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Set in 1920s Alabama, this novel follows the life of a young boy and the lessons he learns in school, at Papa Gumbo Willie McWorthy's barbershop, and from Luzana Cholly, a gun-toting guitar player.Tags
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Rating: 2.875* of five
The Book Report: Coming of age as an African-American lad in 1920s Alabama. Lightly fictionalized version of the author's memoir, [SOUTH TO A VERY OLD PLACE], which is superb and should have been left alone.
My Review: Not a novel. Just not. It's too much like the memoir for me to buy the novel designation. Murray writes beautiful sentences, goodness knows, but his choice to call this fiction is disingenuous. The only thing that really separates this from his earlier memoir is that he now has permission to make up dialogue and go into the inner life of his characters a little more.
Starting out with two strikes against it, that of coming-of-age (really, isn't that vein played out?) story and that of fiction following show more memoir (almost always the memoir is better), I was prepared to be disappointed. Perhaps that's one big reason why I was. But honestly, truly, and with all my heart, I tried to like this book. I like Mr. Murray's non-fiction ([The Omni-Americans], [Stomping the Blues]). I wish he'd stayed in that genre, or come all the way away from it and not used his memoir's material as the subject of his fiction. It just does not come off well in comparison.
SO too bad. show less
The Book Report: Coming of age as an African-American lad in 1920s Alabama. Lightly fictionalized version of the author's memoir, [SOUTH TO A VERY OLD PLACE], which is superb and should have been left alone.
My Review: Not a novel. Just not. It's too much like the memoir for me to buy the novel designation. Murray writes beautiful sentences, goodness knows, but his choice to call this fiction is disingenuous. The only thing that really separates this from his earlier memoir is that he now has permission to make up dialogue and go into the inner life of his characters a little more.
Starting out with two strikes against it, that of coming-of-age (really, isn't that vein played out?) story and that of fiction following show more memoir (almost always the memoir is better), I was prepared to be disappointed. Perhaps that's one big reason why I was. But honestly, truly, and with all my heart, I tried to like this book. I like Mr. Murray's non-fiction ([The Omni-Americans], [Stomping the Blues]). I wish he'd stayed in that genre, or come all the way away from it and not used his memoir's material as the subject of his fiction. It just does not come off well in comparison.
SO too bad. show less
I am anxious to find out what Scooter is up to next. Solid Bildungsroman.
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20+ Works 1,125 Members
Albert Murray was born in Nokomis, Alabama, in 1916. He was educated at Tuskegee Institute, where he later taught literature & directed the college theater. He is the author of many works of fiction & nonfiction, including "The Seven League Boots", "The Blue Devils of Nada" & "The Spyglass Tree". He lives in New York City. (Publisher Provided) show more Albert Murray was born in 1916 and grew up in Magazine Point, Alabama. He received a bachelor's degree from the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1939. During World War II, he served in the Air Force and received a master's degree from New York University after returning to the U.S. He was a novelist and critic who believed that blues and jazz were not primitive sounds, but sophisticated art. He wrote a series of autobiographical novels, a nonfiction narrative entitled South to a Very Old Place, an acclaimed history of music entitled Stomping the Blues, and several books of criticism including The Blue Devils of Nada: A Contemporary American Approach to Aesthetic Statement. In 2000, the Modern Library released Trading Twelves, a collection of letters between Murray and fellow author Ralph Ellison. He died on August 18, 2013 at the age of 97. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- Train Whistle Guitar
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- English
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