Fortunately, a singer named Delilah Brown invites them to Paris to record with Louis Armstrong, and they accept, though it takes a while for them to get there, with several members of the group getting separated along the way. Sid backtracks to narrate the events leading up to Hiero’s arrest, starting with a violent scuffle with Nazi soldiers in Berlin a year earlier, which causes the band to go into hiding. Hiero is then sent to, and presumably dies in, a concentration camp. Sid opens by describing a crucial episode-the capture of his friend and bandmate Hieronymus “Hiero” Falk, who is denigrated by the Nazis for his mixed German and African ancestry, in occupied Paris. Parts 1, 3, and 5 are set in Europe at the onset of World War II. The entire novel is narrated by Sidney “Sid” Griffiths, an African American bass player whose witty, colloquial narration frames his need to make sense of the past. The second follows several of the same characters some 50 years later, as they reconnect in unexpected ways. The first involves the struggles of a group of jazz musicians who are compelled to flee Nazi Germany in 1939. Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues is a story about music and race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.Half-Blood Blues follows two distinct storylines, set 50 years apart. When they are invited to attend the film's premier, Sid's role in Falk's fate will be questioned and the two old musicians set off on a surprising and strange journey.įrom the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris, Sid leads the reader through a fascinating, little-known world as he describes the friendships, love affairs and treacheries that led to Falk's incarceration in Sachsenhausen. Hot Time Swingers band members Sid Griffiths and Chip Jones, both African Americans from Baltimore, have appeared in a documentary about Falk. He was twenty years old, a German citizen. Their young trumpet-player Hieronymus Falk, declared a musical genius by none other than Louis Armstrong, is arrested in a Paris café.

The Hot Time Swingers, a popular jazz band, has been forbidden to play by the Nazis.

Shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fictionīerlin, 1939.

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Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan