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Review: 'The Road Out of Hell' a chilling tale
"The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders" (Union Square Press, 304 pages, $24.95), by Anthony Flacco, with Jerry Clark: This is a darkly disturbing true account of a 13-year-old boy, Sanford Clark, sent to live with his uncle on an isolated chicken farm in California in 1926.
Clark is quickly subject to all manner of abuse by his uncle, Gordon Stewart Northcott, a psychopath and sadist who lures young boys to the farm to sexually assault, torture and kill them, to Clark's slowly dawning horror.
Northcott forces Clark to help with his grisly deeds, rendering the boy so guilty and terrified that even when he escapes at one point, he's afraid of how he might be received and slinks back to the farm.
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Veteran writer sets 'Chopper Caper' in Valley
Ron D. Moore Sr. is credited as R.D. Moore on "The Chopper Caper" (AEG, $30.50), the novel he co-wrote with George Dorsey. The Chowchilla native's full name wasn't used out of fear that shoppers might mistakenly think the book was written by his son, television writer and producer Ron Moore.
Actually, the senior Moore has been writing a lot longer than his son.
"About 35 or 40 years ago, I was a stringer for The Fresno Bee. Since then I have been writing local newspaper articles and press releases," Moore says.
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Obama's half brother recalls their abusive father
President Barack Obama's half brother has broken his media silence to discuss his new novel - the semi-autobiographical story of an abusive parent patterned on their late father, the mostly absent figure Obama wrote about in his own memoir.
In his first interview, Mark Ndesandjo told The Associated Press that he wrote "Nairobi to Shenzhen" in part to raise awareness of domestic violence.
"My father beat my mother and my father beat me, and you don't do that," said Ndesandjo, whose mother, Ruth Nidesand, was Barack Obama Sr.'s third wife. "It's something which I think affected me for a long time, and it's something that I've just recently come to terms with."
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'Wild Things' a dazzling, magical gem
Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" is a literary diamond: simple in design, brilliant in presentation. The author uses a mere 338 words and masterful illustrations to tell the story of a young boy who escapes his real world to a land of warm and snugly creatures.
Director Spike Jonze has taken Sendak's diamond and put it in a cinematic setting that not only underscores the story's simplicity but also presents it in a way that's dazzling and magical.
Sendak's story tells of Max, a young boy -- dressed in a wolf costume -- who is sent to his room without supper after being rude to his mother. He travels mystically to a land of strange creatures only to long for the warmth of his own home.
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A draggin' tale
"Eragon" is a vocabulary movie, which means the first 10 minutes are filled with lots of made-up words that have to be explained to the audience. Not sure where Alagaesia is? What's an urgal? Are the Varden bad guys, or are they just hairstylists who specialize in affixing blond highlights to the superbly mussed locks of dragon-riding farmboys suddenly thrust into the role of world savior?
It helps immensely, of course, if you've read the book and are familiar with the fantasy world created by Christopher Paolini. (I'm a novice.) At the tender age of 17, Paolini crafted Alagaesia -- a kingdom filled with humans, sorcerers, monsters and dragons -- and published it as "Eragon," a surprise best-selling novel.
Paying homage to such alternate-world masters as Ursula K. LeGuin ("The Wizard of Earthsea") and J.R.R. Tolkien ("The Lord of the Rings"), Paolini didn't exactly revolutionize the genre, but he did put his own cheerful gloss on it. The author imagined the standard, preindustrial agrarian society
Some people may more readily recall Michael Moore's 2004 film "Fahrenheit 9/11" than the book from which the title was appropriated -- Ray Bradbury's classic 1953 novel "Fahrenheit 451."
The author and his work are in a league unquestionably all their own. Bradbury is considered one of the 20th century's most potent writers and critics, especially toward his own writing. In one disturbingly compelling quote, he said, "I don't try to describe the future. I try to prevent it." Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" truly encompasses the possibilities of those words.
The novel brings us a world in which books are torched and avid readers are shipped to asylums for the criminally insane. Television is "family," a mind-numbing sitcom of bland characters and repetition.
Guy Montag, a fireman of the modern age, burns the novels that might offend society. It is made very clear from the beginning that this destruction, naturally, involves all books. Though there is a subtle dilemma to Montag's world upon introduction, he appears to be a man unmoved and quite content with his work; a fulfilling profession accomplished by two past generations of his family.
Montag acts with little regard for any details in his daily existence -- until a chance encounter with a free-spirited teen named Clarisse provokes him to realize several unnerving flaws in his current life. Immediately following the encounter, Montag discovers his wife Mildred's attempted suicide -- a shocking act hinted to be common in the increasingly detached society -- and witnesses the disturbing death of a woman willing to burn books for her library. These encounters and experiences transform Montag's generally careless attitude toward the world and its abandonment of any semblance of intellect.
As the novel progresses, Montag's newfound cynicism borders on rage as he struggles to incorporate his thoughts and curiosities with an unfeeling world -- specifically, with his television-drugged wife. Unaware of any alteration in her husband, she reacts to his intellectual advances with irritation and fear, driving Montag to illegality in search of sympathy.
A novel of shocking depth and foresight, this tale of a man's struggle to find autonomy from a sunken society shadows Bradbury's own fears of what the future holds. He warns of the slippery slope of book-banning and the importance of free thought -- both issues that worry modern society.
Most disturbing of all is the revelation by the novel's villain that censorship is not truly a refuge of anxious oppressors, but merely the whim of a dispassionate people. Bradbury himself summarized the true theme of the novel in his heartfelt words: "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."
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