Joplin's Ghost
by Tananaruve Due
Published by Atria Books
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Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart
Tananaruve Due's gone and done it again. As she did in her historical novel, The Black Rose, Due has me delving into the history books looking for the real person behind the story. The Black Rose told the story Madame C. J. Walker, but this time she takes on the King of Ragtime, Scott Joplin.
Joplin's Ghost is a fabulous mix of ghost story, history, and 1990's music world. The book opens in 1917 with Joplin dying of syphilis in the Manhattan State Hospital. As he is wheeled into the day room, he notices a beat-up piano in the corner and tries to play it. The scene is heartbreaking; imagine those fiery fingers gnarled and twisted from that awful disease, unable to do anything but create a cacophony of noise.
Then flash forward to 1991. Phoenix Smalls is but a child of ten when a piano falls on her and she almost dies. That's when it starts; the music that Phoenix can't ignore. The music she plays and writes without any knowledge of having done so. After growing up in a Miami nightclub, Phoenix wanted to be a singer. She formed a band, made a couple of CDs, but soon fizzled out.
Still, she's been working hard to make it alone. When in St. Louis, her manager/father forces her to make a pilgrimage to Joplin's apartment, the site where "The Entertainer," featured in the movie "The Sting" was written. It's there that Joplin makes his first appearance. He attaches himself to her and begins to channel his lost music through her, thus restoring it to a public who can only dream of ever hearing it again.
At the crux of this delightful novel is the music. A lot of Joplin's music has been lost, especially his opera "Guest of Honor." The story weaves between Joplin's life, especially when he lived in St. Louis, and Phoenix's life. Part romance, part ghost story, part urban contemporary, part historical fiction, this complex and absorbing novel is completed, yet simple, and unerringly readable for fans of many genres.
Armchair Interviews says: The characters, past and present, feel real.
Author's Web site: http://www.tananarivedue.com