Half-Blood Blues Audiobook By Esi Edugyan cover art

Half-Blood Blues

A Novel

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Half-Blood Blues

By: Esi Edugyan
Narrated by: Kyle Riley
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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.

©2011 Esi Edugyan (P)2012 WF Howes Ltd African American Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature

Critic reviews

  • Man Booker Prize Finalist, 2011

“Unforgettable…Brilliantly conceived, gorgeously executed. It's a work that promises to lead black literature in a whole new direction.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“A superbly atmospheric prologue kick-starts a thrilling story about truth and betrayal…[A] brilliantly fast-moving novel.” —The Times (London)

“Destined to win a wide audience…Deftly paced in incident and tone, moving from scenes of snappy dialogue, in which band members squabble and banter humorously, to tense, atmospheric passages of description…Edugyan makes fresh tracks in this richly-imagined story…Half-Blood Blues itself represent a kind of flowering--that of a gifted storyteller.” —The Toronto Star

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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.

Wonderful

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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

Visually stunning

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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.

Slow start, but worth the time.

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the narrator is phenomenal and captured the poetic nature of the book. the rich history of jazz in europe is mesmerizing.

Seductive and poetic!

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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.

Sleeper: great book!

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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.

Amazing voice!

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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!

Compelling listen

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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.

Makes you think about WWII and racism in a new way

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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.

Very hard to understand

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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.

Disappointing

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