Surviving Gen X by Jo Szewczyk; Bizarre, Confusing, and Witty Mish-Mash of Getting Laid and Finding Love in 1990’s Las Vegas

 Surviving Gen X by Jo Szewczyk; Bizarre, Confusing, and Witty Mish-Mash of Getting Laid and Finding Love in 1990’s Las Vegas

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: It wouldn't surprise me if Jo Szewczyk’s Surviving Gen X existed in the same universe as Richard R. Becker’s Third Wheel. It almost could be a stealth sequel. Third Wheel was a seriocomic Crime Thriller about a geeky but troubled kid in 80’s Las Vegas encountering a bevy of eccentric criminals in an attempt to stave off boredom and get rich. Surviving Gen X is a seriocomic Literary Fiction about a disaffected 20 something in 90’s Las Vegas encountering a bevy of eccentric friends, acquaintances, and lovers in an attempt to stave off loneliness and get laid. Between the two books, there appears to be a natural progression of age and experience that develops within the protagonists the more they venture into Sin City at various points in their lives.

Surviving Gen X doesn’t have much in the way of plot. It focuses on an unnamed Narrator who goes from one misadventure to another. He encounters little people, runaway Mormons, glam rock tribute bands, persistent exes, violent crooks,gamblers, apartment crashers who never leave, bartenders with suspect mob ties. BDSM club goers, homicidal religious types, addicts, prostitutes, and many other colorful locals and tourists that Las Vegas has to offer. 

The book bounces around in an excitable stream of conscious manner which is less concerned with what happens than how these incidents are seen through the Narrator’s eyes. He is a sarcastic jaded character who is filled with dry one liners. (At a costume party someone mistakes his Willy Wonka costume for Prince. He sarcastically tells the Reader, “My name is not Prince and I am not funky.”) He observes everything with a wry detachment that alternates between bemused excitement and world weariness at the shenanigans in which he falls into. 

The Narrator isn’t exactly the warmest of souls. He is quite often shallow and careless in his feelings towards others particularly in his romantic relationships. He cares more about getting some than getting into a relationship. When he finds someone that he actually does care about, he pursues her behaving like a stalker instead of someone who is truly considerate about what she wants and how he is making life difficult for her. 

Nonetheless, he does show genuine understanding and concern towards others. After a very weird night, he meets Gene, a French little person. The two bond while they are in jail and escape together. The two become friends united in their pursuit of women and potential happiness. The Narrator and Gene assist each other in their romantic troubles and usually find themselves in various hapless situations but emerge with their friendship intact.

The Narrator also has a potentially developing relationship with Annie, an unhappily married Mormon woman. His pursuit of her is problematic but it is born out of genuine concern especially when he encounters her abusive religious husband. There is a genuine concern for her welfare and even if the Narrator is not always wise in his gestures towards her, he does care about her beyond a one night stand. The Narrator’s relationships with Gene and Annie veer towards heart in a novel that is more concerned with showing the surface of life in Las Vegas and little of the substance.

Actually the most important character is not Gene, Annie, or even the Narrator. It is Las Vegas itself. It is shown in all of its facets. There are various chapters like one set at the Fetish and Fantasy Ball, an elaborate masquerade in which one's darkest sexual desires are filled, which show the city in all of its licentious weirdness. It is seen as vibrant, loud, obnoxious, intoxicating, iconoclastic, lascivious, tacky, exciting, and hypnotic. It is the type of city where it’s easy to find a good time but not easy to find a peace of mind.

That’s what the setting does to the characters. They are aware of the shallowness and fall into it. They can’t find anything meaningful so they drink, party, have sex, and live for the moment. It is not the cry of free spirits. It is the cry of desperate souls who are drowning in the ennui of their excitement. They have given up on looking for any meaning. They just want to have a good time even when they are sick of it. 

That’s what the Narrator wants to find: some meaning in his life. Something beyond the surface shallow world that surrounds him. But finding unhappiness in his pursuits causes him to withdraw even more into that shallowness. Ironically the title is called Surviving Gen X because that’s all that he is doing. He is surviving, but not growing, developing, or really living.

New Book Alert: The Fairy Tale Code (Anne Anderson Book 1) by Cameron Jace; Intricate Murder Mystery/Treasure Hunt Adventure Brings The Truth Behind The Fairy Tale

 

New Book Alert: The Fairy Tale Code (Anne Anderson Book 1) by Cameron Jace; Intricate Murder Mystery/Scavenger Hunt Adventure Brings The Truth Behind The Fairy Tale

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I have a soft spot for books and movies that involve treasure and scavenger hunts that provide answers towards history and legends' greatest mysteries. Stuff like The Da Vinci Code, National Treasure, The Indiana Jones movies, Avanti Centrae's Van Ops Series. Plus, I love History Channel documentary series like The Unxplained, History's Greatest Mysteries, and the various series on the Travel Channel hosted by Don Wildman. 

Whether you believe the claims in them, the quests are suspenseful and intricate especially with how the clues and codes are joined together. Questions are asked, theories imposed, and fascinating things even some potential answers are discovered. They make you look at things differently and see that often times there is more behind what we learn and read. At the very least, the claims are fun to speculate upon.

Adding to this subgenre is Cameron Jace's The Fairy Tale Code, the first in his Anne Anderson series. This one takes that type of high adventure and mystery into the world of fairy tales, particularly those gathered by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Folklorist Anne Anderson is called to appraise a copy of the presumed first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Realizing that the book is a fake (and threatened not to reveal it), Anne is then called to solve a bigger mystery. DCI David Tale and his team investigate a woman's body hung on a cross in Lady Chapel Westminster Abbey. There are a few clues pointing to a potential connection to fairy tales as well as a coded message to locate Anne. 

No, Anne doesn't know why there is a message singling her out nor does she know who the woman is. However, the clues lead to a trail in Germany known as the Fairy Tale Road, the real life locations of the inspirations to many famous fairy tales. This clue sends David and Anne on the run to solve the clues and find out the mystery. 

In the meantime, they are being stalked by various strange characters: Tom Jon Gray, who operates on behalf of the British Royal Family, Jacqueline de Rais and Franz Xaver who are trying to preserve their family's names and legacies, Lt. Wolfe, an intense and violent cop from Germany, Bloody Mary Harper, David's sadistic former colleague who has a vicious streak, The Advocate, a mysterious creepy character who pulls everyone's strings, and (my personal favorite characters) The Ovitzs, a family of seven sisters, most of them little people, who either are trying to harm or help Anne and certainly have their own strange secrets and rituals.

I love how intricate the creation and execution of the quest is where each clue leads to a specific location and gives a little more about the history of the participants and their involvement in fairy tales. For example, a picture on a laptop of the WWII-era Ovitz Sisters, aka The Seven Dwarves, reveal that the Ovitz involvement in the fairy tale world goes very deep. Also, the location of the shot is Polle, the site of the real story behind Cinderella. It must have been quite an impressive feat for Jace to create the clues and codes that lead to each solution and each place along the Fairy Tale Road. 

The book also gives some interesting perspectives about the origins of fairy tales that make sense, that herald interesting possibilities. The majority of these stories featured women as protagonists and antagonists, so it would make sense for the stories to be told and gathered by women. This book proposes that a group called The Sisterhood (of which the Ovitzs are members) had and still have a close connection to the Grimm Brothers and the original tales. 

It is also no secret that the original stories are much darker and (pun not intended) grimmer than we are used to. They contained rape, incest, cannibalism, destructive black magic, and homicide in its various forms. They were horror stories that slowly evolved into moralistic stories with potentially dark elements but ultimately happy ever afters. The Fairy Tale Code provides interesting theories about the real meanings behind the stories, why they were so dark, and what compelled the gatherers like the Brothers Grimm and France's Charles Perrault to change and edit them.

Again, whether it is necessarily true in the real world or not, the theories posed in this book are impressive and offer unique perspectives.

Any good mystery adventure makes the main mystery a personal struggle for the characters and The Fairy Tale Code is no exception. Both Anne and David bear personal angst that they hope this mystery will bring solutions towards. Anne was very close to her older sister, Rachel, who introduced her to the world of fairy tales. (They even called each other "Snow White"-Rachel and "Rose Red-"Anne after one of theirs, and my, favorite story.) Unfortunately, something happened that led to an estrangement and Rachel is hard to get in touch with. Plus Anne describes her sister in vague terms implying that she might have a serious mental disorder.

David meanwhile still grieves for his mother who died in a gruesome way when he was still a child. He also speaks about a sister who is missing. A common thread in fairy tales is a sibling looking for another one. Anne and David hope that maybe the solution to this mystery will lead to the answers to their own quests.

 

My favorite characters, The Ovitz Sisters, also have their own struggles with family and its meaning, even as they are involved in this mystery. They are part of The Sisterhood and operate under the behest of a shadowy figure called The Queen who doesn't mind that her subordinates use violence. Many of the sisters follow The Queen's orders without question. Another sister  Lily, questions the orders and whether she is fit to be a sister in every sense of the word, both theirs and in The Sisterhood. She debates what sisterhood means if it conflicts with the personal individual thought.

With its adventurous suspenseful plot, fascinating characters, and strong themes of feminism, family, and the history behind the legend, The Fairy Tale Code isn't just a great book. It's one of my favorite books of 2022. 

Forgotten Favorites: Very Special People: The Struggles, Loves, and Triumphs of Human Oddities by Frederick Drimmer; An Amazing Biography of Some Very Special People Indeed

Forgotten Favorites: Very Special People: The Struggles, Loves, and Triumphs of Human Oddities by Frederick Drimmer; An Amazing Biography of Some Very Special People Indeed


By Julie Sara Porter


Bookworm Reviews





In the 2017 musical biopic of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman, the sideshow performers such as Charles “General Tom Thumb” Stratton, a little person, Chang and Eng, conjoined twins, and Lettie Lutz, a bearded lady crash a swank party that they have been denied entry by the party goers and Barnum himself. They sing the triumphant Oscar nominated song, “This Is Me” where they admit that yes they are different, but they will persevere despite the derision of others. It's a stirring unforgettable moment.


Fans of movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood may be familiar with the 1931 film, Freaks which deals with a conniving trapeze artist and her strong man lover who conspire to murder her husband, Hans, a little person, for his fortune. Most of the movie’s cast includes various real life sideshow performers including Violet and Daisy Hilton, a pair of conjoined twins (whose characters get engaged during the movie), Lady Olga, a bearded lady (who in the movie gives birth to a daughter fathered by Pete Robinson, a human skeleton), Johnny Eck, a legless man, Frances O’Connor, an armless woman, Prince Randion, who was born with neither arms or legs (but in the movie shows he is capable of lighting and smoking a cigarette), and Harry and Daisy Doll, a brother and sister team of little people who play the main character, Hans, and his female friend, Freida. (The DVD/Blu-ray of the movie includes a documentary in which each performer’s lives are described before and after Freak’s release.)





Even though they were made 87 years apart, both The Greatest Showman and Freaks show the struggles faced by people who were once called “Freaks”, or “Human Oddities.” People who look different because they are too short, too tall, are conjoined, have white albino skin, are missing arms and legs, are bearded women and many others. Their stories were stories of constant struggles of being accepted by society including families who constantly worried about them, smothered, or abandoned them, finding work (most of which ended up working in sideshows), and finding acceptance or love. Author, Frederick Drimmer gathered their stories in his 1976 book, Very Special People: The Struggles, Loves, and Triumphs of Human Oddities. Many of these people may not be well-known to modern Readers, but they are unforgettable in their strengths, determination, and willingness to make a life for themselves. Each story seems to say, (to quote the song): “ I am brave/I am bruised/I am who I’m meant to be/This is me.”





The stories are divided into eight parts and 34 chapters which explore various people sorted by their abnormalities. They are moving, heartwarming, honest, and even at times humorous (when asked if she would March in the Easter Parade, the bearded Lady Olga said “Absolutely not, someone may mistake (her) for a Supreme Court Justice.”) Above all, they are inspirational. Not many Readers would forget the story of Hermann Carl Unthan, a man born without arms who became an accomplished violinist and also learned to swim, ride horseback, and target shoot with his legs.





Another fascinating story is that of Violet and Daisy Hilton, the conjoined twins who appeared not only in the film, Freaks but in another movie called Chained For Life. The two were abused by their guardian and her husband until they came of legal age and took their guardians to court. The Hilton Sisters had short-lived marriages but played the saxophone in vaudeville and befriended such performers as Bob Hope (who taught them how to dance) and Harry Houdini (who taught them to mentally block each other out when they wanted alone time.).





There is also the chapter about Julia Pastrana, a Mexican woman with hair on her face, arms, and legs. She also captivated audiences with her graceful dancing and singing in both English and her native Spanish.





One of the most well known stories was that of Joseph Carey Merrick AKA, The Elephant Man, an Englishman with neurofibromatosis, a skin condition which causes lesions and tumors all over the body. Merrick was the subject of the play and movie, The Elephant Man, the latter of which was directed by David Lynch and starred Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt as Merrick. Told by Merrick’s friend and mentor, Sir Frederick Treves, The Elephant Man’s chapter is about a man frequently shunned, abused, and put on display by a cold and uncaring public only to be permitted to permanently reside at the London Hospital and became a celebrity because of his kind amiable personality and childlike nature. Merrick made use of a dressing kit, even though he couldn't use its contents, by imagining that he was a dandy man-about-town. After he attended a pantomime of Puss in Boots with Treves (hidden behind a boxed seat curtain), Merrick spoke about the play as though it was a real event asking questions like “Do you suppose that poor man is still in the dungeon?”





One of the most fascinating aspects of the book is how it goes to extremes from people with too many limbs to those who don't have enough and from people who are below and above average height. Robert Pershing Wadlow, who was dubbed the Alton Giant because of his vast height, was one such example. By the time he began school, he wore clothes that fit a 17 year old and by the time he was eight, he passed his hand-me-downs to his father. The chapter is filled with moments where Wadlow held silverware that seemed doll house-like in his hands, where he had to lay hotel beds side to side so he could get a good night's sleep, and above all where a slight fracture could lead to debilitating problems later. Wadlow’s excessive height caused the calcium in his bones to be weakened and he died at the young age of 27 when he was 8 ft 11.1 inches tall. Nonetheless he made good money as the spokesperson for a St. Louis based shoe company that offered him free shoes as a bonus. (Something he desperately needed since he outgrew shoes almost as soon as he received them.)





From the problems of the very tall to those experienced by the very small and Drimmer shows that in the section describing little people, one of whom was Charles Sherwood Stratton who went under the stage name “General Tom Thumb Jr..” Drimmer writes that Stratton could not reach doorknobs without help, was often unable to get out of beds that were high off the ground, and was unable to do many of the physical tasks in his small town of mostly farmers and whalers. After he was introduced to P.T. Barnum, Stratton became a consummate performer who sang, danced, and did imitations of people like Napoleon. In his years of show business, Stratton met many notables like Queen Victoria and Abraham Lincoln (who hosted Stratton's White House wedding to fellow little person, Lavinia Warren.)





While many people look down on sideshows today saying they were exploitative, Drummer's writing reveals that in the time period in which many of these human oddities lived, there weren't too many other opportunities for employment or acceptance for people with extreme physical abnormalities. Sideshows not only hired them but the performers often found love and friendship among others who were equally physically different. (That closeness even spread during the off-season when many human oddities settled in Gibsonton, Florida, a small town outside of Sarasota. According to Drimmer’s book, so-called normal residents of Gibsonton were so used to the human oddity population that they treated them like any other local as fellow citizens, schoolmates, church goers, and PTA members.)





Very Special People shows that despite the exterior, the human spirit can triumph within individuals. It also shows that anyone at anytime could be an outcast. This idea is best demonstrated in the introduction in which Drimmer's daughter dreamed that her arms disappeared and she was mocked and jeered at by the people around her. “Stop looking at me like that,” she screamed. “What if I am physically different from you? I am still a human being! Treat me like one! I have the same-exactly the same feelings as you! I am you!”

Forgotten Favorites: Little Little by M.E. Kerr; A Sweet YA Love Story About Two Outsiders

Forgotten Favorites: Little Little by M.E. Kerr; A Sweet YA Love Story About Two Outsiders
By Julie Sara Porter,
Bookworm Reviews

This is another book that has been a long-time favorite of mine, since I was in middle school. Little Little is a Young Adult novel that gives us a teen romance between two characters who are just as sharp, witty, and non-conformist now as they were 37 years ago in 1981 when the book was first published.

Little Little La Belle, a three foot, three inch tall high school senior is soon to turn eighteen and is contemplating her future. She lives in a  picture postcard upstate New York town with a  wealthy family of average sized parents and a younger sister. She is tired of her mother trying to fix her up with various little people who are "perfectly formed" or "p.f." and tired of her father not wanting to let her grow up at all. She plans a secret engagement with Knox "Little Lion" Lionel, a TV evangelist and fellow little person with a large following and an even larger ego. Things begin to go awry when she meets and forms a friendship and maybe more with Sydney Cinnamon, another little person who is to be her party's entertainment.

Sydney has some issues of his own. At three feet, four inches, Sydney has been starring as "The Roach," a TV mascot for a pest control company and has been hired to entertain at Little Little's upcoming birthday party. An orphan and high school dropout, he begins to fall for Little Little himself and vice versa. The two begin a romance based on their different outlooks and the difficulties that they experience of being short stature.

The book is very dated in some parts. Little Lion's career as a TV evangelist seems to be based upon real preachers from the '80s such as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker so the character seems a bit dated now. (However many of his conservative fundamentalist views still retain some of their prominence as does the discovery when his character is not all that he pretends to be). Little Little and Sydney go on one of their dates to a grindhouse movie theater which shows such B movie horror films as The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant and Curse of the Werewolf. However, M.E. Kerr has given the reader two strong characters through their humorous narration and their fresh outlooks on life.

In alternating first person chapters, Little Little and Sydney both give their views of the world with deft and witty narration that makes them memorable characters. In describing her younger sister Cowboy's various interests, Little Little observes: "It's hard to tell which one of us is most strange, me or Cowboy, though a dwarf will always look stranger anywhere."

Sydney also presents some clever insights, particularly about his fame as The Roach: "I decided to be something that people don't like instinctively and make them like it....If I'd been a vegetable, I'd have been a slimy piece of okra. If I'd been mail, I'd have been a circular addressed to 'Occupant.'"

Besides the narration, Sydney and Little Little become individuals describing their different experiences as little people. Little Little grew up with a normal sized family and has always been considered a town outsider; Sydney grew up in an orphans' home with other children with physical deformities; Little Little's first experience with other little people was when her grandfather took her to a meeting of The American Diminutives (TADS), a fictional organization that she and her family later join, mostly with the purpose of setting Little Little up with the male members. Sydney's first experience with other little people was when he went with the other orphans' home children to a theme park and saw various little people dressed as gnomes, foreshadowing his future working as an advertising mascot. Little Little is constantly described by the mother as "little, but p.f." but is tired of being treated as small doll by everyone around her especially her parents; Sydney often feels self-conscious about his hunched back, his overlong front tooth, and his short legs, but covers up his physical insecurities with one-liners and intelligence gleaned from reading various books about other people with physical abnormalities. In the differences in the two leads, M.E. Kerr shows that experiences can be different and even people in similar situations can be raised with completely different outlooks in life.

Above all, the book is about being an individual in a world that encourages conformity or as Sydney and Little Little describe, being oneself rather than being"Sara Lee" which means "Similar And Regular And Like Everyone Else." There are various moments that celebrate the characters' individuality such as Sydney and his friends' mock-Oscar award ceremony call "The Monsters" which awards are presented such as "Least Likely To Get Adopted" or "Most Likely To Scare Small Children." Little Little also proves her non-conformist nature in her arguments with her family including her blustering but well-meaning minister grandfather. When he tells her to "be a bush, if she cannot be a tree," she counters with "the idea of being a bush wasn't all that appealing and not for me, anyway, even if I was the best bush." Through Little Little and Sydney, Kerr seems to speak to every kid or adult who has ever been considered different by their peers and encourages them to embrace it and be themselves or as Sydney says "When I found out  I was a ball in a world of blocks, I decided that even if they didn't roll, I do. I decided to roll away, be whatever  I wanted to be."