Bloodline, Indeed. Can a famous author's son inherit his job?

Where I've been: Camping. Attending a writing conference (but not doing much writing). Making jam. Figuring out my kids' fall plans (community college for the oldest. Homeschooling supplemented with various classes for the youngest). Trying to get organized.

What I'm doing today: Preparing for my youngest's 13th birthday, which is tomorrow! Presents must be bought, cake and plans and fanfare sorted out, all without use of a car (that's a story for another day). Also, heading over to Cathedral Park later for a picnic and to watch Trouble with Tribbles, a live play of my favorite original Star Trek episode.

What's Been Happening on Worducopia: Crickets.

What I'm Reading: Just finished Bloodline, by Felix Francis. No, Scratch that: the official title is "Dick Francis's Bloodline," which put me off so much that I almost didn't read the book.

Here's the thing: I get that Felix helped his father, famous mystery writer Dick Francis, with his books in the later years before Dick's death at age 89, and that he is writing in the style of his father, so publisher Putnam wants readers to get the connection. And as a writer, I don't begrudge Felix the advantage he has as a fledgling writer (Bloodline is his second book), because of the connections he had made through his dad. But if the novel is good enough to be published (which it is), it should be good enough to draw readers in its own right. Put "Son of Dick Francis!" in big letters under Felix's name, if you must, but putting Dick's name as part of the title goes too far with the Blatant Marketing Ick factor.

That said, I don't particularly like mysteries, and I was assigned to read one for book club. I've been a Dick Francis fan since I was 14 years old (he managed to write mysteries that read like character-driven novels) and discovered a shelf full of his books while staying with my parents at a house in Tuscany. But I've read all of Francis's books, and I thought that for book club I should branch out.

I picked up a James Lee Burke book, read a few pages, and switched out for Michael Connelly's "The Black Box." Set that down when Chapter 2 started out twenty years after the grisly murder scene in Chapter 1 (Disguising a prologue as Chapter 1? A nasty and underhanded trick! I fling your book at you!)  and tried a Leonard Block mystery that was sitting on the free shelf at my hairdressers. It was okay. I carried it around for a couple of weeks, occasionally reading part of a chapter, mostly not.

Book Club's date loomed closer and closer on the horizon and I found that the nearer it came, the less interest I had in actually finishing "The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling." Book Club Anxiety Syndrome reared its ugly head. It's one thing to show up with a particular book unfinished, but who could justify arriving with a stack of 4 unfinished books and the excuse, "I guess I just don't like mysteries much?"

In desperation, I picked up Bloodlines. Ten minutes later, I felt like I'd taken the medicine doctors might prescribe to remedy Book Club Anxiety Syndrome. Yes, I could read this! I could even finish it by Tuesday if I read 60 pages per day. I ended up finishing it in 3 days.

So, Felix, you're forgiven for taking advantage of your dad's many years building a name for himself. And as for you, Putnam: you've got yourself a decent writer who is admirably filling the hole left by Dick Francis's death. Why not give him credit where credit is due, and let him be an author in his own right?

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What I'm Reading: Flight Behavior (Barbara Kingsolver)

I've loved all of Barbara Kingsolver's novels except for The Poisonwood Bible (which was actually the first of her books that I read, so obviously I didn't hate it since I went on to read more). So, I was thrilled to see she'd come out with a new one.

The Story: Dellarobia Turnbow is a young mother, living on her husband Cub's family sheep farm in Appalachia.  On a walk up the mountainous side of their property, she discovers that their forest is, inexplicably, covered with monarch butterflies. This discovery draws the community to the farm to view what many see as a miracle. As word spreads, others arrive from farther way, including a team of scientists with their own perspective on the "miracle" (climate change) that has brought the butterflies to a region they've never been to before.

My bookmark is on page 156 of 433, which is early in chapter 7.

Thoughts: I was a little worried in chapter one, to be honest. Dellarobia was walking up the side of the mountain to meet up with a guy, and it was taking her the w-h-o-l-e chapter to walk up the hill, see that the trees looked weird (she wasn't wearing her glasses), decide not to meet with the guy, and walk down the hill again. Let's just say . . . I generally like a faster-paced beginning. This didn't bode well.

By the end of chapter two, though, things start happening. Most importantly, Dellarobia starts to find her voice and stand up to her domineering mother-in-law. By chapter 3 I was fully engrossed. Kingsolver writes a good story, and can make me laugh out loud on occasion.

There's one thing I've been grappling with, though. The characters, while definitely not at all flat, seem a bit typecast to me. I've never been to Appalachia, and Kingsolver grew up there, so obviously she knows these people and I don't. I often struggle with this in books set in the south, as well, so maybe it's just because people around here are so different in some ways. There are such stereotypes in the media, though, that I guess I would hope that a well-written book would break down those stereotypes for me instead of reinforcing them. I am hoping that some of the characters will surprise me by stepping out of their roles as the book continues. Knowing Kingsolver's skill as a storyteller, they probably will.

A favorite passage: My favorite scene so far is when Dellarobia invites the scientist, Dr. Ovid Byron, to dinner. She doesn't know he's a scientist. All she knows is that he came from far away to see the butterflies, he's black, and he has a Carribbean accent. She feels sorry for him because he's staying in the grossest motel in town. Over dinner, she proceeds to tell him everything she's learned on the internet about the butterflies, and then while listening to him talk to her five-year-old son, it becomes clear that he knows more than he's let on.

"You came here because you're one of the people who study these monarchs," she said.
"You are exactly right. I spent the day doing a quick census up there."
Quick, she thought, as in nine hours. Had he counted them all? "So, you do, what, experiments, or observations? And write up what you found out?"
He nodded. "A dissertation, articles, a couple of books. All on the monarch."
"A couple of books," she said to this man, recalling his look when she'd informed him, They're called monarchs. So, there were worse things than feeding meatloaf to a vegetarian.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack of the movie Cold Mountain comes to mind, both because the story is set in the same region, and because of the way the soundtrack fit in so beautifully with the movie and (by extension) Charles Frazier's book of the same title. For Flight Behavior, I'm going to pick Like a Songbird That Has Fallen, performed by Reeltime Travelers. It's not about butterflies, but close enough.

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