Review of "The Lost Get-Back Boogie: A Novel" by James Lee Burke

  

 

This James Lee Burke novel was published before the author's Dave Robicheaux mysteries and his Holland family series. 'The Lost Get-Back Boogie' features a troubled, hard-drinking, Korean war veteran who's trying to get on with his life.

*****

It's the 1960s and Louisianan Iry Paret, who got a Bronze Star and a lot of bad memories during the Korean war, is on parole after a two-year-stint in the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola) for manslaughter.



Paret, a country musician who plays a Dobro and a Martin flattop - and sings like Hank Williams - was drunk and high when he killed a man in a bar fight started by the other guy.



Now Iry is set to serve his parole in Missoula, Montana, on the family ranch of his Angola buddy and fellow musician Buddy Riordan.



Iry and Buddy plan to work for Buddy's dad, Frank Riordan, and get music gigs on the side.



Buddy and Iry stay in a cabin on the Riordan ranch, where they do a lot of drinking, smoking marijuana, and fishing.



For men trying to straighten out their lives, Iry and Buddy aren't making a good start. They break out the beer and whiskey early in the day, and keep drinking later on, in bars and juke joints. Buddy purposely causes trouble, running his mouth and inflaming the locals.



This is doubly dangerous because residents of the Bitterroot Valley are furious with Buddy's dad, Frank Riordan. Frank is filing injunctions to close down the paper mill, which spews foul-smelling gases into the air. Shutting the mill would put four hundred men out of work, and force families to rely on welfare and food kitchens. The hardship would also spread to stores, bars, and other local businesses, but Frank is adamant - insisting the mill could operate if the owners would put in air filters.



Anger with Frank spreads to Buddy and Iry, and they're attacked on the road after an ugly bar scene exacerbated by Buddy. Iry's truck burns up, his instruments are destroyed, and he and Buddy end up in the hospital.



Iry can't let this humiliation go, and his subsequent actions put him on the radar of the sheriff. The lawman has no use for 'southern boys' and makes it his mission to send Iry back to prison.





At Frank's request, Iry also helps the rancher introduce pairs of non-native nutrias into Montana rivers. Iry tells Frank nutrias are TERRIBLE DESTRUCTIVE PESTS in Louisiana waterways, but Frank insists on proceeding with the project, having some misguided notion of helping beavers.



On many fronts, Frank is sowing the seeds of his own destruction, convinced he's doing the right thing.



In the midst of all this, there's a birthday party for Buddy's son, and Iry meets Buddy's ex-wife Beth, an attractive warm woman. Iry starts seeing Beth behind Buddy's back, though he feels guilty about betraying his best friend.



Observing all this are Buddy's sister Pearl and her husband Mel, a hard-drinking university professor who's a political activist. Pearl dislikes Iry, and her hostility exacerbates tensions on the ranch.



Unlike Burke's later novels, this story doesn't have a devilish villain, but pushing people too far has unfortunate repercussions.

I was drawn into the story, but I'll admit to being put off by the constant drinking and drunkenness. Even when they're driving, Iry and Buddy drink and smoke pot, which seems terribly reckless and dangerous.



That said, this book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is well worth reading.

Highly recommended. 

 Rating: 4 stars 

Review of "Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories of Mystery Illness" by Suzanne O'Sullivan

 

Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan is an Irish neurologist who wrote the prize-winning book 'It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness.' This book follows in the same vein, discussing illnesses that seem to have no somatic cause.


Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan

*****

The placebo effect occurs when a sick person receives a 'fake treatment' (like a sugar pill) and feels better anyway. It seems the mind can convince the body a fake treatment is the real thing.



The opposite is true as well. A person can exhibit ailments caused by their mind. Symptoms might include paralysis, blindness, headache, dizziness, coma, tremor, skin rashes, breathlessness, chest pain, palpitations, bladder problems, diarrhea, stomach cramps, or any other symptoms or disability one can imagine. This type of illness has been given many names over the years, including hysteria, conversion disorder, psychosomatic disorder, and functional neurological disorder (FND).



O'Sullivan observes that many people wrongly consider psychosomatic symptoms 'less real' than other medical problems She writes, "I struggle to see where this underestimation comes from....That the body is the mouthpiece of the mind seems self-evident to me, but I have the sense that not everybody feels the connection between bodily changes and the contents of their thoughts. So when a child becomes catatonic in the context of stresses....people are amazed and perplexed."

O'Sullivan became interested in childhood catatonia when she read a 2017 article about a 9-year-old girl in Sweden called Sophie. Sophie can't move, communicate, eat, or even open her eyes.....though medical tests show nothing wrong. Moreover, Sophie isn't unique. Other young girls in Sweden have fallen into similar catatonic states, suffering from a condition called 'resignation syndrome.'


A girl with resignation syndrome

The common factor among the resignation syndrome victims seems to be the fact that their families are asylum seekers. Sophie's family escaped persecution in Russia, and other catatonic girls belong to ethnic minorities like the Yazidi or the Uyghurs, who are oppressed in their home countries. If asylum isn't granted, the families will be deported.

Asylum seeking is a years-long process, and the families can feel like they're on trial....like they're being interrogated rather than listened to. O'Sullivan writes, "The asylum system seeks to find the mistakes that disprove an applicant's case, rather than looking for the evidence to prove it." O'Sullivan believes the children faced with possible deportation are under strain, and this induces the symptoms of resignation syndrome. Moreover, when granted residency the children usually wake up, albeit very very slowly.

Unfortunately many people look at psychosomatic symptoms as being 'fake' and untreatable. A physician called Dr. Olssen took O'Sullivan to visit two Yazidi sisters in Sweden - Nola (10) and Helan (11) - both of whom suffer from resignation syndrome.


Nola and Helan have resignation syndrome

O'Sullivan writes, "Dr. Olssen welcomed me because I was a neurologist. She hoped that I could find a [brain-related] explanation....that I would interpret the clinical signs and legitimize the girls' suffering and convince someone to help them. That Nola had been lying in bed for a year and a half without eating or moving had not been deemed impressive enough to get her the help she needed."

Oddly enough, though asylum seekers are found all over the world, resignation syndrome seems confined to Sweden, and affects only certain ethnic groups. O'Sullivan speculates the syndrome is not a biological or psychological illness in the Western sense, but rather a sociocultural phenomenon.

O'Sullivan goes on to write about additional sociocultural/psychosomatic illnesses, which manifest differently in diverse places and varying ethnic groups.

*****

The Miskito people indigenous to Nicaragua have outbreaks of a condition called grisi siknis, which appears as irrational behavior and hallucinations. Victims have been seen to have convulsions, foam at the mouth, rip off their clothes, run manically, hyperventilate, and break and eat glass. Miskito people don't believe grisi siknis is psychosomatic, but say it's caused by a spirit or demon that (usually) appears as a man.


Girl showing symptoms of grisi siknis


Boy showing symptoms of grisi siknis

*****

In the Kazakhstani cities of Krasnogorsk and Kalachi, many residents experienced a mystery illness that drove them from their homes. One victim, named Tamara, got sick at a community party. She tells O'Sullivan that she started to feel strange, light-headed and sleepy and had to leave the party early. Tamara then went home, went to bed, and didn't get up for a few days. Tamara recovered, but never went back to feeling as healthy as she had been before she fell asleep. Tamara was not an isolated case, and many people in the region experienced similar symptoms.


Kazakhstani woman with mystery sleeping sickness

*****

In 2016, an illness called Havana syndrome originated among Western diplomats in Cuba. American and Canadian State Department employees developed symptoms such as headache, earache, hearing impairment, dizziness, tinnitus, unsteadiness, visual disturbance, memory problems, difficulty concentrating and fatigue.




A woman with Havana Syndrome being examined by medical personnel

Most of the victims reported hearing a strange noise before their symptoms started, and speculation began that they had been subjected to a sound energy or sonic attack. The FBI and CIA looked high and low for traces of a sound weapon, but found none. Later, new victims appeared in China, and more recently in Serbia and India. Physicians aren't able to explain the sickness, and it appears to be a functional neurological disorder.


No sonic weapons were found

*****

In La Cansona, a region of Colombia, schoolgirls got caught up in a health crisis that began in 2014. The phenomenon began in a high school, when a group of girls - all in the same class - collapsed. Some just fell to the floor in a faint and some had convulsions. The condition spread quickly, and within a day, girls in several other classes got sick.


High school class in Colombia

By 2019, it was estimated that, out of 120,000 people in the area, as many as 1,000 girls had fallen ill. The villagers attributed the illness to an HPV vaccine administered years before, but doctors dismissed this as a cause.

*****

High school girls in Le Roy, a town in upstate New York, developed neurological symptoms in 2011. The manifestation began with a teenager name Katie Krautwurst, who woke from a nap to find she had developed involuntary movements and verbal outbursts reminiscent of Tourette's syndrome. Katie twitched and writhed and let out involuntary shouts. Katie's best friend Thera got sick next, and the disorder soon spread to other teenagers. Some victims had convulsions, others couldn't walk. Katie and Thera ultimately needed wheelchairs when the muscle jerks became so violent that they caused them to fall. Doctors could find no somatic cause and the girls were diagnosed with conversion disorder.


Katie Krautwurst was one of the first girls to develop neurological symptoms

A similar phenomenon occurred in Guyana in 2013, where the local people attributed the illness to 'Granny', the spirit of an old woman who lives in a cave.

*****

O'Sullivan discusses all these illnesses in detail, emphasizing that medical tests NEVER demonstrate a somatic cause and patients ALWAYS resist the idea they have a psychosomatic disorder.

O'Sullivan also goes on to discuss Western medicine vs. native remedies; attitudes of doctors to functional neurological disorders; the social stigma associated with having a 'fake' illness; the fact that psychosomatic disorders are attributed more often to females than males; her belief that people with psychosomatic disorders would improve with the correct treatment; the effect of the media on conversion disorders; the effect of culture and tradition on psychosomatic disorders; patients she's treated; and more.

The book is interesting and I liked the parts about O'Sullivan's travels; her interactions with people she met; victims she saw; foods she tried (like Colombian buñuelos (cheese donuts) and Kazakhstani mayonnaise soup); and more.


Buñuelos


Mayonnaise soup

On the downside, the narrative is somewhat repetitive and disjointed. Still, this is a fascinating subject and the book would probably appeal to readers interested in functional neurological disorders.

Thanks to Netgalley, Suzanne O'Sullivan, and Pantheon Books for a copy of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "A Guardian and a Thief: An Oprah's Book Club Choice" by Megha Mujumdar

This book was an 'Oprah's Book Club' choice, and it's very relevant to current times, with ongoing global warming and human despoliation of the environment.

*****

In a near-future Kolkata, the situation is desperate. Farmers had fallen from the constant heat; untended croplands had been ravaged by pests; a drought had cleaved riverbeds; and eastern paddy fields were tainted by salt water.







To make matters worse, people were moving to Kolkata from regions of the state that were flooded, and men women and children crowded railway platforms, bus stations, medians, metro stops, and mall garages - selling trinkets or begging for money.



Regardless, markets are empty and there's no food to buy. What remains for the population is hunger, misery, and thuggery. "The heat and the shortage made citizens quick to anger, and quick to turn to violence....The previous week, a man on a bicycle had knocked over a woman for the paper bag of three potatoes in her hands. The week before that, three college students had beaten up an old woman and taken not only her tiffin box, containing long beans, but also her gold ring."



There's SOME relief for a few solo parents with small children permitted to stay in the local shelter, which is funded by Kolkata's one remaining billionaire, seemingly for public relations.





The billionaire herself lives on a floating hexagon in the river. The hexagon contains a home, an office, a library, a four-car garage, a movie theater, a gym, a bowling alley, a spa, clinics and medical supplies, and pantries stocked with food - ilish fish, buckets of shrimp, colorful fruits and vegetables, gulab janum, and more.





Ma, the former manager of the billionaire-funded shelter, JUST gave up her job. Ma, her two-year-old daughter Mishti, and her widowed father Dadu are to leave for America in a week, to join Ma's scientist husband Baba in Ann Arbor, Michigan.



Baba had purchased the plane tickets and helped secure climate visas, a long process of supplication in both America and India. Ma is picking up the visas today, and other than that, the family is almost packed and ready to go.



Ma has a troubling secret. She's been stealing food from the shelter for her family, and she's skimmed money to prepare for an uncertain future in Michigan. In Ma's mind she truly hadn't taken much - enough money for a few weeks worth of groceries for a family of four living on a single income, and winter clothing for Mishti. A person has to look out for their family, after all.



Unknown to Ma, similar thoughts go through the mind of Boomba, a young man concerned about his parents and little brother. Boomba comes from a village outside Kolkata, and - because he accidentally burned down the family home - Boomba's relatives live in a rickety shed besieged by mosquitoes that carry malaria and dengue fever. Boomba came to Kolkata to work, get a place to live, and bring his family over. Unfortunately, Boomba's had a lot of bad luck, and he's homeless and desperate.



The drama begins after Ma secures the passports and climate visas for herself, Mishti, and Dadu. Ma wraps the precious documents in plastic, and tucks the treasures deep in her purse. That night, Boomba breaks into Ma's house looking for food, and grabs Ma's purse on the way out.



When Ma discovers the thievery in the morning, she's devastated, and determined to get the documents back.



Dadu helps with the search, but he's ambivalent about leaving his beloved Kolkata. "This was a city he believed in....The city in which knowing somebody meant knowing them forever....Everything beautiful, and everything useful about the city could be found in these relationships of dependence - with one's barber, one's rickshaw driver, one's editor, one's neighbor."



Events escalate over the next week, as Ma maneuvers to get the passports and visas she needs, Boomba schemes to get what he wants, and Kolkata residents grow resentful toward the privileged billionaire.



I'm sure there are different opinions about the unfolding events, but for me, Boomba was the least sympathetic character in the story. Boomba gave no thought to the consequences of his actions, or to the distress he caused. Though I empathized with Boomba's plight, I was put off by his behavior.



I can't say I enjoyed the book, because I was constantly apprehensive about what would happen next. The novel is well worth reading though, and should add to the 'wake up' call being sounded by people concerned about the future of the planet.

Thanks to Netgalley, Megha Majumdar, and Knopf for an ARC of the book.

Rating: 4 stars