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Executive Times |
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2007 Book Reviews |
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Up in
Honey’s Room by Elmore Leonard |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Reliable Elmore Leonard
reprises Carl Webster from his earlier novel, The Hot Kid,
and pairs him with Honey Deal in a new novel titled, Up in
Honey’s Room. Leonard soars with crisp dialogue, and the wisecracking
Honey provides a great contrast to the controlled Carl. The ensemble of
characters add the other Leonard hallmark: full fleshed and fascinating
people. Set at the end of World War II in They drove south down
Woodward Avenue from Six Mile Road in a ‘41 Olds sedan, property of the FBI,
Honey looking at shop windows, Kevin waiting. Finally he said, “You and
Walter started seeing each other and before you knew it you fell head over
heels in love?” Honey was taking a pack of Luckys from her black leather bag, getting one out, and
using a Zippo she flicked once to light the cigarette. “That’s what happened,”
Honey said, “I fell in love with Walter because he’s such a swell guy, kind
and considerate, fun to be with.” She handed the cigarette to Kevin, a trace
of lipstick on the tip. Now she was lighting
another, Kevin glancing at Honey in her trench coat and black beret, pulled
low on her blond hair and slightly to one side, the way girls in spy movies
wore their berets. Honey was a new experience for him. She said,
“The whole time we talked, you know you didn’t once call me by my name? Which
one do you have a problem with, Honey or Miss Deal?” He was aware of it and
said, “Well, if I called you ‘Honey’ it would sound like, you know, we’re
going together.” “My friends at work
call me Honey. I’m not going with any of them. The day I was born my dad
picked me up and said, ‘Here’s my little honey,’ and loved me so much I was
christened Honey. The priest said, ‘You can’t call her that. There’s no St.
Honey in the Catholic Church.’ My dad said, ‘There is now. Christen her Honey
or we’re turning Baptist.” She said, “You want to know something? Walter
never asked where I got the name.” “Did you tell him?” “We’re coming to
Blessed Sacrament,” Honey said, “where Walter and I met. It was after eleven
o’clock “You took that as a
good sign, meeting at church?” “I think it was the
only reason Walter went to Mass, to meet a girl with golden hair. He stopped
going once he had me, and I stopped since we were living in sin, not married
in the Church.” “You believe that, you
were living in sin?” “Not really. It was
more like living a life of penance. I’ll tell you though, I did like his
looks, the way he dressed, his little glasses pinched on his nose, he was so different. I’d never met anyone in my life like
Walter Schoen. I think I might’ve felt sorry for him too, he seemed so
lonely. He was serious about everything and when we argued—we argued all the
time—I’d keep at him, whatever we were talking about, and it drove him
nuts.” “Determined to change
him,” Kevin said. Honey sat up to look
past Kevin. She said, “There’s his market,” and sat back again. “With a sign
in the window, but I couldn’t read it.” “Announcing no meat today,”
Kevin said. “I passed it on the way to your place. So, you thought you could
change him?” “I wanted
to get him to quit being so serious and have some fun. Maybe even get him to
laugh at Adolf Hitler, the way Charlie Chaplin played him in The Great Dictator. Chaplin has the
little smudge of a mustache, the uniform, he’s
Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomania.
But the movie came out after I left.” “You think
he saw it?” “I
couldn’t get Walter to listen to Jack Benny. He called him a pompous Jew. I
said, ‘That’s the part he plays, a cheapskate. You don’t think he’s funny?’
No, or even Fred Allen. We were at some German place having drinks, I said,
‘Walter, have you ever told a joke? Not a political cartoon, a funny story?’
He acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. I said, ‘I’ll tell you
a joke and then you tell it to me. We’ll see how you do.” Kevin Dean
was looking straight ahead grinning. “You were married then?” “Ja, I’m Frau Schoen. I tell him the one,
three guys arrive at heaven at the same time. It’s been a very busy day,
during the war, and Saint Peter says, ‘I only have time to admit one of you
today. How about whoever has experienced the most unusual death.’ Have you
heard it?” “I don’t
think so.” “The first
guy tells how he came home unexpectedly, finds his wife in bed naked and
tears through the apartment looking for her lover. He runs out on the balcony
and there’s the guy hanging from the railing, twenty-five floors above the
street. The husband takes off one of his shoes and beats on the guy’s hands
till the guy lets go and falls. But he doesn’t hit the pavement, damn it, he
lands in a bushy tree and he’s still alive. The husband, furious, grabs the
refrigerator, drags it out to the balcony and pushes it over the railing. The
fridge lands on the guy in the tree and kills him. But, the exertion is too
much for the husband, he has a heart attack and
drops dead. Saint Peter says, ‘That’s not bad,’ and turns to the second guy
who wants to get into heaven. This one says he was exercising on his balcony,
lost his balance and went over the railing. He’s a goner for sure, but
reaches out and grabs the railing of the balcony below his apartment. Now a
guy comes out and the one hanging twenty-five floors above the street says,
‘Thank God, I’m saved.’ But the guy who comes out takes off his shoe and
beats on his hands gripping the rail till he falls. But he lands in the bushy
tree, he’s still alive, his eyes wide open to see the fridge coming down to
blot out his life. Saint Peter says, ‘Yeah, I like that one.’ Turns to the
third guy who wants to get into heaven and says, ‘What’s your story, amigo?’
The guy says, ‘I don’t know what happened. I was naked, hiding in a refrigerator... Honey paused. Kevin laughed out
loud. “He think
it was funny?” “He didn’t smile or
say anything right away. He’s thinking about it. Finally he asked me which of the three guys did Saint Peter let into heaven,
and where did the other two have to wait, in limbo? I said, ‘Yeah, limbo,
with all the babies that happened to die before they were baptized.” “Why didn’t he get
it?” “He’s managed to stick
his head up his ass,” Honey said, “and the only thing he sees up there are
swastikas.” This sweet girl
talking like that. Kevin said, “I’m never sure what you’re gonna say next.” “I tried one more joke
on Walter,” Honey said. “I told him the one, the guy
comes home, walks into the kitchen with a sheep in his arms. His wife turns
from the sink and he says, ‘This is the pig I’ve been sleeping with when I’m
not with you.’ His wife says, ‘You dummy, that’s not a pig, it’s a sheep.’
And the guy says, ‘I wasn’t speaking to you.” Kevin
laughed out loud again and looked at Honey smoking her cigarette. “You like
to tell jokes?” “To
Walter, trying to loosen him up.” “Did he
laugh?” “He said,
‘The man is not talking to his wife, he’s talking to the sheep?’ I said yeah,
it’s his wife he’s calling a pig. Walter said, ‘But how does a sheep
understand what he’s saying?’ That was it,” Honey said. “There was no way in
the world I’d ever turn Walter around. It was a dumb idea to begin with, really arrogant of me to think I could change him.
But you know, I realized even if he did lighten up
the marriage would never last.” “There
must’ve been something about him you liked,” Kevin said, “I mean as a
person.” “You’d
think so, wouldn’t you?” said Honey in the black beret nodding her head.
“Something more than his accent and his stuck-on glasses, but I can’t think
of anything it might be. I was young and I was dumb.” She smoked her
cigarette, quiet for a time before saying, “That year with Walter did have
some weird moments I’ll never forget. Like when he’d aim his finger at me,
pretending it was a gun and cut one.” Kevin
said, “You mean he’d pass gas in front of you?” “In front
of me, behind me—” But now
they were coming to Seward and he had to tell her, “Here’s the street where Jurgen Schrenk and his mom and
dad lived in the thirties. The apartment hotel’s in the second block.” It is through
dialogue like this that we learn about the characters and get to observe
human nature in all its splendor. While Up in
Honey’s Room will never be ranked as one of Leonard’s best novels, it
provides reliable entertainment, and that perfect Leonard dialogue and
character exposition. Steve Hopkins,
June 25, 2007 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the July 2007
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Up
in Honey's Room.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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