I think you already know what a pushover I am for library books. I always have far too many on hand to choose from and am constantly juggling them in order to read them before their due dates. More often than not I fail and have to return them unread (or partially read--not sure which is worse), in which case I either get back in line or jot down the title for later. If the book doesn't come home with me again a second time, but it was something I was particularly interested in I will occasionally break down and buy it when it comes out in paperback. As a matter of fact my most recent book order had not one but two books that I discovered at the library, and now I get to take all the time with in the world at home as these are my very own copies.
More often than not new books will sit by my bed for a while until they get moved around to new homes on bookshelves or stacks in various rooms, and so the saga continues until some day it finally gets chosen to be read. Oh, happy day. I sort of hate it when that happens, though. Since I am always in the middle of other books new books get pushed aside even if I have been eagerly awaiting a box of them in the mail. And that's how this happens! Piles of books in my house are like weeds. Just when I have them all safely tucked away and everything looks nice and neat another new one springs up.
So, all this to say, that I decided I was going to pick a book to read right now from my new box of books rather than waiting until some unspecified date in the future. Throwing all caution to the wind and averting my gaze from the books already sitting on my night stand I reached out a shaky hand and pulled a book to my chest with giddy excitement. Now this is living dangerously!
With a title like The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers I should not have been surprised when Thomas Mullen had his characters rise up off their gurneys in the first few pages, touch the bullet holes in their chests and promptly walk out of the morgue. This might just turn out to be quite a wild ride! Perhaps a little willing suspension of disbelief is required here--please check your critical eye at the door before proceeding. The Firefly brothers are bank robbers much akin to the likes of John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde. Hated by the banks and cops but appreciated by the common guy so their crimes take on a life of their own. A little background before I share my teaser--it's 1934 and America is in a deep depression. The Firesons, or Firefly Brothers, have become almost celebrities thanks to their crimes and narrow escapes. "...they were a tiny piece of magic, an otherworldly glow, misplaced in our dark and mundane world."
"But what was magic, and what mundane, in those insane times? Jobs you'd worked for two decades vanished. Factories that had stood tall for lifetimes went vacant, were scavenged for scrap, and collapsed. Life savings evaporated, sometimes in a single day. In our once fertile heartland, dry winds blew with the power and rage of untold stories accidentally left out of ancient texts, returning with a vengeance, demanding to be heard. Men disappeared, some scribbling sad notes to their wives, others leaving behind nothing, as if they'd never lived there at all. The reality we'd all believed in, so fervently and vividly, was revealed to be nothing but a trick of our imagination, or someone else's, some collective mirage whose power to entrance us had suddenly and irrevocably failed."
I like the larger than life quality of the story. I don't mind if it goes well outside the boundaries of what is realistic, since it seems to fit so well with the type of story Mullen is setting out to tell. And I've been curious about depression era America for a while, so I am naturally drawn to this book. A few of the adjectives thrown about on the cover--"complex brain-teaser", "pulp fantasy", "magic noirism" means I have set my expectations high. I do hope the rest of the story lives up to its promise!