Half Blood Blues
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Review
'Assured, vivid and persuasive... Impressively evocative of period and place, and an effortlessly involving and dramatically unusual second novel.' --Time Out
'Mesmerising... Edugyan has a perfect ear for conversations and the confusions of human love and jealousy... moving... A remarkable novel.' --Morning Star
A lucid and handsomely illustrated narrative, from the Saxon dawn of England to the Cameron Government --The Times
Full of stand-out facts ... Absolutely fascinating ... I've learnt an awful lot --Richard Bacon,BBC Radio 2
Immediately accessible --Prospect
This is traditional, kings-and-things, great-men history with all its dates and famous quotations in place ... it's jolly good ... Jenkins has a newspaper columnist's aphoristic verve ... judgements are crisp
--Spectator
'This is a wonderful, vibrant, tense novel' --Susan Hill (Man Booker Prize judge)
'Extraordinary in its evocation of time and place, its shimmering jazz vernacular, its pitch-perfect male banter and its period slang' --Arifa Akbar, Independent
'A superbly atmospheric prologue kick-starts a thrilling story about truth and betrayal... [a] brilliant, fast-moving novel' --Kate Saunders, Times
'Edugyan's ventriloquism is a compelling, personal and authentic, her story deeply researched' --Robert McCrum, Observer
'A densely researched tale musing on timeless themes of jealousy and betrayal' --Daily Mail
'Powerful and effortlessly written' --Pride
'A story so rich in texture, so deeply felt and imagined, that from the first, savoury sentences, you're hooked' --The Lady
'A moving, lyrical exploration of the plight of mixed-race immigrants rendered stateless by the Second World War' --Country Life
'A great and original novel... tense, richly humorous and enjoyable' --Independent on Sunday
'A captivating novel of music, memory and storytelling' --TLS
'Mesmerising... Edugyan has a perfect ear for conversations and the confusions of human love and jealousy... moving... A remarkable novel.' --Morning Star
A lucid and handsomely illustrated narrative, from the Saxon dawn of England to the Cameron Government --The Times
Full of stand-out facts ... Absolutely fascinating ... I've learnt an awful lot --Richard Bacon,BBC Radio 2
Immediately accessible --Prospect
This is traditional, kings-and-things, great-men history with all its dates and famous quotations in place ... it's jolly good ... Jenkins has a newspaper columnist's aphoristic verve ... judgements are crisp
--Spectator
'This is a wonderful, vibrant, tense novel' --Susan Hill (Man Booker Prize judge)
'Extraordinary in its evocation of time and place, its shimmering jazz vernacular, its pitch-perfect male banter and its period slang' --Arifa Akbar, Independent
'A superbly atmospheric prologue kick-starts a thrilling story about truth and betrayal... [a] brilliant, fast-moving novel' --Kate Saunders, Times
'Edugyan's ventriloquism is a compelling, personal and authentic, her story deeply researched' --Robert McCrum, Observer
'A densely researched tale musing on timeless themes of jealousy and betrayal' --Daily Mail
'Powerful and effortlessly written' --Pride
'A story so rich in texture, so deeply felt and imagined, that from the first, savoury sentences, you're hooked' --The Lady
'A moving, lyrical exploration of the plight of mixed-race immigrants rendered stateless by the Second World War' --Country Life
'A great and original novel... tense, richly humorous and enjoyable' --Independent on Sunday
'A captivating novel of music, memory and storytelling' --TLS
Book Description
A story of friendship, betrayal and redemption, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
63 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Half Blood Blues,
By
This review is from: Half Blood Blues (Paperback)
Charles C. Jones (call him 'Chip' and don't ask what the 'C' stands for) and Sidney Griffiths have been friends since they were kids in Baltimore. They are musicians and they find themselves in Berlin at the start of WWII, along with a band including the exotically named Hieronymous Falk, who is young, amazingly gifted, half German and black. A brawl with some 'boots' as German soldiers are referred to in the book, leads to the band taking up an offer to go to Paris, just before it fell to the Germans. This is easier said than done and the author shows the tension involved at that time, when the authorities had such control over the population. When Paris falls, Hiero is in danger for being German as well as for his colour. Chip and Sid are also black (although Sid, being much lighter, finds it easier to move around without being noticed) and, as US citizens, they have a better chance of leaving the city. When Hiero is suddenly arrested in a cafe, he disappears without a trace.This book has many intersting themes - friendship, betrayal and, at its core, jealousy. Not only sexual jealousy, but that of someone who lacks musical genius for someone naturally gifted. A large part of the book is set during the fall of Paris, but the story also includes Chip and Sid returning to Berlin in 1992 for a Music Festival, and a mysterious letter that Chip received about Hiero's fate. This trip forces Sid to return to that time and re-evaluate what happened. Although the main action of the book is set during the very early months of the war, the author makes it clear that the musicians had no doubt about what arrest meant - the knowledge that people can easily disappear or be killed is starkly understood. This was a time when the Germans were unbeaten, seemingly able to take cities such as Paris without a fight, and the fear of them is realistically portrayed. Sid and Chip are extremely funny and likeable characters. You feel that their friendship is strong and, even though they needle each other endlessly, they have a bond that is deep and with a long and shared history. It is always hard to know how you would act in certain situations - jealousy, ambition and resentment are strong emotions and Esi Edugyan evokes them and the time period well. The scenes set when the two men are old are often humorous and bring lightness to a story which could have become bleak in less talented hands, and the dialogue thoughout the novel is well written. This is a remarkable novel and I enjoyed it immensely. I felt that it was extremely realistic and strangely heart warming and recommend it highly, as an original take on a time period which has been much written about.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
...when the past come to collect what you owe...,
By
This review is from: Half Blood Blues (Paperback)
Half Blood Blues tells the story of a group of young jazz artists trapped in the maelstrom of WWII, in Berlin and later in Paris where their future looks set to be in danger as the German machine rolls along in its plan for the thousand year Reich. The group is helped by their multiple origins - protected by Ernst and Paul who are white, though nothing can help them when Hieronymous Falk, the group's leader, is arrested in a café - his fate seems sealed. Years later, Sid, the novel's narrator, and Chip Coleman, the band's drummer, set out to try to trace Hiero when they learn that he has have survived the war and is now in Poland.The writing is authentic and cleverly slanted to suggest it voices rich with New York Harlem vernacular. Even more artfully the novel entirely masks that this is a book written by a young woman New Yorker. The tone never slides or falters and I found myself full of admiration for the authenticity of Edugyan's achievement. To take such an unlikely subject as mixed-race Germans and black jazz players and craft a story of jealousy and betrayal in wartime deserves plaudits. The characters are well-developed, especially Sid and Chip, and one feels the helplessness of their situation trapped in a city at war.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Jazzer, drop your axe, it's jazz police!",
By
This review is from: Half Blood Blues (Paperback)
Half Blood Blues carries a tremendous sense of time and place. That being - the jazz clubs of Berlin and Paris at the outbreak of World War Two, and specifically seen through the eyes of Sid Griffiths, a black American musician.Sid narrates his story in a voice lifted straight from the old jazz records of the 1930s. Idiosyncratic, smoky and fused with a passion for music. Sid and his crew - Chip C Jones, Hieronymous Falk and the delightful Delilah - are not political beings. Sid and Chip, as Americans, look at the ongoing political developments with a certain detachment. They fear the Nazis - or "boots" as they are called - but still concentrate more on food, drink and chasing the ladies. And as Sid reminds us, life back in the US was not a bed of roses for black musicians. The intrigue comes in the shape of the German musicians who join them. These include Paul, a Jewish pianist; Ernst, a white Aryan with a wealthy father; and Hiero, a German citizen of African heritage. Whilst the Nazis were ambivalent towards Sid and Chip, they were far less tolerant of their own nationals who chose a bohemian jazz life and positively apoplectic at the prospect of Jewish jazzers. As the band play cat and mouse with the boots, flitting across borders with false papers in the dead of night, there are opportunities for great courage - and opportunities for base betrayal. With the wine and women in play, there's mayhem. This is set in relief by scenes set shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as a documentary maker seeks to narrate the life of Hiero. Hiero's brief life as a trumpeter had left a legacy of almost mythic proportion. Sid and Chip are invited along as bit part players. This gives them the opportunity to reunite and reflect on past deeds and it's not always pretty - old men transported back 50 years to relive their petty squabbles. Although the narrative can be confusing at first - it's not always linear and the colloquial language does take a bit of tuning in - it gels into a wonderful, complex whole. There are moments of comedy - none more so than the ban's appearance at Ernst's father's chateau. The old man is a high ranking Nazi with pretty conservative musical tastes. He clearly doesn't approve of the jazz lifestyle, and nor does he approve of his son's choice of company. But at the same time, he is compelled to display impeccable manners as the host and he oozes a self-confidence that only a true believer could ever dare. Then there's Louis Armstrong's cameo - holed up in bed in a dingy room in Montmartre, convalescing. He is not a good patient and delightfully to the point in getting what he wants. And finally, the ending is as powerful and weepy and you could hope. The characters are real and deep. They have a story which exists above and beyond the Deutsches Reich setting. Their fierce loyalties and passions tell their own story, regardless of the backdrop. But the backdrop is of interest too - it tells the true story of those foreign or stateless people who found themselves caught up by the war in Europe, whose stories are often neglected by the focus on atrocities on a grander scale. This is an important novel, done very well. Esi Edugyan is a writer of considerable talent. I wish her well for the Booker Prize 2011 and look forward to reading her other work in the future.
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