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Barnstable author’s new novel evokes the rich heritage of jazz – News – The Barnstable Patriot – Hyannis, MA






Barnstable author's new novel evokes the rich heritage of jazz – News – The Barnstable Patriot – Hyannis, MA


 

Barnstable author's new novel evokes the rich heritage of jazz

By Barbara Clark
bclark@barnstablepatriot.com
By Barbara Clark
bclark@barnstablepatriot.com

Posted Jan. 24, 2016 at 1:34 PM 

 

Author and Barnstable Intermediate School teacher Mick Carlon is back in his element. His new young adult book, “Girl Singer,” follows on the heels of his two popular earlier novels, “Riding on Duke’s Train” (2011) and “Travels with Louis” (2012), which were aimed at younger middle-grade readers. All three novels place fictional adolescent protagonists in stories that mix in with the rich history of jazz music as it took the United States by storm in the 1930s.

Carlon’s popular books for young people have been added to the curriculum in more than 28 high schools here and across the country, and “Girl Singer” is being “piloted” for school distribution as well. According to the author, this means that "the schools are ‘testing the book out’ with several classes. If it then passes muster with the students and teachers, the book can be formally adopted by the school.”

First off, “Girl Singer” has an eye-catching cover. A young woman’s swirling skirt morphs into a 78-rpm record as she dances, presumably to the swingin’ tunes of Count Basie, who figures large in “Girl Singer.” The book continues and expands Carlon’s love of jazz and his affinity for young people, this time creating a young woman as the central character for the fiction.

The author evokes a gray winter day in the late 1930s, as young Avery Hall’s luck is about to change. While waiting tables in Big Joe’s Diner in Harlem, the young 18-year-old meets Lester ‘Pres’ Young, the real historical tenor sax player for Count Basie, and gets her big chance to sing with the band when Billie Holiday exits the group.

Avery gets on the bus with the Basie Band, and it’s the perfect vehicle for the author, who offers readers a chronicle of jazz music as well as the era of the late 1930s, seen through Avery’s eyes. The book describes an intense time of poverty and racial intolerance in the south, including the racism that band members have to endure as they travel – from verbal and physical violence to segregated concerts and overnight accommodations.

Along with Avery, readers also experience some of the events that have begun to evoke pride and a new sense of power for people of color, such as the famous Joe Louis-Max Schmeling fight in 1938, and the wide ranging effects of World War II in the black community.

Later in the book the author introduces a new character, a Dachau survivor who becomes Avery’s love interest, as the two meet and eventually marry. Karl Flach, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany whose character is based on an actual person in the author’s life, adds depth to the narrative, introducing the horrors of the Holocaust and the issue of interracial marriage.

 
 

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