Hurricane Humberto, which can be seen to the right of Hurricane Imelda, is expected to lose its hurricane strength Wednesday afternoon. Photo courtesy of NOAA
Sept. 30 (UPI) — Forecasters early Wednesday were warning of dangerous surf and “life-threatening” rip currents at beaches of the northern Caribbean, Bahamas, Bermuda and much of the U.S. East Coast as Hurricane Humberto continued its way north across the Atlantic.
With maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, Humberto remained a Category 1 hurricane as of 5 a.m. AST Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said in its morning update.
The storm was located about 280 miles north-northwest of Bermuda and was moving northeast at 14 mph, the NHC said.
No coastal watches or warnings were in effect, though forecasters continued to warn that its swells could persist for the next few days.
It is expected to move faster toward the east-northeast over Wednesday and remain “a powerful cyclone” until Humberto merges with a developing frontal boundary Wednesday night.
Humberto is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic season and became the season’s third hurricane on Friday morning.
Like all great crime writers, Lou Berney knows that a ripping story is only as good as the characters that make it rip. With his new novel “Crooks,” Berney has created a family saga about a small-time operator named Buddy Mercurio, his pickpocket wife Lillian and their five children.
As Buddy’s brood leave the nest and stake their claim in the world, his patriarchal shadow looms large, and the sins of the father are hard to kick. I chatted with Berney about his sixth novel, crime and why smartphones are his worst enemy.
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✍️ Author Chat
Lou Berney, author of “Crooks: A Novel About Crime and Family.”
(Lou Berney)
How did you come to crime novels?
The writers I love tend to be crime writers. I really got turned on my freshman year of college to Flannery O’Connor and that just kind of blew my mind. To me, she’s the greatest crime writer ever. “Wise Blood,” “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “Everything that Rises Must Converge.” Every one of her books has elements of a crime novel in them that she does really interesting things with.
But you started as a more traditional literary writer.
My first story was in “The New Yorker” when I was in grad school. I was writing straight literary fiction. Then I started writing screenplays and learning more about plot and storytelling. I just kind of settled into this idea of crime, which to me is the one genre where you can do almost anything you want. It’s such a big tent. And so it was a great way for me to embrace the limitless, essentially.
What about traditional crime writers?Who moves you?
A big influence was Elmore Leonard. Also Jim Thompson, who was a fellow Oklahoma writer. Those are two guys that really, really affected me. But the current state of crime fiction is just awesome. I love so many contemporary crime writers right now. Sara Gran, Kate Atkinson, Megan Abbott, S.A. Cosby. This is a golden age in some ways for weird, interesting crime fiction that takes you to different places. Everybody’s kind of doing their own thing, which I really love.
Are you a Walter Mosley fan?
A huge fan. I got to work with Walter this year. I wrote for a TV show called “The Lowdown” which was created by Sterlin Harjo, who created “Reservation Dogs.” Walter and I were the two novelists in the writers room, six hours a day for 20 weeks, and I just got to hear Walter Mosley talk. The guy is a genius. His thoughts on writing are just mind-blowingly good. So I got paid for an education.
I love the Mercurios. I feel like part of the appeal of a family like this is that they are everything most of us are not: They are bold risk–takers who dive into things without fear.
In writing about the Mercurios, I was getting to vicariously live these lives that were enormously appealing to me. You know, I don’t want to be a criminal and I would probably make a bad criminal, but it’s sure fun to sort of live without rules and live without fear and be reckless and do whatever you want.
“Crooks” is set in the pre-camera phone era, when life had an entirely different texture, and information traveled slowly.
I was walking through the airport yesterday, and it was so demoralizing to see every single person on their phone, with literally no exceptions. Everyone walking, sitting and standing were on their phones, and I thought, “Man, I’m glad I’m old enough to remember when none of that existed,” because that was way, way more interesting to me as a writer.
I love the chapters that are set in ’80s Los Angeles. How did you conjure all of that up?
I read a lot of old magazines. Los Angeles magazine was great. I got all the old issues on EBay. And I have a friend who grew up in the ‘80s in L.A., so I ran some stuff by him. I just love research. I wasn’t into homework as a kid at all, but now I’ve discovered that if it’s homework I need to do for a book, I’m all about it.
The novel is divided into six parts, and every section is so deftly plotted. How difficult is the plot for you?
I do extensive outlining so I can get a sense of plot. But I end up probably changing 75% of it as I go. With this book, the Jeremy chapter worked perfectly, whereas Alice took me like three times as long as any of the other chapters, because I had to keep figuring out how she was going to outsmart this guy, and nothing was working or wasn’t fitting right. It really depends on the particular kind of plotline.
📰 The Week(s) in Books
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
Julia M. Klein thinks Daniel Pollack-Pelzner’s biography of Lin-Manuel Miranda does a fine job of probing the inner artist, a “joyous, charismatic, well-meaning, occasionally imperfect man.”
With Oasis and Pulp on the road, Dave Rowntree makes sure his group Blur gets a hand in the Britpop Revival with a book of band photographs.
And finally, our reviewers pick 30 Fall books that everyone must read.
📖 Bookstore Faves
A book-loving cat wanders through the aisles of Small World Books located on the Venice Boardwalk.
(Adam Lipman)
Small World Books is the grandaddy of indie book stores in L.A. Established in 1969 on the Venice Boardwalk, the store has always been well-curated and loaded with a diverse array of titles. We spoke with manager Adam Lipman about what customers are snatching up.
What are some popular genres that your customers like?
Romantasy, horror and architecture are getting snatched up right quick these days.
And those that love poetry are always impressed with our poetry section. But we are selling all types of books right now! From bestsellers to books about lo-fi cassette culture, sextrology, and Charles Oakley. Anything important or interesting to us we try to get in store and keep in stock.
Why are books still necessary in a wired world?
Susan Orleans wrote in “The Orchid Thief”: “There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.”
Part of why we are called Small World Books is because we believe books are an excellent way to “whittle the world down to a more manageable size,” small enough to not seem so overwhelmingly exhausting, and hopefully, then making it easier to expand our circle of empathy.
Ms Badenoch has promised to oppose any erosion of Britain’s national sovereignty and will force a vote in Parliament on the issue.
She will today meet the EU’s ambassador in London to warn she would reverse any deal that crosses her “red lines” on sovereignty.
READ MORE ON KEMI BADENOCH
A Tory spokesman said: “The Conservative Party stands by the decision made by millions in the 2016 referendum and will always defend our national interest.
“Keir Starmer and many of his Cabinet spent years trying to overturn the largest democratic mandate in British history and are now preparing to sell us out to Brussels.”
Labour have ruled out any deal that returns the UK to freedom of movement, the single market or customs union.
