Shutter Island (Audio)

by Dennis Lehane

read by Tom Stechshulte

(Prince Frederick: Recorded Books, LLC, 2003)

MP3 Audiobook, 881.9 MB, 9.6 Hours, Fiction

ISBN: 9780061906282, US$19.99

From the Cover: Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane looms like a fortress on Shutter Island. As a massive hurricane swirls toward the island, U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels arrives with his new partner, Chuck Aule, to track down an escaped patient—a murderess who may hold the key to what really happens in the locked wards and laboratories. But as Teddy digs deeper into the workings of the hospital, nothing is as it seems…

My Review: I have had this book on my To-Be-Read List for quite some time now, but had never gotten around to it. Then, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio decided to turn Lehane’s book into a film, and I knew I had better get on the horn and read (so to speak) before I had the plot’s twists and turns spoiled for me by some careless movie reviewer or movie goer. It was a rough road, but I scrupulously avoided any and all discussions of the film and potential plot spoilers as I worked my way through Shutter Island and in the end, it was very much worth it because I was genuinely taken along for the twisting ride that Lehane has created and enjoyed every minute of it, trying to work out the mysteries of Ashecliffe for myself.

Now, any real discussion of the plot of Shutter Island is going to run the risk of spoilers, but I will do my level best not to spoil anything for those who have not either already read the book or seen the movie. It will be difficult however, since there are, by my count, four major Sixth Sense­-style rug-pulling plot twists that make the Reader/Listener completely reevaluate their understanding of what has been going on. I hope that that is as plot-spoiler-y as it gets, but no promises.

As much as I tried to avoid any exposure to the plot, a few things leaked through here and there, so I had a general sense from the beginning that nothing was as it seemed that knew to be wary of any and all characters that waltzed across the page, including that of Teddy Daniels (whose view and perspective frames the story (even though it is not told in the first person)), however, when the revelations started coming it was fast and furious and, as I said above, absolutely enjoyable. Though, I do have one bit of the plot that didn’t work for me, given what the eventual outcome of the plot. Being as vague as possible, I felt that the woman in the cave is never satisfactorily explained by the penultimate twist. What she reveals and what she represents flies doesn’t exactly contradict the end, but neither is it supported by the end, and so I’m left to wonder what the point of including her in the story at all does, other than to deepen the ominous atmosphere and sense of paranoia that Lehane is seeking to create.

I will say that one of the key factors in enjoying this book was the Reader. Tom Stechshulte is one of the best Readers that I have come across, and I will definitely be on the look out for more audiobooks that he reads. His gravelly bass voice is ideal for the noir sensibilities that Lehane injects into Shutter Island and what he does with the text by way of performance is sublime.

I think that Lehane himself summed it up best when he said that he was deliberately channeling the Brontë sisters when he wrote Shutter Island. That Romantic/Victorian influence is quite clear (possibly with a little Poe thrown in for good measure) and all one would have to do is replace Ashecliffe with Bedlam and U.S. Marshalls with … oh … I dunno, a Revolutionary-Era Redcoat, or (if we’re going the Poe route) an ex-Union soldier (though if we are going the Poe route (with a side trip into Ambrose Bierce) Federal Marshalls have been around since the 1780s, so…). Anyway, the point of all of that was that in spite of all of its post-WWII and Cold War-era and film noir/B-movie trappings, Shutter Island is, at its heart, a novel deeply steeped in the tradition of the Romantic and Victorian eras.

I cannot recommend this audiobook highly enough, and if you haven’t yet had it all spoiled for you, get your hands on Shutter Island right away, and even if you have seen the movie and do know all the twists and turns, I would still say that you will enjoy Shutter Island in much the same way that, say, The Sixth Sense holds up to a second viewing because now, you’re in the know (and, from what I understand, there are some key plot points in the movie that does not get satisfactorily explained (the anagrams, for instance) that are explained in the book’s dénouement, so that ought to be worth the price of admission right there).

The Spellman Files

by Lisa Lutz

-The Spellman Series, Book One-

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007)

Hardcover, 358 Pages, Fiction

ISBN: 9781416532392, US$25.00

From the Cover: Meet Isabel “Izzy” Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors—but the upshot is she’s good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family’s firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people’s privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman. Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, a.k.a. Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who’s become addicted to “recreational surveillance”); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed “Lost Weekends”). But when Izzy’s parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy’s new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there’s a hitch: she must take one last job before they’ll let her go—a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life.

My Review: So, as I’ve said twice now on my blog, I belong to a discussion board book thread where The Spellman Files all of a sudden became all the rage, and rather than get run over by the bandwagon I decided to jump on … and I’m glad I did.

I think I had more fun reading this book than any other book so far this year. What Lutz has done in The Spellman Files is create a cast of some of the quirkiest characters this side of Elmore Leonard and infused it with a tongue-in-cheek sensibility that makes it a pure delight to read.

If pressed, I’d have to say that my favorite aspect of the novel was either Lutz’s protagonist, Izzy and all of her strangely and simultaneously dysfunctional and completely rational approaches to family and friends and dating and employment; that, or Izzy’s little sister Rae who is easily of the greatest teenage characters not currently enrolled in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (though one can only imagine the problems Rae would give Argus Filch and Severus Snape as she prowled the castle’s corridors after hours). Rae’s “this is what ‘normal’ people do” approach to everything from extorting money out of relatives and conducting surveillance on both relatives and complete strangers is so over-the-top and absolutely ridiculous making it a brilliant parody of such beloved childhood literary characters as Harriet the Spy, Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew. I loved every minute of it.

I do have to wonder, though, if Lutz’s approach to Izzy’s character isn’t a little reductive at times. Perhaps it is just the literary grad student in me coming out to strongly but it gave me pause that Lutz constructs such a strong character as Izzy and then reduces her quest for happiness and fulfillment to something as simple as finding a boyfriend to settle down with. That seems counterproductive to me, but perhaps I am over analyzing. Once it’s turned on, the literary critic is hard to turn off.

Over all, though, this was a lot of fun to read, and—as I said at the outset—I am glad I jumped on the bandwagon rather than letting it run me over, because I would have missed out. So, come on, jump on the bandwagon, have some of the Kool Aid (it’s delicious) and check out The Spellman Files, you won’t be disappointed.