Bluesman Book

The unfortunate side effect of an amazing book. Quite common, occurs more frequently than not. To what do I refer? The next book one reads by that author. To be fair, Andre Sinus III's "Bluesman" was published long before "The House of Sand and Fog" (this is notably his debut novel), but the result is the same. Try as I might to be reasonable, high expectations that are almost certainly not met.

A great book, by all means. "Bluesman" follows Leo Suther in his final year before adulthood. It is the summer of 1967, and friends are being drafted for the Vietnam War. Leo lives in a small Massachusetts town in the Connecticut River Valley with Jim, his father. He falls in love with local beauty Allie Donovan, son of Chick Donovan, a man who hires him for construction/roofing for the summer and he soon finds out to be a devout Marxist Communist. He is also pursuing his other lifelong love- for the harmonica, spending time with his father (who plays the guitar) and Ryder, a harmonica/harp player that teaches him everything he knows. He begins more intimate conversations with his father, discovering his late mother's inner life through her diaries. He suffers ups and downs in his sometimes confused love for girlfriend Allie and impulsively rushes into a series of dangerous decisions, including a pregnancy and culminating in his enlistment in the Army.

Like in his other works, Dubus series with compassion and empathy. The characters are what make the novel. The overall tone of the novel is kept low, however. Nothing greatly emotionally charged like "The House of Sand and Fog". The problem is, many things great importance happen to Leo during the summer, but somehow do not really transform him, and the reader is left hanging. He makes his decisions, but they are all forced upon him and he makes them with little thought. One anticipates that the learning and growing will come later, but we area left without the details of this.

A sweet coming of age story, well written and especially commendable for its addressing of communism and discrimination (Ryder is black, homosexuality was hinted at), the exploration of the music world and the blues, and the examination of what young men likely felt during the years of the Vietnam War.