Book Club discusses "Cripple Creek"

Last Thursday the book club discussed the new book Cripple Creek by James Sallis. [Here's a pix of James from his website.] Cripple Creek is the second book by Sallis to feature a world-weary small town deputy named Turner living near Memphis, Tennessee who is rebuilding his life. And truth be told--Sallis didn't win over new readers to his books that night with this title.

Although critically well-received, Sallis' novel jumps around like a toad (the story is interrupted with flashbacks) and the narrative is not easy follow. As it turns out, Turner has had several previous lives an a Vietnam War vet, a cop in Memphis, a prision inmate and a therapist. And those lives blur at times.

One book clubber read the book and decided to reread it to get a better understanding while another decribed it as forgettable after finishing. Another read the first book to feature Turner in Cypress Grove and described the second book as very similiar. I somehow got the impression she preferred the first one though. I had mixed feelings about the book and found its appeal somewhat limiting.

Sallis does give the reader a modest story in detail (really, a crime story of revenge) with neat doses of atmospheric text involving a layered character.

And truth be told, I guardedly recommended this series to a library patron and he said he'd give the first book a try. He was interested in a character-driven book.

It's GOOD to read fiction--

The current issue of Psychology Today has a thoughtful article about the benefits of reading in "Novel Delights: Reading Books Can Help You Read Minds." In an article is based on research in the new Journal of Research in Personality, reading fiction is identified as a genuinely social process. That is, "frequent readers of narrative fiction scored highter on tests of empathy and social acumen than did readers of expository nonfiction." And as one psychology doctoral candidate says later, the stories push the reader empathize with characters different from oneself and would lead to better understand "the many kinds of people we come across in the real world."

Now, how would mysteries figure in such research? One psychologist in the article acknowledges mysteries and romanaces tend to boost empathy and social savvy. And, it is agrued that a social aspect of fiction causes us to "read minds" and to guess what a character is thinking or feeling. That conclusion comes from English professor and author of Why We Read Fiction, Lisa Zunshine, who notes while reading whodunits a reader would suspect all characters of lying. Here's a pix of Zunshine from Google.

Finally, University of Toronto psychology professor Keith Oatley says that fiction offers a safe release of emotions. "You know that this whole set of events in contained and you can get up and or you can put your book down." For instance, he says, in a thriller a reader can feel a hero's grief and anxiety without experiencing threats to the family or the fear of running from a murderer.