It seems about time that Daily Kos had a Literary Corner, to show the world just how cultured progressives really are. But since Daily Kos focuses on public affairs, it seems most fitting that the Literary Corner should exclusively deal with oeuvres by figures in the public eye.
Today let's look at two novels, one by Lewis Libby, and the other by Lynne Cheney. Mr. Libby's 2002 creation, The Apprentice, (the title seems somehow familiar), deals with intrigues among men who spy on women and each other, but mostly seem to hang out with each other. Ms. Cheney's 1981 work, Sisters, deals with the more outre aspects of society in old Wyoming, "where women were treated either as decorative figurines or as abject sexual vassals." Like the men in Mr. Libby's work, the women in Ms. Cheney's novel spend most of their time together, since, as she puts it so well, "the relationship between women and men" had become "a kind of guerilla warfare."
Unfortunately, both books are out of print right now. It's somehow almost impossible to find a copy of
Sisters, and even if you can find one, they start at $199.97. It's not hard to find a used copy of
The Apprentice, though, and they go for $1.99 apiece right now. It's likely, though, that Mr. Libby's book will go up in price quite soon, as his reputation becomes more widely known.
Let's hope that both authors will have plenty of free time to write their long-awaited sequels.
These fine books, along with The O'Reilly Factor for Kids, are sure to be welcome holiday gifts for Conservative friends.
The Apprentice : A Novel
by Lewis Libby
Review
First novel set in northernmost Japan in 1903, when war is brewing with Russia. The impending war, however, seems to have little to do with Libby's protagonist, an apprentice innkeeper named Setsuo, usually referred to as ``the youth.''
While the youth's master is gone, a terrible blizzard sets in and a motley crew is snowbound, including the various exotic members of a theatrical troupe. A bearded man and a hunter also prepare to enter the inn, but at the last moment plunge onward in the storm. Their action seems suicidal, and, partly to impress a young woman in the troupe, Yukiku, and partly out of genuine concern, the youth chases after them.
He witnesses the bearded man's murder of the hunter, but the bearded man spares the youth and tries to warn him of something. The youth in turn, warming his hands on the dead man's body, takes his purse and discovers a mysterious box.
Murders ensue, as well as a quite literally steamy scene as the youth spies upon Yukiku in the inn's hot spring. Though questioned insistently by members of the troupe, the youth stubbornly denies knowledge of the box, thinking he could be linked to the theft of the dead man's purse.
The youth is beaten and left for dead, then befriended by a samurai in league with the bearded man. The theatrical troupe are spies, it develops, and Yukiku an enemy seductress. The bearded man is a loyalist who returns with spring to explain that the youth has been a true patriot, shielding his country's war plans. ``Arise. You are reborn,'' the bearded man says. The youth accepts a reward and leaves the inn, his apprenticeship at an end.
Sisters: A Tale of Old Wyoming
by Lynne Cheney
Review
Sophie Dymond had overcome nineteenth-century prejudices to succeed as publisher of a hugely popular women's magazine. But when she left New York to revisit her native Wyoming, where her sister had died mysteriously, she left her prestige and power far behind.
Waiting for Sophie was a world where women were treated either as decorative figurines or as abject sexual vassals...where wives were led to despise the marriage act and prostitutes pandered to husbands' hungers...where the relationship between women and men became a kind of guerilla warfare in which women were forced to band together for the strength they needed and at times for the love they wanted.
In her effort to grasp the meaning of her sister's life and death, Sophie discovers the secret that tainted her life and begins to understand the experience of the vast majority of silent, trapped women.
Next time, Kos Literary Corner will review two more novels penned by notable figures in public life:
The Monkey Handlers, a Spy Novel by G. Gordon Liddy
and
Those Who Trespass: A Novel of Television and Murder, by Bill O'Reilly