The Notorious Dr. August: A Riveting Historical Novel of Ghosts, Love, and a Clairvoyant Pianist

by Christopher Bram

Spanning more than sixty years from the Civil War to the early 1920s, and moving from the battlefields of the South to New York City, through Paris, London, Constantinople, and Coney Island, The Notorious Dr. August features Augustus Fitzwilliam Boyd, alias Dr. August, an improvisational pianist who believes his music is sometimes inspired by the spirit world.

He is in love with Isaac Kemp, an ex-slave who only sporadically returns his affections and who himself successfully woos Alice Pangborn, a rather prim white governess. The three, locked in a strange and often painful love triangle, travel the world-until a horrible tragedy forces them all to examine the choices they have made and shakes up their relationships in ways none of them could have predicted.

Rich in historical detail and musical knowledge, The Notorious Dr. August is a brilliantly written exploration of race, class, spirituality, and sexuality - and of what it really means to love another.-

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, LGBT, Gay, Gay Fiction, Music, Queer

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Bram grew up in Kempsville, Virginia. After graduating from the College of William and Mary in 1974 (B.A. in English), he moved to New York City four years later. There, he met his lifelong partner, documentary filmmaker Draper Shreeve.

Bram's novel Father of Frankenstein, about film director James Whale, was made into the movie Gods and Monsters starring Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser. Bill Condon adapted the screenplay and directed. Condon won an Academy Award for his adaptation.

In 2001, Bram was a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2003, he received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He currently resides in New York.

Reviews

[Michael Joe Armijo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author of this book was unknown to me at the time of reading it. Now, I OFTEN seek him out. This book will certainly become a motion picture someday (I hope).

If they made his other book (Father of Frankenstein) into the movie, Gods & Monsters...then, this will be up for film rights at some point. It's an astonishing epic that mixes music into a novel which flows like non-fiction. It's so well written. You get caught up in the characters of Dr. August (Fitz), Isaac, Alice, Fanny/Lady Ashe and more.

What was amazing is that it takes you back in time to a time when something like this could NEVER have been written about. What a love triangle...I loved experiencing the end of the Civil War, the early 1900's in New York, a cruise ship, London, and Constantinople.

If you want an ESCAPE...this book is your best bet! I SIMPLY LOVED IT. There were plenty of significant lines that you'll take with you too...There are just too many favorite lines for me to list here...but the story is quite unique. It's an A+.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ambitious historical novel with a gay narrator/hero. Its finely drawn characters interact with a number of important historical events & movements--the Civil War, the rise of Spiritualism, the musical transition involving Schumann, Liszt, & Brahms, the interplay between European & American culture, the rise of vaudeville & Coney Island, & more. Yet it remains a very intimate story about love, friendship, jealousy, family, loyalty, pride, righteousness, self-righteousness, truth, God, spirits, race relations, & more. It was reminiscent in some ways of The Heartsong of Charging Elk because, as in that book, an unconventional American finds his way in a foreign European culture. An intriguing book that managed to overcome my inbred homophobia, or at least discomfort with treatments of that subject. The subject is sensitively handled here without soft-pedaling it.

[Mandy Szewczuk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ambitious and with a fascinating premise, what started out with so much promise ended up with historical gay men's lives exclusively playing out through pedophilia. Love the concept of the spirit music, and how they would play out with improvisation and the late 19th century fascination with spiritualism, but come on. Do better by the queer community.

[Will Byrnes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not your usual triangle. We first meet Augustus Fitzwilliam Boyd, later aka Doctor August in the 1860s as a child accompanying on piano his violinist Uncle Jack. Bram introduces us early on to one of the distinguishing features of this novel, homosexuality. Uncle Jack has more uses for his accompanist than musical support. Fitz takes it all in stride. Later, traveling in a border area in the fading days of the Civil War, Fitz is captured by a band of confederates and soon thereafter finds himself freed when his captors are slaughtered by Union soldiers. Isaac Kemp, a young man slightly older than Jack, was a slave of the rebels. They become fast friends and, well, more than friends. Fitz loves Isaac with his soul, not just his body. Isaac’s love may not be so complete. The pair make their way north, with Fitz finding work playing piano in a bordello while Fitz learns carpentry from a German employer. Fitz is an accomplished musician, but his inspiration comes, on occasion, from spirits. Isaac becomes the manager of the pair, but is not satisfied with his lot. He dreams of becoming a public speaker. While on a trip to Europe they become acquainted with Alice, a prim New Englander about to begin work as a governess. She and Isaac strike up a conversation which blossoms when they reconnect on the continent, eventually marrying. And here we have our triangle, as Alice and her and Isaac’s two children become part of the traveling enterprise. Fitz, now Doctor August, has made a name for himself among the monied class and plies his trade among them when public performance opportunities dry up. He happens across an old chum from his bordello days, a former lady of the evening who had married well, but who had suffered the loss of not only her husband but her firstborn son. She wants Fitz to play for her and invoke the spirit of the son she cannot release. It is while summering with her at her manse in Istanbul that he meets her other son, the 14-year-old Freddie. Freddie, desperate to be loved as his brother was loved, seduces Fitz, who longs for the love he once shared with Isaac, but which Isaac had denied him since marrying. This certainly makes one uncomfortable, not for the same-sex aspect of it, but for the pederasty. Crimes indeed. Isaac, who had been traveling while the rest of the group was in Istanbul finally arrives, sees what is up and demands that Fitz end it.

I had mixed feelings about the book. I enjoyed the portrayal of the times and places, historical details about the Reconstruction era, but I felt that the book drifted. It was a quick read, but did not always feel very satisfying. Also, I suppose, I find myself annoyed that novelists like Bram portray their artists as somehow being able to magically capture some essence that is blazingly clear to their viewers/listeners. Fitz’s music, for example, summons the spirit of one son for Lady Ashe (Fanny) one time, and the spirit of Freddie another. It gets more specific than this, of course. I was reminded of Picture Palace and The Tin Drum, which do the same. I find it annoying. There are many references to specific pieces of music, but without a grounding in such they are meaningless to me and a source of further frustration. The moral character of Bram’s protagonist is clearly problematic. Having sex with a 14-year-old boy. Oh Dear. The author seems to see this as merely a tut-tut and not worthy of much actual condemnation. NAMBLA anyone?

Clearly there are issues here from the author’s life. After the Turkish tragedy, Isaac proclaims, “I charged in and seized control of what I did not understand. I made the boy ashamed, told him he was damned and not worth saving. And so he destroyed himself.” (p 363)

Many times in Istanbul, Fitz sees apparitions that turn out to be living people. Are we to infer that when he sees his spirits they are real as well? Or is the line between real and spirit a blurred one?

When Isaac, wracked by guilt, leaves the family to return to America, it did not ring true. Fitz and Alice continue their relationship, pretending to be a couple, raising Isaac’s children. The boy, of course, turns out to be gay. This around the time that an aging Isaac is playing at one of the various sub-attractions at Coney Island.

Overall, although there were things in this book that were meritorious, I was not thrilled. I had hoped for more from the author of Gods and Monsters

[Adam Rabiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was fortunate to meet Christopher Bram several months ago at a Dim Sum brunch hosted by a mutual friend. He personally recommended this book since I had expressed an interest in historical fiction. The novel spans the period from the civil war when the narrator Augustus Fitzwilliam Boyd (stage name, Notorious Dr. August) is a teenager to the 1920s when Augustus is an old man narrating his life story to his silent nephew Tristan (unlike the somewhat annoying "boy" in Interview with the Vampire who you wish would keep his mouth shut). There are classic historical novel elements such as major real-world events, people, and places like the Civil War, a cameo appearance by Brahms, and one of the amusement parks in Coney Island, Dreamland. These true-to-life landmarks, and other allusions, do ground the novel in real world history, and as the author notes at the end, "A lifelong love affair with American literature stands behind this novel." But the main character, Dr. August, "is entirely fictional but was inspired by several real improvisational pianists." That fact, makes this novel closer to a work of historical fiction like Aztec, by Gary Jennings whose main character Mixtli-Dark Cloud is entirely imagined vs. one like Lincoln by Gore Vidal where the protagonist was once a flesh and blood human. So for me, while I absolutely loved the historical context, this felt much more like a regular work of fiction enriched by history, but not one that really elucidated it to any degree. This is not meant as a criticism so much as an observation. As a pure work of fiction, whether historical or not, this novel succeeds on so many levels. Fitz is a witty and entertaining observer of his own life and that of his lifelong companions, Isaac, an ex-slave he meets as a teenager, and the prim and proper governess from Connecticut Alice they meet on a ship to Europe whom Isaac eventually marries. Fitz honestly opines about everyone he meets and everything he experiences. He's something of a free spirit, an itinerant musician, spiritualist, conjurer of ghosts, irreverent, and ungodly in a religious age. And while his behavior and choices as a younger man, by modern standards, may be called into question, as a whole he does have a moral character and lives what may be called a virtuous life. Bram, like any great writer, can inhabit very different characters and personalities, and imbue them with life and personality. He touches on big issues such as the racism embedded in American and European societies, as well as smaller issues of how individuals face up to their moral and spiritual struggles, the choices they make along the way, and the very real consequence of those choices.

[Gerhard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to read and like, mainly due to a trio of fairly unlikeable and often repellent main characters. It is a historical fantasy that starts with the American Civil War, detours to Europe and Constantinople for a large spell, and ends up at Coney Island in New York.

The story focuses on the relationship between an itinerant piano player (who can commune with the spirit world through his music)and a former slave, which is kind of a love story ... until the latter gets married to a stuck-up governess. Remarkably, the three form an uneasy alliance but, alas, fate is not kind to our progressive heroes (and heroine).

I think it was Bram's deliberate intention to write this as a melodramatic potboiler -- there are just too many dramatic coincidences in a wide-ranging plot. This pulp-fiction style does detract from the seriousness of the themes he grapples with here, a melange of race, gender and sexuality issues.

My biggest gripe: the long section where Dr. August has an affair with the boy Freddie (Bram passes the buck here and never really tells the reader who seduced who, or even how old Freddie is, as far as I can recall) mires the novel in seediness. I nearly stopped reading at this point, but the ending (sort of) balances out the discomfort caused here (mainly because the ending is so downbeat, I think).

It is beautifully written, evocative and often very funny, but only really transcends its potboiler origins towards the end, as I have mentioned, when it becomes a full-blown tragedy of Wagnerian scale.

Bram has a painterly eye for location and detail, and the smattering of real-life personages that pop up is very well done.

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this right after 'The Magician's Assistant' by Ann Patchett and found the parallel between the stories an interesting coincidence. Christopher Bram is the author of 'Father of Frankenstein' which was made into the movie 'Gods and Monsters' which I loved.

The story is the "memoir" of Augustus Fitzwilliam Boyd who dictates his life's memories to Tristan Kemp, sometimes addressing him and asking if he recalls the events from their life this way. This is one of those books that nearly defies categorization, it has so much packed into it (civil war, slavery, homosexuality, bisexuality, spiritualism, vaudeville, love, family, devotion, Coney Island and Sigmund Freud).

It's also one of those books that's good and interesting as you're reading along, then suddenly morphs into one of your all-time favorites. And I don't think you can really describe why that happens. I can't articulate what I loved so much about this book but I did love it. I'm so glad I finally read it.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a devoted fan of the author, I was late to read this epic and evocative tale. Yes, our narrator is troubled, and at times makes bad decisions. But the settings, from the post-Civil War South to New York, Constantinople, European cities, and once again New York, with Coney Island in all its early theatrical magic, brought history alive through the up-and-down career and experiences of a clairvoyant pianist, who sometimes fakes his connection to the spirit world.

Shifting from realistic historical settings to dream-state imagery, Bram's story spans a lifetime, from his early love for freed slave Isaac, to a manipulative boy, and into his later years with Isaac's wife and children. All along, he's trailed by a conniving 'journalist,' and endures the whims of audiences, from upper crust urbanites to sideshow hecklers.

The added focused perspective of his telling the tale through a character in the story offers a personal point of view.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book...until about 2/3 of the way through, at which point the eccentric but generally sympathetic protagonist becomes a pedophile, the plot takes a left turn at Albuquerque (or Constantinople), and my favorite character randomly exited the book, to be seen again only very briefly at the end. The story's premise and beginnings are beautifully complex, which makes the lethargic conclusion even more unsatisfying. My recommendation? Buy used or get from the library, and then put it down when they get to Constantinople (not joking about the plot taking a left turn there). Great premise, thoroughly dissatisfying execution.

[Patrick Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Think Dickens meets Cather meets Doctorow. This is a beautiful novel.

[Carlos Mock · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes by Christopher Bram

Born in 1850 in New York, Augustus Fitzwilliam Boyd (Dr. August) meets Isaac, a black slave in the civil war in 1864. Abandoned by his pedophile uncle, Giacomo Barry Fitzwilliams, he follows Isaac as he returns the dead body of his master killed by Union soldiers, Tom Kemp, to his parents in Norfolk.

After Isaac does that, he declares himself free and is joined by Dr. August. They start a romantic relationship. Dr. August plays the piano, but his tunes come from a "metaphysical" relationship with spirits.

They travel the US, playing at a whorehouse in NYC owned by Asa Roebuck. There August befriends Fanny Gaskins, one of the ladies. Soon after, they decide to take their chances with Europe. On the transatlantic crossing, Isaac meets Alice Pangborn - a soon to be a nanny in Paris. Isaac falls head over heels for Alice and they soon form a threesome as Isaac asks to marry her.

They continue their relationship, with bouts of jealousy that threesomes endure until August falls for Freddy, Lady Ashe's son. Lady Ashe is none other than Fanny, who had married a Lord while they stay with her in Constantinople. Isaac gets jealous and forces August to break with Freddy, thus causing Freddy to kill himself and Lady Ashe kills herself also. Issac feels so guilty that he abandons his family - so the threesome becomes an odd duo with two children: Augusta and Tristan.

After that, they travel the world and end up in NYC again.

The book is narrated from both the first-person point of view and the second-person point of view - as parts of the book are directed to Tristan, Isaac's son. The plot is flimsy and the characters are two dimensional. I never really cared for them. My instinct was to stop reading when the clumsily woven-in Alice diaries began, and I wish I had. Things never quite recovered after that, and I ended up disliking the book and all its major characters. I can enjoy a book without sympathetic characters, but Fitz and Alice and Isaac didn't engage me for very long; each one was tedious in a different way. The book contains many melodramatic faults: a scramble of thin, exotic settings; laughably contrived plot twists; reams of overheated, cliched dialogue; a narrator who explains and explains.

Not recommended!

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Warning: This review contains spoilers) (The book itself contains CSA & violent racism)

From an academic perspective this was a very interesting text. It had some beautiful and astute lines, especially when it comes to grief and loss ("my chief pain was the loss of pain, the numbing of memory.") I enjoyed the writing style.

On a more personal level, though it kept me interested throughout, I didn't find any of the characters likeable aside from Tristan, and we see relatively little of him. Which would be fine but I get the distinct impression that's not what the author was going for here. I could be misinterpreting, of course, but it definitely got in the way of my reading experience.

August himself is a relatively unrepentant pedophile who blames the death of his victim on others (his guilt is chiefly around the death and rejection, whilst the abuse is somewhat forgotten, which completely ruined any future scenes in which he tries to elicit sympathy from the reader). The white privilege and racist aggression from Alice and August also make them hard to listen to, especially once Alice is married.

I wouldn't recommend this to others; it all gets far too 'Lolita' for my liking and if you're looking for explorations of race and sexuality in this time period there are black gay authors who have done a much better job. But I do have a lot to say about it in terms of its portrayals of Spiritualism and reflection of 19th century themes, and I'm looking forward to writing an essay on it.

[David Sheward · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Bought at the Strand for $7.) Christopher Bram's fascinating historical novel kept me hooked through its 500-plus pages despite some lapses in character development. The narrative goes from the Civil War to the 1920s encompassing sexuality, race, class, American and European cultural clashes, spirituality, the supernatural. The gay narrator and title character is a musical charlatan who pretends to read minds through ghostly visits while playing the piano. He travels with the ex-slave Isaac and they become lovers until Isaac falls in love with a white governess. The plot complications are a bit incredible as they were in some of Bram's other novels I've recently read (Lives of the Circus Animals, Exiles in America), but the historical details and setting are absorbing, particularly his descriptions of 1880s European high society and early 1900s low-class entertainment on Coney Island.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't expect to like this book nearly as much as I did.

It's true that it suffered from a bad case of the 21'st century sensibilities. Usually I have only so much patience for a motley band of protagonists who just don't understand why their neighbors aren't as laid back as they are about race and sexuality. Truth be told, I usually have only so much patience for motley bands of protagonists, period. And this book had plenty of both. But by God, I enjoyed it. It was a story of a life that I'd certainly never heard before, and I found the end genuinely moving. The plot never seemed to drag, and it was a curious blend of literary predictability and realistic chance that worked very well together to make a stylized life story.

The book and its characters snuck up on me and meant more to me than I anticipated. I'll be thinking about them for a while.

[Jcrodgers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rarely do I pick up a book that I simply cannot put down. This is one book I just could not wait to have a moment or two in which I could sit down and read some more. The characters are dynamic and round. They are so well developed in most cases. Many of the passages or quotes are worth repeating for their universal message(s). The reinventing of oneself is one of the main themes for the characters, each in their own way and for their own necessity to survive life.

[Ken Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bram creates a cast of characters that are complex and captivating, while lovable in a tale that engages his reader joyously.
It is the type of reading that I eagerly pursue to see their choices and pursuits in order to learn their fates and where life takes them.
Exploration of gender, race, and sexual norms is woven into excellent writing that informs as it raises questions, challenges, and rewards.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly loved this book. I was completely enamored with it, from the first page. I wanted to get to the end, but I didn’t want to finish it. Some books are just like that. I don’t think everyone would love this book the way I did. It was just that perfect combination of character, voice, plot, language, and magic that appeals to certain people. It certainly resonated with me.

[Dustin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting premise that was well executed, with flawed people eventually coming to love each other in complicated ways.

[Jeff · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish. Wasted 300 pages waiting for something to happen

[Karl Kraus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book, more evidence of Bram's ability to grow as a writer of fictions, especially when one measures a book like this against his mostly deficient earlier works. I was immediately struck by the amount of solid research that went into its creation; even in the musical aspects (where, if I can don the mantle of false pride, I am not easily fooled) Bram doesn't strike a false note (pardon the cute locution). And as for his characters, his portrayal of Isaac as someone negotiating uneasily between righteousness and conflicting desires is alone worth the trouble of reading the book. My only complaint is the degree to which plot-necessary coincidences pile up toward the end, but nonetheless I think the book deserves a solid four stars.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel of Epic scope yet wondrously intimate

This review is from: The Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes (Hardcover)
Christopher Bram has written perhaps the most unique and adventurous novel of the new century. By his own closing page note he attributes his inspiration for this amazing novel to great writers both of history and contemporary. The Notorious Dr August scoops us up from the very first page and runs with us hand in hand through the extraordinary life of a dreamer who starts as a fife player in the Civil War, becomes intimately bound to a freed slave, turns a potentially harmful sexual history into a revealing life pattern, using his musical skill to become a Spiritulaist Pianist to wander fascinating European cities in support of an adopted family. But oh, trying to capsulize this incredibly well-spun story into a sentence is as difficult as condensing Joyce's Ullyses into a paragraph. You simply must read this magical tale of intrigue, love, commitment, spiritual journeys for yourself. Bram is a consummate storyteller and has the guts to present us with characters who are potentially unloveable and make us thrill to sail through their development and destinies. This book has it all - the complete spectrum of love, the importance of self discovery, an examination of the post Civil War dilemma of racism, and the struggle of the Victorian era coming to grips with real people instead of comfortable stereotypes. Funny, tender, tragic, moving, entertaining - A thouroughly wondrous book by an incredibly gifted writer. A MUST READ for everyone!

Grady Harp

[Karyl · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those novels that slowly draws you in, making you wonder what's around the next bend -- but as you read, you wonder why you care. The protagonist, the "notorious" Dr August, is in reality a man who is really rather wrapped up in himself, and who decides to write his memoirs when everyone else who could possibly paint a different portrait of him is dead. It's hard to be sympathetic to Dr August, especially when he decides to carry on a sexual affair with a fourteen-year-old boy who suffers from extreme loneliness. Dr August was abused in the same way as a young man, but yet he engages in it himself as an adult. I am not a prude, and the descriptions of male-on-male sexual liaisons did not bother me in the least, but the abuse of this boy did. Maybe it's the mother in me coming out, I don't know.

I chose to give this book three stars because it did hold my attention for the entire 500 pages. Another reviewer pointed out that it's possible that the book would have been far stronger if it had been written from Isaac's point of view, and I have to agree with that assessment. There's just not enough to August to make a reader engage with him.

[Jax · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm. This book was interesting. While the story was engaging, I felt that it was too choppy. We go from being homeless during the Civil War to a brothel in New York City to a bunch of different locations in Europe to a palace in the Middle East. Like, it just jumped around. It was hard to remember where the characters were. I also felt that Alice's life just seemed so horrible and without any joy. I would have liked to have seen her have some sort of normal life, especially after we learn that Isaac was remarried. And as for Augustus' "spirits." They didn't really have any purpose to the story; I almost feel like they were put in as an afterthought in order to make things a tad more exciting. Plus, the pedophile angle did not make me want to side with him. Also, I didn't understand why Isaac would be so upset about Augustus and the boy, meanwhile he engaged in the same activity! All in all, an interesting story but not my favorite by any means.

[Micha Meinderts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely liked the style of this novel, it was fluent and not too pretentious, telling a story and not trying to put things in nicer words than necessary. It felt comfortable reading it.

I also enjoyed the time frame, learning about an era I know very little about, and despite a few moments where the author was flaunting his research it felt mostly like it was actually written in that time.

The characters were nice and believable, interesting though sometimes a little charicatural, with traits exaggerated.

The one thing that took away from the experience was the lack of a solid exciting fast paced plot, it wasn't exactly a thrill ride, and the unbelievable coincidence of meeting certain people in unexpected places.

But other than that, marvelous read.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a slog at times and at least 200 pages too long. I had high hopes for it because the setting is neat (it takes place during the spiritualism fad of the late 1800s-early 1900s) and it's interesting to see America during and after the Civil War through the eyes of white gay man and his sometimes-lover, who is a former slave. However, the dictation style of narration is irritating and inconsistent and the plot is meandering and sometimes seems pointless. The Author's Note in the back of the book says the book is an homage to a wide array of literature that the author loves, and I get the feeling he just tossed a lot of disparate pieces into it and jiggled them around until they fell into some kind of order.

[Frederick Rockett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading this book, and I've now read all of Bram's books. This is my favorite of all of them! It's so rich with history, culture, character, and relationships. I don't know why some people don't like the characters. Yes, they're not perfect, but then who in real life is? They are complex characters who do both good and bad things, but who are basically good people because they want to do good. There is so much to this book that one could discus and analyze it forever. I found it enjoyable, engaging, fascinating, and memorable. Like a previous commenter, I think it would make a stupendous movie! Please check it out!

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodness. It's not often I finish a book with a smile on my face. This was just the right mix of ecstasy and angst, truth and lies, magic and reality. I was afraid for a good while that it would end up on my 'Saddest Books Ever Written' list, but it avoided wallowing in its own self-abuse to be something more meaningful and hopeful even in its portrayal of the pain of life. Definitely worth reading again.

[Mary Newcomb]

The literary device is fascinating--reminisces, diary entries and letters. The story is quite unusual. We start on a battlefield during the American Civil War, head to the fleshpots of New York, then Europe and back to New York all while exploring the role of the piano player/mentalist during the era. This novel also considers the roles of sexuality, racism and class during some changing times.

[Sean]

Definitely worth the read. It was beautiful, painful, and gorgeously descriptive. I could see this being turned in to a movie. Bram have a really fascinating look at life at the turn of the century, and specifically glimpses in to the landscape of New York City during this time. The book made me think about the role of music in our lives and our burning desire as a "species" to need to believe in ourselves, and some higher power.

[Tiffany Scolnic · Rating 4 out of 5]

So when was the last time you read a book about a clairvoyant homosexual piano player who travels around Europe and the US with his ex lover (also an ex slave) and his family? Yeah, it's probably been a while. A story line like I've never read before...