A challenging, unconventional, rewarding imagining of a jazz giant’s final years.
The relationships among jazz great Thelonious Monk; his wife, Nellie; and his friend and patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter are imagined in Milazzo’s debut novel.
Jazz is known as a musical form without form—improvisation and imagination replace structure and tradition. This novel mimics that concept, using various devices to imagine the relationships among Monk and those closest to him, including de Koenigswarter, who took him in during the last years of his life. In 1976, as his health deteriorated, the pianist came to Weehawken, New Jersey, to live with de Koenigswarter. The novel, like Monk’s work, is unconventional. It doesn’t contain chapters in the traditional sense but rather sections with titles like “Take #32” and “Rolls 1-6 (Negs. 500 – 563; 565 – 569; 572),” which lead into one another like the grooves of a vinyl album. Likewise, the book itself doesn’t include a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, it comprises diary entries, bits of conversation, telephone calls, handbills, and other scraps that either pick up a previous subject or introduce a new one. During his final years, Monk didn’t play the piano nor did he speak much. Similarly here, while he is clearly the sun around whom the others in the group orbit, he is rarely an active presence in his own story. When he does try to play the piano, the author makes clear—via striking, lush writing—that Monk is a diminished star on the verge of burnout: “The moan this Monk makes as he assays the notes again, a low attenuated fuss suggesting pain, arrests no one.” However, there are plenty of other stories to follow, such as Nellie’s ruminations on their life together and the baroness’s observations. Milazzo isn’t attempting historical accuracy so much as imagining a misunderstood life. Like jazz, the book isn’t for everyone, and it requires effort and time to digest and understand. However, also like jazz, the effort brings rewards.
A challenging, unconventional, rewarding imagining of a jazz giant’s final years.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1937543600
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Jaded Ibis Press
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Tennis pro, Vietnam vet, and intelligence operative Brad Smith, who first served in Dropshot (1990), quits an irritating job in Texas to head for Montana, where his unusual skills are needed to open a new tennis resort and locate a murderous nearby secret agent. Well, whom else would you call to clean out the spies plaguing a mysterious Air Force lab just a backhand away from a troubled tennis camp? The debt-ridden sports resort, just bought by Smith's old tennis and spying pal Ted Treacher, provides the perfect cover for Smith—the only tennis-playing spy in America capable of recognizing his old archenemy Sylvester, the Soviet spy responsible for the death of Smith's late Yugoslavian tennis- playing wife. Sylvester, operating with a completely new face fresh from the plastic surgeon, is in Big Sky country to snatch a bit of strategic-defense technology from the research lab whose powerful secret electromagnetic pulses have been giving the local children leukemia. Also neighboring the resort is a secret toxic- waste dump owned by a beautiful but ruthless capitalist hussy who wants to close down the country club so she can get her toxic wastes back. Smith has to sort out all these secrets while cleaning up the financial and managerial mess his chum has made of what should be a fabulous destination for rich tennis players. Sylvester shoots at him, a sadistic deputy shoots at him, and Ivan Lendl shoots at him. Bodies pop out of the golf course. Credibility crushed in straight sets 6-2, 6-0, 6-1.
Pub Date: June 20, 1991
ISBN: 0-312-85143-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991
The world is a perilous place, or so it seems to a small cub named Alfie. This bear’s journey to the jungle playground is filled with encounters: with a snapping crocodile, undulating python, menacing jackal, and a fearsome tiger. Fortunately for Alfie, his mother accompanies him, offering reassurance and a place to hide, all the while providing useful advice, e.g., “Let the jackal run along.” Every harrowing (at least for Alfie) event is calmly resolved as the wild creatures continue on their way and Alfie is seen in the final spread cheerfully sliding down the trunk of an elephant. Children will delight in rescuing Alfie by pulling tabs that send him into his mother’s arms or behind her back when danger approaches. Clark’s vividly hued jungle habitat offers a glimpse of a unique assortment of animals not commonly seen in board books. While Alfie perceives the various creatures as threatening, Clark carefully prevents them from appearing so to readers. It may be a wild world out there, but Alfie learns that with proper care, it’s a manageable one. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30127-3
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
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