ANARCHY FROM THE UK
Author Francesca Simon’s Horrid Henry book series would be a worldwide success — that is, if someone in America would publish it. By Gregory Katz
Shakespeare’s works, the Beatles’ albums, James Bond, Harry Potter — all these British creations have crossed the Atlantic and found huge followings in the United States. But so far, the same cannot be said for Horrid Henry, a fictional character created by Francesca Simon, a friendly, frizzy-haired American author who lives in London. Her books have become smash hits in Britain and many other parts of the world, yet they’ve failed to get a foothold in America, the largest book market of all.
Why? It could just be that Horrid Henry — devious, rambunctious, and constantly plotting against his parents, teachers, and little brother — is deemed by publishers to be too politically incorrect for the U.S. audience.
“What was fed back to me was they thought the books were unsuitable for America,” says Simon of her experience with the American publishers who initially wanted the rights to the Horrid Henry stories but then backed down. “I don’t know if they were thought to be immoral, but [certainly] too evil and too wild for America. What I think is funny is that my books are published in all kinds of conservative countries; they’re a huge hit in Poland, in China, in Korea. To me, it’s ironic that they are not published in America. To me, it means they haven’t read the books carefully.”
It is true that the growing Horrid Henry series goes against the grain. For starters, the stories are not parables with a simple moral point that can be summed up in a feel-good way. There are no particularly happy endings in which everything works out and everybody gets a big hug. These are not idealized valentines to family life; instead, they are more like cinema verité. The title character doesn’t like school or swimming lessons or camping or doing things with his family — Henry’s idea of paradise is a free afternoon spent in front of a TV set, with an endless supply of potato chips nearby. His interests are Henry, Henry, and Henry. And he thinks nothing of trying to sabotage anything Perfect Peter, his annoying little brother, tries to do.
 It sounds kind of grim — unless you’re a kid. Then it’s flat-out funny. And harried parents can see their struggles mirrored in the challenges faced by Henry’s parents, who are somewhat overwhelmed much of the time. This is life as it’s really lived, not a romanticized version. The author has won critics over by finding the humor in everyday life and by refusing to pander to young readers. More than seven million Horrid Henry books have been sold in Britain alone, and the books are published in more than 20 countries worldwide.
“I think every child identifies with the books and the horrendously stupid parents who get everything wrong,” says Amanda Craig, who reviews children’s books for the Times newspaper in London. “Even parents laugh at it themselves. They’re laughing at their own faults. A lot of the stories are drawn from real life. Francesca asks everybody she knows for his or her stories. She writes about the essential lunacy of family life. And sometimes Henry wins, and sometimes Henry loses. He’s a great trickster hero. I see him as a descendant from the heroes in fairy tales and literature. We always love those kinds of characters. There’s a lot more to the stories than people think. I think Francesca really deserves her success.”
Simon typically dreams up stories based on real-life family situations gone awry. She is not looking for tragedy but for farce. The one consistent theme is the ongoing battle between Perfect Peter — always anxious to please his parents and his teachers — and Horrid Henry, an instinctive rebel. It is no surprise that most kids identify with Henry.
“The way I often come up with the stories is I think of really ordinary things like birthday parties, and then I ask people, ‘Tell me about the worst birthday party you ever went to,’ ” says Simon, who lives and writes in a comfortable house with a lovely garden in north London. “All my relatives are teachers, so I’ll ask them, ‘Tell me about [your worst] school trips.’ I’m friendly with the local schoolteachers, so I’ll go into the teacher’s room and say, ‘Okay, tell me about the disastrous sports days.’ And everyone is just laughing, telling me about the time a teacher forgot to hard-boil the eggs, about the kid who got left behind on a school trip, the kid who wet his pants. I just throw all these things in. There is no family in the world that hasn’t had the horrible car journey, the trip that goes wrong — these are just things that happen in families. But I try to write about it in a funny way for kids, with the things that amuse me.”
To Simon, who studied medieval literature at Yale before moving to England in her 20s, it seems, at times, that she is doing little more than serving her fictional creation. Most of her time is spent writing about him, promoting him, meeting with parents and teachers to talk about him, and fielding fans’ letters. The Horrid Henry juggernaut leaves little time for herself and her real family, which includes her husband and a well-behaved, not horrid, son.
“Sometimes, it feels like I am the personal assistant to a very demanding person called Horrid Henry,” she says. “A lot of my time is spent answering letters. I get hundreds and hundreds of letters, and I answer them all. It’s a lot of effort, but I think it’s important. Because I love to read so much, it makes me incredibly happy that all these kids are saying how much they love the books. Also, so many parents are saying to me, ‘Your books are the first books that my child ever read for fun.’ Parents write to me a fair bit and say, ‘Thank you so much. My son now loves to read because he found your books, and before that, he never realized how much fun books could be.’ ”
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 Canon Fodder
New versions of old books you should have already read
There are two things I like to ask myself when I get a new E.L. Doctorow novel: First, what snippet of history will Doctorow blend with his fiction this time? And second, why doesn’t he just drop the act and become El Doctor, the notorious Mexican surgeon/avenger? I’m just saying that it’s there for the taking, Doctorow — oh that the rest of us should be so lucky as to have names quite so ready for parody!
I guess the real second question is, can you wax nostalgic when you weren’t there in the first place? Take Doctorow’s Ragtime: I read this novel, and I’m dying to be that turn-of-the-century kid wearing short pants, doffing his hat, and screaming “extra, extra!” while trying to sell newspapers. I guess I’d probably be more suited to the profession of pickpocketing. Or I could be that bald weight-lifter type, with a curly mustache, riding one of those bicycles with the enormous front tire. I’ve never seen the Broadway musical Ragtime, but I imagine there’s a lot of that kind of stuff on stage. There’s a lot going on in Ragtime, but my favorite part is the tale of Coalhouse, a pianist who experiences a nasty incident of racism and then becomes a terrorist because of it, setting up shop in J.P. Morgan’s New York mansion. Who knew J.P. Morgan was a real guy? Those kinds of historical personages take on this weird, inanimate identity — something akin to Captain Kangaroo or Tom Brokaw.
Yes, Doctorow’s nostalgia is fascinating. In his World’s Fair, little Edgar Altschuler idolizes Joe DiMaggio and overhears the adults speaking of the rise of Hitler. And while the Great Depression soils the air, Edgar sees the World’s Fair breaking through the fog. When Edgar finally makes it to the fair, the Zoltar Speaks game grants his wish to be big, and then, in a moment of great hilarity, he eats baby corn as though it were corn on the cob. Okay, that last bit actually might be from something else. However, World’s Fair is still a reversion-to-childhood piece.
In The Waterworks, a newspaper editor searching for a missing freelance writer in the decade after the Civil War finds himself in the middle of a startlingly bizarre mystery. The Waterworks doesn’t make you nostalgic, exactly, but it does make you happy that you don’t live in New York a decade after the Civil War, what with its maimed veteran vagabonds, its lack of health codes, and its tightly packed disorder.
And does anyone remember Julius and Ethel Rosenberg? They were a deliciously Get Smart–ish couple of communist sympathizers who ended up sitting in “old sparky” at Sing Sing. Read The Book of Daniel and you shall find their stand-ins as its subjects. A fellow named Daniel should be writing his dissertation, but his autobiography sidetracks him. He is the son of a deliciously Get Smart–ish couple of communist sympathizers, etc.
This summer, Random House Trade Paperbacks reissued these four books by E.L. Doctorow — a quartet of novels for people who love American history but would rather not be bogged down with a bunch of facts. These are backdrop novels at their finest. — J.D. Reid
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The Complete Terry and the
Pirates, Volume I: 1934–1936
By Milton Caniff
(IDW Publishing, $50)
 In
the modern, high-speed Internet age, it’s difficult, if not impossible,
to really understand the impact that the daily comic strip had on
American culture in the early part of the twentieth century. And
certainly no one had more influence on comics, particularly during
those fledgling years, than Milton Caniff, creator of the swashbuckling
adventure strip Terry and the Pirates. To inaugurate its new imprint,
the Library of American Comics, IDW Publishing is presenting the first
volume of a projected six-volume complete hardcover collection of
Caniff’s work, which follows the globe-trotting experiences of
wide-eyed all-American boy Terry Lee; his two-fisted journalist pal,
Pat Ryan; and their femme fatale nemesis, the Dragon Lady. As fellow
comic artist and writer Howard Chaykin notes in his incisive
introductory essay, Caniff was “the man who invented the visual and
textual language that defines the very vocabulary of all adventure and
character-based comic art” — and when poring over these pages, you’ll
feel like you’re watching the medium develop right before your eyes.
Still, volume one, which covers Terry’s first two years, is perhaps
more interesting for its historical value than for its actual content.
It took Caniff some time to really find his feet and flesh out his
characters, but once he did, his work reveled in risqué scenarios and
showed an unusually developed sense of female characters. After World
War II, Caniff abandoned Terry and the Pirates to begin writing the
rather more prosaic (and politically and aesthetically conservative)
strip Steve Canyon, yet his pioneering work here shows why he occupies
a place in the pantheon of comic art. — Bob Mehr
Trashed
By Alison Gaylin
(NAL/Obsidian, $22)
 Readers who appreciate literary fiction quite likely spend little, if any, time with supermarket tabloids that purvey salacious gossip about celebrities. Therefore, a novel grounded in the world of the tabloids might seem unattractive, given that there’s a huge selection of other worthy books from which to choose. But mystery novelist Alison Gaylin has managed to craft a real gem set in the realm of Hollywood tabloid reporters and editors. Trashed is a major departure from Gaylin’s previous novels, which take place in New York and have a preschool teacher as the protagonist. Moving her fiction world to Los Angeles and using an ethically challenged journalist as her main character must have seemed risky to Gaylin.
She needn’t have worried. Simone Glass, a 26-year-old graduate of the prestigious Columbia University journalism school, decides to seek employment on the West Coast to get out from under the large shadow of her older sister, a famous cable-television anchor. Landing a job at an obscure but respected newspaper in Los Angeles, Glass learns upon her arrival that the paper has just gone out of business. Desperate for other employment, she accepts a reporting job at the Asteroid, a sensationalistic publication fighting against the cutthroat competition for market share.
Reporting techniques include going through the trash of celebrities and working undercover, serving hors d’oeuvres for a caterer, among other disguises. Glass is shocked and uncomfortable but needs the job, so she compromises her principles. Her journalism talent, however, allows her to think beyond the sleaze and leads her to hypothesize that a string of Hollywood murders considered suicides by the police are the handiwork of a serial killer. The plot is compelling and believable; I did not guess the identity of the killer until Gaylin revealed the name. The writing is excellent, surpassing in quality most of the big-selling mystery authors’ works I have read. If Gaylin writes another novel, I will try it without hesitation — no matter what the setting. — Steve Weinberg
The Coup
By Jamie Malanowski
(Doubleday, $23)
 Most mystery novels set in the White House and in other Washington, D.C., environs fall flat. It is difficult to know why, but novelists attempting to simultaneously capture the workings of government and sustain a compelling, believable narrative almost always trip up somehow. Jamie Malanowski, though, is a welcome exception. Currently the managing editor at Playboy magazine, he has also worked at Time, Esquire, and Spy. Precisely which of those postings helped him develop his knowledge of political byways is never explicitly spelled out in his brief author’s bio. Maybe none of those jobs set the stage for him; maybe every fictional scene filled with real-life verisimilitude was derived completely from his imagination. Whatever the case may be, it works. The plot of the novel is far-fetched, a common trouble in such works. What’s more, it’s problematic as well as intricate, which often means the writer will lose the way and forget to tie up the loose ends. Malanowski avoids these traps, though; despite it all, he never loses sight of plausibility.
Driving the plot is Godwin Pope, an intelligent, handsome, eligible bachelor who, having made a fortune in business and having served four years in the Senate, tries for the presidency of the United States on the Democratic ticket. His campaign falls short, but he ends up as vice president in the administration of Jack Mahone, a smart campaigner who otherwise has little to offer the American public. After a year in the White House, Mahone is in trouble politically and showing bad judgment personally, especially regarding his faltering marriage. Pope decides that he would serve the country better than his boss does, so he begins to plan Mahone’s exit. The strategy is subtle — if Pope’s plan works, nobody will ever suspect his role in the president’s downfall. As part of his scheme, Pope uses magazine reporter Maggie Newbold. She has won the highest journalistic honors for her investigative journalism from overseas, but she has sunk to the bottom of the journalism hierarchy because of allegations that she gained information in an unsavory manner. The combination of Newbold and Pope is The Coup’s true strength: When they meet, the chemistry is almost tangible. The result of their torrid affair surprises them, leads to a new course for the United States, and is quite likely to entertain readers thoroughly. — S.W.
Beating the Devil’s Game: A History
of Forensic Science and Criminal Investigation
By Katherine Ramsland
(Berkley Books, $25)
 With master’s degrees in forensic psychology and clinical psychology, plus a PhD in philosophy, Katherine Ramsland has chosen to deploy her intellectual curiosity in a morbid field. Ramsland has written books about serial killers, mass murderers, sexual predators, and the techniques of investigating cold cases. She also writes books related to the CSI television empire’s episodes (including last year’s The C.S.I. Effect), finding the links between on-screen fiction and real-life fact.
In Beating the Devil’s Game, though, Ramsland steps back from current cases to explain how criminal investigation got its start and then evolved into the high-tech career of today. How did the practice of fingerprinting come to be? What about ballistics? Document analysis? And, perhaps most significantly, DNA identification? Ramsland takes readers back many centuries, to ancient Rome and feudal China, among other locales, when organized religion and outright superstition hampered drawing logical conclusions from crime-scene evidence. But as the scientific technique began to overtake — or at least coexist with — religion and superstition, the methods for catching the perpetrators became more reliable.
The chapters are organized more or less chronologically, so readers can easily discern the progression of criminal-investigation techniques throughout history and in a variety of international cultures. A strength of the book is its global approach; so many other books about forensic science are United States–centric. That said, because of its haphazard organization within each chapter, as a narrative, the book is difficult to follow. Still, Ramsland’s book holds discoveries for every CSI buff. From the development of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes to the invention of lie-detection machines to the teasing out of DNA, Ramsland comfortably guides the reader through crime-solving land. — S.W.
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The Underdog
 Shia LaBeouf might be the next Tom Hanks. But
Emile Hirsch could be the next Sean Penn. By Zac Crain
It would be almost impossible to argue against the idea that as far as young actors go, so far 2007 has been the Year of Shia LaBeouf. I mean, that statement doesn’t even really need the “young” qualifier. The 21-year-old LaBeouf, previously best known for such tween fare as the Disney Channel’s Even Stevens and the screen adaptation of young-adult best-seller Holes, has had an extended Hollywood coming-out party over the past few months. It’s been an unbelievable hot streak: In just a few short months, he’s had one surprise hit (Disturbia, which was Rear Window for the MySpace generation), one mildly predictable one (the animated Surf’s Up, which somehow extended the public’s fascination with penguins), and one that was all but assured (Transformers, which cemented his A-list status, even though the robots were the real draw).
On top of all that, LaBeouf has earned a prime role in the long-awaited fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series as well as a reputation as a real actor, not just some kid who appears in movies solely to enjoy the life that celebrity affords. The hype surrounding him culminated in a Vanity Fair cover that posed a daunting question about someone so young: “Is this kid the next Tom Hanks?”
You know what? There’s a very good chance that’s exactly what LaBeouf is, or will be. He’s likable, talented, and connected; no less than Steven Spielberg has taken LaBeouf under his considerable wing. So no, I will not argue that 2007 is not the Year of Shia LaBeouf. I will not argue that he shouldn’t be considered one of the finest actors of his generation. What I will argue is this: It’s not a one-horse race. There’s another kid out there who’s only a year older, and while he hasn’t enjoyed the same box-office success so far (though it will come — more on that in a moment), he has built a very solid body of work over the past three years.
His name is Emile Hirsch.
You might not recognize those two words. That’s fine. They’re not as off-the-beaten-path as Shia or LaBeouf nor as assembly-line-perfect as Tom or Hanks. They’re just strange enough to be memorable, but not so much that they stick in your head the first few times. You might not even remember the movies Hirsch has been in so far — the most notable being 2004’s The Girl Next Door, 2005’s Lords of Dogtown, and 2006’s Alpha Dog. That’s fine too. The nonrecognition is easily remedied — that’s what Netflix is for. Add these movies to your queue and you’ll see what I see: The kid’s a star. He just hasn’t had his hit yet.
In The Girl Next Door, you’ll find a note-perfect tribute to Risky Business, and in Hirsch’s character (Matthew Kidman), you’ll see a modern analogue of Tom Cruise’s Joel Goodsen — fresh scrubbed, charismatic, and … short. In Lords of Dogtown — this is where it really gets good — as troubled skateboarder Jay Adams, Hirsch is the heart and soul of the film, absolutely owning every scene in which he appears while retaining no trace of Matthew Kidman. His role in Alpha Dog, as rich-kid drug dealer Johnny Truelove, is closer in spirit to his work in Lords of Dogtown, but Hirsch still finds new territory to explore. The character of Truelove could have just ended up as an extended riff on Adams. Hirsch could have tried to shield his image and played Truelove as more of an antihero. Instead, he took the braver path — especially for an up-and-coming young Hollywood turk — and removed every shred of hero from the character. Alpha Dog might not have really succeeded critically or commercially, but Hirsch did.
So his hit will arrive soon. At the very least, it will come next year, when Hirsch headlines a live-action take on the iconic Japanimation series Speed Racer, the first film directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski since The Matrix trilogy. And it might come even sooner than that — it might come this month, when Into the Wild hits screens. It should.
Based on the riveting, true-life story penned by Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild goes exactly where the title implies. The film, written and directed by Sean Penn, follows Christopher McCandless as he turns his back on civilization (he leaves behind his Emory University education and gives his $24,000 life savings to charity) and ends up in the middle of an Alaskan nowhere. Hirsch, who stars as McCandless, ended up with his own tale of survival while shooting the film, as he dropped a substantial amount of weight from his already-thin frame and performed in conditions not much better than the type that his character endured.
Krakauer’s book and Penn’s participation will, no doubt, be the main attractions. The material and the duo behind it are what will fill the seats. But Hirsch will keep them there. Believe me. I know his career better than anyone, outside of his publicist and his mother. He’s had a few turns at bat, sure. But this time — to continue the analogy — he finally has a few men on base. People are paying attention. I suspect that that will continue for another few decades.
In other words, watch out, Shia LaBeouf. You might be the answer to the question, who is the next Tom Hanks? But there’s someone else who might be the answer to a few other questions such as: Who is the next Sean Penn? What about the next Johnny Depp?
His name is Emile Hirsch. And he’s gaining on you.
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