Book Review - The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

I read a lot of books, and I like to write reviews for them on facebook. I thought I'd share some of my favorite books with you. Leave me a comment and let me know if you've read it, what you thought of it, or just pass along your own book recommendation.

Andrew Davidson's debut novel, The Gargoyle, is a unique and fantastic blend of history, mythology, love and redemption. Humorous, heartbreaking, and inspiring, this novel covers all the basics in a way that's never quite been done before.

The narrator of The Gargoyle begins his tale recounting the days he spent recovering from severe and disfiguring burns after a terrible car crash. His sole purpose for working toward recovery is to, upon release, commit suicide. His outlook is changed when he is visited by the enigmatic artist, Marianne Engel.

Marianne, an internationally renowned sculpture of gargoyles, is convinced she and our would-be-hero were once lovers; 700 years ago. The story is further complicated upon learning that Marianne is a sometime patient in the hospital's psychiatric ward. Still, under her guidance, the narrator finds new hope for a life after the fire, and learns a great deal about himself in the process.

This book will truly leave you in a different place than you started. Each sentence is beautifully crafted, the imagery used is phenomenal, and the story is like none you will ever read again.

Don't we all.

Actual conversation while watching the entire Star Wars hexology (not a word I've ever used before):

Gena: I want a lightsaber.
GP: Don't we all.

Then we ate some stew! This recipe is for Juli, who has recently discovered the wonderful world of slow cookers and loves movies as much as I do. Although I'm not sure about her take on Star Wars. 

Crock pot chicken noodle stew

Prep time: 15 minutes

cook time: 4 hours or so. Varies, depending on your pot. 

Servings: 6 - 8

Ingredients

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1/2 yellow onion, chopped 

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed

3 or 4 carrots, sliced thinly in disks

8 cups water

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried basil

2 bay leaves

Cajun seasoning*, salt and pepper to taste

1 1/2 cups dry noodles

Procedure:

Throw everything but the noodles in a crock pot. Turn it on and let it cook. Once the chicken is falling apart when you stir the pot, add the noodles and cook until they are as done as you want them. That's it!

Vegetarian option - use chickpeas or kidney beans in place of the chicken.

*I use Tony Cachere's cajun seasoning. It's mostly salt and red pepper seasoning, so you could easily substitute salt, paprika, and cayenne for the cajun stuff.

Things that go on your head

Let's talk about a couple of things here - hats and hair. I have some of one and a lot of the other.

Back in my younger days (like, 1995-1997 when the grunge era was at the height of coolness, I first discovered punk rock and Pearl Jam, and I first realized I was not going to fit in with all the cool kids in school) I wore a lot of hats. And they looked good on me. I've never been one to really follow trends or put a lot of effort into my daily sartorial choices, but I have always been able to pull off strange outfits. Especially ones that rely heavily on accessories. I'm not sure why this is. It may be the height (I'm 5'7"). It may be the hair. It may be that I'm not horribly self concious and therefore carry myself with pride even if I'm wearing something strange. At any rate, I can pull off hats with flair.

Of all the fashion trends going around now, the floppy beret look is one I can actually get on board with. So I made this one, and love it! In fact, I love it so much that I pretty much immediately made another beret:

I crocheted this one up in about 2 hours when I should have been working on school related things. Nothing like procrastination to bring out a fast crochet project!

Then, at the Christmas party this year, I came away with the yarn and pattern to make a felted bucket hat. It knit up really quickly, in just one or two evenings, and a couple of weeks later I managed to finally felt it in the washing machine. I've worn it around the house, trying to decide whether I really like it or not, but haven't really gotten any good feelings about it.

A couple of weeks ago it was raining, and I took this as a great time to wear the new hat out, since I couldn't find my umbrella. As I was making the half mile trek from the parking lot to the hospital, I noticed people at the bus stop looking at me. Maybe I only noticed because I was feeling self conscious, or maybe they were staring extra hard. I thought over what I was wearing: blue striped khaki pants, a purple jacket (seen in the pics here), chartreuse hobo gloves, and the hat. Oh my lord, did I look stupid? Was my whole outfit just too crazy to be worn out in public? Have I lost my ability to wear whatever I want? Am I too old to wear funky hats and chartreuse hobo mitts and striped pants and whatever else I wear on a daily basis? Are people always looking at me like this and I just never noticed?!?!

I took the hat off as soon as I got inside.

The sky was spitting when I left work later that evening, so I pulled the hat back on. When I got to the car, I looked at my reflection in the window, trying to gauge just how stupid the hat looked. That's when I figured it out.

It wasn't necessarily the hat that looked dumb (although I still haven't made up my mind about that). It wasn't even the whole outfit, really. It was The Hair. I have a lot of hair, as you can see.  The Hair was inside my jacket and, as it always does, had started to kind of puff out of the collar. Usually this just makes me look like I have a strange bob, but not with the hat on. With the hat on top of The Hair, I looked like a female version of Slash. Well. No wonder people were looking at me strangely. I would've looked at me strangely too.