Serious Music

by Percival Everett

A thrilling, darkly comic journey of a Black musician making his way from the trenches of the Somme, to the jazz clubs of Harlem, to the illicit inner sanctum of Woodrow Wilson’s White House, by the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author of James.

In 1918, Arthur Champion is one of a handful of Black students attending the Oberlin Conservatory of Music when he runs afoul of a vindictive professor and finds himself unceremoniously enlisted in the United States Army. What ensues is one man’s sweeping voyage through the decade, a kaleidoscopic view of America during seismic social shifts from the author hailed by The Chicago Tribune as “our current Great American Novelist.”

A brilliant interrogation of racism and ownership in art, Serious Music is a breakneck, high-octane read, thrumming with the electrifying humor and rigorous moral clarity that is the hallmark of this masterful writer’s contribution to American letters.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Music, Literary Fiction, Historical, Race, War

Kindle Edition

Expected publication March 2, 2027

About the author

Percival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.

The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”

Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.

Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.

Reviews

[Angela M]

Classical, jazz, ragtime , “ white music” , “black music” but for Arthur Champion it’s all beautiful and serious - the music that he feels in his soul which knows no boundaries. Like the boundaries reflected in the ugliness of racism, the horrors WWI with blood and guts , lost limbs, and death in the trenches in France . For Arthur it’s the music as he carries his violin with him trudging through the mud over dead bodies to safety in France , to the piano in rag time bars and violence of Harlem to Washington DC , the White House in the company of the blatantly racist President Wilson to yet more violence.

You don’t need to know a lot about music to appreciate what Everett has done here in this beautifully written and creatively constructed novel . I don’t know much about music at all and I found myself looking up the musical terms that title each chapter hoping to get the connection . I’m not sure if I did, but it didn’t make the reading experience any less impactful for me . The anger, fear, grief sometimes tempered with love, friendship, courage and brief spurts of humor touched me, made me cry and laugh . The depiction of the racism, still present today is chilling. Percival Everett is a virtuoso of the written word. This is only the second book I’ve read by him and I’m thrilled that I have many more to discover.


I received a copy of this book from Doubleday Books through NetGalley.

[DianaRose]

beyond honored to have received an early copy of everett's latest novel... i absolutely loved james (i HIGHLY recommend the audiobook if you have not listened to it yet) and cannot wait to dive into serious music.

[Margo Laurie]

Currently reading

Excited to read this! Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC 💖💖💖

[Betsy Robinson]

Serious Music, my twenty-third Percival Everett book since "discovering" his work in 2017, reconfirms my belief that this man, this writer has no bounds. He is not bound by his body, his personality, or his subject matter, yet it is tempting to reference earlier works with similar themes about that very thing. I won't. Serious Music is and deserves to be treated as a discrete work.

Everett has written out-of-body mathematics, serious wordplay, art and color, geology, philosophy, philology, zany comedies, zombies, agonized fathers, Westerns full of cowboys, ranchers, horse trainers, rascals, and thieves, college students and small-town bigots, and on and on. He has written about being a human being who fits in no existing box in a world full of box makers and labelers. It seems inevitable that he would finally write music—yes, the writing itself is music about a musician, and ultimately, in my opinion, music is the best way to convey the whole messy mess . . . and maybe even to finally realize that nobody can steal what is our music alone.

Protagonist and first-person narrator Arthur Champion, a wholly fictional character, is one of three Black Oberlin students in 1918; he is a violinist who is forced into the army and combat in World War I. From there he ends up in Paris playing piano in the band of real-life ragtime musician James Reese Europe. Arthur writes:

We played ragtime the rest of the evening, well into the morning. I listened with new ears while we played. Our rhythms, our intervals, the sliding, the bending, and all the while I composed my own music. None of what we were playing could be composed, but it, in fact, was, by all of us. In my mind, that first night, I realized that I could write what was being played and create a new space for improvisation, a space for a new language. Even then, in that free and soulful and brilliant music I could hear the chains of eighteenth-century harmonies clanking on my ankles. (from a chapter titled "L’Istesso Tempo")

And having truly found his musical chops, for a short time, Arthur Champion becomes one of the most subversively hilarious protagonists imaginable. I laughed, I guffawed, I roared at what followed, which I will not disclose. Suffice it to say: What Navajo background actors did in American Westerns by making up dialogue in their native language which was then heard by their own people in audiences, Arthur Champion does for Black audiences through music.

However, this release is followed by a quick dark dramatic series of movements that fictionalize real history and people during racist President Woodrow Wilson's administration. It's tense and moves like lightning—with each chapter throughout the book titled with a musical descriptive, e..g., Ostinato, Sforzando, Étude, etc.

And then—stop short! ("staccatissimo"?)—in a chapter titled Rallentando ("slow down") there was a foreboding that made me want to scream: No words, just a combination of visceral joy and rage that is hard to explain—and it is at the root of my obsession with Everett's work. I don't know if I would have felt this way at this particular point if I hadn't read the transcendent ending of Everett's life-changing hilarious and moving 1994 novel God's Country—and I realize I'm breaking my promise to review Serious Music as a discrete book. The trouble is it's not discrete. It's a piece of a symphony of history and humanity that Everett has been unspooling, probably unconsciously (he has said he never remembers his work after he's written it and counts on readers to interpret it), throughout his amazing writing life. So I cannot divorce God's Country as well as the various zombie stories (American Desert and Trees) from a quote suddenly inserted in the "Rallentando" chapter from a Black man named Walter Ford who, in this fictionalized version, had been lynched in Washington, DC, in 1909:

"You can only kill me once, so I might as well enjoy it." Then he laughed.

I cannot give any more context without spoilers, so I won't. Suffice it to say, my whole body went into alert when I read this line, and it was a joyful, hopeful feeling. It was what I wrote about in my Oh Reader essay about Whole Body Reading and it is why I read—to experience change and all the unnameable concurrent movements in my soul; to experience the "serious music" Percival Everett offers in this book—which fittingly I finished with primal sobbing. There are no words.

* * *
Thank you, Doubleday, for providing me with an advance reading copy. The book will be published in March 2027. Available for pre-order now at Reparations Club or Bookshop.org.
* * *
Coda
And just to test my reaction, a day after finishing, I reread the ending. It left me heaving, breathless, wasted . . . but ready for anything.

[Cody]

[Thanks and such to Doubleday. There's no author I am more eager for new work from, and this was a blessing.]

What to say? It's so far out from release that talking details would be shitty of me. As much as I am eager to share in wild excitement with another person, I respect you all too much to do whatever the literary equivalent is of slipping out before you wake up, leaving only a cigarette burn and loose change on the side table; no note, no number, no nothing. So I won't...

I'll be here (watching you creepily) as you wake from the wreckage of your slumber; staring intently as the mortification of the previous night's misadventures reifies behind your suddenly focused gaze; hovering over you just enough to blot out any denying the profundity of your (very serious) lapse in judgment.

And then I'll suggest making some eggs.

[This is everything I would have dared hope it could be, a sort of amalgam of previous Percivals forming a new hybrid. While the promotional materials may center the comedy in it, make no mistake: this is tragedy, writ large. And, oh, it's all so goddamn beautiful. We are witnesses to the imperial phase.]

[Stephen the Bookworm]

" Yeah, well. That's what life is, isn't it? One day you're lying in a field of corpses and the next you're playing a piano in Paris. Next day you're lying in a street of corpses like nothing happened."

This is the story of Arthur Champion; an American musician and composer who finds himself rejected from his college of music and forced to fight in the trenches in the battle of the Somme. A man who uses his musical skill to entertain and connect but also to open doors and even influence the mood and atmosphere of all around.

From the horror of the battlefield in World War I, he finds himself in the clubland of Paris World War I where he meets James Europe, the Ragtime and early jazz bandleader and composer, a man who recognises Arthur's talents.

They return to the divided and racist society of the United States and Arthur's life takes on a powerful journey of traumatic twists and turns; an existence which culminates in working at the White House within the realm of President Woodrow Wilson and a life of oppression and violence; a battle for life that feels no different to the one he fought for in the war

This is a story of survival in a time of horrendous racism and tragedy( despite having fought for his country) but at the heart of the book is also a recognition of the power of music - how it can unite, motivate, inspire and also be used as a weapon.

Following The Trees and James, Percival Everett has written a gripping and powerful story. In a world of so many uncertainties and the rise (and return) of right wing /extreme attitudes, we all need to be consistently reminded of the fights and struggles of the past and how we can never ever allow thoughts and actions that divide humanity return (or many cases still continue and worsen).

Following the recent novels of Jonathan Coe, Elif Shafak, and John Boyne, there is obviously a desire from writers to explore the influence and power of artists of the past and the world of Arthur Champion- albeit fiction with factual links- highlights how the strength and influence of the world of arts should never be underestimated and all that has and can achieve.

Serous Music is a highly readable novel that grabs from page one and unceasingly holds attention until the final page as you want Arthur to survive, succeed and have his talents recognised . This is a novel that demands attention weaving fact and fiction in a powerful way and further cements Percival Everett alone of the best authors today . This is a story that will stay with me now long after reading

Superb - a top book of 2027 without any question Booker List 2027 prediction

Thank you to Pan Macmillan/Mantle and NetGalley for the advance copy for an honest and unbiased review

[Matthew Ted]

3.5. It feels like James only just came out, but I was horrified to see that it was published in 2024. Either way, Everett seems readily capable of churning books out. And yet, one could not claim, as Capote did of Kerouac: 'That’s not writing, that’s typing.' Since 2020 he has published Telephone, The Trees (2021), Dr. No (2022), James (2024), and now Serious Music (2027). With just the four novels before this one, not even counting the rest of his career, he has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize, been shortlisted for the Man Booker more than once, and been finalist for numerous other prizes and awards.

Naturally, I had high hopes for Serious Music. I will readily admit that it is possibly my high hopes that led to my slight disappointment. This novel is being described as 'breakneck'. This is true. By page 28 or something we are in the trenches of the First World War with Arthur Champion. He was plucked from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and sent there. Surprisingly, Everett does not shy from writing combat. There is a little trench life, then the boys go over the top. Champion survives, returns home and somehow ends up being a gardener at the White House. The plot never slows for a single page. Sometimes I was tempted to think, 'This must be typing!', but only because Everett makes it look so easy. I think it was Stephen King who once said easy reading is hard writing. Your eyes barely touch the pages of this book. If life had paused in longer intervals, I could have easily read the whole thing in one sitting, despite being 300-odd pages.

There are hidden passageways, plenty of violence, strange musical performances (with strange musical... powers?), a war against Woodrow Wilson... It rushes headlong to the end. Maybe because I got there so quickly, and with so little time for breath, I was surprised to find it over. I don't know. I guess I wanted to feel or think a little bit more. Since finishing it earlier this week it hasn't popped into my head much, but, then again, I thoroughly enjoyed the wild ride whilst I was on it. A forgettable rollercoaster?

A big thanks to Pan Macmillan for the advance copy for review, otherwise I would have to wait till March next year.

[Chloe]

New Percival Everett, thank you god!!!!!

[Caroline]

Huge thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the ARC. I couldn’t wait to read Serious Music and I wasn’t disappointed.

It’s the story of a young black musician, Arthur Champion, who is cast out of music college, enlists and is sent to the front line in the battle of the Somme in WW1. His journey takes him from there to the White House at the time of the racist President Woodrow Wilson and on to the jazz clubs of Paris.

It is trade mark Everett at his absolute best. The novel confronts the systemic racism and violence of this period head on, but is shot through with dark humour. It’s a pacy and masterful piece of storytelling and the battlefield scenes in particular were extraordinarily vivid.

It’s a fascinating read from a historical perspective as Everett looks at the role of black American soldiers in WW1, the regiment known as the Harlem Hellfighters and its military band, the racist film The Birth of A Nation by DW Griffith and the birth of the civil rights movement. I couldn’t stop Googling to find out more and the way in which Everett mixes historical events and people with fiction is effortless

The book is infused with music right down to the chapter headings, many of which are musical terms (glissando, bellicoso). The book raises important questions about music and cultural identity and its power both to unite and to segregate.

Serious Music brought to my mind novels by other writers which also intertwine themes of music and racial prejudice and which I think are great companion reads to Everett’s book, covering the periods before and after the time in which Serious Music is set:
-Sebastian Barry’s The Newer World, a similarly picaresque story about Tennyson Bouguereau, a freed slave who joins a touring gospel choir set in the aftermath of the Civil War;
- James Baldwin’s Just Above My Head, a deeply moving novel about a pair of brothers, one of whom is a famous gospel singer set from the 1940s to the 1960s through the height of the civil rights movement; and
-The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers, an epic story about a mixed race family of musicians set in the period from 1939 to the late 20th century.

[Em]

Arthur Champion is a character I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

Reading Serious Music by Percival Everett, I kept thinking about what it costs to know who you are while living in a world determined to tell you otherwise. Arthur survives war, racism, and dehumanization but music is always the place he can return to himself.

When a Black fireman tells Arthur he plays “white music,” I understood why it hurt. Music is the one place Arthur can simply be without having to explain or defend his Blackness.

And after experiencing France, watching him return to an America that still insists on seeing him through such a narrow lens was gut wrenching. His story made me think about the particular weight of Black malehood and what it means to be exceptionally talented while also learning when it is—and isn’t—safe to let people see the fullness of you.

Serious Music is soulful, painful, and deeply human. Arthur (and all the friends he makes along the way) reminded me that sometimes the things we love become more than passions. They become places where we can remember ourselves.

[K]

I think Percival Everett truly is the great American writer of our time

[KC]

In 1918, a gifted young black man lands a spot at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music but after an unfortunate turn of events, he finds himself deep in the trenches of France. After returning home, he eventually ends up working for a historic racist president. From a period in time where systemic racism was out in the open and the shameless abuses towards anyone black was deadly, Everett is able to masterfully blend horror and beauty simultaneously.

[Creed Taylor]

With percival Everett books, there is frequently a crisis, but that’s combatted by the levity brought to you by the main characters inner monologue or quick tongue.

This book strips a lot of that away and just conveys raw emotion and feels. He is perhaps my number 1 must buy author.

Thanks to edelweiss for letting me read this early.

[Lucy]

I was very pleased to receive an ARC of Percival Everett’s new novel, Serious Music, after really enjoying James.

Arthur Champion, a Black student at the Oberlin Conservatory in 1918, finds himself forced into the US Army by a spiteful professor. The novel follows Arthur through his experiences of racism during the war and later, when he returns to the US and becomes an unskilled garden worker at Woodrow Wilson’s White House.

I really appreciated the dark humour, historical context, and exploration of racism, human behaviour, and the role of music. Arthur is a strong and likeable character, and although the book is darkly comic, it is also tragic and, at times, disturbing.

For me, however, the pace was a little slow in places, and I wasn’t always consistently engaged with the story. There are also many musical themes, and while I appreciated the strong emphasis on music, I didn’t always understand all of the musical references.

Overall, this was an interesting and thought-provoking novel, but unfortunately, it didn’t have quite the same impact on me as James.

[Gary]

Another absolute banger from Percival Everett. I loved this beautiful book, and if you are a fan of James or I Am Not Sidney Poitier, you'll likely love this one, too.

What struck me most was how viscerally Everett captures the oppressive, violent racism of the era surrounding World War I. Woodrow Wilson’s deeply entrenched racism and the shadow of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation both loom large. But interwoven with that dark reality is a beautiful, affectionate tribute to music. Several classical and early jazz composers figure prominently, and the book is packed with fascinating details about classical compositions, jazz, ragtime, blues, and stride piano.

At its core, it was an enriching educational experience. Through the eyes of the fictional Arthur Champion, a gifted young Black musician and composer returning from the war in France, I learned a lot about the early civil rights movement in the United States, sparked by Black veterans returning home from WWI in 1919 and the years that followed. Giants of history like W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Walter White, and Denmark Vesey are prominent figures throughout the story. Everett brings real historical events of the day to life in a way that makes you realize just how much we should have been taught in school, but weren't.

It is a powerful read that balances heavy history with just the right touches of levity, all delivered with Everett's signature brilliance.

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Ben Dutton]

Percival Everett is a seriously good writer, and with his latest Serious Music, he continues a great streak of novels, which includes the Pulitzer Prize winning novel from 2024, James. This is his first work of fiction since that novel, and so expectation will undeniably be high.

Serious Music sees musician Arthur Champion become involved in the First World War as a soldier, whose life is changed when he loses the sheet music of a compesition he was working on, and is hired to play accompaniment to the film Birth of a Nation. These two subjects - the war and the worlds reaction to one of the most divise and racist movies ever made - show that Everett is again taking on and discussing some major themes - race, it's place in America, and how it changes the world. But by keeping the focus on Arthur Champion, his relationship with librarian Alpha, he creates a very human tale.

Serious Music is fast-paced, and there are twists and turns here that wouldn't be out of place in a thriller - but it is written in Everett's inimitable style - and it is easy to see him becomes lauded as one of America's great novelists. I really enjoyed this one and can highly recommend it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

[Tracy]

What is so exciting about Percival Everett is that his worlds are slightly off and slightly absurdist (while being also exactly correct) and so anything can happen. He builds tension just by setting a scene because at any moment something insane might happen. And it usually does.

[Keith]

In Serious Music, we meet Arthur Champion, a gifted Black musician whose talent carries him through the travails of early twentieth-century America. In 1918, Arthur is studying violin and piano at the Oberlin Conservatory when a confrontation with a racist professor leads to his conscription into the U.S. Army. Sent to France as World War I is winding down, he performs in a military string quartet while also confronting the horrors of the trenches, where mustard gas damages his hands and threatens his musical ability. After the war, Arthur returns to an America in which racism is even more oppressive than what he experienced overseas. At home, he reconnects with a fellow soldier, becomes involved in a romantic relationship, and works his way into the emerging musical world of the era, moving between classical (i.e., serious) music and the increasingly vibrant jazz scene. Eventually, life takes him to Washington, D.C., where he works as a White House gardener for Woodrow Wilson—a notoriously segregationist president—and finds himself drawn into events that turn increasingly strange and violent. Through it all, music remains Arthur's refuge, his means of understanding the world, and his most effective weapon against a society determined to define him.

It would be easy to regard Serious Music as a straightforward character study of a talented artist of color trying to find his way in a world where the deck is stacked against him. However, a far better reading of the novel sees it as creative historical fiction in the tradition of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime, where a fictional protagonist moves through recognizable historical events while exposing contradictions embedded in the national experience. Indeed, this story ranges across an extraordinarily fertile period historically: World War I, segregation in the armed forces, the beginnings of the Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance, the “Red Summer” riots and postwar racial violence, and the Wilson administration's segregation of the federal government. But the closest comparison may be with Percival Everett’s own transcendent work James. Both books reinterpret a portion of American history by giving intellectual and artistic agency to a Black character whom the surrounding White society persistently misunderstands; where James uses language as an instrument of resistance and self-definition, Arthur uses music.

I learned a lot from Serious Music and I certainly enjoyed reading it, although perhaps not as much as some of Everett’s previous efforts. Certainly, the author’s prose is razor-sharp throughout and his ability to add darkly humorous notes to what is essentially a very sad story was well executed. Also, his command of both music theory and the history of the period was impressive; the recurring episode involving The Birth of a Nation is especially clever as Griffith's film—one of the most consequential pieces of racist propaganda in American history—is turned against itself by suggesting that Arthur can manipulate its meaning with his music. On the hand, I found the emphasis on the racial themes to be quite heavy-handed, bordering on being florid and over the top. In exploring the myriad ways in which Blacks are exploited, marginalized, and discriminated against in a predominantly White society, this book shows little of the creativity (James) or subtlety (Erasure) the author has employed elsewhere in his estimable catalog. Nevertheless, this is an easy book to recommend, even if Everett’s previous work is likely to remain more memorable.

[Nana]

I had read and absolutely loved *James* and *Trees* by Percival Everett, so you can imagine my surprise and excitement when I received an email telling me I had been considered for an ARC via NetGalley. Naturally, my expectations were high.

Unfortunately, this book did not resonate with me on quite the same level as Everett’s previous works I’ve read.

Arthur Champion is a Black student at the Oberlin Conservatory in 1918. Along with his friend Will, he finds himself forcibly enlisted into the US Army after a white woman takes an interest in Will, much to the disgust of a spiteful, racist professor. We follow Arthur through his harrowing experiences of racism during the war before he somehow survives and returns to the United States.

Back home, Arthur reconnects with one of his former comrades, who helps him secure a job as an unskilled garden hand at the White House, where Woodrow Wilson resides. From there, Arthur finds himself placed directly within the orbit of one of the most consequential and deeply racist presidencies in American history.

This was where the book worked particularly well for me. I really enjoyed the way Everett weaves Arthur into the historical events of the period, and especially his portrayal of Wilson. Putting Arthur so close to the centre of Wilson’s administration allows Everett to expose the disturbing reality of racism when the people occupying the highest positions of power are themselves its perpetrators.

It also raises a question that feels painfully relevant even today **What hope is there for a Black person in America when racism is embedded at the very top?**

Where the novel lost me somewhat was the role of music. I’m not particularly musical, and I found myself struggling with some of the musical references and themes, especially his music to accompany Beasts of Nations. I had no idea what that was about. I don’t mind a book challenging me, but I also don’t enjoy feeling as though I need to do additional work to understand what I’m reading. This ultimately kept the book at around a 3.75-star read for me.

That said, Arthur is a strong and likeable protagonist, and as always, Everett demonstrates his ability to use historical fiction to question America's complicated relationship with race.

Will I remember Arthur years from now? yes.

Will I remember the themes Everett explores through him? Absolutely.

Overall, an interesting and thought-provoking novel that gave me plenty to think about, even if it didn't quite have the impact of *James* or *Trees* for me.

[Andre(Read-A-Lot)]

How can you get the D.W. Griffith film, Birth Of A Nation to be palatable to Black folk, while simultaneously making it distasteful for White viewers? Well, you start with one of the best authors today, one who is creative, inventive, and cynically brilliant with his use of satire, then you craft a story that taps into the Black excellence of seemingly ordinary people and dash in some history, throw in a spice of thrills and you have the makings of another masterpiece from none other than Percival Everett, the GOTT! (Greatest Of This Time)

The story of Arthur Champion is a roller coaster ride. He is riding high as one of the few Black students “lucky” enough to be at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1918. By the year alone, you know how rare that is. However, due to the ugly disease of racism, which Percival Everett slyly catechizes throughout this novel, especially in the area of music, and who gets to play it, claim it, and be immersed in its power to move and transform, heal or harm.

See, Mr. Champion is a violinist and a pianist, undoubtedly headed for a great future in the music world before being sent off campus to join the Army and finds himself in the trenches of Somme, France. He brought his violin with him, and along with three others were selected as a ragtag sort of quartet to entertain the troops; “‘I have a plan for you men. I’m bringing you to France to play for the Frogs in the trenches. You’ll be ambassadors. At the same time we’ll be rubbing it in their faces that even our darkies can play their music.’”

Of course that was only when he and his cohorts weren’t deep in the trenches themselves trying to survive the war, not wanting to kill, but more importantly not wanting to die.

Arthur Champion does survive the war, though I use the word survive loosely, and is able to scrabble together a little musical life that is showing some promise as he gets in with the James Reese Europe band.(true historical figure, often credited as a pioneer in ragtime) The novel really takes flight after his stint with the JRE band and Arthur lands in Washington DC, in close proximity to the White House, oh so so close. The WH is currently occupied by Woodrow Wilson(one of the most anti-Black racist presidents ever, according to history)”Wilson doesn’t much like you, however. He’s from the South and they don’t much like colored folks down there. Odd, since they use them for just about everything.”

In classic Percival Everett style, Arthur Champion gets a chance to play piano in the WH for Woodrow Wilson, but not by invitation but infiltration, solidifying this novel as a modern day masterpiece. Awards will surely be coming in 2027. Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday for an advanced DRC. Book is due March 2, 2027

[Paul Wagenbreth]

I’ll have to leave it to other more musically attuned readers of Percival Everett’s “Serious Music” to register all the novel’s musical themes, which I’m sure considerably enrich a book which to my mind was compelling enough just as straight narrative, with how it runs its principal character, pianist and violinist and would-be composer Arthur Champion, through the ringer of early 20th Century black history, starting with when he is pressed by racist officialdom at Oberlin Conservatory into leaving school and enlisting in the Army, which, with the First World War raging, installs him straightaway in the trenches at the Somme, where he must endure mud, rain, rats, and of course being shot at, and perhaps worst of all for the sheer ghastliness of it, the mustard gas, which does a number in particular on his hands to where they will bother him for the rest of his life, though they’re functional enough that he is able to continue to play the piano and violin once he's back in the States, where he hooks up with an old military buddy and for a time is content enough, even able to initiate a sweet romance, but soon enough the rampant racism of the day, which is even greater at home than abroad in the service, inserts itself strongly enough into his own life as to have a devastating effect on his romance and make itself glaringly evident in his eventual employment as a gardener at the virulently racist Wilson White House, where it ends up making for a death on the premises.
Compelling enough, as I say, the narrative on its own, which nevertheless I’m sure would have been considerably enriched for me had I been able to be more fully appreciative of the musical themes which inform the novel in the way of another novel I kept being put in mind of as I read, Thomas Mann’s similarly music-infused “Doctor Faustus,” which is also about a composer at a particularly dark time, in its case the rise of Nazism in World War II. Considerably less reader-friendly, though, Mann’s magisterial accomplishment, which twice I’ve tried to get through and twice had to abandon for its sheer intellectual density. No such reader intimidation for me, though, with Everett’s novel, which I sped through in a day and can unhesitatingly recommend to anyone who loves good narrative.

[Chris Reads Books]

Serious Music is the epic story of Arthur Champion, a musician, violinist and pianist who is one of only three Black students at the Oberlin Conservatory. Following a racist incident, they are drafted to fight in the war. And so we follow Arthur’s journey, accompanied by his music sheets and violin, as he survives the war, returns to America and works in the White House, only to find himself battling different (although equally, and at times even more, violent!) enemies.

For Arthur, life as a Black man after the war becomes simply an extension of the battlefield. Everett explores how war, with all its trauma, senselessness and violence, stokes the fire of white racism, only for that violence to be redirected towards Black people back home. Arthur may have survived one battlefield, but returning to America means confronting another.

Arthur himself is not a particularly striking character, yet he is written so well that there is a quiet strength to him. It’s so life-giving for me as a reader to read about a character who is so passionately in love with something. For Arthur, it’s music. Making music and sharing music. And as Arthur moves through these different battlefields, music moves with him. It is not simply his companion; it reads almost like a character of its own.

There are lots of absurd, surreal and memorable moments here. Some are full of sadness and horror; others are action-packed and anxiety-inducing. It is a truly immersive novel, and while it is a cruel world to enter, Everett’s writing makes it difficult to leave.

Everett’s signature blend of humour is evident throughout, yet here it seems to function less as a buffer to his jabs at the searing realities of racism and more like lighter fluid, making his critique even more scathing. His words, like honey, are rich yet flow effortlessly, making the novel incredibly difficult to put down.

For me, Everett is not only a great writer but also a great teacher. Serious Music, in both its subtleties and emphases, offers a lesson in what it takes to be an activist: to keep working towards social change even when change is painfully slow to achieve, and to believe that it is still worth striving for.

[Chelsea Knowles]

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

Serious Music follows Arthur Champion who is a black man in America. He is a gifted musician but ends up being sent to fight in World War I. He experiences the horrors of the Somme trenches but ends up surviving whilst his friends die. Free from war, he decides to follow his musical abilities by playing in the jazz clubs of Paris. Ultimately, he ends up back in America working at the White House which leads to him playing for Woodrow Wilson. Whilst Arthur is doing this, tension builds between white and black Americans, leading to riots and murders. Arthur is a black man trying to find his place in a divided America and must decide how to make a difference using his musical gifts.

Percival Everett’s prose is on another level and I don’t think any other author compares to the way he writes. There is something so beautiful about the writing and the way Everett conveys such feeling through the prose. I had a good time reading this book and I easily connected to Arthur. The story is interesting and I like how this book touched on real life American history with African American men fighting in World War I. This book is set upon a backdrop of racism with things like The Birth of a Nation being discussed and riots in the streets with white people trying to murder black people and black communities retaliating. Arthur working at the White House while Woodrow Wilson is president is very racially charged and there is a lot to take away from this book. There are some interesting conversations about music in this book, specifically about how black artists have been ignored and their music stolen which is very relevant to today’s society. I flew through this book, it’s paced well and kept me engaged. I’m giving this book 4 stars because I enjoyed reading this but this didn’t impact me the way James did. I will be recommending this book and I can see this being a big hit for 2027.

[Andy Biggar]

I was so lucky to be given a pre release copy by the publisher to read and I felt honoured.
Serious Music is a powerful and ambitious novel that showcases Percival Everett's talent for combining historical storytelling with sharp social observation. Set during a period of significant change and upheaval, the novel follows a gifted Black musician as he navigates war, racism, artistic ambition, and the search for personal freedom.

Everett's writing is both intelligent and accessible, balancing serious themes with moments of wit and humour. The novel explores the role of art in society and asks thought-provoking questions about creativity, ownership, and identity. Music serves as the emotional and thematic centre of the story, giving the narrative a sense of rhythm and energy that carries the reader through its events.

The historical setting is vividly realised, and the protagonist's journey feels both deeply personal and representative of broader social struggles. Everett has a gift for creating characters who are complex and memorable, and he brings a unique perspective to the ways people confront injustice while trying to remain true to themselves.

What makes Serious Music especially compelling is its combination of emotional depth and intellectual curiosity. The novel engages with difficult subjects but remains engaging and often unexpectedly entertaining. Everett's characteristic blend of insight, irony, and humanity is on full display throughout.

Overall, Serious Music is a thoughtful, moving, and highly accomplished work of historical fiction. Readers who enjoy literary novels that combine strong character development, social commentary, and artistic themes will find much to admire here.

Superb book, very well written and a joy to read. Cannot recommend enough. Just buy it as soon as you can you will not be disappointed

[Diana]

Arthur, the main character of this novel starts out as a student of music at Oberlin College, heads to the hellish trenches of WWI, to Paris, to New York, to Washington D.C. where Woodrow Wilson is president.

Music and racism, that's what this book is about. How it must eat away at your day to day life, being the subject of racial hatred. Racism is everywhere- and I found it interesting how Everett shows that while obviously, racism hurts Black people, it's incredible damaging to the psyches of the white racists too. For Arthur, music is both a source of power and a source of solace, and with all the things he goes through, music is central to his sense of who he is. He is a composer.

This isn't a perfect novel-- it all goes a little too fast. But I found it truly engaging as I read and there were a lot of parts that I liked. My husband and I actually watched Birth of a Nation a couple of years ago because we wanted to know how bad it really was-- and it was really bad. I'd watch it again with Arthur's soundtrack, though. I liked Arthur's slow and sweet romance with a librarian. I like the conversations men had with each other in bars.

Stray thoughts: Woodrow Wilson was such a racist bastard. I knew this already, but reading the book made me curious and I looked up his treatment of Black federal workers and got furious. But... it seemed like every time Arthur overheard him he was spewing racism, which seemed a little too on point.

What also made me furious, but of course makes sense: Black troops in WWI weren't given enough training OR the gear they needed, like gear that would protect them from mustard gas.

I liked the talk of music in this book and would occasionally stop and listen to a piece that was referenced in the text, which was a real pleasure. More and more, I like reading books about music.

[B K178]

*Serious Music* is the latest book by the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author of James. I have read *Erasure*, *James*, and *I Am Not Sidney Poitier*, and I thoroughly enjoyed *Serious Music*. It’s a serious and evocative story that gradually builds suspense.

Like in Percival Everett’s other works, the story explores what it means for a person of color to navigate a racist America, including the complexities of code-switching and creating identities for survival in a country that takes and abuses. Spanning from World War I onward, the novel blends history and culture with an intimate, human perspective.

Music provides a fitting backdrop for the story. There’s a musical quality to the narrative flow—sometimes surprising, layered, and improvisational, reminiscent of jazz. Its non-linear progression enhances the story’s evocative atmosphere. My only critique is that some transitions could have been more developed or clearer. However, this aligns with the novel’s musical style and its tendency to move unpredictably.

Overall, I enjoyed *Serious Music* and would recommned to others. It’s emotionally rich and suspenseful, keeping readers engaged and eager to see what happens next. Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Josh Escandon]

Thanks to Doubleday Books and Netgalley for an eARC of Serious Music by Percival Everett. I have a feeling this novel might become my favorite Everett and is sure to make waves next year upon release. Serious Music is an absolute behemoth of a literary historical novel that tackles how art, in this case music, can be used to not only connect groups of people through culture but also to erase and disparage those same groups. Arthur is a remarkable protagonist that not only acts as our eyes and ears as he journeys through different locations, including Washington DC, Harlem, and France, but also goes into incredible detail about how he’s feeling in the moment and what that can mean for himself, his people, and society going forward. In doing that, Arthur and the characters that interact with him become fully rendered, and you are absolutely hooked on finishing their journey. The last four days were a joy reading through this novel, feeling so many emotions, and pondering some profound questions about art and what it really means.

[Amy Hesterman]

Percival Everett’s historical fiction novel, Serious Music, focuses on the life of Black musician Arthur Champion who is abruptly extracted from being a music major to defending the US in WW I. After serving his country and experiencing the horrors of war, he returns to the US not knowing exactly what to do with his life. He feels the effects of racism deeply when he returns home and finds himself working as a gardener on the grounds of Woodrow Wilson’s White House. Music for Arthur is secondary. It can no longer be the focus of his life, just a hobby or something he can participate in when necessary. The angst of the novel is the unjust treatment of blacks during the early decades of the 1900s both on American soil and when these men were defending their country.

I didn’t enjoy this novel as much as I enjoyed Everett’s James. But he is someone that I will still pay attention to in future writings.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Frontlist for the opportunity to read this for an honest review.

[Emily]

I was a bit crushed when this book ended, even though it had a great ending. I just wanted to follow Arthur Champion around for the next twenty years of his life, at least. From elite music school to the trenches of WWI to the Harlem music scene to the postwar race riots of the 1920s and Wilson's horrifyingly racist White House, Arthur travels through as broad a cross-section of society as I can imagine in the short time that we spend with him. He's one of the saddest characters I've ever met but somehow manages to infuse every situation he finds himself in with quiet humor and charm as well as the clear-eyed intelligence readers will expect from a Percival Everett narrator.

I watched Birth of a Nation in a college film class thirty-odd years ago and never wanted to see it again, but now I kind of do want to see it with Arthur's score behind it, even if I'd risk madness or stroke by doing so...

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

[Mara]

If you were first introduced to Percival Everett through James, as I was, you know that he uses code-switching as a narrative technique with devastating precision, and won't be disappointed to see him displaying his mastery in Serious Music, and with even more precision and dark humor.

Arthur Champion is a violin student at the Oberlin Conservatory in 1918 when he finds himself the target of a professor's racist agenda. At the "suggestion" of the administration, he and a friend enlist in the army, where they soon find themselves a part of General Pershing's personal string quartet, which does nothing to prevent them from being gassed at the Battle of the Somme. Throughout his travails, Arthur relies on music, playing it, composing it, and thinking about it, to keep him sane, but it isn't until he is asked to play the piano accompaniment to a showing of Birth of a Nation that he starts to realize the power of music to shape the experience of his listeners.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.