October was a pretty good reading month. 

I got off of my plate a book I've been working on in bits and pieces for a good while now (Empire of Liberty).   (Which reminds me, I need to review it.)

Best read: A Trick of the Light, by Louise Penny.  The Inspector Gamache series is a excellent series on average, and this one of the best in it that I've read so far.

No worst read, as nothing under 3 stars.

New author discovered: Jennifer Crusie.  Bet Me was a hoot, and I'd read another of her books.

My ARC courtesy of Chicago Review Press/Net Galley - much thanks!

This survey of what America was like, and what Americans were up to, in 1844 (an election year, and an important one) is broadly chronological, smoothly written, and sometimes very amusing.

President Tyler ("His Accidency") is trying to get re-elected, despite being quite aware both parties (Whigs and Democrats) hate him, offering his possible election rivals seats on the Supreme Court.  John Quincy Adams, no longer president, has retired to the U.S. House of Representatives, and is fighting the "gag rule" preventing the discussion of slavery by that body.  Andrew Jackson is also out of the White House but not retired from politics - his opinion will count for much in the election.  The Millerites think the world is coming to an end, and predict the Second Coming of Christ for both spring and fall.  Joseph Smith first runs for president, and is then assassinated.  Americans, professional explorers and otherwise, are heading west to Oregon and California, neither of which are part of the United States.

It's a very good coverage of an important year in U.S. history (1844 would elect James K. Polk, determine war with Mexico in the near future, and the expansion of both the U.S. and of slavery). It would probably be very interesting to read this back-to-back with Bernard DeVoto's excellent 1846: The Year of Decision, which takes a similar format.

Don’t read this book if you are depressed or need some kind of feel good story.  This is full of murder, rape, and generally depressing stuff.  And yet, it one of those novels that you want to know what is going to happen next. 

Holy crap, these are some sick individuals in this novel.   There are Sandy and Carl who pick up hitchhiking men specifically to torture and murder.  And take pictures of themselves doing it.  For other characters, it is a wonderful depiction of religious fervor taken to extremes.  Willard Russell spends months offering blood sacrifices at his outdoor prayer log to entice God to heal his wife of cancer.  He forces his 10 year old son, Arvin, to join him in long prayer sessions at the prayer log, surrounded by the rotting corpses of the sacrificed animals.  Roy Lafferty, a lay preacher, believes God has told him that he now has the gift of resurrection.  Theodore, Roy’s crippled cousin, demands proof of this new power.  Theodore is jealous of Roy’s wife so he suggests that Roy should resurrect her.  Roy agrees to kill and then resurrect his wife to show his cousin that the power of God is on him.   And shockingly, Roy’s power does not manifest itself as he believed it would.

Then there is Preston Teagarden who is forced to become the temporary preacher of a small church, and he is definitely not a man of god.  He loves to seduce young women, enjoying it most when they read from the Bible as he screws them.  Preston can’t wait to seduce Lenora, the 16 year old daughter Roy Lafferty left behind as a baby after he murdered his wife and took off.  Lenora is the ultimate pious Christian and that is exactly the type of young woman Preston enjoys deflowering. 

One of the things I liked best about this book is

  Donald Ray Pollock sure can write, but I gotta say though that I felt almost dirty at times listening to this.  I need something nice to read now.