Half Blood Blues

By Esi Edugyan
  • Booker Prize shortlist
  • Fiction
  • Historical fiction
  • Music

The book opens in Paris 1940, after the fall of the city when it was declared an open city and the Germans (or the Boots in the characters’ slang) rolled in. Central to the story are a heterogeneous mix of men who previously played jazz together in Berlin nightclubs. The ‘Hot-Time Swingers’ jazz band was made up of a couple of black Americans from Baltimore, Sidney Griffiths and Chip Jones; two white Germans, Ernst ‘The Mouth’ von Haselberg and Big Fritz Bayer; Paul Butterstein a German Jew and a young black German, Hieronymous Falk. The jazz scene has been branded as degenerate by the Nazis who have shut down the clubs, forcing the band to decide to get out while they still could. Fortuitously, an American singer called Delilah Brown has come to Berlin bringing news of a recording opportunity from no less than Louis Armstrong, then based in Paris.

The book oozes a sense of jazz rhythm, which runs slap up against the grim reality of Nazi Germany and its obsession with racial purity. As Sid explains, he has a pale enough skin to allow him to ‘pass’, whereas Hiero, the ‘Half Blood’ or Mischling of the title is very dark skinned. Paul has managed so far to pass as an Aryan due to his blond features. But life was lived on a knife edge by all of the band members.

The action weaves back and forth between present and flashbacks to 1940 as a now elderly Sid narrates the story of the band’s final days in Berlin and life in Paris after the Nazis arrive. Once in Paris, the remnants of the band all lie as low as they can, since none of them have papers to enable them to get out of Europe. Unfortunately, Hiero gets picked up in a café by a German patrol and is never heard from again. Only Sid, jealous of Hiero’s talent, was a witness to what happened and has to live with that knowledge. Rumour of his eventual fate has suggested different possibilities, none of them good.

Fifty years later, Sid’s old friend Chip persuades him to pay a return visit to Germany for the premier of a documentary about the Hot-Time Swingers. But will the mystery of Hiero’s fate be explained at last?

This is an atmospheric wartime story, dealing with race, loyalty and relationships against a soundtrack of evocative jazz strains. A great read

Staff Pick By
Chris