Poirot and Me by David Suchet

David Suchet, CBE was born 2 May 1946 and is a renowned English actor who played the role of detective Hercule Poirot

As a character actor, David Suchet enjoyed his freedom to play a variety of roles in any number of stage and cinematic productions. Unlike heart throbs of either gender, fear of aging need not haunt the career of a character actor, as casting is not based upon youth and glamor. Ironically, due to his brilliance in his best-known role as Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot, David Suchet was, well beyond forty, often greeted with rapture by enthralled female devotees. 

What brought about this celebrity status?
Having acted in Shakespearean companies and performed in productions written by other renowned playwrights, when first offered the part of Hercule Poirot, he felt mildly offended. Asked how much of Ms. Christie’s work he had read, Suchet replied, “Not one word.”

Still, this fact did not deter those directors who believed him suitable for the part.  In fact, this may have proved beneficial, in that it meant taking on the role with no preconceptions. Hence, at age 42, Suchet’s dedication to acting was such as to spur him to research the 62-year-old Poirot with the thoroughness needed to portray Beethoven, Stalin or Einstein.  This entailed sifting through Agatha Christie’s work for every reference to Poirot, then compiling notes on both his qualities and flaws.

If Poirot’s perfectionism and obsessive tidiness were annoying, Suchet was prepared to present them as such. On occasion, he also let the audience glimpse the loneliness, especially during the holiday season, of those who, like Poirot, live their lives almost entirely via intellect, with a minimum of emotion.  In addition, Suchet’s physical and verbal characteristics would need to undergo major changes.  At forty-two, his body required significant padding in order to represent Christie’s detective who, in addition to being twenty years older, was plump, with well-tended moustache and distinctive French-Belgian accent. 

As tends to happen to authors who have created a character which takes on an identity of its own in the public consciousness, some believe Agatha Christie’s publishers brought pressure to bear on her to continue to write novels in which Poirot’s investigative work proved pivotal.  Indeed, Ms. Christie once wrote in a newspaper, “There have been moments when I have felt, why, why, why did I invent this detestable, bombastic, tiresome little creature, eternally straightening things, eternally boasting, eternally twisting his mustache and tilting his egg-shaped head?  In moments of irritation, I point out that, by a few strokes of the pen, I could destroy him utterly.”

And yet, she did not. During the next 30 years, she continued to write mystery novels centered on his abilities as the ultimate sleuth. Such was her prestige that no outside influence could have impelled her to do so.  Indeed, she published her short story, “Curtain” describing Poirot’s demise, not long before her own death.  From Suchet’s perspective, having enacted his final episode as Poirot, he and his cast shed tears of genuine mourning.  Hercule Poirot, in his way, had become a part of each of them.

Goodbye, I Love You by Carol Lynn Pearson

Carol Lynn Wright Pearson was born September 27th 1939 and is a renowned American author and poet.

Carol Lynn Pearson’s memoir “Goodbye, I Love You” was written during the apex of the AIDS crisis.  AIDS is no longer the threat it once was, and gay marriage is becoming legalized in an increasing number of countries.  Still, the underlying pain of marrying someone, having children with him or her, and then learning this spouse has a hidden life, will forever be a source of profound anguish.

Upon meeting Gerald Neils Pearson at a party given by fellow Mormons, the author felt drawn to both his physical appeal and unique sensitivity.  Both having been brought up in the Mormon faith, they shared the same values: complete intimacy must wait until marriage, and even physical affection must be held in abeyance.  Hence, as they began to date and then form a relationship, Gerald Pearson’s lack of amorous zeal seemed a part of their mutual framework.  Then came the moment when Gerald admitted he had been intimately involved “with a guy-guys”.

Despite her dismay, Carol Lynn believed this would end after he found fulfilment in their marriage.  And so it seemed to, for some while, with only occasional hints of his gay leanings returning. Three children were borne by the couple before Carol Lynn became apprised of Gerald’s clandestine visits to gay bars.

The remainder of this memoir describes Carol Lynn’s reaction to this discovery, and Gerald’s eventual death from AIDS.  As she waited, with tenderness, at his side, she read him poems he requested, many of which she had written herself before and during their marriage.

It would be difficult for a book review to convey the emotion and growing understanding between Gerald, Carol Lynn and their children. In a sense, the closeness which evolved through the openness gave a deeper dimension to both the marital and familial bond than could have come into being during Gerald’s years of concealment.

I read this book in one afternoon as it was such a vital, moving reading experience. Indeed, its brevity is one of its strengths in that every word carries meaning.

There Was a Little Girl by Brooke Shields

Brooke Shields

Full Title: There Was a Little Girl:  The Real Story of My Mother and Me by Brooke Shields

Brooke Shields’ earlier memoir, "Down Came the Rain", chronicled with candor the postpartum depression she suffered after the birth of her first child.   This account undoubtedly gave encouragement to mothers in her position.  A combination of antidepressants, psychotherapy, and overall tenderness and understanding from those closest to her, freed Ms. Shields to delight in the joys of new motherhood.  Still, for those aware of her early, controversial film career, and her intense, turbulent relationship with her mother, there seemed to be an emotional element hinted at but not completely disclosed.  

Teri Shields, (1933-2012) a divorced single mom with only one child, devoted all her consuming love and ambition into her daughter, Brooke Shields.  At first, Brooke revelled in this absorption.  No mother of any friend or playmate she knew made her child an absolute center, around whom all other concerns were peripheral.  Life proved harmonious, until Brooke began to see increasing indications of her mother’s continuous drinking reaching an alarming dimension. This dependence on drink, never conquered, resulted in the first major rift between mother and daughter. 

Still, after her mother’s seemingly successful stay in a substance abuse rehabilitation center, Brooke admits she missed her role as martyred daughter to the point where she found herself almost wishing her mom would relapse.  She even tried to be defiant enough to provoke her to do so. Soon Brooke overcame this wish, allowing their loving relationship to resume. Eventually, Teri returned to her addiction, slowly at first, but then with growing nonchalance, until she was drinking as much as she always had, if not more.  

At the same time, Brooke acknowledges few mothers would have given her the bolstering she needed during those times she craved it the most.  In 1978, Teri Shields promoted the then pubescent Brooke towards stardom in a film in which her role would be that of a child prostitute.  Upon the release of this film, “Pretty Baby”, the media flourished.  Teri became a mother so frantic to gain her daughter a major film role as to allow her to demean and degrade herself.  Still, according to Brooke, the film held no trace of pornography.  In fact, she viewed it as an artistic production.  When the media castigated young Brooke for failing to voice shame and remorse, her mother asked her, in private, if she felt proud of the work she had done.   When Brooke said she did feel fulfilled, her mother advised her to ignore those who criticized her.

When, as a student at Princeton University, Brooke was initially shunned as a celebrity snob, she needed Teri to travel some distance in order to have dinner with her every Wednesday.  At one point, Brooke’s isolation was such as to force her to phone her mother to say she felt she had to leave Princeton.  Her mother, in what Brooke understood as her penultimate sacrifice, pleaded with her not to give up, advising her, if she did so, she would regret it for the rest of her life. Hence, Brooke continued, eventually forming friendships and relationships irrelevant to her status and fame.   

Still, as she grew into adulthood, she claimed greater freedom.  Her mother feeling alone and discarded became suffocating.  The remainder of Brooke’s memoir focuses largely on the ways in which Brooke and Teri Shields negotiated what felt to them both like a separation almost too wrenching to be endured, while both knew it to be inevitable.  When her mother died, Brooke, by then a mother of two growing daughters, concedes she felt, and at times continues to feel, the need for her “Mommy”.  How many of us, at whatever age, can say, in all truth, we do not sometimes yearn to return to that same insulation against the tedium and miseries of day-to-day life. 

Presidential Policies on Terrorism by Donna Starr-Deelen

President Ronald Reagan

President Barack Obama

Full Title: Presidential Policies on Terrorism: From Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama by Donna Starr-Deelen 

In her book, international law scholar Donna Starr-Deelen provides a well-researched, highly informative history of terrorism in the U.S., and its probable future.  One of her primary questions explores the accuracy of the contention by George W Bush that everything changed after 9-11.  While not minimizing the tragic gravity of this attack, she queries whether it, in itself, undermined the solid political structure built after WWII by the UK and U.S.  

Perhaps this observation by George W. Bush proved a bit too simplistic.  Might those bombings have served as a pretext to justify military force which had been held, for some while, in abeyance?  A further point addressed by Ms. Starr-Deelen involves the fact that the 1787 framers of the U.S. Constitution were writing within a framework far different from that in which we live today.

Indeed, the current capacity to kill soldiers and civilians alike by bombs dropped by “drones” in the form of planes operated by remote control would have seemed as alien to them as the idea of life on other spheres of the universe.  In the same sense, these framers could hardly have guessed the extent of the latitude allowed to a president to deploy his executive privilege in times of emergency.

Donna Star-Deelen, already well-qualified in the study of international policies and relations, was living in Washington D.C. during the 9-11 onslaught.  Hence, while she retains objectivity, she reflects the essence of those thoughts and feelings felt and experienced during its aftermath.  As she points out, those in authority dictate the course of the lives and potential deaths of those forced to accept their edicts, merely by being citizens or subjects in an area where these leaders are free to exert control.

Having chronicled terrorism and counter-terrorism in detail, her final chapter evaluates the efforts and consequences of decisions made during the presidency of Barack Obama.  When he was inaugurated on January 20th 2009, many Americans, especially those who felt marginalized by the existing political system, enjoyed a renewed sense of hope, perhaps akin to that surge of courage which flowed from the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy.  Just as Kennedy was the first Catholic to be elected to this office, Barack Obama was the first African-American.

The changes he promised during his inaugural address were absorbed with joy, going some way towards erasing the cynicism bred by the policies of George H. W. Bush, and then his son, George W. Bush. Even Bill Clinton, while striving for justice on multiple levels, had disillusioned a large number of his constituents by his drawing out of the debate regarding his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, via a series of specious legal contentions.  (Indeed, the word “Clintonesque” has entered the English language as representing an “everything but” liaison.

Still, there are issues which seem bound to remain unresolved after Obama’s second and last term of office in 2016.  Practices conducted beyond American shores are being committed on grounds of “enhanced interrogation”.  The extent of this enhancement will, in all probability, never be fully revealed.  Still, it is well-known that American agents, especially those deployed by the CIA, have authorized or participated in activities which cross the ambiguous zone from interrogation to torture.  One example is “water boarding”  evoking images of surfing and kayaking, while in truth it entails the holding under water of someone resisting questions likely to subject them to further prosecution or death, to the point where the person questioned feels a legitimate fear of drowning.

Ultimately, Obama has found his administration far more shackled by previous errors and controversies than he anticipated.  This has prevented him, to some degree, from adhering to his original hopes and pledges.  Thus, a feeling of over-all let-down and anxiety pervades America as the 2016 election approaches.

To summarize, this book is a superb research tool for anyone studying this period, as well as the general reader wishing for a deeper understanding of the struggles which have haunted the political system since the beginnings of terrorism.