Six Degrees of Separation: From Wifedom to Hebrides

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting book this month is Wifedom by Anna Funder. This book was just published recently in the US. It is about Eileen O’Shaughnessy's marriage to George Orwell and the subtitle is "Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life". I have not read this book but I think it would be an interesting read.

My first link is The Autopsy of a Boring Wife by Marie-Renée Lavoie (translation from French to English by Arielle Aaronson). The story is about a woman whose marriage of 25 years falls apart after her husband announces he is leaving her for a younger woman. The author is Canadian and the story is set in Quebec. I haven't read this yet but I have a copy and plan to read it in the next year.

For the second link I will continue with another novel about the failure of a marriage, Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott. This book was published anonymously in 1929. The setting is New York City during the Jazz Age, and it explores the social mores of the time. My husband commented that the plot line sounded like the 1930 film The Divorcee, and indeed, that movie was based on Ex-Wife, although the story in the film is simplified and tamer. This is another book that I have not read but plan to read.

My third link is a novel I have read, and fairly recently, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1925 and set in 1922, it is also about the Jazz Age. A lot of the story takes place on Long Island, in the mansions of the rich.

My fourth link is to another book I read set on Long Island, Death Likes it Hot by Gore Vidal. Published in 1954, this is one of three mysteries Vidal wrote under the name Edgar Box. Amateur sleuth Peter Cutler Sargeant II has his own public relations agency in New York City. In this book he has been invited to spend a weekend in the Hamptons by a society woman who wants to discuss a possible job.

I am continuing with another island setting for book #5, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, published in 1939. This is one of Christie's standalone mysteries. Eight guests are invited to a mansion on an isolated island off the coast of England. As they journey to their destination, they muse about the letters they received and their expectations for their visit to the island. When they arrive on the island, the only two people at the house are Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, the butler and the cook. They have been notified that Mr. Owen, the owner, will be arriving later. They soon realize that they have been tricked and the owner will not be showing up.

Staying with the island theme, the last book in my chain is Hebrides by Peter May. My husband is reading that book right now.  Peter May discusses the geological history of the Outer Hebrides, the history of the people on those islands, and his own personal history with the islands. Initially he came to the Outer Hebrides to work on a TV drama. Later he came back to the islands to use the area as locations for his trilogy: The Blackhouse, The Lewis Man and The Chessmen. The photographs that illustrate the book were taken by David Wilson.

My Six Degrees took me from wives and ex-wives to islands in the US and the UK. Have you read any of these books? 

If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you?

The next Six Degrees will be on October 7th, 2023, and the starting book will be I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

#1954Club: Death Likes It Hot

Death Likes It Hot is the last book in a short series of three mysteries about a publicist who also ends up investigating murders. The author was Edgar Box; later it was revealed that this was a pseudonym used by Gore Vidal. This book is set in the Hamptons and was published in 1954. 

This is the first book I read for the 1954 Club, hosted by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings.

Peter Cutler Sargeant II is young, around 30, and has his own public relations agency in New York City. He is an amateur sleuth whose involvement in crime solving is mostly accidental. But by this third book in the series he is fairly well known for his prowess in that area.

In this book he has been invited to spend a weekend in the Hamptons by a society woman who wants to discuss a possible job. There are a few other people staying there at the same time: her niece and the niece's husband, a well­-known artist; a woman who writes books and has a column in a magazine; a brother and sister who are very close, acting almost like a married couple. The niece dies shortly after he arrives, while swimming in the ocean, in full view of all the guests. The death is suspicious but is it murder?

I also have an omnibus edition published in 2010 with introductions for each book by Gore Vidal. The introductions are very interesting.  Gore Vidal was unable to get his books reviewed by the New York Times for several years in the early fifties, which severely curtailed his income. A publisher talked him into writing a few mysteries using a pseudonym, and the Peter Sergeant series was the result. And the books did keep him afloat financially for quite a while.

How did this book reflect its time? 

There was definitely sexism in male attitudes toward women, which is normal for books written in the 1950s, but there were also intelligent and interesting female characters whose lives were not centered on finding a man and being taken care of. 

Also, I noted that both of the books I read for the 1954 Club were about people with a comfortable life style. Obviously people who live in the Hamptons, even at that time, were rich, and most of their friends and guests were also well-to-do. The books I chose were mystery novels and I think there was a tendency at that time for the stories to center around the rich or those with comfortable means. Certainly a majority of the Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout and the Agatha Christie novels bear that out. Not that I ever had any objection to that; I don't mind at all reading about lifestyles that are very different than mine.

Opinions:

The following paragraph is from a review in 1001 Midnights (1986, ed. Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller).

Clever deductions, fair play with the reader, and the Christie-Queen bag of tricks are not Vidal’s strong points. But his mastery of the language permeates even these mysteries that he himself shrugs off as potboilers cranked out for money, and his tone of cynical, good-humored tolerance toward an America populated exclusively by crooks, opportunists, and buffoons is as close to the true spirit of H. L. Mencken as mystery fiction is ever likely to see.

For myself, I would say that I enjoyed the plot and the picture of the Hamptons in 1954. Peter Sergeant is a pleasant and intelligent sleuth. In this book he was just as interested in making connections with his friend, Liz Bessemer, as he was in solving the crime. It was not the best mystery I ever read, but it was an entertaining story.

I know very little about Gore Vidal. After reading this book I am interested in trying some books by him aside from the mysteries, but I have no idea where to start. Any suggestions are welcome.

From what I have read about the books in the series, this last one is the best one. I still plan to read the first two books. The first one, Death in the Fifth Position, is set in a dance company and the ballet world, and that sounds especially interesting.

Also see this post by Curtis Evans at The Passing Tramp on Death Likes It Hot, with links to other posts about the earlier books in the series.

 -----------------------------

Publisher: Vintage Books, 1979 (orig. pub. 1954)
Length: 184 pages
Format: Paperback
Series:  Peter Cutler Sergeant II, #3
Setting: New York, The Hamptons
Genre:  Mystery
Source: Purchased at the Planned Parenthood Book Sale, 2013.

Reading Summary for March 2022

 

I read seven books this month and every one of them was very good. Five books of crime fiction, one historical fiction, one general fiction. Two books published between 2000 and 2020, three books published between 1960 and 2000, and two books published in the 1950s. Five books by women, two by men.

General Fiction

Watermelon (1995) by Marian Keyes

Claire found out that her husband wanted a divorce on the day her first child was born. Claire had no clue that her husband was unhappy with the marriage and was having an affair with a woman that they both know. Her reaction is to leave London, where she works and lives with her husband, and go to Dublin and stay with her parents for a few months. My review here.

Historical Fiction

The Spies of Shilling Lane (2019) by Jennifer Ryan

This is historical fiction set during World War II. However, I was not sure how to categorize it because there are elements of spy fiction in the book; some of the characters are intelligence agents for the government. There is a mystery, and many characters who may or may not be who they seem. The main character is a middle aged woman divorced by her husband, who goes looking for her daughter living in London, and gets mixed up with Fascist spies. I did not find that part of it terribly realistic, but I still liked it. 

Crime Fiction

A Most Contagious Game (1967) by Catherine Aird

This was Aird's only standalone novel. Thomas Harding and his wife Dora have moved from London to a manor house in Easterbrook. Harding retired early because his health was bad, and he doesn't like the quiet life he is leading... until he finds a skeleton in a hidden room in his house (which turns out to be a priest hole that had been plastered over). This mystery was not a police procedural like Aird's Inspector Sloane series, but there is a death in the village about the same time. The story of Harding's research into the skeleton's origins and his settling into the small town with his wife was excellent. 

Death Likes It Hot (1954) by Edgar Box

Edgar Box is a pseudonym of Gore Vidal. Vidal used it at a time when he was having a hard time getting books published. This book is the third of three books featuring Peter Sargeant, a publicist and amateur sleuth. This one is set in the Hamptons. I have an omnibus edition published in 2010 with introductions for each book by Gore Vidal. I loved the book.

Monk's Hood (1980) by Ellis Peters

This is the third book in the Brother Cadfael series. The setting for the books in the series is between 1135 and 1145 in England and Wales, primarily. I love this series; Brother Cadfael is a wonderful character. My review here.

Once a Crooked Man (2016) by David McCallum

This book by actor David McCallum was published in 2016 and is a thriller. A crime family decides to go straight but first they have a few people they want to silence so they won't be going to jail for past crimes. An actor who survives on small parts in TV episodes and movies and stage plays overhears what they are plotting and get mixed up in all the mayhem, mainly because he wanted to do a good deed and warn one of the victims. This was the perfect read for me at this time, and I enjoyed it a lot. There are a lot of very short chapters and they move from character to character, which some readers might find distracting. I like this style of writing so it worked well for me. It kept the tension level up. Nicely paced with a lot of humor.

The Gazebo (1955) by Patricia Wentworth

Patricia Wentworth's books are my go-to comfort read. The Gazebo, the 7th book in the Miss Silver series, was published in 1955 and is a story about a woman who had to drop her plans to marry her fiancé to take care of her invalid mother for five years. Now he is back in the village and they are going to find a way to get around her controlling mother and get married. Then the mother is murdered and the fiancé seems to be the obvious culprit. The plot is complex, there was more romance in the story than usual, and I enjoyed it. And there are some really bad guys, which is sort of unusual for the Miss Silver series.

Status of my reading:

Most of my reading in March was based on spur of the moment decisions, not much planning. Watermelon was read for the Reading Ireland event at 746 Books, which always takes place in March. Death Likes It Hot was read for the 1954 Club run by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings. The other five books were just for fun, and I enjoyed that.

In April I have read three books at this point, and all of them are for a challenge or similar blogging event. I read another book for the 1954 Club (Go, Lovely Rose by Jean Potts)and I finally read a book for the TBR Pile Challenge (Dog On It by Spencer Quinn). I read my book for the Classics Club Spin, Beast in View by Margaret Millar.

The photo at the top of the post shows a succulent among overgrown Santa Barbara daisies. The two plant photos immediately above are geraniums and an overgrown Dusty Miller. The photo of the Dusty Miller looks like a black and white photo, but it is just that the plant is all white. If you look closely you can sent tints of light green here and there. All of the plant photos were taken in early April in the front garden beds that I have been working on cleaning up.  As usual, my husband took those photos. Click on the images for best viewing quality.