Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

In Esi Edugyan’s novel Half-Blood Blues, the narrator’s inventive and free-flowing descriptions of jazz mimic the music itself. For readers unfamiliar with jazz or unimpressed by it, the explosion of color, verve, imagery and verbal idiosyncrasy in the book will in and of itself quicken the heartbeat and warm the insides. How not, with central character Hiero (Hieronymus) Falk delivering “note after shimmering note, like sunshine sliding all over the surface of a lake,” and with the great Louis Armstrong, “who could make his glissandi snap like marbles, the high Cs piercing,” joining him in an impromptu jam session? Half-Blood...  read more