Fat Man Blues

by Richard Wall

#1 Amazon Blues Music Bestseller. "A page-turner of a Blues Book..." Blues In Britain Magazine "...a story composed and delivered in the best traditions of the Blues..." Darren Weale - British Blues Exhibition "Hobo John" is an English blues enthusiast on a pilgrimage to present-day Mississippi. One night in Clarksdale he meets the mysterious Fat Man, who offers him the chance to see the real blues of the 1930s. Unable to refuse this offer, Hobo John embarks on a journey through the afterlife in the company of Travellin' Man, an old blues guitarist who shows him the sights, sounds and everyday life in the Mississippi Delta. Along the way, the Englishman discovers the harsh realities behind his romantic notion of the music he loves and the true price of the deal that he has made.

Genres: Music, Historical Fiction

346 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 30, 2015

About the author

Hello,

I'm Richard Wall, author of the novels, Fat Man Blues, Near Death, and some other stuff.

My stories reflect my life-long fascination with the dark underbelly of American culture; be it tales of the Wild West, the simmering menace of the Deep South, the poetry of Charles Bukowski, or Langston Hughes, the writing of Andrew Vachss and John Steinbeck, or the music of Charley Patton, Son House, Johnny Cash, or Tom Waits.

Reviews

[Mark Tilbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a completely one-off original book. Not only is it's focus on one of my favourite styles of music, the author has created an engaging, entertaining and at times, emotional story.

Englishman 'Hobo John' meets Fat Man whilst in Mississippi and is offered the chance to experience the real blues of the 1930's. Hobo John, soon known simply as White Boy, travels through the afterlife with blues guitar player/singer, Travellin' Man and experiences much more than blues music.

The quality of writing in this book is excellent. The author obviously has a passion for blues music himself and I like the accents used throughout the book too. I especially enjoyed the dialogue between Travellin' Man and Half-Pint. I could picture the scene and hear them talking in my head.

The afterlife can apparently be even more dangerous than being alive. When White Boy realises the consequences of the deal he made with Fat Man he feels guilty. He comes up with a plan to ensure that his time in the afterlife does some good in the present. Everything really does have a price to pay.

A thoroughly enjoyable and interesting read. I'll be reading more of this authors work.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would you sell your soul to the Devil? At what price? How about if you knew you were dying and didn’t have long to live? It’s not like the dead have anything left to lose. But if the Devil’s so interested in your immortal soul that he’s willing to offer you anything in return then maybe, just maybe, someone’s getting fucked on the deal.

Hobo John is a terminally-ill English guy, with a troubled past, whose bucket list is all about the blues. He’s a blues aficionado on a journey across Mississippi to see what is considered by many to be the birth place of the blues. Delta Blues came from the Mississippi Delta and is one of the earliest styles of blues music.

On a drunken night in Clarksdale Hobo John enters into a Faustian pact with a devilish character, called Fat Man, who makes him an offer that he can’t refuse. In exchange for his life, which is at its end anyway, he must cross over to the afterlife of the Mississippi Delta to record blues artists both famous and unknown from the 1930s.

It’s a real ‘devil at the crossroads’ moment but, unlike Vegas, what happens at the crossroads doesn’t stay there. To begin with Hobo John has a blast hanging out with the souls of dead musicians but working for Fat Man is dirty business, with untold consequences, and there’s always a price to be paid.

There’s much more to the story, including twists and turns that I don’t want to spoil here, but the plot isn’t really the point. It’s all about the music. You don’t have to be a blues fan to enjoy the story but you’ll sure as hell learn a lot about the blues along the way.

Robert Johnson fans will especially get a kick out of it as they catch references to songs like “Crossroad Blues,” “Me and the Devil Blues,” and “Hellhound on My Trail.” Legend has it that in the Deep South in the 1930s Robert Johnson met the Devil at the crossroads and sold his soul to become the greatest Delta Blues artist that ever lived.

The author may spit at me for saying this but, at least structurally, the book has much in common with Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. In that book the story is used as a way to give you a history of philosophy whereas here a similar conceit is used to give you a taste of the blues. Just enough to wet your whistle — like drinking whisky straight from the bottle.

Richard Wall writes like a motherfucker. I mean that in a good way. He’s clearly passionate about the blues and has a deep knowledge of music history and blues lore. I’d love for the novel to be released as a dramatised audiobook with an accompanying soundtrack featuring Delta Blues songs hand-picked by the author.

Fat Man Blues is a wild ride. It’s violent and bloody in parts but the writing is tight and visceral and remains faithful to, and worthy of, the music that inspired it.

You can buy the book here and check out his other work at richardwall.org

Originally published at themagicalbuffet.com

[Lee Prescott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable slice of deep-south Crossroads (not the one with Benny) based hokkum. The reverential blues references speak loud and clear of the author's love of the genre and are fun, but ultimately the story doesn't make a lot of sense. A good beach read for anyone who's ever heard of Son House and the rest.

[S.D. Mayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know much about the blues, but it didn't stop me enjoying this atmospheric and unusual story by Richard Wall.

'Hobo John' is the main protagonist and in the clutches of some kind of horrible and sudden illness, when he comes across the mysterious 'Fat Man' who seems to materialise like an apparition whenever John is. Fat Man asks him to make a choice, to go with him on a journey into the afterlife to discover more about the blues, and be free from pain, or to remain as he is, to suffer and die horribly. And so Hobo John strikes a deal - something that he soon comes to regret.

Wall has created fascinating believable characters and a world which I could easily visualise. In fact I could see this as a movie. Definitely an author to watch.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know very little about blues music and the musicians who played it, but that didn't stop me really enjoying this book as the world of 1930s Mississippi was so well brought to life. I suspect fans of the genre will probably get a kick out of all the references and mentions but for me I enjoyed the story in itself. All the way through I kept trying to work out how it was going to end... And was totally wrong when it did. A well thought out story with believable, very human characters kept me hooked to the last page. Now off to listen to some blues...

[Shaina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting and fascinating journey into the depths of the Delta blues.

[Daniel Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fat man and White boy

This is the blues wrapped up in fiction. As a "white boy" blues fan from the south, I found the story compelling, the characters well defined from the main character to the ones only mentioned for a few lines.
A truly great read.

[A.B. Funkhauser · Rating 5 out of 5]

HOMERIC
The journey to the crossroads can mean only one thing for an itinerant musician facing Eternity, and damned if he isn’t gonna take it. Ill and on the way out, English tourist Hobo John meets the Fat Man in a Mississippi juke-joint in CE 2015. There, health and dreams like he’d never thought possible are promised and delivered. Armed with a cell phone, digital camera and enough media cards to record some of the greatest Blues musicians that ever lived ad infinitum, the young bluesman embarks on an odyssey that takes him through an underworld that looks exactly like Depression-era Mississippi. Just what the Fat Man intends to do with all the “lost footage” his young ‘research assistant’ compiles is the driver behind this story, along with a narrative lovingly curated by the likes of Gabel, Half-Pint, Travellin’ Man, Eight Ball and the Fat Man himself. Hanging out with Tommy Johnson, Louise Johnson and Henry Pops McCoy while searching for Charley Patton and McKinley Morganfield was well worth the price of admission, though I always had an eye out for the Hell Hounds. (They only come out at night and they are nasty beasts.) Rich and roiling with heat, mash whiskey, fish fries and blues crying from a bottleneck on the top strings, FAT MAN BLUES is a visual, lyrical, musical feast that plays on after the last page. I did not want it to end, and I have high hopes that one day, this gem will find its way to screens large and small. Bravo, author Richard Wall.

[NJ Cartner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! This opened my eyes to a whole new genre of fiction within music and has galvanised me to search for more books in the genre. The idea behind the story gives plenty of food for thought as to what may or may not happen in the afterlife as the protagonist, Hobo John, is thrust back into these times. Set in 1930s Mississippi, in the early origins of blues, the times are depicted perfectly by the author, and he gives the reader a real sense of being part of that history with some mesmeric scenic and atmospheric descriptions, from the rural landscape, to the many towns and juke joints visited. Hobo John's journey takes him on an adventure into many places and are made all the more compelling from the people he meets along the way.

All the speech is written in the dialogue of the locals, and it really adds to the whole visual experience. I am also a fan of blues music but after reading this book I realised my knowledge lacked a lot of depth as this was a real eye opener into some of the names of that era and how the times really were. A very well researched book that shows a lot of knowledge in blues music and comes highly recommended for fans of the music genre.

[Claire Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sound of the Delta Blues runs through this story like the words through a stick of rock.

If you love 'the blues' then you are going to love this book. An English 'blues' enthusiast takes a journey through the afterlife in the company of an old blues guitarist who shows him the sights and sounds and everyday life in the Mississippi Delta in the 1930's. Thoroughly recomended.

PS If you'd like to gets to know the author behind the story, you can listen to an interview with Richard on Book Talk Radio Club at https://www.booktalkradio.info/richar...

[jboyg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly affecting tale of a white boy lost in the blues

At times it's a little hard to get past the blackface language of the period bluesmen in this well-researched musical fantasy, but I think most true blues fans will go with the flow and enjoy this engaging tale of one desperate fan's search for blues. Extra star given for havin the chutzpah to even attempt this. By the way, I play one of the original 1994 national duolions from the company's restart. What du you play?

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. As a blues fan and a writer who writes who also writes about The Blues and Americana, I found this a fascinating tale. It was a story I would have loved to write, or better yet be the main character in.

Walls characters are very interesting, people you root for and root against, realistic people and not always likable, but you can always relate too.

I hated finishing this book, because I wanted to stay on this journey.

Fantastic read.

[Steve Gillway · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books conveys what it might have been like for Mississippi Blues players and Black working people in 30s America. This is obviously written by someone who has done loads of research and I would interested in knowing if the vernacular holds true for people from that area. It sounds ok to me, but what do I know as I am only informed by TV shows. This is best seen as a dream story as it has that 4 pints of beer feeling that you can do anything.

[Rob Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woke up this morning
Looking for a book
Opened up ma Kindle
Just to take a look

Got the Fat Man Blues
Yeah the Fat Man Blues

Took me to Mississippi
Read about t' Delta Blues
Met up with Hobo John
Walked a mile in his shoes

Got the Fat Man Blues
Yeah the Fat Man Blues

Foller'd him to t'Yeller Dog
And the other juke joint bars
And all I gotta say
Fat Man Blues is worth five stars

Got the Fat Man Blues
Yeah the Fat Man Blues

[Gary L. Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love the Blues - Read this book!

The author shows his love for the Delta Blues in every word he writes. His evocative writing style, his characterizations and his vivid descriptions of the both the landscape and trials and tribulations of being black in 1930’s Mississippi and how the Blues evolved will make you angry, laugh, cry and go through a gamut of emotions. This book is a like a good Blues song, not be missed.

[Sherilyn Decter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Mississippi Delta atmosphere.

While I had to read some of the dialect out loud to understand it (and then did), this is an unforgettable book. Crossroads will never be the same again. I read this on my Kindle and had great fun listening to the recordings of these early blues legends. Heartily recommended.

[A Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book, which is set in 1930s Mississippi. Enjoyment is.probably enhanced by knowledge of delta blues, and I certainly found myself listening again to lot of classic tracks. Non blues fans will however also find much to enjoy in this journey through the Delta where casual violence and vicious segregation were the dominant forces.

[Joseph Tetro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read

Enjoyable read about a favorite topic. Having traveled in and around the Delta the sites and sounds were vivid and real. The mystic lore that surrounded the blues from the beginning made for a great story

[P A Stutt · Rating 5 out of 5]

My kind of book!

This is a story of a white blues player who sells his soul so that he can travel through the Delta playing the blues and meeting some legendary blues players. Richard Walk demonstrates a good knowledge of his subject. Highly recommended.

[Tim Ransom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great adventure Story

I couldn't put this book down, anybody with an interest in blues should read it.It is a true adventure story with a great twist.

[Tim Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This Novel Walks The Walk and Talks The Talk.
—Join A British-accented White Guy On His Pilgrimage Back In Time
To The Mississippi Delta Blues of the 1930s South

I once spent most of a summer having a major mid-life meltdown in a blue rubber pool in a cow pasture in rural South Carolina. I was trying to adjust to the place and to myself. I floated around and around with a Cuba Libre balanced on my forehead. Buzzards circled up above.
Hard times required hard music.
I went with Led Zeppelin—a long-lost CD, playing it loud enough to be heard far across fields all the way out to the road as if baring my soul to the world through a hard edged sound inspired by and even stolen from blues greats such as Muddy Waters, Blind Willie Johnson, Willie Dixon, and others.
The blues are sadness. The blues are depression. The blues are pain.
In Fat Man Blues, the novel by Englishman Richard Wall, the blues also are a pilgrimage, a strange and lifeful dream. Bagger Vance but not golf. The Wizard of Oz but a protagonist named Hobo John, not Dorothy, and the Mississippi Delta instead of a yellow brick road.
Hobo John is a Brit on a mission to seek out the roots of blues, its people and places, its spirit and meaning. He meets a mysterious and somewhat shady character named Fat Man who offers to show him the real blues of the 1930s. It’ll involve time travel. It’ll involve what seems like a deal with the devil. If, here, your mind has jumped to Robert Johnson’s Cross Roads Blues—said to be about trading his soul to the Devil in exchange for the ability to play and sing blues—you’re going to get optimum ROI from Fat Man Blues.

In addition to Bagger Vance and Wizard of Oz, Fat Man Blues feels like the Disney ride Pirates of the Caribbean. Only, instead of Colonial Caribbean, it’s the 1930s South. Instead of pirates, it’s blues musicians. Instead of the jail where a tail-wagging dog holds the key to freedom, it’s a succession of dimly-lit, smoke filled shacks selling rotgut whisky where men and women take blowing off steam to the far extreme: gambling, fighting, and screwing to wide open blues music performed by the best of the best.
When the ride begins, there’s no turning back.
Wall captures blues culture as it genuinely was. Tough times lived by tough people who somehow found in that hardship the right chords, words, and voice to give a truthful, meaningful accounting of the human spirit under strife. Blues is perseverance. Blue celebrates survival.
I think of the blues as like a river shaped by the conditions around it, made to be a certain way because of what happens—the lay of the land, the obstacles set in its path.
The river is sometimes easy. The river is sometimes a killer. The river is life. Blues is life.
It’s all there in Fat Man Blues as a British-accented white guy tags along with his “negro” guides—sometimes drifting lazily along, other times holding on for dear life—through the bleak and desperate conditions of an oppressed people so hugely different than his own in the UK. I suspect Fat Man Blues wouldn’t be as captivating were it an American on that trip instead. It’s as if only a Brit could so honestly straddle the fence between circumstances. White and Black.
I will say too that Fat Man Blues hits exactly the right notes in its balance between authenticity and mysticism. For instance, bringing together well-known and little-known artists such as Edward James “Son” House, Jr., Ma Rainey, and even Peg Leg Sam (he grew up near where I live now) in combination with touches of magical realism, a true thing of the South found in our voodoo, haints, and swamp monsters. I’m not going to tell you what supernatural things take place—only that they are surprisingly realistic. No, no spoilers here. You’ll need to make a pilgrimage of your own.
Do what I did—take a copy of Fat Man Blues out to a screened porch late at night while the woods are rustling and you can almost hear a certain wailing in the distance. Howling Wolf, perhaps. Or David “Honey Boy” Edwards. Pink Anderson maybe.
They are out there still. All around us.
Listen.

[Ed Church · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of the most original stories I've read. Part 'On The Road' style romp through 1930s Mississippi, part dimension-bending re-imagining of the classic Faustian tale. But 100% infused with the visceral energy of a blues scene at its zenith.

Our first person narrator who accepts the pact on offer – swapping his grief-and-illness ravaged modern life to experience the 'real blues' (with conditions attached) – makes for an appealingly humble hero. So 'everyman', in fact, that we never get to know his real name, although being English, white, and, you know, from a different time, make him the perfect outside observer in the juke-joints of the Deep South.

An observer with a twist, mind you… he can hold his own with a guitar.

Through the eyes and ears of this narrator, or ‘Hobo John’ as he rather comically names himself, we experience both the soaring joy and searing injustice of his new surroundings; the fact both are portrayed with equal intensity only increasing the story’s immersive feel. But this is much more than social commentary and musical history. When the surprises start coming, they are BIG… As big as “hellhounds“ with “heads the size of V8 engines”, in fact.

Interestingly, I realised after a few chapters that we never actually hear the protagonist speak. Everything he says is in reported speech, while the characters he meets converse in direct speech. I was trying to figure out why this quirk worked so well, when one reason dawned on me – it allows the entire ‘voicescape’ of the book to be given over to the hypnotic tones of the Deep South. This is significant, as recreating those melodic cadences and colloquialisms is something at which the author excels. If blues and jazz turn instruments into voices, Richard Wall turns voices into music.

While the foreboding around our protagonist’s supernatural deal with Fat Man is present from the outset, the way in which the consequences play out is still as unpredictable as it is dramatic. There is also a very neat final twist before an ending of nuanced emotions back in the present (for now).

When I had finished reading, I went back to the cover and looked at what I now knew was a gleaming National guitar (even this musical Luddite picked up a few things along the way). For a moment, part of it gave the impression of a clock face. In the context of this adventure, it seemed strangely appropriate. Great stuff.

[Derek Rutherford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable and very readable tale of an English blues fanatic's odyssey into 1930s Mississippi, following a "cross-roads" moment, during which our narrator experiences first hand the blues that he loves. The author is clearly a blues obsessive and I learned a lot about some of the performers of the day, and a little about their environment. I'd have liked a little more about the setting, and how folks lived and got by, and what it was really like to have been around the Mississippi Delta in those days, but I get that this wasn't intended as that sort of tale. Overall, this is well worth a read but you will have to suspend an awful lot of disbelief.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The characters are well-developed, the writing style is engaging, and the author touches upon social and political issues that were prevalent during that time. The story is a unique blend of fantasy, history, and music, and provides insights into the complexities and contradictions of the blues culture

[Jyl Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

No spoilers, but some promises need to be broken. The author’s passion for music and its history shines like a Blue’s club neon sign in this work. The dialogue is highly engaging and this book will transport you to the 1930’s. This atmospheric novel is violent and emotional captures the soul (pun intended) of the Blues and the dark underbelly of the culture.

[Fi Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you'd expect from any Richard Wall story, this novel is steeped in the Blues. This is a deep dive into 1930s American culture with a paranormal slant. When Hobo John makes a deal with Fatman, he has no idea what he's getting himself into.

This is a rich and immensely enjoyable read that doesn't shy away from heartbreak and darkness. And is all the better for it.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A different style of book but brilliant. My favourite was the first story and got westworld vibes in the later story. Really well written.

[Greg Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a story of the Blues, it has a paranormal flavour, it's set in the Delta - what's not to like?