My Goodreads comments on "Half Blood Blues"

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the best of my 2011 Booker shortlist reads. This book totally engrossed me and the characters live on, as if real, in my mind. This is no mean feat considering that they are black, mixed race, Jewish and for part of the book at least living in Berlin and Paris in the 1930s and 40s. They don't have my experiences or speak my language but they are as familiar to me now as if I had really sat down with them and talked.

Possible Spoilers Ahead!

While we are sadly familiar with the fate of Germany's Jewish population under the terrible reign of the nazis, the black German residents' experience of the era is less well documented. In this case we follow the members of an above average jazz band in Berlin in the repressive era of nazi rule. The band includes Germans and some of American background. Some are white, some mixed race, some from financially privileged upbringing. They are united in a passion for jazz. In particular we are concerned with drummer "Chip", "Hiero", an extraordinarily gifted trumpeter, and our narrator Sid the very good but less angelicly talented bass player. Along the way we also discover the fates of the rest of the band but our main interest is these three and their hopes,fears, loves and jealousies. The narrative alternates between Berlin and Paris at the beginning of the war and Germany and Poland in the 1990s as Sid, believing Hiero to have died in a nazi camp, and Chip travel to a festival commemorating the work of young Hieronymous Falk and the premier of a film of his life including revelations about the band and Hiero's fate.

I don't want to give too much away but another key figure and the object of the love of members of the band is Delilah who is close to one Louis Armstrong, a strong incentive for the band to try and get out of Germany to Paris where they are to get the chance of cutting a disc with the satchelmouthed legend. The love of 'Lilah and the desire to record with Armstrong exerts a powerful effect on our Sid.

The novel is about betrayal, or perhaps betrayals of more than one sort, and ultimately perhaps about redemption and forgiveness. I found it a stunningly gripping read and the bringing to life of these unusual protagonists, as well as the realising of a believable jazz musician's Berlin and Paris of the era, is a great achievement. One of the best of the short list for me, perhaps second only to The Sisters Brothers in giving me a pleasurable and satisfying read.

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