"A Song To Kill For" by Billy Edd Wheeler

"A Song To Kill For" is Billy Edd Wheeler's only novel. Wheeler is best known as a songwriter and playwright in addition to also having done some performing in the field of country music, having been a popular after dinner speaker for many years. This novel was self-published under the label Infinity Publishing which is virtually non-existent on the internet. They have been defunct since October 2023. I purchased this copy from Amazon and it was publication on demand. I'm not certain if Infinity which had been primarily a children's book publisher was an imprint of Amazon, or if it might have been owned by Wheeler and later sold to Amazon. While this is a self-published novel,Wheeler has a lenghty history as a playwright having written at least nine plays, several of which were produced for quite a few years as outdoor dramas around the southeastern US and Midwest. Wheeler also wrote several songs which were major hits as performed by others. Those songs include "Jackson" which was a signature duet for Johnny Cash and June Carter; "The Reverend Mister Black" which was a hit for the Kingston Trio;"Coward Of The County" which was a massive hit for Kenny Rogers; and, "Coal Tattoo" which has been recoreded by numerous artists with history in the Appalachian Coalfields including Kathy Mattea, The Kingston Trio, and Jim Croce. His well received plays include ""Hatfields and McCoys", "Young Abe Lincoln", and "Johnny Appleseed". It shouldn't surprise anyone to know that his greatest impact as a writer came in the area of playwriting since he held a masters degree in playwriting from Yale University in addition to his bachelors degree from Berea COllege. This book is worth reading even though it is not a great novel. It is funny, fairly well plotted, and has some well developed characters including the protagonist Gabriel Leatherwood who seems to, at least in part, to have been an alter ego of Wheeler himself. Leatherwood is a native West Virginian who is a musician and songwriter who traveld to Nashville only to have several of his early songs stolen by the lead villian who is the owner of music publishing company. Leatherwood decides to take on the company and its owner along with a sizeable cast of lesser villians who assist in his crimes including murder. Along the way, Leatherwood is lucky enough to fall in love with a beautiful female attorney, get invited to the White House to perform, and survive a rather graphic attempted murder by one of those villians. In the end, he marries the heroine, saves his songs, becomes rather wealthy, and chooses to return to Appalachian West Virginia with the woman of his dreams. I repeat, the book is worth reading especially if you are a musician of the country persuasion, an Appalachian, a writer,or if you enjoy crime stories and mysteries. It is not a great novel or a perfect novel. But it is worthy attempt at a first novel by a gifted writer in other areas of the arts.

"Mysteries Of Winterthurn" by Joyce Carol Oates, Some Responses to Reading It!

In the past, I have read and written on this blog about at least one of Joyce Carol Oates' books, "Where Is Here" which is a collection of short stories which I liked a lot. I have also read some of her short stories which have been published independently elsewhere. I have to say that this book, "Mysteries Of Winterthurn" which is generally described as a novel is an interesting book. There are parts of it which I like a lot. There are other parts of it which fail to impress me. First and foremost, I would not say flatly that I see it as a novel. I think of it much more as a Short Story Cycle which is generally described as a collection of short stories with several common aspects including common characters, common setting, a rational timeline which is evident across all the stories, and in most short story cycles all the stories are viable if viewed as being independent of the others. The book is composed of three stories which are also arguably novellas ranging in length from 150 pages to almost 200. The stories have a common protagonist, Xavier Kilgarvan, who is a young man of about 20 or so years in the first story and a man of nearly retirement age in the third. The stories progress across his lifespan in a rational timeline, but there is a sizeable gap of time between each subsequent story and the next. All three are set in Winterthurn a rural,small town in New England. All the stories share a common cast of lesser characters. Each story involves murders which Xavier works to solve since all are unsolved at the time of his initial involvement. The writing style in these stories is very different from the style in the short story collection which I mentioned above. That writing style is reminescent of the work of Edgar Allan Poe or other major writers of early American mystery or detective stories. I believe that Oates set herself the task of emulating as closely as possible the writing style which is generally seen in early American murder mysteries or the English examples such as the work of Conan Doyle. The language is cumbersome, verbose, and replete with words and terms which have nearly fallen out of use in spoken English in America today. I commend Joyce Carol Oates on that effort to emulate the earlier style of writing. She did an excellent job of making the book appear to almost be a 19th century work in the genre. But it is a cumbersome read in today's world. I have to admit that as I read the book I was unmotivated to read it straight through from beginning to end. I had to take a break between the stories, read other works by other authors which were written in more modern styles. After reading another book following each of the stories, I was able to motivate myself to return and complete the book. I have to admit that I rarely, if ever, begin a book which I do not finish reading. I firmly believe that if I begin a book I owe the author an obligation to complete it. That author has spenta sizeable chunk of their time writing the book,obtaining a publishing contract, and marketing the book with public appearances, book signings, and other promotionial work such as radio and television interviews. If you are a devoted reader of murder mysteries, you might love this book. If you are not such a reader, you might stop long before you reach the end.

Reading Ace Doubles--A Blast From The Past

Sometimes when my normal load of reading of a political nature combined with a cross section of Appalachian Literature becomes too depressing, in the case of the political literature in light of the current tragic condition of American politics and the ongoing crime spree by TRAITOR & International Terrorist Trump, or just too much of a good thing in the case of Appalachian Literature, I will take a clearly demarcated break in my reading material and pick something up which is either completely outside my normal bailiwick or rather light and meaningless.  Recently, I took such a break with an Ace Double edition of two science fiction novellas by Jack Vance called "The Houses Of Iszm" and "Son Of The Tree".  

When I was young from about ten or twelve until about the time I graduated from high school, I read a lot of Ace Double books in both science fiction and western formats.  Ace Doubles, for those of you who have never encountered them, were a paperback imprint of Charter Communications which ran from about 1952 to 1978 and published books, usually novellas by a single author in tete-beche format, that is inverted and back to back, and in western, science fiction, mystery, and some general fiction.  The one I found in my collection and read had been published in 1964 and sold for .95cents.  For a young boy in Eastern Kentucky in those days, a dollar could sometimes seem as big as a wagon wheel and being able to get two stories for a single buck was a great thing.  As I was developing a more mature and personalized reading taste and style, I wove my way through several genres including the aforementioned science fiction and westerns, horse stories, dog stories, and some of the less strenuous classics.  I have since noticed that most of the work published under the Ace Double imprint had a tendency to not be top of the mark literature.  Jack Vance who wrote the two novellas I just read was both prolific and successful in the genres of mystery, fantasy, and science fiction winning numerous major awards including two Hugo's, a Nebula, a Jupiter Award, two World Fantasy Awards, and an Edgar.  

To say the least, Jack Vance could write just as could most of the other authors whose work appeared under the Ace Doubles imprint.  Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, and Andre Norton all published work under the imprint and each of them is arguably among the best science fiction authors of all time as is Jack Vance.  John Farr (aka Jack Webb) published under their mystery label.  Louis L'Amour, Nelson Nye, and Brad Ward all published westerns under the Ace Doubles imprint.  Their overall stable of authors across all the genres was talented.  But it also appears that many of them were simply chasing a buck in a tough world where every publication might lead to another and many authors accepted the imprint who might not have if they had been at the top of the public approval charts at the time they signed their contracts.  

Ace Doubles served a legitimate purpose in that period when money was less than free flowing for many Americans and they do have a place in the history of American publishing and literature, especially in the genres of western, mystery, science fiction, and fantasy.  I will always remember them fondly and doubtless I will pick others up in the future at some time when I need a break or simply run into them at yard sales, auctions, used book stores, or Little Free Libraries.  So should you, especially if you have never had the pleasure of reading one before.