| Title | : | Night Song |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 192 |
| Publication | : | First published November 1, 1963 |
In Greenwich Village, jazz is king, enticing hip young crowds with its seductive and vibrant rhythms.
Jazz is also the lifeblood pumping through the veins of Richie "Eagle" Stokes, a saxophonist blessed with an otherworldly talent but cursed by cravings for women, fame, and heroin. To ex-college professor David Hillary, musicians like Stokes are gods possessed with the uncanny ability to turn a private inner world inside out and make everything else irrelevant. And for ex-preacher Keel Robinson, Hillary's unlikely savior, the bewitching music serves as a bridge across racial boundaries as he embarks on a forbidden and dangerous love affair.
Considered one of the finest novelists of a generation that included James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright, author John A. Williams follows a diverse cast of all-too-human characters through nighttime New York City in this incendiary and unforgettable novel.
Night Song Reviews
-
This was an unexpected but incredible find.
-
A novel about music and alcoholism? Hey, my autobiography is done, I guess.
A solid and compact story about a fallen (and falling down) professor finding solace in Jazz and booze after a tragedy. His new environment, those that take him in, is populated by the ‘negro’ musicians of whom he has no previous experience, much less the slightest societal or intercontextual understanding.
The novel examines White privilege before it had a name while simultaneously doubling as a heartbreaking portrait of platonic love between two different men; men whose commonality may only be how down-at-the-heels each is, and how they personally choose their approach to ultimate oblivion.
There’s a lot more going down—including some ‘lemme blow some trumpet like Yards, ya dig?’ patois—but just read the goddamn thing. I’m not your mother.
Or am I. Hmmm.
