A 23-year-old is charged with killing his pregnant sister at his Lakeville home and dismembering her body.

Jack Joseph Ball faces two counts of second-degree murder for Thursday’s deaths of 30-year-old Bethany Ann Israel and her unborn child, who was four months along, the charges say.

Ball was arrested late Thursday in Rosemount, about five miles northeast of the homicide scene, and had a self-inflicted knife wound across his throat. He’s been at Region’s Hospital since.

Ball appeared in Dakota County District Court through video conferencing from Regions. Judge Bryce Ehrman set bail at $2 million without conditions, or $1 million with conditions. After Ball is medically cleared, he will be booked into the Dakota County Jail.

According to the criminal complaint and Lakeville police:

Israel’s mother called 911 just after 11 p.m. and reported that she believed her daughter had been killed inside a home in the 17000 block of Encina Path.

When officers arrived, the mother said Israel went to the home around 6 p.m. that night to have dinner with her brother, who was identified as Ball.

She said family had not heard from Israel and were concerned and so she drove to the home to check on her. She said when she arrived, Ball “tore out of the house.” She went inside, saw a large amount of blood and called 911.

Officers entered the home and saw a pool of blood on the kitchen floor and blood under the sink and on cabinets. They saw a saw, hatchet and large knives, all of which were covered in blood.

They saw a knife on the living room floor near the staircase that led to the second level. “In continuing their search, they located several dismembered body parts believed to be those of (Israel),” the complaint says.

Israel’s mother told police that she believed Ball may have gone to a cemetery in Rosemount because relatives were buried there. Rosemount and Apple Valley police officers searched for Ball.

Police received a 911 call from a Rosemount homeowner who reported that a male was seen on their front door Ring camera placing what appeared to be a body part on the front step. Officers arrived and confirmed it was a body part, believed to be that of Israel.

Officers found Ball near a shed in the backyard of the home where his car was parked. He had blood on his head, shirt, arms, legs and pants, and a knife wound across his throat.

Despite the injury, the complaint notes, “(Ball) was able to communicate with officers and accurately told them the date, time and name of the current president.”

Police searched the area and found several dismembered body parts they believed to be those of Israel.

Lakeville police investigators learned from Israel’s family that she was pregnant with her first child.

At the crime scene, investigators found journals and other handwritten paperwork belonging to Ball. Ball wrote that he was angry his sister was pregnant and “no longer innocent.”

An autopsy by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office showed she died from complex homicidal violence, and that she was between 17 and 18 weeks pregnant.

“The allegations in this case are deeply disturbing and horrific — words can’t describe what our law enforcement partners encountered during the investigation,” Dakota County Attorney Kathy Keena said in a Tuesday statement. “My office will work hard to ensure the victims receive justice and will provide the necessary support for the victims’ family.”

Ball’s next court appearance is scheduled for June 10.

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It was a mystery.

That’s what we were left with when I last wrote about Janet Halverson, the creator of iconic book covers from the 1950s to the 1990s, including Joan Didion’s “Play It As It Lays,” Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and Jack Kerouac’s “Big Sur.”

Despite creating indelible designs for classic books, Halverson herself is largely unknown and unheralded. And that shouldn’t be.

That’s what Michael Russem, book designer and owner of Katherine Small Gallery near Boston, thought. So after years of tracking down everything he could about Halverson and her work, Russem mounted an exhibit of her designs.

As Russem, who’s also a friend, told me earlier this year, he’d been shocked at how little information there was.

“There’s nothing about her anywhere. There are all sorts of magazine articles about these other guys, but nothing about her,” he’d said then. “Graphic designers … all recognize her work and recognize it as being good. But she just went unnoticed, which is true of all the women of her generation. There are no magazine articles about any of them.”

Even after years of searching, he’d come up empty. Then something changed.

“I got an email not long after your article came out from one of Janet’s nieces,” Russem told me this week, adding that Halverson’s niece Susan lives a little more than 10 miles away from him. “She’d found your piece online.”

“That is something I never expected to happen,” says Russem about connecting with a family member so near. “Somehow we caught her at just the right time.”

Book covers from “Janet Halverson: An Introduction.” (Courtesy of Katherine Small Gallery)

Halverson’s niece told him that the designer had died in early 2018, having spent the last few years of her life battling Alzheimer’s disease. Russem invited Susan and her husband to come see what he’d collected.

“They came to the store. Unfortunately, the show had just closed. So we didn’t get to look at the show, but I pulled out some of the books and we talked about them … Janet was Susan’s aunt, not ‘a famous graphic designer,’ so I learned about her as a person, not necessarily what she thought about design,” he says.

I asked Russem how they’d described Halverson. She could be challenging in certain circumstances, he was told, but she could also be a charmer.

“She was smart and funny. She skipped grades in school, which explains how she graduated from college at age 19 – that was something I’d always found weird. She hung out with artists and writers and she lived the life of an artist. And then when she was no longer designing,” he told me. “She switched to painting.”

Was there anything he learned about her work? Apparently, Russem says, Halverson loathed her design for the ’70s blockbuster novel “The Thorn Birds” – the publisher had insisted on a naturalistic illustration – and never wanted to see it again.

Halverson’s niece remembered seeing her aunt’s designs in bookstores as a child. How did she and her husband respond to an entire exhibit devoted to the work?

“They were kind of surprised by all this, even though they had known from googling her that people were interested,” says Russem, who then poses his own question. “Why were people interested? There was just something special about her work – and then to know this work was made by a woman at a time when women weren’t getting any attention made her story even more special.”

Book covers from “Janet Halverson: An Introduction.” (Courtesy of Katherine Small Gallery)

Despite the belief that Halverson’s materials, papers and letters did not survive, it’s possible there will be more to unravel, more to learn. A library sciences student has already reached out to Russem about Halverson’s work, he says.

And for Russem, connecting with Halverson’s family was a powerful experience on its own, whatever comes next.

“Oh my gosh, I was ecstatic, because I’d hoped that this would provide all the missing answers,” says Russem. “It didn’t, which I’m almost glad for because then it would mean this was all done and over.”

See more of Russem’s collection of Halverson’s designs at The People’s Graphic Design Archive or visit Katherine Small Gallery.

Jenny Erpenbeck, International Booker Prize winner, in Southern California

Writer Jenny Erpenbeck signs books at the Wende Museum in Culver City on May 18, 2024. (Photo by Erik Pedersen/SCNG)

This week, the writer Jenny Erpenbeck won the International Booker Prize for her novel, “Kairos.” Translator Michael Hofmann shares the prize with her.

Just a few days prior, I ventured out to the Wende Museum in Culver City to see Erpenbeck in conversation with Louise Steinman. It was a blustery day and a community event in the park nearby added to the festivities (and the dearth of parking), but it was a pleasure to return to the unusual museum, which is a “art museum, cultural center, and archive of the Cold War.”

Held outside, the discussion was a little hard to hear in some spots, but it was being recorded (I reached out to the museum to find out if it would be made available to the public but hadn’t heard back as I wrote this). Erpenbeck, as she began to read from “Kairos,” joked that Southern California was good for her: “I don’t need my glasses. I become younger here.”

Afterward, I was able to chat with the author for a few minutes as the book signing got underway, mentioning that I’d been introduced to her work by Jean Gillingwators who runs Blackbird Press in Upland and who has great, eclectic taste in books (so I may have picked up a copy for her along with my own from Village Well, which was the event vendor).

And in keeping with the event’s small world feeling, I also ran into Laura Silverstein and Tom Nissley of the excellent Phinney Books, one of my favorite bookstores in Seattle, who were visiting. (Tom is another Backlisted podcast fan, too.) They were with Krank Press printer Elinor Nissley and jack-of-all-cool-trades Alex MacInnis who made a series of audio programs called Valley of Smoke that I really liked. They’re an accomplished bunch – google Tom’s “Jeopardy” run, for example – but also friendly folks. It made the day even better.

Why am I sharing all this? Possibly as a suggestion that it can be a good idea to go to an in-person author reading and pick up a signed book or three. Or that Southern California had the International Man Booker Prize winner in our midst, and it was pretty terrific.

Julia Hannafin likes the covers of old paperback novels

Julia Hannafin is the author of “Cascade.” (Courtesy of Great Place Books)

Julia Hannafin is the author of the novel “Cascade,” published in April by independent press Great Place Books. They have worked as a staff writer on Showtime’s “The L Word: Generation Q” and as an assistant to screenwriter Eric Roth while he was writing the script for Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune.” 

Q: How do you decide what to read next?

A mix of friends’ recommendations, Twitter, and following the syllabi of the online classes I’ve taken after college. Rabbit holes of writers I admire.

Q: Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?

I was a big reader as a kid and don’t remember the first. But I loved Gabrielle Zevin’s “Elsewhere” and her vision of an afterlife. I read the Tamora Pierce series on Alanna’s journey to becoming a knight cover to cover. And my middle school English teacher made us memorize poems and perform them, which introduced me to e.e. cummings, who showed me I could do whatever I wanted with nouns and verbs.

Q: What’s something – a fact, a bit of dialogue or something else – that stayed with you from a recent reading?

I’m thinking about what Hanif Abdurraqib said in a recent interview, how in a desire to love someone in a big way, we can rush to love the imagined person, not the actual. Also, from Maya Binyam’s “Hangman”: “I tried to go home — home was inside of me.” And from Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain,” “If you can’t fix it you got a stand it. … I been looking at people on the street. This happen a other people? What the hell do they do?”

Q: Do you have any favorite book covers?

I love small, ‘70s and ‘80s style paperbacks — graphic and bright and simple. I also love the Clarice Lispector series of books where her portrait comes together in four parts.

Q: Do you have a favorite book or books?

“Things We Lost in The Fire” by Mariana Enríquez, “Jesus’ Son” by Denis Johnson, “The Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler, “To The Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf.

Q: Which books do you plan, or hope, to read next?

José Saramago’s “Blindness.”

Q: What’s something about your book that no one knows?

I think part of my writing this book was an attempt to understand my mom Dawn better, whose father, my grandfather, died from a heart attack and the disease of alcoholism. She was pregnant with me when he died.

More books, authors and bestsellers

“All Fours,” a new novel by Miranda July, is the top-selling fiction release at Southern California’s independent bookstores. (Courtesy of Riverhead Books)

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• • •

Christine Ma-Kellams debut novel “The Band” tells the story of a canceled K-pop star who hides out in Southern California with an older psychology professor he randomly meets in a South Bay H Mart. (Photo by Tirza Cubias, book image courtesy of Atria Books)

Band(member) on the run

A disgraced K-pop star hides in Southern California. ‘The Band’ tells the story. READ MORE

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Former Lush singer and guitarist Miki Berenyi is the author of a new memoir, “Fingers Crossed.” (Photo credit Abbey Raymonde / Courtesy of Mango)

Lush life

A ’90s pop star, Miki Berenyi tells her own story ahead of LA show. READ MORE

• • •

Hari Kunzru’s new novel, “Blue Ruin” largely takes place on an estate in upstate New York during the 2020 lockdown. (Photo credit Clayton Cubitt / Courtesy of Knopf)

‘Blue’ Clues

Hari Kunzru’s “Blue Ruin” examines love and relationships during lockdown. READ MORE

• • •

Amy Tan, the critically acclaimed author of “The Joy Luck Club” and other works, will discuss her new book “The Backyard Bird Chronicles” at two Southern California venues on May 20 and 21. (Photo by Kim Newmoney/Cover image courtesy Knopf)

Avian calling

Amy Tan hopes “The Backyard Bird Chronicles” makes you a conservationist. READ MORE

• • •

Book pitch

Why Los Angeles Dodgers great Clayton Kershaw agreed to a new biography. READ MORE

Bookish (SCNG)

Next on ‘Bookish’

Check out the next event with Alex Espinoza and Mike Madrid

June 21 at 5 p.m. Sign up for free now.

• • •

Have you read anything you’d like to share with other readers? Email epedersen@scng.com with “ERIK’S BOOK PAGES” in the subject line and I may include your comments in an upcoming newsletter.

And if you enjoy this free newsletter, please consider sharing it with someone who likes books or getting a digital subscription to support local coverage.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Each year, the Cannes Film Festival offers an early glimpse of some of the most ambitious filmmaking about to hit the market, with a forward-facing emphasis on the art rather than the commerce of cinema. (Make no mistake, behind the scenes the latter is a key element of the festival as well.) But something about this year’s fest, which wrapped Saturday, left a sour taste. Filmmakers seemed disconnected from reality. The concerns of festival workers about unfair labor conditions were barely covered by U.S. journalists. And the self-congratulatory way the celebrity industrial complex kept chugging along as if nothing was amiss in the world felt … amiss.

At least that’s how it played out for me, taking it all in Stateside. Apparently many of the films are quite good. I won’t be writing about that here because I haven’t seen them yet. What I can comment on is the vibe and a general sense of cluelessness emanating from the festival this time out.

Writing for the Hollywood newsletter The Ankler, Claire Atkinson found that nearly everyone she spoke to “at the rooftop parties, in the street, in the see-and-be-seen hotel lobbies or even over the phone, says the same thing: This is the year that excitement about movies has returned.”

That may be wishful thinking. It was business as usual at the star-studded press conferences and red carpet events. But “the movies” as we know them are undergoing an existential crisis. What kind of theatrical life is any film destined to have? Director Sean Baker echoed this concern when he picked up the top prize Palme d’Or for his romantic comedy “Anora.” The world, he said, “has to be reminded that watching a film at home, while scrolling through your phone and checking emails and half-paying attention is just not the way, although some tech companies would like us to think so. Watching a film with others in a movie theater is one of the great communal experiences.”

Director Sean Baker poses with the trophy during a photocall after he won the Palme d’Or for the film “Anora” during the closing ceremony at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, on May 25, 2024. (Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

Alas, box office results have been telling a different story. The walls are crumbling down around the industry, but the parties on yachts continued unabated and the pro forma standing ovations following screenings were dutifully timed and reported by journalists, as if this information meant something.

A primary concern of the Hollywood strikes last year was the threat of AI, not that you’d know it at Cannes, where a producer was on hand with a “sizzle reel of AI-translated trailers of international films,” according to the Hollywood Reporter, noting the tech is a “chance for hit international films to cheaply produce a high-quality English-language dub that will make them more attractive for the global market.” That’s bad news for actors who make a living dubbing foreign films. It gets worse. Also being shopped was a biopic about Vladimir Putin that uses AI to re-skin an actor with Putin’s face, creating a deep fake. The film’s Polish director Patryk Vega, also known as Besaleel, told the Hollywood Reporter that he predicts “film and TV productions will eventually employ only leading and perhaps supporting actors, while the entire world of background and minor characters will be created digitally.” Perhaps in the coming years, Cannes will simply introduce a new award category called the AI d’Or.

Let’s turn to filmmakers who are still doing it the old fashioned way. Francis Ford Coppola brought his $120 million, years-in-the-making allegory of our times “Megalopolis” to Cannes in the hopes of finding a buyer. At his press conference he noted, “It’s not people who become politicians who are the answer (to our nation’s problems) but the artists of America.” A lofty statement. But if he genuinely believes it, who does he think will fund and distribute films that challenge and critique the very systems studios actually benefit from? (Coppola is an outlier who is rich enough to self-fund his latest movie.)

Here’s what was conspicuously missing from much of the coverage around Coppola: Only days earlier, a report emerged that the filmmaker behind “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” had allegedly behaved inappropriately during the filming of some scenes for “Megalopolis.” According to The Guardian: “Coppola came on to the set and tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras. He apparently claimed he was ‘trying to get them in the mood.’”

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These accusations were seemingly a non-issue at Cannes. Perhaps that’s fitting. One of Coppola’s stars who walked the red carpet was Shia LaBeouf, who is being sued by former girlfriend FKA Twigs. The civil case, which is pending, alleges “‘relentless’ abuse by the actor, including claims that he strangled her, knowingly infected her with a sexually transmitted disease and threatened to crash a car they were both in.” Producers were also at Cannes pre-selling a crime drama to star LaBeouf.

Other producers were selling an action-thriller starring James Franco. Two years ago, he settled a class action lawsuit brought by former acting students alleging they were sexually exploited by him. The presence of both LaBeouf and Franco prompted Variety to ask: “Is anyone really canceled in Cannes?” The Ankler’s Atkinson quoted a culture editor at at French TV channel who said 75% of the films at this year’s fest have a female protagonist “seeking revenge, fighting back, finding her place.” How does that square with Cannes welcoming, with open arms, men who put real women in those kinds of circumstances?

Meanwhile, Cate Blanchett was at the fest promoting a dark comedy called “Rumours,” about world leaders who find themselves lost in the woods, literally. Sitting for an interview, she talked about the persistent lack of women working behind the camera: “There’s 50 people on set and there’s three women. It’s like, when is this going to deeply, profoundly shift?” Her concern rings hollow: Blanchett is an A-list talent who is likely key in securing financing — if she believes things need to change, she could start by leveraging her own clout.

Cate Blanchett at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival. (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

Even the red carpet — heavily photographed for its supposed glamour — took on a nasty tinge this year. Singer Kelly Rowland attended a premiere and was rudely hustled up the steps by an usher who kept her arm extended behind Rowland as a barrier, as if she were a bouncer escorting a rowdy patron off the premises. Afterwards, Rowland said: “There were other women that attended that carpet who did not quite look like me and they didn’t get scolded or pushed off or told to get off.” The same usher was subsequently filmed being aggressive with at least three other women, going so far as to physically accost one of them.

Kelly Rowland arrives for the screening of the film “Marcello Mio” at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, on May 21, 2024. (Antonin Thuillier/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

The fest has long cultivated a culture of elitism and exclusion, as Deadline critic Valerie Complex put it, writing about her experiences a couple years ago as one of the few Black writers in attendance. The microaggressions, she said, were constant: “I sat down in a reserved row, and three different seat ushers came over to my seat to check my ticket to make sure I was in the proper place. They weren’t checking anyone else’s tickets, just mine.”

Let’s wrap it up on a positive note, because there was one bright spot at the fest this year: Yet another dog to steal everyone’s heart. Last year’s Palm Dog winner (a real award) was Messi, the dog in “Anatomy of a Fall.” This year the honor went to a mixed breed named Kodi, who appears in the Swiss-French film “Dog on Trial,” a courtroom drama about a lawyer who takes on a dog — who has bitten three people — as a client. The story is apparently loosely based on a real case in France.

If Cannes is going to the dogs, at least there are actual dogs around to lighten the mood.

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic

The opening scenes of Viggo Mortensen’s “The Dead Don’t Hurt” are vintage Hollywood Western – there’s a killing in a Nevada bar, a lawman shot down on a dusty street and a trial in which the rich and powerful protect the guilty and railroad an innocent man, which culminates in his hanging. The sheriff, Holger Olsen (Mortensen), who has just buried his beloved wife, is disgusted by what happens and turns in his badge, taking his son and riding off. 

While Mortensen wrote and directed this as a Western – there are languid shots of gorgeous scenery and another classic confrontation near the climax – after those early scenes, it subverts the genre, operating more as a tragic love story and a character study. The protagonist is not Olsen but his wife, Vivienne (a captivating Vicky Krieps), as the movie travels back to tell the story of their relationship (along with flashbacks to her childhood). When Olsen insists on leaving her to fight for the Union in the Civil War, the film stays with this clear-eyed and independent woman at their homestead as she suffers her own war wound and struggles to make a life in turbulent surroundings. 

Defying expectations is, ironically, par for the course for Mortensen. While he launched to stardom in the “Lord of the Rings” films and has earned three Oscar nominations, many of his subsequent films (“A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises,” “The Road,” “Captain Fantastic”) were far smaller and riskier. The first film he wrote and directed most definitely falls into that category: “Falling” was about a gay man trying to care for his independent, stubborn and homophobic father as he declines from dementia.

And then there’s his life away from movies: Mortensen is a painter, photographer, poet, and musician (he wrote the score for both of his movies). He also founded Percival Press to publish books of art and poetry that might not find a home in the more commercial marketplace.

Mortensen recently discussed the inspirations for and shooting of “The Dead Don’t Hurt” by video; his enthusiasm for the project was palpable as he shot past our allotted time and after the press team urged him to move on to the next interview he decided to stick around for one last question. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. “Falling” was personal for you in terms of parent-child bonds and being a caretaker for someone with Alzheimer’s. With this one you’ve said you started with an image of your mom as a girl in the woods, playing out the stories she later told you. That’s the launching point for this story; where did the rest come from?

I wrote it in 2020 during the lockdown and maybe that’s why I was thinking about open spaces and being able to move freely. And yes, it was based on her as this strong-willed, independent little girl with lots of imagination. My mother became a woman who was that way, but I thought it would be interesting to put her in a time and place dominated by a few unscrupulous men who weren’t averse to using violence – was a bigger challenge for her character.

My mother also introduced me to the movies. All her life we would go to the movies and she always talked about story, so I wanted to explore male-female relationships but also what happens to girls and women when the men go out to fight their wars. Usually, the film goes with those guys and maybe you get a glimpse of the woman once in a while. Having an ordinary woman, with courage and decency, be the main character made it more unusual. 

Q. Did you see this as a Western or was that just a framework for your character study and love story?

I wanted to make a classic Western visually and in terms of attention to detail. I didn’t think, ‘Oh, I’ll put this woman in that period and use the Western as a springboard.’ I thought, ‘Let’s just put her in a Western. The Western has been stretched in all kinds of directions. I’m making the kind of movie I want to see. 

And I’m aware that once someone else sees it, it becomes their movie – they see it from a different perspective. I like the handing over, I’m not afraid of it. Now, I want to ask you, how do you think Western fans will see this movie?

Q. I think those opening scenes will draw people in, but I wonder about people who come in with expectations of a Viggo Mortensen Western, whether they’ll expect you to be Aragorn as a sheriff.

I think if something is attractive to an audience in the first 20 minutes, they’ll hang in there. So it might be a challenge for those average guys going to see a Western but they might not dislike it.

Q. The advantage you have is that Vicky Krieps is so fantastic and her character is so distinctive that maybe it will appeal to people who don’t just want a Western.

I hope so. I’ve done Q&As in Europe and Mexico so far, and people have said, “I don’t like Westerns, but I like this movie.” 

Between 1910 and 1960, there were probably over 7,000 Westerns made. Maybe 1 or 2% were really good movies. But that’s true in any genre. And there are some really profound ones, original films that weren’t just regurgitating the same storylines and superficial mythology of the West and the foundation of the country. The ones that are good are on a level of poetry, as profound as anything that human beings have come up with in terms of stories.

Q. How relevant were you trying to make this? It’s a character study but there are issues of class, corruption, injustice, race, xenophobia and misogyny that resonate today.

I don’t start writing the movie or even edit it from a conceptual standpoint or ideological one. But everything that I’m living and taking in from the news today and since I was a kid and all the movies I’ve seen come into play. This is the story I’m telling with the tools I have in my head and my psychology.

There were things I thought of as I was writing it, comparing it to what’s going on these days. But any story about human beings, whether set in the Stone Age or the future, if it’s well written and acted you’ll draw parallels to your family or community or country. I think it’s inevitable. 

At the Q&As, people do comment on present society and politics and I see that those connections can be made, but people won’t even go to the trouble to make connections if they’re not interested in the story. 

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