BLUES FOR BENNY

In this novel, a famous African American jazz singer confronts her complex past while her son grapples with his own deeply rooted anti-Semitism.

Georgina Phillips escapes the pervasive racism of Alabama and an orphanage in Atlanta when she is adopted by a Quaker couple in Philadelphia, a move that literally saves her life. A talented singer, she pursues a musical career in Amsterdam and joins an up-and-coming band led by saxophone player Benny Buchalter. Georgina and Benny strike up a torrid affair and fall deeply in love, though his professional vanity—he sees himself as a “jealous beast”—ensures their union is a tumultuous one. Charles Wythe, another member of the band, also pines for Georgina, but he doesn’t seem to be a serious rival to Benny. The real problem for Benny and Georgina is more political than personal—it’s 1938, and the Nazis are threatening the whole of Europe. Neither Georgina, a Black woman, nor Benny, a Polish Jew, is safe, a point brought home powerfully when he discovers his entire family has been killed. Benny compels Charles to promise to help Georgina flee Amsterdam if the situation becomes too dire, which is precisely what transpires. Fast-forward several decades, and Georgina lives in the United States and has enjoyed a storied career as a jazz singer, once called a “national treasure” by the president of the United States. At the age of 80, she lives happily with Charles, now her husband and a musician in New York City. But they both suddenly hear from Benny—they didn't even know he was alive. They’re excited to be reunited with him, though Charles frets anxiously about what it means for his marriage and is crushed by guilt over the possibility he betrayed Benny. Meanwhile, Georgina’s son, David, wrestles with his own demons, unable to shake a persistent distrust of Jews, an angry bias delicately portrayed by Holtzman, who creates a poignant parallel to Georgina’s incongruent experience.

The author’s tale is a complex one but never tediously baroque—despite the plot’s intricacies and shifts in time, readers will never be confused and will always be engrossed. The distance between David’s and his parents’ experiences with Jews is a striking one. Exercising great authorial restraint, Holtzman presents it without an excess of commentary, allowing readers space for philosophical interpretations. And while David concedes his prejudice is “crazy,” it is nevertheless one he cannot shake: “The sticking negative in David’s mind was an innate belief that Jews took advantage of Black people. This was based on history; all the stories he’d been told, of how Georgina had been repeatedly lied to and cheated by promoters, producers, and club owners who were almost always Jewish.” The author’s prose can be a bit uneven and imprecise—for example, the aforementioned quotation describes David’s bias as “innate” but then contradictorily as a function of experience. But this is a minor editorial quibble and one that doesn’t undermine the novel’s emotional strength.

An affecting, nuanced, and provocative look at racial bias.