A speculative mind

  The Dutch House is a novel that is “not.” It is not a love story. It is not a mystery. It is not a thriller. It is not an allegory. It is not a cautionary tale. It is a story about a family. For all the things it is not, it is a story the gets you invested in the characters. It is mainly about the narrator, Danny, and his sister Maeve (they are of Irish descent, not Dutch).  A rich cast of characters and chaos revolve around these two, but they are the focus. Were these two siblings fortunate or unfortunate in their lives? No spoilers here. That may be up to the reader to decide. Good things happen to them as well as bad. They were born into wealth as evidenced by the grand Dutch house of the title, where they lived. The house in Pennsylvania, was built by a rich Dutch family who had eventually fallen on hard times. After the last of the Dutch family had died, Danny’s father was able to acquire the house at a ridiculously low price. He was proud of his acquisition, bu...

  Last week I reviewed Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It stirred up memories from my childhood when I, like the characters in the book, was hooked on horror movies. I may have mentioned this before, but I was a bit of a nerd as a kid. One of the ways this nerdom expressed itself was in the watching of old sci-fi or horror films. Not the newer ones with blood and gore splashed all over the screen, but we are talking about the films of the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and even some of the 60’s. Frankenstein , the Wolfman , The Mummy , Godzilla , the Hammer films, etal. Every Saturday night at 11:30, I would watch a broadcast from Portland called Sinister Cinema . There you would find such classic old movies, along with not-so-classic movies, some of which were so bad that they were good. The show was hosted by Victor Ives, with an assist from a character named Ravenscroft who never spoke but looked like some sort of Igor inspired thing. Also, there was a character called Head, who w...