The Girl in the Glass - Jeffrey Ford

The Girl in the Glass is a book about conmen, conspiracies, crackpots, and carneys. The story follows three conmen who work on Long Island during the Great Depression putting on fake seances for the rich and powerful. During a botched seance, the leader of the group, a wise and experienced grifter called Schell, sees a vision of the ghost of a young girl in a pane of glass. Schell discovers that the girl is the kidnapped daughter of a millionaire and decides to use his knowledge of human nature and powers of observation to find the girl under the pretense of his psychic powers. Diego, a 17 year old illegal Mexican adopted by Schell and trained to pretend as an Indian swami, narrates the case as his own coming-of-age story. Girl in the Glass is very clever, very funny, and very exciting.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, but I kept expecting it to be something it wasn't. I've been a fan of Jeffrey Ford's since his debut novel, The Physionomy, was published. His previous novels are weird fantasies that toy with perception, identity, and the relationship between narrator, story and audience. As a result, each of his novels have a feverish dreamlike quality, none more so than his masterful The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque. In Charbuque, a painter is offered a large sum of money to paint an accurate portrait of a woman he can speak with but never see directly. The novel, set in turn-of-the-20th-century New York, must have whet Ford's appetite for historical fiction and set up the idea for Girl in the Glass. Although Girl includes the weird and fantastic, the perspective is always from backstage where the reader can see the trickery and slight-of-hand exposed. This is Ford's turn into the literary mainstream, and although it is a straightforward mystery novel (if mysteries can ever be considered straightforward), on its own merits it is a very fine book.

The book's narrator, Diego, is Ford's most appealing character from any of his books, and in fact, all of the principal characters here are strong and likeable enough to serve in sequels, should Ford decide to ever revisit the idea of conmen as psychic detectives. There are some profoundly memorable sequences as well, such as the carnival side-show funeral and the first passage into Schell's bugatorium, an indoor garden devoted to raising and breeding butterflies of all types. The butterfly serves as the novel's central metaphor, a transitional creature emerging from the chrysalis. On its own, the symbolism is somewhat facile, but Ford adds his own sense of irony, giving the characters a chance to explain their own interpretations of the meaning of butterflies, but in doing so, Ford rejects each of them in turn for a deeper meaning. The butterfly is a creature that cannot be seen for all that it is at once. It is always only a part of its self, and that is the deeper meaning of the con, visible only in parts.

The Boy Who Couldn't Die - William Sleator

William Sleator has written some fantastic books over the years. His career is mostly made up of science fiction and fantasy thrillers for a young adult audience, but his books never insult the intelligence of his readers. Sleator's best novels – House of Stairs, The Green Futures of Tycho, and Interstellar Pig – meld mundane experiences with fantastic occurrences, always taking the time to develop the characters and create a pervasive sense of suspense and mood. There are many similarities between Sleator's stories: a teenage protagonist (usually male) falls victim to some interesting challenge caused by a scientific principal or magical phenomenon and must think his way out of the puzzle, usually with the help of an exotic, and highly intelligent, girl, encountering several twists and complications along the way. In fact, that pretty much sums up The Boy Who Couldn't Die, a recent novel which can be read enjoyably in one sitting, but isn't one of Sleator's more memorable works.

Sleator's protagonist, Ken, is grieving for the death of his best friend, who died in a plane crash. Ken learns of a voodoo practice for granting immortality, and decides to visit a spiritualist who can help Ken avoid the fate of his departed friend. The ritual separates Ken from his soul, turning him into an invulnerable astral zombie. What sounds perfectly corny in summary works surprisingly well through Ken's living dead narration. Liberated from fear and risk, Ken also can no longer experience the joy and sweetness of life. Ken becomes a thrill seeker, and travels to the Caribbean to swim with sharks. While there, he learns of the true consequences of his bargain, and decides to regain his soul, whatever the cost.

The book is always interesting, but the roller coaster plot relies far too strongly on coincidence and logical fallacy to maintain a suspension of disbelief. Ken's family is almost limitlessly wealthy, and although a long passage of the book deals with how Ken will finance his quest to find his soul, the outcome is rarely in doubt. Far more interesting are the off-beat Cheri Buttercup, the stretch pant-wearing spiritualist, and Sabine, a poor island girl who joins Ken in his quest. Long passages describing SCUBA diving most likely reflect Sleator's interest in the activity, rather than adding anything meaningful to the plot.

The Boy Who Couldn't Die is fun and short – the one probably a factor in the other – and the subject matter is interesting and interestingly presented. However, the book can't quite compare to some of Sleator's better novels. It is possible that I simply found the magical aspects of the story less plausible than the scientific and science fiction ideas he usually puts in his story. I am looking forward to reading his next book, The Last Universe, which deals with quantum physics.

Polymorph - Scott Westerfeld

Scott Westerfeld is experiencing something of a career resurrection lately, thanks to his wildly popular young adult novels. His first career, as a writer of character-driven science fiction for grownups is largely forgotten. Before Uglies, Midnighters, Peeps and So Yesterday Westerfeld turned out some very fine novels. The ideas and themes that make his young adult novels so engaging are vividly on display in Polymorph, Westerfeld's debut novel.

Polymorph's protagonist, who sometimes calls herself Lee, is capable of shifting her structure to take on any appearance. Her talent, and her fear of being exposed as a freak, has enabled Lee to live a life of public anonymity, slinking through life on the path of least resistance and leaving the least impression. Her solitary life is disturbed when she meets another polymorph. The two are first lovers, then enemies, as they are unable to reconcile their own ambitions. In their game of cat-and-mouse, Lee struggles not to become the mouse.

The novel works many of the same themes and ideas that Westerfeld explores in his other novel, especially the relationship between appearance and identity that shows up in the Uglies books. Westerfeld creates a parallel examination of this idea through Lee's one friend, Freddie, who has a job working as an online actor, taking on personas to stimulate conversation between a chat service's paying customers. Westerfeld also intelligently examines the need for social belonging and intimacy. Lee takes on many lovers, but her talent allows her to disappear and avoid any emotional connection. The explicitness of her sexual encounters (which will be shocking to readers familiar only with Westerfeld's youth-oriented books) demonstrates the evolution of intimacy, trust, and control in Lee's character through the book.

The action in Polymorph moves along swiftly, as Westerfeld wisely opts to keep the plot fairly simple. Each character and scene in the book is memorable. There are many more issues Westerfeld could have addressed, but the depiction of Lee's journey of self-discovery is economical and effective, and the action is exciting. Westerfeld only makes a misstep in the novel's denouement, where a brief passage suggests that the ending is not quite what it seems. Whether Westerfeld intended to leave the story open for a sequel, or he succumbed to the temptation to put an unnecessary and confounding twist in his narrative, it sours what is otherwise a very entertaining novel.