Non-fiction, 1970 ‘Tell-all’ memoir from a baseball pitcher, chronicling ups and downs of his two teams in Seattle and Houston, with various tittle-tattle and damning thumb sketches of team mates, opponents and coaches. All of which seems pretty tame to the twenty-first century reader. Pills and suggestions of infidelity rear up, but it all feels fairly low-grade stuff. An entertaining account, nonetheless, though it may … Continue reading “Ball Four,” by Jim Bouton
Novel, 1970 Savage novel about an actress whose career and life both appear to be on the skids and which offers little in the way of either relief or comfort. This is a book of alienation and the surface glitz of a shiny, showbiz world, overlaid with real tragedy, abuse and the horror of a life deteriorating. A beautifully written piece as well; Didion’s choppy … Continue reading “Play It As It Lays,” by Joan Didion
Movie, 1970 Science-fiction in which a 30 year-old man is woken up from a coma he’s been in since being born. A film whose setting and themes of nature and nurture feel and are treated through the time of the film’s production, and which combine, at times, with the low budget to cut corners and make things feel a little under powered at times. There … Continue reading “The Mind of Mr Soames,” directed by Alan Cooke
Novel, 1970 A slim, simple tale, boldly written, in which the trajectory of the main character has an almost Homeric, heroic feel about it. This is a book of a few contrasts and a thin hold on sanity, but there’s a real drive and compulsion leaping off the pages. The characters – particularly the three in charge of the library – have a real vibrancy, … Continue reading “The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966” by Richard Brautigan
Novel, 1970 Well-written, well-paced novel, looking at how power corrupts, carves up society and is destroyed. This is a book with a brutal, elegiac quality, as the action shifts from the personal all the way up to the intergalactic, with vulnerable characters apparently doing whatever they can to ‘get by’, whether its regrooving tyres, printing tonnes of elicit political literature or fretting about personal appearance … Continue reading "Our Friends From Frolix 8", by Phillip K Dick
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