At this writing, Esi Edugyan’s novel is beginning to take shape as a publishing phenomenon. It looks as if a star is being born after the book lost its original home in a failed publishing house before being picked up by Thomas Allen. The novel has gone from rags to riches. For one thing, there are not many Canadian novels that are simultaneously published in Canada, Great Britain and, in German translation, Germany (Insel Verlag, November). For another, this affecting book has garnered mostly excellent reviews across this country and been short-listed for the Giller, Booker and Rogers prizes. The prize season is still developing, so the novel may have attracted even more acclaim by the time this review is published. And it is no wonder. Half-Blood Blues is both funny and tragic and written in an accessible, practically pitch-perfect voice.
The novel is a memory piece set in two time periods. The first takes place in Germany and France from 1927 until 1940...
Antanas Sileika’s 2004 novel, Woman in Bronze (Random House), was set in jazz-era Paris. His most recent novel, Underground, was released by Thomas Allen in 2011. He is the director of the Humber School for Writers.
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