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Title: Jonah Man
Author: Christopher Narozny
Narrator: Kevin T. Collins
Format: Unabridged
Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
Language: English
Release date: 03-19-14
Publisher: Audible Studios
Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: Fiction, Literary
Publisher's Summary:
Set in vaudeville in the early 20th century, Jonah Man is a gripping and ultimately heartbreaking novel that reveals the often tragic lives of performers struggling to make it to the big time.
Told from the perspectives of multiple characters, including a one-handed juggler who moonlights as a drug trafficker, a talented young boy who longs to escape the shadow of his abusive father, and a police inspector whose bumbling attempts to solve a murder result in a series of calamitous missteps, Jonah Man explores the dark side of life behind the curtain, where performers will resort to the most extreme measures - including drug dealing, self-mutilation, and even murder - to keep their ever-shrinking dream of becoming a star alive.
Resurrecting the lost language and world of vaudeville - a "Jonah Man" was a performer who, despite his best efforts, had stalled in his career - Jonah Man is an unforgettable portrait of people trapped between their highest hopes and the crushing realties of their lives.
Members Reviews:
Noir
Jonah Man, by Christopher Narozny. I love this book. I love murder mysteries. The storyline teeters between two different decades and a few different points of view. Its pacing has the inexorable lumbering forward of a Raymond Chandler novel. It's a mystery, but at first you don't know what the mystery is. Why is a one-handed dope addict a juggler? Or why is a juggler a one-handed dope addict?
But you know there's something you have to figure out. The story is saturated with suspense, and that keeps you reading. There's a detective, but he is not actually the detective character. That role is left to you. He doesn't even enter the picture until late in the book.
The transitions between point of view characters never disturb the pacing. The path of the story is never interrupted. The activities of the characters are displayed in close quarters: the juggler skimming dope from the vials he's commissioned to deliver, the fellow vaudevillian hammering him with rude questions, the boy discovering the crime scene. We see close up and then are roused to the larger picture, like peeking through a doorway. For example, in the chapter that begins, "I take a bus to a smaller town, then hitch a ride on a milk wagon miles out into country thick with pine," unfolds into a drama that lurks beneath the conversation. Swain, the protagonist, has come metaphorically to confront one of his demons, in the person of his former "mentor" (I use the term advisedly). Here is part of their interchange, beneath the banality of which lurks the lethal coarseness at the bottom of human existence...
My dog died, he says. How'd you find me?
I wouldn't mind some coffee.
Jonah Man has a number of great achievements: the aforementioned pacing, the insinuated suspense, the empathy we feel for characters who are not, objectively, empathy-inspiring, the laconic conversation, and the unique and fascinating manner in which the mystery unravels. You open a door and peer in and then you shove the door open wider...
Jonah Man
Really good stuff! I read this book in a week, and looked forward every night to the next chapters. Great character development. And the author obviously did his research. My copy is making its way among friends... hopefully they'll give some input, too.
