The Magic Keys

by Albert Murray

"The Magic Keys" winningly evokes the coming to maturity of one of the great characters in contemporary American literature: Scooter, the central protagonist of Albert Murray's highly acclaimed autobiographical novels "Train Whistle Guitar,"" The Spyglass Tree," and" The Seven League Boots." Growing up brilliant and curious in Alabama, Scooter was told he was destined for greatness. Now newly married and a graduate student in humanities at New York University, he goes about discovering just what he is destined to be great at. Anchored by Eunice, his "Mrs. Me," Scooter makes the rounds of Manhattan's libraries, jazz hangouts, galleries, skyscrapers, and endlessly fascinating streets, meeting the people who will help him find his way: dapper Taft Edison, who is setting their down-home dialect onto the pages of his novel-in-progress; Joe States, a drummer who brings old expectations to Scooter's new life; and Jewel Templeton, no longer his girl but still a believer. When his budding career takes him back to Alabama, Scooter discovers both the promise of everyday bliss and intimations of adventures to come. In his inimitably musical, ardent prose, Murray captures the joyful rhythms of youth and the pulse of life at the moment when everything seems possible, in an exhilarating, tender, and masterfully crafted novel.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Mia]

Today I went to my favourite bookstore and decided to spin around with my eyes closed and pick a book at random. I landed on this one, so I bought it. Seems like there are only two Goodreads reviews, and they're from 13 and 10 years ago respectively. I doubt I'll get to it anytime soon but I'm intrigued to eventually see how my impulsive purchase turns out!

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Volume four in the story of Scooter, aka Schoolboy, from Gasoline Point, Alabama. Scooter begins the novel in New York to attend graduate school at NYU. He is newly married (his wife is going to graduate school at Columbia’s Teacher College). Shortly after arriving he meets Taft Edison, who was a couple years ahead of him at the black college they both went to. Edison is promising young writer (think Ralph Ellison). He also begins a friendship with someone he met at the end of Seven League Boots while they were both in Paris. This is the artist Roland Beasley (think Romare Bearden, whose painting is used on the dust jacket). Joe States, Daddy Royal, the Bossman Himself, and many other characters make return appearances or are referenced. In the end, Scooter and his wife return to Alabama, he to teach and to work on a memoir with Daddy Royal, his wife to teach. He has found his path and it led home, though he may not stay there, even if this is the last installment of the series. It’s a pleasure to read, but not as compelling as the first two. The language is a treat and I came to realize that there is something Whitmanesque in Scooter. He is Murray’s stand in but the way the poet in Leaves of Grass stands in for its author—not in an ego-stroking, self-promotional way but as a kind of assertion for us all. Whitman was promoting us all into the cosmos embodying stratosphere. Murray is saying we all have a gift to discover and pursue and that journey is the one we each need to take for ourselves and by so doing we are also playing our role. I am thankful that I have more Murray to read: South to a Very Old Place, The Omni-Americans, The Hero and the Blues, and Stomping the Blues. One sad irony. Murray makes several references to the Gotham Book Mart (“Wise Men Fish Here”) and by coincidence I bought The Magic Keys in the fall of last year at the Gotham, at its new site on 46th Street between Fifth and Madison. The sadness comes when in the second or third week of December I went to visit the Gotham and it was closed for vacation, which struck me odd, a bookseller closing for vacation during the Christmas shopping season. This can’t be good, I thought. It never re-opened and eventually the closed for vacation sign was gone, as were the books and shelves and counters and tables within.

[Deb Oestreicher]

Not a page-turner, but an interesting roman a clef that made me very curious about the author, a schoolmate of Ralph Ellison and biographer of Count Basie.