another purpose in returning. Dino begins to have worse seizures and marks appear on his neck. Is Junior's father trying to take Dino's life essence to make himself whole again? Junior's mother begins dating the Sheriff's deputy, which doesn't sit well with Junior, who steals the pistol from the deputy's vehicle. With the gun in hand he finds a man bent over his brother

  Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg If you're sensitive about racist language in books, this one is not for you. Taking place in Alabama through various points in time from the Depression era into the mid-1980s, Fried Green Tomatoes is rife with the 'n' word. That aside, I enjoyed the book very much. The story follows two story lines that are connected by Mrs. Virginia "Ninny" Threadgoode who, as a young woman, lived in Whistle Stop, Alabama, but comes to reside in a nursing home in Birmingham as an older woman where she meets Evelyn Couch, a sad middle-aged woman who is intent on eating herself into the grave. Evelyn is going through menopause and is dissatisfied with her life, questioning all of her choices and what kind of a person she is and wants to be. She fantasizes about being tougher, more confident. During Evelyn's visits to the Rose Terrace Nursing Home where her husband's mother lives, she encounters Mrs. Threadgood

  Danse Macabre by Stephen King According to Stephen King, in order for horror to actually be horrifying it needs to touch us in some way, and it does so by finding the vulnerable points within us and applying pressure there. These points are psychological, such as mortality. King also states that horror's aim is to reduce us to the child state, to make us feel as vulnerable as we did when we were children, when we took everything at face value and believed everything we were told or were presented with. He goes on to say that horror helps us to deal with our real life terrors, and that it also reaffirms life. When we are scared we know we are alive. But also being afraid helps us to examine what is important to us in life. In Danse Macabre , King traces horror through the mediums of radio, TV, film, and novels around the mid-twentieth century. It examines the cultural causes for the popularity of various horror elements, styles, and themes. King discusses how radio and novels are

  Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison Invisible Man follows an unnamed African American narrator from the southern United States after he is expelled from his college for following the orders of a white man as he is sent north to New York City with the promise of a job. The reality is that a job does not await him. The novel opens with the young man about to give a speech to a bunch of influential white men, but before that happens he and a bunch of other black men are pitted against one another in a blind fight for the amusement of the white men. After the fight, they are used as entertainment further, when the white men urge them to dive for money on an electrified mat. It is all very disgusting.  When the narrator gives his speech he is awarded with a scholarship to attend school, which leads to the problem above. He is chosen to escort and drive a white school founder around the campus, when the founder asks to be taken to see some slave cabins. An incident occurs which causes the foun

This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff Tobais Wolff chronicles his young life through adolescence in this memoir, which follows him and his mother after she leaves Florida for work in the west and a "better" life. Tobias takes on the name "Jack" and follows his mother through her various hopeful relationships with men who either just want to use her or who want to control her. Which is how they end up with Dwight, a seemingly-unassuming middle aged man who fancies himself to be a great hunter and fighter. Jack moves in with Dwight in his mill town before his mother joins them, where Dwight's real nature shows itself. He bullies the boy, hits him, and makes it clear that Jack is a nothing and a nobody, and should be grateful for the life Dwight will give him. When Jack's mother arrives, there marital bliss quickly devolves into Dwight's possessiveness and control. It becomes clear that Dwight wants Jack out of the picture and is pleased when Jack turns out t

  A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena Karen Krupp gets into a car accident and loses a part of her memory. What she does remember is that someone had been in her house, many times, moving things.  She received a phone call that scared her and made her leave behind her identification as she raced to meet a man from her past in the bad part of town, a place no one can believe she would visit. Her husband Tom learns of the accident from the police and rushes to her side. The story explores a murder that took place that same night in the same neighborhood. The police finger Karen as the suspect and the mystery unfolds. Who is lying and who is to blame? The Krupps' neighbor Brigid gets involved. She is in love with Tom, but is Karen's best friend. Brigid watches the Krupps from her picture window, is obsessed with their lives because she is unhappy with her own. As the story unfolds, we learn that Tom and Brigid had an affair before the Krupps married, and that Karen is not who