Muskrat Ramble

“Muskrat Ramble” (Sequel to “A Sparrow Alone”) by Mim Eichmann 311 pages

After I finished “A Sparrow Alone,” I hoped that Hannah’s life get better. While “Sparrow” wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read, I did come to care about the characters and was eager to see what would happen.

Author Eichmann pickups the story in 1913 after the African-American school Hannah founded in Kansas closes. Hannah and her daughter, Alice, move to New Orleans as job opportunities abound there, but mostly, Hannah wants to find Emma. There are only two people in the world who know that Emma is Hannah’s biological mother, while Alice is a rescue.  Hannah took and raised Alice after her biological mother died.

Emma is now thirteen years old. She has no idea who Hannah is. Emma is concerned with becoming a jazz singer. Jazz dominated this novel and the greats of the time were minor characters. People like Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Sissieretta Jones, Honore Duetry and Jelly Roll Morton. The real person who was actually part of the novel was Edward “Kid” Ory. 

I’m sorry to say that this novel doesn’t feel like it was written by the same person. The style was completely different. It didn’t take long for me to not care about the characters any more when the storyline became redundant.  However, I had invested a lot of time with these people so I continued to read. I was dismayed when I reached one of the last chapters, at which time there was synopsis of what happened to the real folks, which was the most interesting part of the novel. 

The other, fictional, main characters lives were also explained, but the story read like a bunch of facts strung together.  And the final chapters read as if the author was tired of the story and wrapped it up. Therefore, “Muskrat Ramble” receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

Rhapsody

Rhapsody by Mitchell James Kaplan   352 pages

I was so excited to get my hands to read this novel. Set during the Jazz Age in New York, the story centred around George Gershwin and Kay Swift.  I admit that I had no idea who Kay Swift was in the annals of music history. But I am familiar with George, and especially his brother, Ira. The story, I thought, was supposed to be about George and Kay’s 10-year love affair. To me, that story seemed to live in the background most of the time.

Here’s a summery from Goodreads.com that made me want to read this novel:

“One evening in 1924, Katharine “Kay” Swift—the restless but loyal society wife of wealthy banker James Warburg and a serious pianist who longs for recognition—attends a concert. The piece: Rhapsody in Blue. The composer: a brilliant, elusive young musical genius named George Gershwin.

Kay is transfixed, helpless to resist the magnetic pull of George’s talent, charm, and swagger. Their ten-year love affair, complicated by her conflicted loyalty to her husband and the twists and turns of her own musical career, ends only with George’s death from a brain tumor at the age of thirty-eight.

Set in Jazz Age New York City, this stunning work of fiction, for fans of The Paris Wife and Loving Frank, explores the timeless bond between two brilliant, strong-willed artists. George Gershwin left behind not just a body of work unmatched in popular musical history, but a woman who loved him with all her heart, knowing all the while that he belonged not to her, but to the world.”

The novels opens with the focus on Kay. I admit that I had no idea who the author was talking about most of the time when “Jimmy” kept cropping up. Turns out, Jimmy is James Warburg, a wealthy banker and Kay’s husband.

I hate to feel lost and that is what I felt most of the time I was reading. I felt this way the same way I felt about “Loving Frank.”  I just couldn’t care about these people.  In my opinion, Rhapsody is a big ol’ flop and receives 1 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

Boats Against the Current: The Honeymoon Summer of Scott and Zelda

Boats Against the Current: The Honeymoon Summer of Scott and Zelda by Richard Webb, Jr  192 pages

I’ve been enamored with the Jazz Age, and especially F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, since the first time I read The Great Gatsby. I’m one of the few people I know who really like it. And as I learned more about the couple, I grew fascinated with their lifestyle. There is just something about it that makes me wish I was there for one Gatsby-style party.

This coffee table book focuses on what was probably the happiest time for the lavish-living couple: their honeymoon in Westport, Connecticut.  After having been thrown out of several hotels in New York, S and Z made their way to “The Gray House,” where they continued their wild parties.

While the Fitzgerald’s play an important part of the book, its main focus is to prove that Westport, not Long Island, was the setting for The Great Gatsby. The author, Richard Webb, decided to prove the claim made by author Barbara Probst was true and does a wonderful job substantiating her claim.

Readers learn about the reclusive, multi-millionaire F. E. Lewis, and his estate Longshore, who was, more than likely, Scott’s inspiration for Jay Gatsby. Articles from area newspapers and a few S and Z diary entries make for fascinating reading.   But what I enjoyed most was the section called “Behind the Scenes in 1920s Westport.” It contains brief synopsis about the places and the people which Webb writes and provides a clear case for Webb’s, and Probst’s, claim.

It was heartbreaking to read of Scott’s alcoholism (30+ beers and a quart of gin---day) and Zelda’s need for a mental institution and her ultimate death in a fire at the asylum. 

Boats Against the Current: The Honeymoon Summer of Scott and Zelda receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Josephine Baker's Last Dance

Josephine Baker's Last Dance by Sherry Jones

I was attracted to this biographical novel simply for its subject: Josephine Baker. I knew a little about her. An African-America woman, she left the Jim Crow-era America and was singing and dancing in Paris’s nightclubs by the time she was sixteen. That’s about it. Readers get an insightful and well-researched novel about Baker---singer, dancer, movie star, French Resistance member during World War II and Civil Rights activist---that is at times slow, at times despairing yet a fascinating story of a groundbreaking woman, well before her time.

The story starts off in Paris, in April 1975. Josephine doesn’t know if, but readers get a glimpse of her final performance. Then the story skips ahead to her childhood in St. Louis. She is considered an ugly child. Her mother, a bitter woman, forces her to work for the neighbors by the time she is seven years old, making only a pittance, none of which Josephine ever sees. Life was so incredibly difficult that Josephine tries to blot it from her mind and tells anyone who might ask that she is from New Orleans. It’s heartbreaking to read about the line of abusive people in her life, from both her parents to every man she seems to meet.

By 1915, young Josephine has a new employer, one that treats her like a person, not an animal. But her security doesn’t last long. By 1919, she has spent two years singing, dancing, playing instruments with the Jones Family Band. 
The story continues to recount her time in Paris. Sometimes it drags a bit as the tediousness of her life in the theater evolves. The World War II breaks out, and Josephine wants to do her part.  She joins the French Resistance. I didn’t feel this section was deep enough, but maybe there isn’t enough documentation or evidence out there to make it more compelling.

It doesn’t matter though, I enjoyed this book thoroughly, couldn’t put it down. That’s why  “Josephine Baker’s Last Dance” receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.