Jealousy can produce great music, but it's downright deadly in a war.
Published: 2011
Genre: Historical Fiction
CW: Racism, Antisemitism, Nazis, Violence, Statutory Rape
★★★✬☆ (3.5/5)
In 1940, Sid Griffiths watches as his bandmate Hiero Falk, a Black horn player of German descent, is arrested by the Gestapo in a Parisian café. Fifty-two years pass, and Hiero becomes a legend of the jazz world. But upon learning that Hiero may still be alive, Sid is forced to finally confront the events that lead to his friend's arrest.
In their review of the novel, The New York Times compared Half-Blood Blues to the classic Humphrey Bogart film Casablanca. It's not a completely outlandish comparison, as both tales are set in World War II and have plots regarding a love triangle and the characters' struggle to obtain visas. But where Sam the piano man plays a minor role in Casablanca, Esi Edugyan brings the Black musicians to the forefront in her novel.
Half-Blood Blues follows two narratives: one set in the late '30s, following a jazz band consisting of both Black and white musicians trying to exit Berlin to record an album in Paris, and one set in the early '90s, following the only two remaining band members, Sid and his friend Chip, as they travel to Poland in search of Hiero. The novel explores the frustrations of the Black Americans, who came to Europe to escape the racism of their home country, only to be faced with it once again under Hitler's regime, and how the world of jazz continued to live even after being banned by the Third Reich. Various jazz players appear throughout the novel, from Louis Armstrong to the Goldene Sieben, but I do wish that Edugyan had considered showing more of what the jazz scene was like in Berlin before the bans, as most of story focuses on the band fleeing for their lives rather than the music they make. We don't actually get to see them perform as a group before circumstances force them apart.
Another issue I had regarding the framing of the story was Edugyan's choice to open the story with Hiero's arrest. Readers will already know going into novel that Hiero's story is a tragedy, but having the arrest in the first chapter really robs the story of a lot of tension. There are several moments throughout the novel where it seems the Reich will tear the band apart: while hiding in a theatre after getting into a fight with a group of Nazi youths or crossing the border to France, just to name a few. But every time one of these plot points occurs, the reader knows that Hiero is safe for now, even though he should be the most vulnerable member of the group, being a mixed-race German citizen. I think if Edugyan has started the novel with a chapter set in 1992 and revealed how Hiero was taken later on, readers' blood pressure would have been so high by the time they finished reading.
The most impressive aspect of Edugyan's writing, however, is her voice. Sid tells the story from two different perspectives—a young, somewhat inexperienced musician struggling to survive what feels like literally hell and an older, regretful man who has lost the passion he once had for music. Edugyan writes these two completely different perspectives in a way that readers immediately notice the connection between them. Sid still reads like Sid even after growing old. I will admit that when I started the novel, I wasn't entirely sure that Sid would be the most compelling narrator. He's not the most talented member of his band and is prone to jealousy, which he tries unsuccessfully to subdue. But he definitely causes the reader to go on a emotional journey. We begin the novel feeling his fear, then get outraged on his behalf, then get frustrated at him focusing on a supposed love rivalry when there is literal war going on, to coming close to outright hating him.
And yet, by the end of the novel, we are much like Hiero, filled with rage and yet so tired by all the atrocities we've seen that it seems like there is no point in expressing our anger. It's not forgiveness; it's resignation.
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