Harlan Coben, you’ve broken my heart
Posted By ron on January 30, 2009
I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not in THAT way.
For someone who spends hours in a car every day, audio books weigh in right up there with the microprocessor in the advancements of the 20th century. I listen to at least one every week, sometimes two. A lot of my driving is late-night from Colorado Springs to the northern Denver Metro area, and the first thing I learned about late night audio books is that “literature” doesn’t cut it. Yes the words can be beautiful, engrossing sirens that pull you into the world the author has created – right off the freakin’ side of the road!
Gimme Action! Give me a complex plot and a lot of things that keep my brain cranking along throuht the winding highway through Monument Hill.
Coben is GREAT at that. Ok his first couple of audio books were self-narrated (hmmmm, ‘nuf said) but this guy Scott Brick is a true master of his craft. Coben always has an array of important characters, many more than most of the genre I feel, and Brick is able to bring each of them a unique and highly identifiable audio personality. [Stage aside: A fellow Colorado writer, Charlie Callaway, once asked Coben how he kept all the complex details of his stories so well organized, and Coben's response was a nine-word classic I will remember forever - "I just do, don't know how, I just do."]
OK, I can read your minds. What does this have to do with your opening line? How the freak did Coben break your heart?
I just finished The Woods, saw a lot of myself in Ira by the way, and in the middle of all this great action, intrigue and deception Coben hangs up on the concept of hayseeds. OK at first I thought, yeah it’s just Lauren Muse’s personality. Then over a period of a couple chapters everbody in the freakin’ book is talking about hicks and hayseeds and open space.
C’mon Harlan – Newark for crap’s sake. Indianapolis has a Newark, Akron has a Newark. Even Denver has a Newark (we call it Commerce City, but the distinctive aroma is the same.) But what the hell, I guess there’s a lot of that going on lately. The people in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado only produce food. No big deal. Duh, New Yorkers, even the food in DELI TAKEOUT comes from somewhere!
The people in Wyoming and Texas provide fuel for the SUVs jammed into the spaces on Lex between 24th and Gramercy Park (and who knows how many parking garages). Ok, not sure I understand the need for off-road vehicles in Manhattan, but what the hey, I’m a hick.
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