The Brass Verdict

The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Returning to the courtroom after a stint in rehab, defense attorney Mickey Haller is suddenly handed a murdered colleague's caseload - along with the secrets that may have lead to his death.

Mickey Haller is an L.A. lawyer struggling to get back into business, and his colleague's murder drops a thriving practice into his lap. Eager to jump-start his stalled career, Haller takes on a high-profile murder case, but slowly realizes that his new movie mogul client may be keeping dangerous secrets. As a thriller the story lacks suspense, but there are definitely a few surprising turns, and the procedural aspect will keep legal junkies enthralled.

This is the sequel to The Lincoln Lawyer, but it's easy to follow even without reading the first book (the well-made 2011 film starring Matthew McConaughey, available on Netflix Instant, can catch you up). Connelly is best known for his long-running series starring loner detective Harry Bosch, starting with The Black Echo. Bosch even makes an appearance, a treat for readers familiar with him and his hidden connection to Mickey Haller (a connection Haller is not aware of, so I won't spoil it).

The two characters often team up in the other Mickey Haller novels, too. Haller is a bright legal eagle who sometimes struggles with the morality of defending criminals, but who knows that his role is an essential one in the U.S. justice system. He protects his clients' interests and sticks to a strong code of professional ethics (unlike Bosch, who follows a personal code).

Connelly knows L.A. and the ins and outs of its court system well, having once worked as a crime beat journalist for the Los Angeles Times. He brings in meticulous research and a sense of the way L.A.'s police and courts work.

There are many great thrillers out there, legal and otherwise, that fans of Haller and Bosch will snap up. Naturally, John Grisham  (start with The Firm - there's also a 1993 movie version starring a very young Tom Cruise) is an obvious next choice for those who find they enjoy legal thrillers and have somehow missed out on the powerhouse writer of this subgenre.

Tom Clancy, The Hunt for the Red October will appeal to readers who are drawn to the procedural aspect of Connelly's series, though this time it's not the law but the military you'll read about. (Bonus, there's another 1990 movie version - these high-octane types of stories translate well at the box office.)

Anatomy of a Murder is a classic best-selling courtroom drama about a rape and a murder, written by Robert Traver (hey presto, a 1959 film! Starring Jimmy Stewart!)

And finally, for a more recent thriller: The Blue by Scott Kelly, about a man unable to recognize faces who is being stalked by a vengeful ex-marine. It's definitely on my to-read list.

In the Realms of the Unreal

I've had a DVD from Netflix sitting on my bedroom floor for over a month now, and a few nights ago I finally got around to popping it into the player: I was glad I did! The film was the documentary, In the Realms of the Unreal, directed by Jessica Yu.

In the Realms of the Unreal is a unique look at the life and work of Henry Darger (1892–1973), a man who worked as a janitor by day and by night was a prolific writer and painter, the hero of his own vast novels. His mother died when he was young, and his father died after Darger was institutionalized. He later escaped the institution and returned to Chicago. Though fully capable of caring for himself, Darger was certainly eccentric (and possibly autistic, but not mentally ill). He lived in almost complete isolation. The people at his church and in his apartment building were vaguely aware of his existence, but for the most part his relationship with the world was what Yu termed "mutual indifference."

When Darger was moved into a Catholic mission to be cared for at the end of his life, his landlords Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner came across his huge body of work: "four unpublished manuscripts comprising more than thirty thousand pages of text; more than three hundred watercolor paintings that are often longer than nine feet; and thousands of ephemera Darger collected and used in his artistic process" (The Henry Darger Study Center).

Nathan Lerner was a photographer, and immediately recognized the unusual beauty and worth of Darger's art. After Darger's death the Lerners remained in charge of the estate and advocated for it so well that Darger is now internationally known. His work is considered the most famous example of outsider art.

"At Sunbeam Creek, are with little girl refugees again in peril from forest fires..." by Henry Darger

Darger's most famous book spans 15,145 pages and is titled The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. It is the story of a vast war between enslaved children and their oppressors, the evil Glandelinians.

Darger also wrote an autobiography/novel ("Thank God!" says Yu - we would know next to nothing about his life if not for that) called The History of My Life. Only about 206 pages deal with his life - the other 4,672 tell the story of the charmingly named twister "Sweetie Pie" (Wikipedia).

Never formally trained, Darger often traced his figures from magazine pictures which he clipped, repeating his favorite images throughout his works - you might even recognize the Coppertone Girl or Little Annie Rooney. His use of colors is extraordinary, and the paintings have a strange beauty to them. Part of their strangeness stems from the fact that he frequently depicted the Vivian Girls with penises. (It is unclear if he was even aware that girls are physically different from boys.)

Director Jessica Yu spent five years studying Darger and creating her documentary. The DVD has a fascinating interview with her where she talks about her storytelling choices and her own perception of Darger's life. She chose to tell the story almost entirely with pieces of Darger's autobiography, excerpts from The Realms, and his illustrations (which have been animated). Dakota Fanning narrates portions of the film with uncanny maturity. She is an appropriate choice given that she was about the same age as Darger's heroic Vivian Girls: when the film was released in 2004, she was only ten years old.

Much of Henry Darger's life and mind remains mysterious in spite of the volume of his work, and Yu does not attempt to resolve all the mysteries with easy answers. There are no art critics or psychologists interviewed in her documentary, just Darger's own naïve, passionate, unselfconscious voice interspersed with the narrative. There are moments of real darkness here - and real beauty, too. Yu's film is certainly not trying to be the definitive biography, but as an introduction to Darger's work it is excellent.

For a more thorough traditional biography, see John M. MacGregor's 2002 book Henry Darger: In the Realms of the Unreal. For more about the art, see Henry Darger: Art and Selected Writings, edited by Michael Bonesteel. The American Folk Art Museum has a large collection in its Henry Darger Study Center. Today Darger's works sell for more than $80,000 - amazing when you consider that during his life he was unable to spend five dollars a month extra to own a dog, and that he died in the same poorhouse as his father.

Side note:
This documentary  reminded me of Séraphine (starring Yolande Moreau), a beautiful film about the life of a French painter Séraphine de Senlis (her gorgeous paintings are examples of "naïve art", but considering her later institutionalization you could probably consider her an outsider artist as well). Séraphine is available streaming on Netflix, but In the Realms of the Uncanny is only available on DVD.

Found on Netflix Streaming

Yesterday I discovered that many classic Disney animated films are available. I promptly rewatched The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under (did you know that the poacher Percival C. McLeach is George C. Scott? Fantastic voice work!). So many childhood memories...and I only just realized how disturbing it is that the poacher spent his time interrogating the little boy by throwing knives at his head! Holy goodness! Scott's heartwarming version of "Home on the Range" still gets me, though.


*Tear*

Dumbo is there, too. No Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast. What gives, Disney?

Today I found out that Going Postal, the first Discworld book I ever read, is a movie, and it's available on streaming! So far so good! I like the Richard Coyle, who plays Moist (less impressed by Angua's stupid eye makeup, but I do like her sneer).

I enjoyed Hogfather a while back, which stars an actress Downton Abbey watchers know as Lady Mary Crawley (called Michelle Dockery in her real life). Lady Mary plays Susan, Death's adopted granddaughter.

Oh yeah, and Hogfather is also available streaming, as is The Color of Magic, which stars Sean Austin and Tim Curry, among others.

In short, what homework?