Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues follows the narrator, bassist Sidney (Sid) Griffiths, in Berlin and Paris at the beginning of WW II (1939 – 40) and in the early 1990s when he and his friend — drummer Chip Jones — travel to Poland to meet their long-lost band mate, trumpeter Hieronymous (Hiero) Falk.

Half-Blood Blues is about the pursuit of art in the miasma of racial bigotry, war, friendship, love, loyalty, jealousy, fear, and betrayal.

Sid, a mediocre bass player, is carried along in the wake of a talented jazz band; but, when Hiero joins the band, Sid becomes resentful of the young man’s genius. Sid is also jealous of the attention that his love-interest gives to Hiero (it is a sisterly love, but Sid is naive and insecure).

In the sections dealing with the past (1939-40) Sid’s narration is the melody, and the racial tensions of the burgeoning war pulse with a rhythm that drives the story forward.

When Sid is an elderly man (1992) his narration weaves hints of a betrayal that occurred in the past (selfish treachery, but not designed to cause the tragedy that ensues), which becomes clearer as the novel progresses. Sid almost gained significance in the history of jazz music, but he is haunted by an incident that took place during the war-torn years.

Esi Edugyan writes wonderfully, with many vivid portrayals of jazz music, yet some passages that mingled rough vernacular and smooth narration didn’t work for me. But the novel, as a whole, is a wonderful read.

Recommended.