Infernzone!

Nicholas Kaufmann has just posted at Fearzone an enthusiastic review of the new Ellen Datlow anthology Inferno. Here's part of what Kaufmann has to say (the full review is at http://www.fearzone.com/blog/inferno-review):

And what a feast it is! . . . Among the highlights to be found in Inferno's twenty tales are Laird Barron's "The Forest," which joins his growing oeuvre of Lovecraftian stories that focus compellingly on his richly drawn characters while relegating the beasties to the background; Nathan Ballingrud's "The Monsters of Heaven," the hypnotically surreal tale of a missing child (a theme that, interestingly, recurs numerous times throughout the anthology) and the wounded, angel-like creatures that have started falling to earth all over the world; John Grant's "Lives," which brilliantly turns the child-in-jeopardy trope on its head in a way that would spoil the pleasure of discovery to describe here; Lee Thomas' "An Apiary of White Bees," about a man torn between his outwardly perfect life and his true desires who discovers a magical elixir that begins to meld the two in dangerous ways; and what may very well be the best piece of fiction I've read all year, Glen Hirshberg's "The Janus Tree." Hirshberg's story has enough complexity, vivid detail and character development in its thirty pages to fill an entire novel. When I was done reading it, I needed several additional hours to pull myself out of the world he so skillfully created. "The Janus Tree" is worth Inferno's price tag alone.

Loud huzzahs not just for Ellen but, obviously, for Glen Hirshberg (my wax effigy of whom is consequently suffering heavy punishment right now). It's a long time since I've seen a reviewer so affected by a single story: hearty congratulations.

bibliotherapy

The reading cure

The idea that literature can make us emotionally and physically stronger goes back to Plato. But now book groups are proving that Shakespeare can be as beneficial as self-help guides. Blake Morrison investigates the rise of bibliotherapy

That's the opener of an interesting article in today's Grauniad. You can find the rest of it here: http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2235352,00.html .

vengeance against the innocent

 Richey freed after court hearing

starts the story the Beeb has just published on its website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7174463.stm). And in truth I'm delighted: a few years ago Pam and I had lunch in NYC with the British lawyer Clive Stafford Smith and discussed some of the monstrous miscarriages of US justice that had put innocents on Death Row. Kenny Richey's was one of those cases.

Richey was convicted in 1987 of murder. The prosecution case was that he had started a fire as revenge against his ex-girlfriend and her new lover; in that fire died the two-year-old Cynthia Collins. It was for Cynthia's "murder" that Richey was convicted. Late last year a court finally conceded what defence lawyers and independent observers had been saying for two decades: the forensic evidence was bollocks. As far as anyone could tell, there had been no arson.

Now, you'd have thought this would have been enough for the Ohio legal authorities instantly to free Richey and issue a massive apology. Oh, but no: these are totalitarians, not people who would recognize any form of democracy-oriented justice the rest of us might accept. In order to guarantee his freedom, Richey had to "confess" to the hokum charge of "attempted involuntary manslaughter, child endangering and breaking and entering" and agree to accept a Time Served sentence.

Further, he had to listen to bullshit like this:

In court, Cynthia Collins' aunt, Valerie Binkley, attempted to read a statement but broke down.

"How do you go about putting into words what a two-year-old . . . means?," she said.

"I have six pages here. I know I can't make it through it, but I want you to know you fooled nobody. Not me, not that baby, not any of these people. You will burn in hell."

I have untold sympathies for anyone who has lost a beloved child in horrific circumstances -- but, no, those sympathies aren't quite untold. Unless Valerie Binkley is incapable of understanding the English language, she knows that Richey has endured twenty years of complete misery for a crime he did not commit. While one can understand her grief, she has no excuse whatsoever for taking that grief out on a man who has already suffered so much. This is the mentality that happily slaughtered a million Iraqis for a crime with which they had nothing to do: I hurt, so I'll burn some innocents alive -- men, women, children, I don't care. Jesus loves me for it.

Here's more of this puke-inspiring stuff:

The court also heard a statement in the name of Robert Collins, Cynthia's father, in which he described the death as an "ongoing nightmare."

Reading the comments on his behalf, Shelly Price, of the organisation Crime Victim Services, said: "The situation surrounding the death of my little girl has haunted me for 21 years.

"I try not to think about how she died, but it consumes my thoughts.

"The unthinkable reality of her choking, crawling, crying and her little lungs filling with smoke has been etched in my mind since her death."

He said his daughter did not deserve to die and said he would never achieve closure over her death.

The statement ended: "I just wish Cynthia could appeal her death and come back to life."

Again, who could fail to sympathize with Cynthia's father? I know how I'd feel if anything happened to my daughter, let alone something this horrible. (Not as bad as what napalm or white phosphorus does to dusky-skinned foreign two-year-olds, but who cares about them when there's the possibility of achieving personal closure? It's all the same irrational argument being offered by these self-obsessed hatemongers.) Why is this imbecilic urge to avenge a horrific event against someone innocent of any complicity in it accorded respect by US courts?

These are bitter people. If I'm in incredibly charitable mode, I believe their bitterness is genuine, and I understand the reasons for it. But otherwise I think they're just like the crowds who gathered around the stake to watch a witch burn, fully cognizant that the victim was innocent but wanting all the fun of watching someone suffer unto death.