Grabbed it because of the cover and I’d wanted to read more by Eddie Campbell since reading From Hell. This was a short turn-of-the-last-century story about crime and forgery. Well told and illustrated.

John Sayles wrote this book before Temple Grandin wrote hers. It’s a book about how he made the movie Matewan, complete with the entire text of the movie in the back. It’s great. Sayles is interesting to listen to because he has a lot of integrity and he’s really trying to explain how this stuff works, not just promote himself or his movie or some ideal of film making that he aspires to. I enjoyed this movie when I saw it and it was neat to get to go back and hear about how it all came together, particularly the casting decisions and the compromises they had to make in the interests of money or time or both.

At some point I read this book over the past few months but can’t now remember when that was. I know this because I’ve now read the second book in the series and went to see what I’d written about the first book. I saw the movie before I read the book and so what people had warned me about “Sort of sadistic. Maybe too rapey” I was already ready for. In fact, the second book is a lot less sadistic than the first one though there is still a lot of violence. I like the sort of crazed female lead character, probably more so since I can picture her in my mind as looking like the woman who plays her in the movie. I enjoyed this book.

I had a five hour plane ride and I had this book to read. They were a great match.