The Fisher King: A Novel by Paule Marshall

The Fisher King: A Novel Reviews

• 
  Kanako Okiron

  Just so I could be the 27th review 🤭
• 
  Maureen

  This was an enjoyable read, but I thought it ended too abruptly. It tells the story of a late jazz musician and his namesake. Young Sonny comes to Brooklyn with his fathermothersisterbrother, as he calls Hattie, the woman raising him in Paris. Sonny meets family he didn't know he had, and the reader gets to know Sonny and the history of his family.
• 
  Camilo Colorado

  I enjoyed this book. The writing and story never waned. The energy carried right through the whole book. The description of the characters and the music and the interaction of the characters was wonderful. A great story.
• 
  Elissa

  The family tree in this book made it kind of confusing but otherwise a solid novel
• 
  Elizabeth Higginbotham

  The Fisher King by Paule Marshall is a novel that is grounded in Brooklyn, where Paule grew up and wrote about in other works. This novel looks at a long history of families, those tensions between West Indians and Black Americans from the South, yet this legacy is the past but dominates the present as members of two families and Hattie, who was the critical person between the two families. Hattie, a foster care child, grew up in Brooklyn with friends from both sides of the divide. Cherisse, the daughter of an elite members of the community, but she was friends with Hattie, even though Hattie was never allowed in her home. They reconnect after World War II, as Everett Payne, later Sonny-Rett Payne, is seeking the new music. Everett, from a West Indian family, where his mother wanted him to be a classical pianist, he turns to contemporary music. Sonny and Cherisse marry and go to Paris, since he was tired of the discrimination in the United States. Initially successful, they ask Hattie to join them—reestablishing the triangle. Sonny and Cherisse have a daughter, Jojo. She has a privileged life, but that is about the change. Over time discrimination marks Sonny’s career as there is more attention to French musicians and the rock and roll of the era. Sonny dies in a fall, symbolic of his life. Cherisse has cancer, but uses funds for alternative treatment, but does being tended by Hattie. Jojo leaves and does reappear in the new, but less elegant apartment with a child that she leaves with Hattie. Hattie names him Sonny, lets the family know about births and deaths, but no her location.
  
  We see much of the story through the eyes of Sonny, nine about to be ten, when he returns in Brooklyn for a concert that celebrates his grandfather. Sonny meets his two great grandmothers; whose lives are still very different. Hattie has mixed feeling, but she is marginal in Paris. As a young boy, we see new worlds opening up for Sonny. He tries to heal the rife in the family, but also his Uncle Edgar, really his grandfather’s brother wants to make up for how he did not help his own brother. Complex story, well presented and you can see the role of love in families.
  
  In the talks during the concert, we learn much about the story of Hattie, Sonny and Cherisse in Europe. We learn that Sonny is the child of Jojo, who left and was never heard from again. Uncle Edgar had people find Hattie and pull her back for the concert. However, he is also intent on providing a better life for Sonny, his grandnephew. His role in the family is also complex.
  
• 
  Donna’s Book Addiction

  Paule Marshall does an excellent job dealing with several themes, issues and obstacles in life facing families.
  She starts out slowly, setting up the situation and the characters, such as the great grandmothers - Florence Varina, the "high-yellow" southerner, and Ulene Payne, a demented and bitter West Indian. But, once the story established itself and the storyline picked up, I got into the novel around page 88. I liked the flow of the dialogue and the surprise twist ending that brought the novel to an ambiguous but to me, a satisfying close.
• 
  Audrey

  Reading this book is standing on the edge of something beautiful but never being fully immersed in that experience. It is a bunch of snapshots tossed into the air landing helter skelter with no defined beginning or end. The characters are lively and interesting but so remote it is impossible to really understand why they do the things they do. The main story lines take place in Paris and Brooklyn and yet atmosphere isn't a significant part of the story.
• 
  Joelle

  I liked this book, but nothing much actually happened in the present day. Most of the intriguing material came at the very end, told as a quick flashback. I did like the characters of the great-grandmothers and the general story, but I wish the book were longer. I would have enjoyed the entire tale told in "real" time, finishing with The Fisher King as the last segment in an epic story.
• 
  Sarah Sammis

  An 8 year old boy's 2 week trip from France to New York helps a family heal old wounds. While it's a nice idea for a story there isn't much substance to this story. Things happen and then the story is over.
• 
  Mike

  Strange, Not what I was expecting.
  But not a bad read.
• 
  Jay

  4.5* Was a great read, but the end felt a little rushed...really enjoyed the way she introduced and filed in the characters throughout.
• 
  Leilani

  Another book club read. All the folks will be happy because I actually finished this one...
• 
  Lynn Dixon

  Two sparing great-grandmothers are softened by the visit from their mutual great-grandson. He, Sonny, is an eight-year old from Paris. He has come to Brooklyn with his guardian Hattie at attend a concert honoring his grandfather Sonny-Rhett Payne, a great jazz musician.
  
  The Fisher King is often told from the Sonny’s perspective as he tries to figure out the rift between the two families and Hattie’s mood swings. During his stay, he meets true relatives for the first time. He begins to question things. What really happened to his deceased grandparents? Where is his African father? What caused his young teen mother to run away and give him to Hattie?
  
  Many pieces of the puzzle fall out of the closet and onto the ground. Young Sonny learns some of the answers, but the reader has the greater advantage. Once the curtain is drawn, things are revealed that younger eyes could not easily bear.
  
  Hattie is central to the story, but she is not a blood relative. She has deeply wedged herself into the family fabric over the years. Yet, towards the end of The Fisher King, Uncle Edgar lays his ace card down on the table which leaves Hattie motionless, speechless and staring into space. Paule Marshall does it again with her beautiful, poetic style of storytelling!
• 
  Dana

  I didn’t expect this book to be as sad as it ended up making me feel at the very end, but man, those final paragraphs just hurt. I really wasn’t anticipating Edgar’s heel turn and the abrupt increase in stakes in the present-day timeline, so part of me wishes Marshall gave us another 100 pages just to unpack the fallout, yet another part of me thinks that would undermine the ending’s emotional impact. I loved how this story was told, largely through the innocent eyes of Sonny, but also weaving a rich generational narrative at the same time as the older characters reference and reminisce about the past. In so many ways this was also Hattie’s story, and she’s a character who I know is going to stay with me. The way Hattie was both drawn into the McCullum and Payne drama and yet still remained an outsider was such a heartwrenching plotline. On the flip side, it was so wonderful to read about the Hattie/Cherisse/Sonny-Rett relationship, since it wasn’t a traditional love triangle built on competition, but one that emphasized support and friendship. This story also had an excellent sense of setting, and the descriptions were all so great. I also always love a story about a musician, and all the scenes involving music were wonderfully vivid as well.
• 
  Dvora Treisman

  The story was OK. I did not like the ending -- it was too abrupt and totally unsatisfying. I thought it was poorly written. Sentences. That aren't sentences. Filled the book. Sometimes writers use incomplete sentences -- phrases -- to give emphasis or to mark some kind of rhythm. But if you do that over and over again for no good reason, you end up looking like you've never learned grammar. I am talking here of the writer's voice, not those of the characters who are more real when they talk in their true conversational style. Reading. Sentences that aren't sentences. Can make the reader weary. And earns one star.
• 
  Keerthi Vasishta

  The book is well-written. Historically accurate, well characterised and its still missing....something, to my mind at least. It didn't move me like it should have but that may be purely because I hardly feel anything anymore, unless something mystical clicks. Hattie found something mystical click with Sonny, a stoned, enigmatic jazz musician. They move to Paris and finally she returns to New York, generations later after his death with her grandson who speaks French. It's a view of a black person's world in the second half of the twentieth century and all its tragedy leaves you cold. Maybe that's why I didn't feel anything?
• 
  Justin Nelson

  In narrative structure and the use of dialect, this reminds me of Their Eyes Were Watching God, a favorite of mine. However, the fluid narration and perspective doesn't flow as well as that novel. Also, the resolution seems very rushed, cramming a pretty complex and emotionally rich backstory into two final chapters. Appreciated the undercurrent of jazz and jazz structures, though!
• 
  Milly

  A beautiful book deserving of more attention than it has received. Fortunately I had picked up a copy a few years ago at a used sale as my local public library does not have any of Paule Marshall's books. How unfortunate especially in the context of Black Lives Matter, this story is relevant and very moving.
• 
  Jennifer

  Read while staying in Brooklyn. Not the story I was expecting, with a sad ending.
• 
  Kathleen

  I enjoyed this read but was let down by the ending. It was too abrupt.
• 
  Leahnes

  I would absoulsty recommend the book, and would read it again. The author's voice is original, unlike anything else I can of that I've read.
• 
  Brittany

  3.5
• 
  aubrey

  might i recommend we all sit in for a session of family therapy?
  
  read for my tales of king arthur class.