Toluca lucre / SUN 12-25-22 / Nickname of Looney Tunes animator Ben Hardaway / Grilled cornmeal cake popular in Latin America / Purple-crayon-carrying boy of children's literature / Cat breed with a shabby-sounding name / Animal whose name comes from the Narragansett word for twig-eater / The Rose City so nicknamed for its pink sandstone

Constructor: John Martz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Novel Thinking" — ordinary phrases are clued as if they related to famous novels:

[not by RLS!]

Theme answers:

• HOME PAGES (24A: "Little House on the Prairie," e.g.?) (because it's "pages" ... about a "home") (!?!?)
• GHOSTWRITING (26A: "The Haunting of Hill House," e.g.?) (because it's "writing" ... about a "ghost")
• FLUID VOLUME (40A: "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," e.g.?) (because it's a "volume" ... set in "fluid" (i.e. the sea)) 
• SECOND STORY (45A: "Back to Treasure Island," e.g.?) (because it's the "second" part of the "Treasure Island" "story") (?!?!?!)
• PRISON SENTENCES (61A: "Crime and Punishment," e.g.?) (because it's "sentences" about a "prison") (there's not really a prison in this book, I don't think, but ... OK)
• ADDRESS BOOK (80A: "If Beale Street Could Talk," e.g.?) (because it's a "book" about an ... "address")
• ANIMAL PRINT (89A: "Fantastic Mr. Fox," e.g.?) (because it is a "print" (well, printed material, anyway) about an "animal")
• WORKING TITLE (99A: "The Help," e.g.?) (because it is a "title" about people who are "working")
• BUZZ WORDS (105A: "The Secret Life of Bees," e.g.?) (because it is "words" about creatures that "buzz")

Word of the Day: "The Haunting of Hill House" (26A) —

The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 gothic horror novel by American author Shirley Jackson. A finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the 20th century, it has been made into two feature films and a play, and is the basis of a Netflix series. Jackson's novel relies on terror rather than horror to elicit emotion in the reader, using complex relationships between the mysterious events in the house and the characters' psyches. (wikipedia)

• • •

So much Christmas disappointment. First of all, the holiday *actually* falls on the crossword's big day (literally, the biggest day), and you ... pass? I've seen so many holiday puzzles published on holiday-adjacent days, but here you have the opportunity to hit it right on the money and ... nothing. But OK, you're not feeling festive, that's fine, but it's a big holiday, lots of people sitting around doing nothing, avoiding family, whatever, so lots of people are going to be doing this one; surely you're gonna put forth your "A" game—something really impressive. But ... no. It's an ordinary, workmanlike effort that stretches the concept of "wordplay" too thin and generally yields no laughs, chuckles, guffaws, or other gleeful noises. The "novel" concept just doesn't work here, in that so many of these "novel"-related terms are only horrifically vaguely related to actual novels. "Book," "volume," great, "story," OK, but after that the connection becomes tenuous and the words become fragments of novels so small that they could relate to any piece of writing. Like "writing." Or "title." And "sentences?" "Words?" The whole "Novel" conceit just doesn't hold up. 

And yet ... if the theme answers were themselves snappy and fun and clearly novel-related, I would still have been happy. But ..."HOME"?? The connection to "Little House on the Prairie" is just ... HOME? They're PAGES about ... HOME? Because ... what, "house" means "HOME?" The whole thing is literal to a painful degree, such that it doesn't even matter what the novels are actually about. A fox *is* an animal, the help ... work, I guess. So you don't even get the spark of some real thematic connection between novels and theme answers. In the case of PRISON SENTENCES, it's like there's no connection at all. I just read a summary of "Crime and Punishment" and (as I thought) there's no "PRISON" in it at all, except in the epilogue. But I guess that "punishment" for "crime" is (often) "PRISON," so ... good enough?  In the case of SECOND STORY, the content of the novel really really Really doesn't matter. Nothing particularly "Treasure Island"-y at all there. Could've used literally any sequel in that clue. Sigh. I love novels, but I just don't get this theme. Or I do get it, but I cannot feel whatever it is that's supposed to make it joyful to solve.

The puzzle was not hard, but it was slow-going with the theme answers, mostly due to issues discussed above (i.e. I could not make sense of the answers because their connections to the novels in question seemed so wispy). I'd get the front end of an answer and still have no idea about the back end, and then vice versa. But this just meant hacking at crosses—never really getting stuck. I could easily have finished with an error, since I had *no* idea what the animator's nickname was supposed to be at 1A: Nickname of Looney Tunes animator Ben Hardaway (who???), so I had to get it all from crosses, and let me tell you, GONG seemed like a very good answer to 1D: Hit it! When that gave me GUGS for the animator's nickname, I figured it must be right—obscure clue for an obscure answer. But then my brain went, "yeesh, why didn't they change that first letter to something like [rolodexes through -UGS words] BUGS ... oh ... oh, hang on! BUGS ... BUGS Bunny ... and then BONG for [Hit it!] ... yeah, that must be it. And now we're back to 'yeesh'." If you'd had a reasonable clue on BUGS, then you wouldn't have had "Ben" in the clue and *then* you could've turned 76-Across from BON to BEN, which is better, but also much Much better in the cross (changing NOONS :( to NEONS :). 

Part of the puzzle I loved was the clue on T-BONE STEAK (69D: Cut with a letter opener?). That is all kinds of devilish and brilliant. Just a great double misdirect, with both "Cut" and "letter opener" knocking you off balance. That answer next to BAD VIBES was the highlight of the puzzle for me, for sure. LOOT BAGS threw me, as I know them as MONEYBAGS, if I know them at all. And PETRA really threw me, as there was no "ancient" in the clue and the only "Rose City" I know (I thought!) was Portland, OR. Yes, I remembered correctly: Portland is the "City of Roses" or "Rose City" (per wikipedia). And it's an actual city that still exists, whereas PETRA is more UNESCO site than city now. What else? I had TEMPLE before CHAPEL (14D: Place of worship), but that's the only real mistake I made (besides GUGS, of course, LOL). Hope you liked this one more than I did, and that you are having a lovely Christmas or just a lovely Sunday, whichever is more meaningful to you. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]