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Jay G. Grubb

Goodreads Author

Born

in Baltimore, The United States

Website

https://www.jayggrubb.com

Genre

Historical Fiction, Music, History

Member Since

November 2023

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Jay G. Grubb is an entertainment attorney working in music, film, and publishing. As a professor teaching the history of jazz, blues, and pop he has confronted the complexities and contradictions of American culture that are at the core of Land of Sins and Promise. He was a columnist for Script Magazine (now merged with Final Draft), and received an Achievement Award in Writing from the National Council of Teachers of English. He is a frequent speaker, including lectures at Peabody Institute and the Maryland Institute College of Arts. He loves to travel, especially to the scout the locations used in his writing.

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What are you currently working on?

Jay G. Grubb I am currently working on two novels. In The Assuredly Magnificent Paracelsus Bombastus Von Hohenheim a peasant girl in 1500s Austria, binds her breas…moreI am currently working on two novels. In The Assuredly Magnificent Paracelsus Bombastus Von Hohenheim a peasant girl in 1500s Austria, binds her breast to pass as a boy and become the assistant to the famous, and controversial, alchemist Paracelsus.
The other novel is a prequel to Land of Sins and Promise exposing Joshua Banks’ great-grandfather’s ruthless pursuit of fortune on the colonized sugar island of Monserrat in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Lots of twists and turns, with elements of ghost story, and The Talented Mr. Ripley.
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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Jay G. Grubb Why this book?
It all started with a photo. Taken at Thomas Edison’s estate in 1900 at a gathering of recording artists for the Edison Cylinder Company…moreWhy this book?
It all started with a photo. Taken at Thomas Edison’s estate in 1900 at a gathering of recording artists for the Edison Cylinder Company. Forty-two people. Some men stand in the back. Other men, including rising star Albert Collins, sit cross legged on the grass. Ten performers, three of them women, get the comfort of chairs.

On one of the chairs is George Washington Johnson, the first Black recording star, a singer of “coon songs”. With Jim Crow discrimination in full bloom why is George Johnson afforded this respect? A year earlier, his fellow white musicians and comics had raised over $1,000 (about $35,000 in today’s money) for his defense in the murder of his mulatto girlfriend.

What compromises had Johnson endured to sit in such company? What mental gymnastics did the white artists perform, many engaged in the degrading race mockery or black face minstrelsy, to square their treatment of this one black man with their movement through a racist society?

I tried to make sense of the contradictions and complexities by viewing it all through a complete outsider; a barely royal second son of a Yorkshire baron. The twist is he may have more skin in the game than he could ever imagine.
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Jay G. Grubb’s books

Average rating: 4.82 · 140 ratings · 128 reviews · 1 distinct work • Similar authors

Land of Sins and Promise

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Big Swiss

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Jay Grubb is starting Land of Sins and Promise: Hey, just want to personally thank each of you who took the time to sign up for the Land of Sins and Promise giveaway (3578 curious readers). I sincerely think that every American should be aware of the real history of the Gilded Age and how the sins of that era still impact us today. Plus it's fun - really. Land of Sins and Promise by Jay G. Grubb (Goodreads Author) progress:	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Jay Grubb answered Goodreads's question: What are you currently working on? I am currently working on two novels. In The Assuredly Magnificent Paracelsus Bombastus Von Hohenheim a peasant girl in 1500s Austria, binds her breast to pass as a boy and become the assistant to the famous, and controversial, alchemist Paracelsus. T See Full Answer
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