Half-Blood Blues
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Kyle Riley
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By:
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Esi Edugyan
About this listen
Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize
Man Booker Prize Finalist 2011
An Oprah Magazine Best Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
Berlin, 1939. The Hot Time Swingers, a popular jazz band, has been forbidden to play by the Nazis. Their young trumpet-player Hieronymus Falk, declared a musical genius by none other than Louis Armstrong, is arrested in a Paris café. He is never heard from again. He was twenty years old, a German citizen. And he was black.
Berlin, 1952. Falk is a jazz legend. Hot Time Swingers band members Sid Griffiths and Chip Jones, both African Americans from Baltimore, have appeared in a documentary about Falk. When they are invited to attend the film's premier, Sid's role in Falk's fate will be questioned and the two old musicians set off on a surprising and strange journey.
From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris, Sid leads the listener through a fascinating, little-known world as he describes the friendships, love affairs and treacheries that led to Falk's incarceration in Sachsenhausen. Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues is a story about music and race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.
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Critic reviews
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A Stone for Danny Fisher
- By: Harold Robbins
- Narrated by: Charles Leggett
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Born into a family of modest means and respectability, Danny Fisher was gradually driven downward into the world of crime, racketeering and poverty. His bitterness, his homesickness over the loss of the house in Brooklyn that was given to him for his eighth birthday, and his feud with his harsh father, pulled him one way; his natural decency and his love for a sweet Italian girl, Nellie Petito, pulled him another.
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My teenage read.
- By A. Mitchell on 11-11-11
By: Harold Robbins
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Sometimes a Great Notion
- By: Ken Kesey
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 30 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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A literary icon sometimes seen as a bridge between the Beat Generation and the hippies, Ken Kesey scored an unexpected hit with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His successful follow-up, Sometimes a Great Notion, was also transformed into a major motion picture, directed by and starring Paul Newman. Here, Oregon’s Stamper family does what it can to survive a bitter strike dividing their tiny logging community. And as tensions rise, delicate family bonds begin to fray and unravel.
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Sometimes a Great Novel Pops up out of Nowhere
- By Mr. Eyuz on 06-07-19
By: Ken Kesey
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Nowhere is a Place
- By: Bernice McFadden
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing can mend a broken heart quite like family. Sherry has struggled all her life to understand who she is, where she comes from, and, most important, why her mother slapped her cheek one summer afternoon. The incident has haunted Sherry, and it causes her to dig into her family's past. Like many family histories, it is fractured and stubbornly reluctant to reveal its secrets. But Sherry is determined to know the full story. In a few days' time, her extended family will gather for a reunion, and Sherry sets off across the country with her mother, Dumpling, to join them.
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A Mother and Daughter Tear. It. Up.
- By Susie on 01-15-14
By: Bernice McFadden
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The Reapers Are the Angels
- By: Alden Bell
- Narrated by: Tai Sammons
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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For 25 years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself and keeping her demons inside her heart. She can’t remember a time before the zombies, but she does remember an old man who took her in and the younger brother she cared for until the tragedy that set her off on her personal journey toward redemption.
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Literary Limbo-ing
- By Mel on 04-25-13
By: Alden Bell
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The Stand
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 47 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen.
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My First Completed Stephen King Novel
- By Meaghan Bynum on 02-20-12
By: Stephen King
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The October Country
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Haunting, harrowing, and downright horrifying, this classic collection from the modern master of the fantastic features: "The Small Assassin": a fine, healthy baby boy was the new mother's dream come true - or her nightmare.... "The Emissary": the faithful dog was the sick boy's only connection with the world outside - and beyond.... "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone": a most remarkable case of murder - the deceased was delighted! And more!
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The October Country
- By steven richard pohl on 09-17-19
By: Ray Bradbury
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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4
- By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, Stephen King, Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Meredith Mitchell, Rebecca Mitchell, Michael Healy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.
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Only a few decent stories in this bunch.
- By Jerry on 12-06-14
By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, and others
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Sugar
- By: Bernice L. McFadden
- Narrated by: Myra Lucretia Taylor
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Sugar arrives in the small town of Bigelow, Arkansas, like an ominous storm. She saunters down the street in a blonde wig and spiked heels, cigarette dangling between red-painted lips. Without even speaking to her, the women in town hate her. But when she moves in next door to Pearl, a woman who tragically lost her daughter 15 years earlier, the two women bond over tragic pasts.
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Wow wow wow
- By brenda transon on 08-27-19
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The Survivors
- By: Kate Furnivall
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Germany, 1945. Klara Janowska and her daughter, Alicja, have walked for weeks to get to Graufeld Displaced Persons camp. In the cramped, dirty, dangerous conditions they, along with 3,200 others, are the lucky ones. They have survived and will do anything to find a way back home. But when Klara recognises a man in the camp from her past, a deadly game of cat and mouse begins. He knows exactly what she did during the war to save her daughter. She knows his real identity. What will be the price of silence? And will either make it out of the camp alive?
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Really interesting
- By Karen on 11-10-18
By: Kate Furnivall
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The Hollow Ground
- By: Natalie S. Harnett
- Narrated by: Luci Christian
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The underground mine fires ravaging Pennsylvania coal country have forced 11-year-old Brigid Howley and her family to seek refuge with her estranged grandparents, the formidable Gram and the black lung-stricken Gramp. Tragedy is no stranger to the Howleys, a proud Irish-American clan who takes strange pleasure in the "curse" laid upon them generations earlier by a priest who ran afoul of the Molly Maguires. The weight of this legacy rests heavily on a new generation, when Brigid, already struggling to keep her family together, makes a grisly discovery in a long-abandoned bootleg mine shaft.
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Disfunction makes a good read
- By NHull on 05-30-14
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Devils Unto Dust
- By: Emma Berquist
- Narrated by: Devon Sorvari
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Ten years ago, a horrifying disease began spreading across the West Texas desert. Infected people - "shakes" - attacked the living and created havoc and destruction. No one has ever survived the infection. Daisy Wilcox, known as Willie, has been protecting her siblings within the relatively safe walls of Glory, Texas. But when Willie's good-for-nothing father steals a fortune from one of the most dangerous shake-hunters in town, she finds herself on the hook for his debt. With two hunters, including the gruff and handsome Ben, to accompany her, she sets out across the desert in search of her father.
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Not What I Expected
- By L on 11-16-22
By: Emma Berquist
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The Jewel
- By: Amy Ewing
- Narrated by: Erin Spencer
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Violet, born and raised in the Marsh, has been trained as a surrogate for the royalty - because in the Jewel the only thing more important than opulence is offspring. Purchased at the surrogacy auction by the Duchess of the Lake and greeted with a slap to the face, Violet (now known only as #197) quickly learns of the brutal truths that lie beneath the Jewel's glittering facade.
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Left Me Feeling Annoyed
- By Carol Dunn on 11-04-15
By: Amy Ewing
What listeners say about Half-Blood Blues
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joyce
- 02-07-13
Wonderful
Half Blood Blues is brilliantly told and brilliantly read. It's fascinating that it is told in the first person by a man, but written by a woman. I don;'t remember reading another such juxtiposition of the sexes.
Esi Edugyan tells us an epic story switching back and forth 60 years from the 1930s to the the 1990s, encompassing the demonic Nazi era in both Germany and France and peopled by very real black and white musicians caught up in the horror.
Kyle Riley creates an accent, presumably Baltimorian black, that renders well the speech of the narrator, Syd, as well as all the other varied voices of Edugyan's many characters.
All in all a great experience.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Katie
- 08-12-17
Visually stunning
The imagery in the book was so beautiful and the narrator's voice added to the the heartbreakingly beautiful story and overall feeling of the novel, loved the book, loved the voice
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1 person found this helpful
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- julie
- 05-16-12
Slow start, but worth the time.
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I would recommend this book to friends with an open mind. I don't think this is a book that mainstream readers would seek out, but it was worth reading!
What about Kyle Riley’s performance did you like?
Kyle Riley's performance brought the story to life. I really felt like I could see these men and the voices that they had (via Kyle) helped to shape that visual picture.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
By the last half of the book, I was looking forward to driving somewhere so I could find out how it would end!
Any additional comments?
The dialect, names and slang terms were sometimes a little hard to follow.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Placeholder
- 05-24-12
Seductive and poetic!
the narrator is phenomenal and captured the poetic nature of the book. the rich history of jazz in europe is mesmerizing.
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1 person found this helpful
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- KP
- 11-23-12
Sleeper: great book!
I loved this book. The only part that I thought fell a little flat was the ending. Throughout the rest of the book, I was hooked. The language and writing were fantastic. I listened to this as an audiobook, and I liked the narrator and the way that added to the experience. It was a little hard to pick up on the dialogue in the beginning, but I caught on to it. The banter between the musicians and the dialect they used had a really authentic feel to it. Also, the author's descriptions were fantastic. I especially liked the way she could describe music. Usually indefinite nouns like music or love or peace are so hard for an author to describe. But she does it really well. For example, the first time Sid and Chip play with Hieronymus Falk:
"The kid nodded. He begun to tease air through the brass. At first we all just stood there with our axes at the ready, staring at him. Nothing happened. I glanced at Chip, shook my head. But then I begun to hear, like a pinprick on the air--it was that subtle--the voice of a hummingbird singing at a pitch and speed almost beyond hearing. Wasn't like nothing I ever heard before. The kid come in at a strange angle, made the notes glitter like crystal. Pausing, he took a huge breath, started playing a ear-splitting scale that drawn out the invisible phrase he'd just played."
Sid is interesting because he says he hates Falk's playing. But he is partly motivated by jealousy for Falk, so the statement is suspicious. I think Sid is a fantastic and interesting character. As the narrator of the story, one has to wonder how what he tells us is colored through his narration. But it surely seems like he has been "shafted" by his friend Chip many times in his life. It really seems for a while like they won't remain friends, but the book shows us a life long friendship that is worth all the ups and downs.
One question I have about Chip is WHY he actually did say all those damning things about Sid during the Hieronymus Falk ceremony late in their life. Are we to believe that Chip was correct and that Sid is totally unreliable as a narrator? OR is it that Chip screwed Sid over again, like when they were kids? This is a great question, I think, and worthy of much discussion.
Here is an interesting analysis of the book's structure that I read online
"What I did enjoy very much was how the characterization and character arcs seemed to mimic the band and the playing of jazz itself: the lead trumpet player, "the kid" Hiero, being the star player whom we saw take the spotlight only occasionally, but in important and plot-moving ways; and the rhythm section - Chip and Sid (drums and bass) - anchoring the narrative in both timelines. Sid's feelings towards Hiero vacillated through a lens of jealousy and admiration and fear and guilt, and as the least accomplished musician and the narrator, this both held the story together and kept it moving more or less on pace plus set up much of the tension between all of the rest of the characters. That was an uber-clever structure."
So overall the kind of book I like where I am engaged, challenged, and love the language.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Katharine Whealton
- 11-15-16
Amazing voice!
I cannot imagine this book without Kyle Riley's voice, so full and rich and deep, so quintessentially African-American male. I might have read the story and registered the skillfully crafted narrative as a fine work of historical fiction with believable characters, but hearing this as an audiobook made me sense the deep longing and despair of the blues musician narrator in a way I may never forget.
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- just asking for some common sense
- 10-18-22
Compelling listen
I never expected to get a book about Black jazz musicians in Nazi Germany because it just wasn't on my radar. I knew that there were African Americans living in Europe at the time, but just didn't know there were Black Germans. This book has a German, several American, and a Canadian Black. The German is a brilliant young musician, Hieronymous Falk, the Kid.
The book goes back and forth between 1940 and 1990. Life in 1940 Germany is becoming more dangerous for Blacks as well as jazz musicians, along with Jews, Roma, and other minority groups. I wanted to urge these musicians to leave before they started to, but of course I have the knowledge of history and they did not.
By the time the 1940 segment is over it is believed that Hieronymous has not survived the Nazis. The 1990 portion has a festival celebrating him because of recordings. Two of his band mates are headed there. The story is told first person by Sid.
I'm not going to give spoilers. These are all things we know early on and form the premise of this Anisfield-Wolf Award Winner. I looked up the history of Blacks in Nazi Germany and I want to thank the author for choosing this history for the setting and time of the book. If you choose to listen to or read this book I hope you'll give it a chance. The narration by the author was exceptional. I didn't even realize the author was a woman!
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- Etta M. Madden
- 07-13-19
Makes you think about WWII and racism in a new way
My favorite part of this Audible book is Kyle Riley's narration. Second in line is Edugyan's story. Her historical research and ability to spin a story is amazing. I imagined blues musicians in Berlin and Paris in a way I never have before, and the 1990s reflection on the WWII years together brings in issues of nostalgia and remorse in a poignantly beautiful way.
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- M. seff
- 04-27-14
Very hard to understand
What disappointed you about Half-Blood Blues?
The narrator's voice was so hard to understand that I couldn't follow the story line at all. I am extremely disappointed with this download and, after starting over 5 times I gave up.
What was most disappointing about Esi Edugyan’s story?
Couldn't understand the narrator's prosidy.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
I had to give up.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
Unable to answer this question.
Any additional comments?
If there was a way to get my money back for this one, I would go for it.
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- monica wolfson
- 10-09-19
Disappointing
Well written but frustrating , I listened to after Washington Black and I felt the story was not quite developed. It was well narrated but I waited for something more major to happen. The narration was perfect but for me plot was thin.
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