Mon 2:35 PM
Subject: STRAWS:)To: irumrj@yahoo.com

Now its time for me to lavish praise on you.  Your novel was, in a word, beautiful.  I started reading it last night around 9 and could not stop until I finished, at 2:30 A.M!  It was unbelievable.  I laughed,  I cried, I even thought I was going to "puke" :), but most of all I connected on that personal level that makes the difference between a novel and an experience.  I loved it.   It started out as a beautiful story about growing up, and slowly but surely you added small details that would normally shock and repulse.  But because you added them slowly you made us love Carl so much that we could not cast an accusing eye upon him.  We love him for who he is, especially his shortcomings.

And Hannah!  Oh how we loved Hannah in her simple wonderfulness and her striking resemblance to Helen (maybe that was part of the attraction between her and Carl???)

And as Carl so brutally seeks out his revenge, I was sickened at the mental picture of what was happening, but the fact that he was doing it didn't bother me at all... I was almost cheering for him on the inside... maybe now he could rest.

And the ending, OH the ending... Can we scream sequel any louder?  Actually, the beginning alludes to a sequel more so than the end... So I guess the question remains... Is the Colt that Carl raises a new beginning, or simply the ultimate end?

I hang in suspense for the next.  Beautiful.  Erotic.  Wonderful.  I wish there were stronger words.

Ruthy

"You're wasting your time at these writer's groups.  Your novels are better than the bestsellers I buy here in Border's, so I'm not going to critique your work any longer.  Just keep the chapters coming, and be quick about it!"

Jim seems to know Kansas too well and forgets that his readers are a lot closer to Toto.  As an example, he uses a couple of lines of dialogue to indicate where soap and towels are to a person who should know exactly where they are, or could be shown by a friend.  Yet he gives us things like "prettiest girl in sixteen counties" without once letting us know it was a frequent figure of speech. The same thing happens with a pig cooked with rocks - which most people know from Hawaii - and  an obscure gun caliber.

Jim has made a concerted effort to keep his work from being cast as pornography.  Well, if it is published, there will be fortylebben churches which will cry  out against it if it becomes popular, and I hope it will.

Jim wants to keep us guessing about relationships.  A good example is when Carl sees Helen and Jerold kissing while he fondles her bare breasts.  Is she enjoying this or resisting?  I thought he was molesting her, Jim wants it more ambivalent.

Should you read it?  Yes, you should.  And tell Jim what you think of it.

BTW, if you liked his, try mine, would you?   They also include teenagers and love and sex.  Not much violence though - not yet at any rate.  Jim thinks enough of them to have developed a website for them, Gene Moser's Literature.

Gene Moser

Straws 2, Escape
This from Harry Stone, who doesn't want his email shared:

My God, can this story get any more intense?  How in hell can these two continue to function, much less appear normal?  Are there no limits to their murdering, lying, incestuous misadventures? 

And now you've got Carl convinced there are ghosts!  Is he going insane? - - No, wait - - he's been insane all along, right? 

As you've surely guessed by now, I didn't put the book down once I picked it up.  That's right, over 600 pages overnight, no sleep, cover to cover and pissed at you for losing me a night's sleep, and wanting more.  Is there more?  There has to be more!

I've never read anything like this, and I've read a lot of strange stuff.  Your writing is like a cross between Faulkner and Zane Grey.  You mix humor with depravity, tragedy with romance, guilt with joy.  You show us bucolic, peaceful heartland life and the utter blackness of pure evil, often on the same page.  Your characters are so lifelike that I kept looking up expecting (hoping?) to see Helen, or Carrie, or Lanky Shanks, or the sheriff. 

There has to be more to this story!  And if there isn't, write!

Regards, Harry

Author's note:  there is more.  Straws 3 is being written.

Sir:  I read your novel, Straws 2, last week.  I took a couple days to think things over before I emailed you my thoughts.  What you read below are not reactions, they are my honest critique.

Your writing style is so austere as to be almost undetectable.  I found myself filling in all the blanks - the missing adjectives, the overly simple nouns, the nuances, the unstated obvious - with my own substitutes.  At first this annoyed me, but the more I read, the more the story became my own.  My life experiences, my knowledge, my own biases and secret thoughts fleshed out the story until I became submerged in it. 

This novel is an experience, especially since I read the first novel (Straws, 1939 - 1940) before I read this one, so I had the whole grisly, rapturous story.  It is not a book that one buys off the best-seller shelves and forgets a week after reading.  This story will stay with me for decades.

Why haven't I heard of you through the usual channels like bookstores and so on?  Are you hiding?  Your writing is brilliant, even if the story is terribly disturbing.   I'm most  disturbed because I seem to understand Helen, and that is something I would never have believed possible.

I hope you will continue writing, and possibly bring closure to Carl and Helen in some way.

Your fan, Myra Ellis

Growing Milo
Thomas Farnne sent me this:

Mr. Muri;

Growing Milo is a fabulous, engrossing adventure!  Thanks for writing it and making it available on your website.  It was well worth the money, a far better read than I'm used to even from libraries and book stores.

At the end of the story I wasn't sure who the main character was.  Milo?  Pandy?  Either one is fine with me.  And the setting - Nebraska, mostly - brought back memories to me, because in my youth I lived in northern Kansas, on a farm. 

But you fooled me, sir.  The hint of romance at the start, mixed in with the hint of dire menace, led me to expect a 'normal' novel.  Surprise, surprise.  It ended up being one of a kind. 

Please send more when you have them written.  In the meantime, please send me Straws, 1939 - 1940.  If it's anywhere as good as Growing Milo, you've got a lifelong fan.

Yours, Thomas Farnne