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Intermission [Hardcover]

Owen Martell
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
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Book Description

3 Jan 2013

New York, June 1961. The Bill Evans Trio, featuring twenty-five year old Scott LaFaro on bass, play a series of concerts at the Village Vanguard that will go down in musical history. Shortly afterwards, LaFaro is killed in a car accident, and Evans disappears. Intermission tells the story of what happens next.

In measured, evocative prose, Intermission takes a period from the life of one of America's great artists and fashions it into a fiction of extraordinary imaginative skill and ambition. The novel inhabits the lives of four people in orbit around a tragedy, presenting an intense and moving portrait of the burden of grief, and of a man lost to his family and to himself. It is also a conjuring of a pivotal moment in American music and culture, and a unique representation of the jazz scene in the early 1960s.

Intermission is a novel of pure control and power, certain to establish Owen Martell as one of the most promising young writers in Britain today.


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Product details

  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: William Heinemann (3 Jan 2013)
  • Language: Unknown
  • ISBN-10: 0434022047
  • ISBN-13: 978-0434022045
  • Product Dimensions: 13.7 x 2.1 x 20.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 244,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"A sensitive depiction of an artist in mourning.A delicate and affecting work of fiction.[Martell] writes with elegant precision.Intermission is an impressive English-language debut, a deft and sensitive depiction of a family shadowed by loss." (Financial Times )

"It is hard to write about figures of recent history in a way that feels authentic and true, but Bill Evans is drawn here in all his quirkiness and mutability . this novel stands as a well-written lament. It is a clear-eyed exploration of a jazz intermission, of the forced break in the chaos, and an apt tribute to a music so full of life that even a pause, a silence, can go down howling." (Guardian )

"This fine if elusive novel about a jazz giant echoes his art in both its style and its story-telling. A novel as oblique, elusive but quietly hypnotic as its hero's own playing. This domestic suite in its entirety pays homage to Evans's art of elliptical refinement. Through discontinuous moods, modes and moments we both get to know the family and, indirectly, touch the roots of Bill's own gift." (Independent )

"The mood music conjured up is evocative, reflective and muted . Martell's wonderful portrait .is as vivid as it is sympathetic .Lingers in the mind like an elusive, mournful melody." (Daily Mail )

"Martell uses his writing skills to immerse you in the sights, sounds and culture of a pivotal moment in music history. While expertly exploring the tragic true story of arguably the greatest jazz pianist of all time, Martell has put himself on the map as one of the most promising writers in the UK to date." (Press Association syndicated review )

Book Description

Captivating and hypnotic writing from a prize-winning novelist, whose prose is reminiscent of Marilynne Robinson's and Paul Harding's.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Missing months 30 Jan 2013
By Penny Waugh VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I found this reconstruction of the period in jazz pianist Bill Evans' life when he went to ground following the death of Scott LaFaro, the bass player in his jazz trio in 1961, interesting but not wholly involving.
The story, told from the viewpoints of his brother Harry, his mother Mary, his father Harry and himself, cover the weeks and months during which, locked in his grief, he retreated from the world.
The family stories are pretty bleak. Mary, Bill's mother, daughter of Russian immigrants and musical herself, and Harry, his father, son of a Welsh immigrant, seem to have barely spoken to each other in years; brother Harry comes over as a sad person, and Bill himself, until the very end, is almost a non-character, sitting about, not talking, unable to move on or return to the music he loves. They all inspired compassion in me, but not affection. The ending, briefly charting the rest of Bill's life and his family's tragedies, is bleaker yet.
The prose is beautiful, but I wanted more music, though I do appreciate that the family story has a music of its own. It just did not fully engage me, and I wanted it to.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but sometimes hard-going story 16 May 2013
By Mr. K. Cross VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I own CDs by Bill Evans & love his music, so thought this book would prove riveting. Well, it wasn't as gripping as I'd hoped, & it plodded along in quite a dull manner during some sections of the book. I'll stick with the CDs!! I did manage to finish the book, but I had to force myself at times to carry on with it. The effect on Bill following the death of a band member was interesting &, at times. rather moving, but all-in-all, a bit of a yawn-fest. Sorry.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Fade to background ... 16 April 2013
By P. Millar VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
The novel covers what happened to the jazz pianist Bill Evans following the death of his bass player Scott LaFaro ten days after a show at the Village Vanguard. This show was later released as the album 'Sunday at the Vilage Vanguard', a seminal work for jazz fans.

The novel is told in four short vignettes from the point of view of Bill's brother, mother, father and himself respectively. The writing is evocative and attempts to convey the 'mood of jazz' but, in my opinion, slightly falls short of its attempt. The problem I found is that all of the people involved all have the same voice, if you opened the book at random and started reading you wouldn't be able to pick out which character you were reading about, and the narrative starts to blur and fade to the background, like some jazz music, as it is all to similar.

Overall an interesting attempt at trying to convey jazz on the page but fails in the execution.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Moving and well written story of jazz and grief
I'm not really a jazz fan, but then you don't have to be to enjoy this novel about jazz pianist Bill Evans. Read more
Published 1 month ago by J. Coulton
2.0 out of 5 stars Very dense prose and slow moving
I really, really wanted to like this book.

As a jazz fan and a lover of literary fiction I thought this would be right up my street. The premise is intriguing. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jamie Mollart
3.0 out of 5 stars For afficionados
This is a novel about jazz music and musicians, based around the life of piano player Bill Evans and his family. Read more
Published 2 months ago by P Lister
5.0 out of 5 stars great
what a fine book...so subtle...
a very original approach,using the tiniest of asides to build a picture of peoples conditions. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Gregory Gray
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
I recently finished "Intermission" by Owen Martell (William Heinemann, 2013). Disclosure: I read the title as an advance ePub proof on NetGalley. Read more
Published 2 months ago by G. Mattu
3.0 out of 5 stars Well written but somewhat pretentious
In the background to this novel is the true story of the death at a tragically young age of jazz musician Scott Lafaro in 1961. Read more
Published 2 months ago by June Doll
2.0 out of 5 stars Dullsville.
I didn't like this book at all; not because it is badly written (it isn't) but because it lacks any engagement with Bill Evans, his music and his creative world. Read more
Published 2 months ago by J. Mcdonald
3.0 out of 5 stars Kind of Blue
New York in the early 60s...Jazz with The Bill Evans Trio ... The tragic death of young bassist Scott LaFaro ... Read more
Published 2 months ago by J. H. Bretts
3.0 out of 5 stars 'Heavy with the energy they might have deployed'
I'm a fan of both Marilynne Robinson and Paul Harding - I loved Robinson's 'Housekeeping', 'Home', and 'Gilead', and Harding's 'Tinkers' - so the comparisons made between their... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Laura T
4.0 out of 5 stars Intermission
Based upon factual events, this slow moving and thoughtful novel looks at grief and the importance of family. Read more
Published 3 months ago by S Riaz
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