Purchase
Picador
March 2012
On Sale: February 28, 2012
336 pages ISBN: 1250012708 EAN: 9781250012708 Kindle: B006JJTB0G Paperback / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Fiction
Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize Man Booker Prize Finalist 2011 Shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for
Fiction
Berlin, 1939. The Hot Time Swingers, a popular jazz band,
has been forbidden to play by the Nazis. Their young
trumpet-player Hieronymus Falk, declared a musical genius by
none other than Louis Armstrong, is arrested in a Paris
café. He is never heard from again. He was twenty years old,
a German citizen. And he was black. Berlin, 1952. Falk is a jazz legend. Hot Time Swingers band
members Sid Griffiths and Chip Jones, both African Americans
from Baltimore, have appeared in a documentary about Falk.
When they are invited to attend the film’s premier, Sid’s
role in Falk’s fate will be questioned and the two old
musicians set off on a surprising and strange journey. From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of
Paris, Sid leads the reader through a fascinating,
little-known world as he describes the friendships, love
affairs and treacheries that led to Falk’s incarceration in
Sachsenhausen. Half-Blood Blues is a story about music and
race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of
ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|