March 17, 2008
The narrator of Beatty’s late ’80s picaresque, Ferguson W. Sowell—aka DJ Darky—is so attuned to sound that he claims to have a “phonographic memory.” Ferguson, who does porno film scores for the money in L.A., has a cognoscenti’s delight in jazz, and he’s close to obsessed with Charles Stone, aka “the Schwa,” a musician who apparently disappeared into East Germany in the ’60s. Ferguson receives an already-scored tape whose soundtrack is so rich and strange and “transformative” that it must be by Schwa. Ferguson is soon on his way to Slumberland, a bar in West Berlin to which he sources the tape. He arrives just in time to experience the sexual allure black men exercise on Cold War Berliners, and stays long enough to watch the city’s culture fall apart after the fall of the Wall. With its acerbic running commentary on race, sex and Cold War culture, the latest from Beatty, author of Tuff
and editor of The Anthology of African American Humor
, contains flashes of absurdist brilliance in the tradition of William Burroughs and Ishmael Reed. But the plot seems little more than an excuse to set up a number of comic routines, denying the story a driving, unifying plot.
Starred review from May 1, 2008
In his third novel (after "Tuff" and "The White Boy Shuffle"), Beatty creates a story from music. DJ Darky, a Los Angeles musician who, like a modernist jazzman, creates beats from found sounds, travels to Berlin, Germany, in search of his avant-garde idol, Charles Stone, aka "the Schwa". Shortly after discovering the Schwa's beat in a mysterious envelope, DJ Darky sends a demo with his own infallible sound to the Slumberland Bar in Berlin as an application for the position of "jukebox sommelier," for which he's immediately accepted. Beatty takes us into pre-Wall Berlin and finishes just after liberation, ending in a crescendo of incomprehensible rhythm from DJ Darky and the Schwa's collaboration that re-creates a metaphorical wall. The narrative touches on oppression and the inexplicable, transcendent power of music, both of which translate to the American race struggle. Beatty's rolling Faulknerian prose has been praised for its "dazzling linguistic flights" (Salon), and this newest novel is no different; the dense imagery and sound create a synesthesia carnival. Recommended for all libraries.Stephen Morrow, Athens, OH
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