Half Blood Blues

“Think about it,” muses Sid. “A bunch of German and American kids meeting up in Berlin and Paris between the wars to make all this wild, joyful music before the Nazis kick it to pieces? And the legend survives when a lone tin box is dug out of a damn wall in a flat once belonged to a Nazi? Man. If that ain’t a ghost story, I never heard one.”

This month, we read Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan.  Everyone loved the novel.  She describes the music and the characters' love of jazz with the simplest of words written with a
Baltimore dialect which captures the passion and drive of a young group of jazz musicians in the 40's. The novel reads like an old record, revolving between 1939 and 1992 and covering the plight of German 'half bloods' persecution of the Jewish and Black Germans and the sketchy life of jazz in Berlin and Paris.  As Mindy captured our feeling for the book when she said that it was like meeting a client who lives such a different life from your own, yet struggles with the same dilemmas.  You learn something about that life.

Next month we decided to read Rabbit, Run by John Updike.  Ed suggested that it was time to read an Updike.  After much discussion, we decided on Rabbit, Run.  We will meet at Chrysanne's on July 25th.  Mindy will invite a potential new member for our book club for our next meeting.