Joplin's Ghost

Published by Griot Audio, which specializes in contemporary African-American fiction. Well narrated by Lizan Mitchell. Joplins Ghost is part well-researched historical novel (following Scott Joplin's life) and part modern novel (following the character of Phoenix Smalls, an up and coming R&B star).I really admired the research. I liked the way the plots were woven together. The writing was smooth. Some of the characters and their interactions are satisfyingly complex.Most musical styles owe a lot to music that came before, and the best musicians honor their influences and musical ancestry. That's one of the primary themes of this book and I really enjoyed those parts of the book. Another theme is the difficulty of living a musician's / show more performer's life, and Due does a great job comparing/contrasting Joplin's struggles with those of Phoenix.And oh yeah, it's a ghost story. I didn't really warm up to the ghost story part of the novel; I kept arguing with what was happening. That might be due to my relative inexperience with the ghost story genre. show less

I had a wildly uneven experience with this book. It has some of the same problems that I have with most novels that try to tell two interconnected stories, one historical, one contemporary. The historical story was easy to fall into, but I kept losing interest during the contemporary timeline. That might be all me, rather than the book, as I have very little interest in 1990's pop music or the lives of fictional 90's pop stars. I was also a little uncomfortable with (the mercifully few) explicit sex scenes and some dubious consent issues. The payoff toward the end was worth persevering for, though, and the prose lifted the story a little.

I think it was the audio performance by Lizan Mitchell that really made this book for me - her show more pace, her voices, her emotion, even the way she changed the whole persona of the narrator based on who's POV is being revealed - were all outstanding. show less

Joplin's Ghost had the potential to be a fun, pulpy read, but it never worked for me—it felt like it needed a good editing session at the hands of a ruthless editor who'd be able to speed up the novel's pacing, deepen the characterisation and smooth out some of the clunkier passages of descriptive prose. The historical elements of the novel make for an interesting read, but they're at odds with the much more wooden scenes set in the present day (numerous references to Outkast and Beyoncé alone do not effectively conjure up the modern American musical scene), and the device linking past and present just... didn't work for me. As things moved towards the denouement, I was less and less able to suspend my disbelief. There may be a way show more to make an evil, possessed piano (yes, I know) work as the antagonist of a novel, but I don't think Due managed it here. show less

Sorry to say, I'm DNFing this novel. The characters are difficult to like, and there's way more detail than I need (I guess it's modestly interesting to hear how much a music video costs to make and to see how the audition process works, but not interesting enough for how many words are devoted to it). And now that the love interest is kind of a stalker/pedo? Yeah, not really working for me and kind of ruins my picture of him from the later books.

Some foolishness about a homicidal piano.

What a great book. Historical fiction in nature with a twist of Steven King! Thumbs up!