Essay: Will, on alert!

My husband, Paul, and I adopted Will on January 6. He is a golden-brown mixed breed dog, about four years old, weighing 40 pounds or so. He has bristly hair, like a terrier, and sports a little beard. We have no idea what breeds he might be.

 

Will is a really good dog. He travels well in the car, sleeps on his bed through the night and, most importantly, ignores our three senior cats.

However, Paul and I know there will be a learning curve for our new pup. It will take him a while to learn our household routines and all the rules associated with them.

Take our early morning schedule as an example.

Paul gets up at 3 a.m. It is a ridiculous time to get up, in my opinion, but there it is. Also, if he wakes up before then, he is sure he cannot get back to sleep. As a proponent of the “growth mindset,” I believe he could train himself to get back to sleep, but I have not yet successfully convinced Paul that this is possible.

So, if Paul wakes up at 2:40, as he did the other day, he does not try to get back to sleep. He gets up. Will, who is quite smart, almost immediately pegged Paul as the Take Out Guy. (I am the Food Lady.) As a result, any time Paul gets up, from his chair in the living room, his seat in the dining room or the bed, Will thinks he, the dog, is also going somewhere.

So Will, too, is up at 2:40.

I tell him he is not going anywhere.

Paul leaves the room. I invite Will on the bed. He lies quietly for 10 minutes or so, until Paul exits the bathroom. As soon as Paul switches on the stairway light, which makes a loud click, Will jumps up.

I tell Will to come back to bed.

Will does. He’s on alert for a few a minutes, then falls asleep. As do I. Until I wake up at 3:30 and decide I need to use the bathroom. Drat. Well, needs must.

I get up. Will gets up. He waits for me at the door. We go back to bed.

I fall back to sleep, but shallowly; it is snowing, and sand trucks are rumbling up and down the street. Will puts his head up occasionally, I sense through my haze of half-slumber,  but he doesn’t get up.

Until 4:10. Paul is in the downstairs hallway, cleaning the litter boxes. Will has heard the loud click of the first floor light switch, through the heating vents. He jumps up.

Through all this, I have the Calm app’s “green noise” soundscape playing on my phone. If not for that, I’d be screaming. I’d be saying, “Sleep, sleep, please let me sleep!”

I tell Will to settle down, and he goes to his dog bed. Miraculously, I fall asleep—until Paul switches on the downstairs stairway light at 5:15 a.m.

Will is at the door in an instant, wagging his tail furiously. It’s him— the Take Out Guy!

I prop myself up with a groan and turn on the light.

Wakey-wakey, Food Lady! Let the new day begin.

Review: "The Murderess," Laurie Notaro

In 1931, Winnie Ruth Judd, a preacher’s daughter from Indiana, arrived at Union Station is Los Angeles with the bodies of two women (one dismembered) in her luggage.

Really.

Laurie Notaro tells Judd’s story in a gripping novel that reads like a true crime story.

Which it is.

I only had a passing knowledge of Judd, which is surprising. I was a true-crime buff in my younger years. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood remains one of my favorite books, and I devoured almost everything Ann Rule wrote.

But I knew very little about Judd. So I was able to read and enjoy this book as a fictional creation. When I compared the narrative to the facts, however, I realized how firmly the author had stuck to the facts.

Here’s how the story unfolds in the novel:

Judd was a small, pretty and personable woman. She married Dr. William C. Judd, in 1922, perhaps to escape her restrictive upbringing. She was 17, he was 37.

Judd was a veteran of World War I and became a drug addict, likely due to his injuries. The couple moved around the Southwest and spent time in Mexico—he kept getting fired due to his problems. Ruth, as she was known, had issues of her own. She was mentally ill, probably schizophrenic.

In 1929, Dr. Judd takes a job in California. He sends Ruth back to Indiana to stay with her parents for awhile. En route, Ruth meets a woman who’s headed for California to open a beauty salon. She decides to go along, and cashes in her train ticket. When the woman’s car breaks down, Ruth finds herself stuck in Phoenix.

She decides to settle in and bloom where she’s planted. Ruth gets a job as a secretary in a new medical clinic and makes friends with Anne LeRoi and Helvig “Sammy” Samuelson, who share a house. The three enjoy meals and games of cards together, and listening to mystery show broadcasts on the radio.

Then Ruth meets Jack Halloran, a wealthy lumber broker and contractor. She exults in their affair—until he meets Anne and Sammy.

He and Anne flirt outrageously. Ruth is sure the relationship is going further than that. And then Jack begins bringing men to Anne and Sammy’s bungalow—clients he wants to impress. Wild parties ensue.

Ruth feels more and more isolated—and betrayed. Her old demons rise to the surface. Her friends insist nothing untoward is happening, and convince Ruth to stay overnight at the bungalow. By morning, both Anne and Sammy are dead.

When Ruth arrives with her morbid cargo at Union Station, the trunks are reeking. The police are called. Ruth disappears. She goes on the lam, is caught and extradited to Arizona. Ruth is on death row when she is declared insane and sent to the state hospital.

There she manages to escape several times before authorities decide to let her just be—until another murder happens.

Yes, it’s one of those stories where, if the writer made it up, it would defy belief.

Ruth is a sympathetic character despite herself. She never got the help she needed, even though her issues surfaced in adolescence. She was vilified in the press, which called her “the velvet tigress.” And it’s highly unlikely that she was able to cut up Sammy with surgical precision. Jack Halloran was indicted as an accomplice but eventually exonerated. It is a satisfying bit of karma that he did lose all his wealth and died young and alone.

Ruth lived to the ripe old age of 93, a legend in both life and death. Her story, real and fictionalized, is fascinating.

Review: "The Sequel," Jean Hanff Korelitz

Jake Bonner is dead. He was the best-selling author of the novel Crib, and his story was told in Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot.

The Sequel is the sequel to The Plot.

I’m going to try to review The Sequel without giving away The Plot. It won’t be easy.

Then again, if you haven’t read The Plot, there’s no need to read this review. You absolutely need to read The Plot before you read The Sequel.

You are welcome in advance for this advice.

Anna Williams-Bonner is Jake’s widow. She is enjoying her new life by tending to his legacy and living off the proceeds of his very popular book. Then his agent, Matilda, suggests that Anna write a book of her own.

Why not, she thinks.

Anna is a cool, extremely focused character. So it’s really not surprising that she writes a best seller on her first try. Her novel, The Afterword, is about a woman whose husband commits suicide. Hmm…

Readers relate—big time—to the story and Anna embarks on a coast-to-coast tour. But there’s a fly in the ointment. Jake had been plagued by an anonymous figure who accused him of plagiarism. Now more accusations are surfacing, and they threaten to undo Anna’s comfortable life.

Anna is determined to put the accuser to rest. In fact, she won’t let anything stand in her way. In fact, she’s a sociopath.

Well, maybe that’s because she had a traumatic childhood. Or did she? To call Anna an unreliable narrator would be an understatement. The story exists on three levels—Anna, today; Anna’s past; and the narrative of The Crib. A few times, I had to stop and think about what fictional “reality” I was experiencing.

Anna is a fascinating character—I couldn’t help but admire her smooth but icy demeanor, evil ingenuity and single-mindedness, even as bodies were falling. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I was turning the pages too fast to care.

The book ends with an entirely plausible, yet deliciously ironic twist—and maybe an opening for yet another sequel.

An added delight was the author’s use of book titles for chapter headings—It Starts with Us and Ripley Underground and Doctor Sleep among them.

Korelitz has crafted a fascinating mystery that also pokes slyly at the literary world. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Review: "The Making of a Medium," Francine McEwen

Francine McEwen has written an interesting and informative account of how she became a medium.

This isn’t exactly a review, because Francine is a friend, and so I can’t be totally objective.

Also, I am a bit of a skeptic regarding the whole idea of mediumship. Perhaps “friendly skeptic” is a good description of my attitude. I have had dreams that revealed to me information that I didn’t know in my waking hours. I believe cardinals are messengers from my deceased ancestors, come to offer me support as they nibble on sunflower seeds. In other words, I do have my own humble connections to the spirit world.

Perhaps the best way to explain my status is that I am open to the idea of mediums, but not entirely convinced.

That did not stop me from enjoying this book.

I was impressed by Francine’s calling to provide solace to the grieving with her messages from their loved ones. I like the idea that our departed companion animals abide with our “family pods” until we are able to join them.

Francine writes that she recognized her gift as a child, though it took her years to understand exactly what it was. As an adult, she studied mediumship and has worked with mentors. I didn’t know such an educational infrastructure existed and thought it commendable.

I was especially interested to learn about mediums' use of “automatic writing.” As a writer, I know the power of free writing—letting words flow while keeping the inner “editor” on mute. It is a powerful tool for creativity, but also for self-growth and healing. I can see how this practice would help mediums to “tune in” to messages from beyond.

I may have been a little less of a skeptic by the time I finished this book. But the bottom line is this: A reader does not have to be a believer to enjoy The Making of a Medium.