Cahokia Jazz

This is a noir-indebted alternative history novel focusing on the urbanized Cahokia in the 1920s—it’s a weird mix of elements, but one that seemed quite tailored to what I would like. And fortunately, I wasn’t wrong. It does get off to a slow start—some of the more standard detective-y openings, seemingly stunted characters, etc. But don’t let that put you off it—it does get better, and the characters and plot are more interesting than they would seem at first glance. As far as historical fiction goes, this book manages to ace that core aspect of transporting the reader to a certain time and place. The storytelling is concise and well-paced, too. Spufford is certainly an author I am going to look out for—and his catalogue of previous novels seems promising.

The characters were delightfully complex and palpably flawed beings. Our protagonist, Joe Barrow, is an everyman character that the reader can easily empathize with. He is of indigenous and Black descent, but he was a child of the foster system and thus is disconnected from his identity. Yet, this is still the 1920s in America, so the color of his skin is a significant part of the plot. (I related a lot to his difficulties in being spoken to in a language he is expected to know but does not understand.) But more than being a detective, he plays jazz piano. At first, I was confused by the title’s emphasis on this part, but while reading, I came to realize that it is, more than anything else, what makes Barrow fundamentally Barrow. His attempts to grapple with his sense of found-family was also endearing and heartfelt.

The novel opens to Barrow and his partner discovering a grisly murder crime scene on top of a state building. Spufford populates this fictionalized Cahokia with a large cast of characters—yet they all have distinct personalities and voices. Some of the backstory and gradually revealed motivations of certain characters was surprisingly in-depth. Some of the characters will seem familiar to people familiar with history—the Klan members, the robber barons, and the mobster bosses. These are all part and parcel of the noir type, too. Yet Spufford manages to incorporate them in a way that doesn’t feel so cut-and-paste, but… realistic. For an alternate history novel, this was a stellar accomplishment. Spufford also clearly knows his way around language, as his fictionalized racial terms and conlang, Anopa, show. (He based Anopa largely on a pidgin used as a trade language by indigenous Americans at the time of European colonization.) He even manages references to Latin and Cicero, which only won me over further. His prose is clever and imaginative without being cumbersome.

Of course, any novel that touches on race relations, police-work, and America is going to feel oddly contemporary. Perhaps the oddest thing about this novel is that it is alternate history, despite reading so pertinent—just switch around a few descriptors. There is a KKK mob scene that almost feels ridiculously dramatic, but recent history has taught me otherwise. Barrow’s greatest obstacle in the novel is figuring out who he is and where he belongs—eternal themes, to be sure, but deftly handled here. The narrative wraps up quite satisfyingly, though I did have some issues with some of the villainous figures being a bit static or the pacing of how Spufford develops his characters’ depth.

This is a novel I look back on fondly, and one that reminds me why historical fiction (especially alternate history, which I feel doesn’t get as much love these days) and noir can be such great genres. Also, this may be a silly point to end on, but I was rather surprised to learn that Spufford isn’t even American—he’s British; yet it seems oddly fitting that his understanding of indigenous language and history in the US is only leagues ahead of Americans. I can only hope to see more from him (and a part of me really wishes he would turn the final appendix section explaining his narrative choices into its own book), and I really ought to go see the mounds!

Favorite quotes:
※ ‘It is a circular dance, from birth to death to resurrection, through arches of flowers, and arches of bread, and arches of skulls. We dance the turning world, and it dances us.’
※ ‘Everything he saw, he packed away in the suitcase of his heart. He was Thrown-Away Boy, and that was how he possessed things.’

Mi maestro decía que la música no comunica ideas, nomás sentimientos. Quizá por eso parece inútil escribir acerca de música, sólo experimentarla permite recibir la emisión. Pero no es inutil, no todo ha de ser empirismo, la actividad cerebral rinde experiencias secundarias, analizar moviliza otros recursos más allá de lo sensorial o emotivo. Leer acerca de música te hace mejor escucha y tal vez mejor músico.

En Cahokia Jazz la música construye al personaje. La avenida va pulsando al ritmo de Kansas City Stomp, acaricia la espalda de la chica yendo por sus vértebras en intervalos de tercera. Y así.

Me gusta cuando los autores son también músicos, y más cuando hay música o descripciones de música ahí mezcladas en la prosa.

Joyce incluye fragmentos musicales, letras, melodías que describe con mucha soltura. Los libros de Richard Powers son geniales, sus personajes muchas veces son científicos y también muy naturalmente músicos. Sospecho que ese Richard es clarinetista, hay varias pistas por ahí. Kim Stanley Robinson escribe unas utopías hermosas en las que todo el mundo sabe y hace música, y es parte central de la buena vida de esos mundos. La utopía de Ursula K. LeGuin "Always coming home" está llena de cantos y danzas, de plano tiene soundtrack.

Cahokia no es ninguna utopía, aunque sí es un lugar que no existe. Igual que las utopías las historias alternativas dan puntos de comparación, te ponen a pensar cómo es que las cosas vinieron a ser así, cómo pudieron ser de otra forma.

En esta ficción los nativos norteamericanos no están diezmados y oprimidos. Organizan su propio estado, tienen su propio sistema de vida, en contacto con la civilización del hombre blanco en la década de 1920.

Con ese contexto: la novela policiaca noir. Tras la pista del asesino, tratando de pensar como él, de entrar en su mente. Examinando su motivación que, vamos descubriendo, conecta con el conflicto profundo entre las razas y sus cosmovisiones.

En el trayecto el protagonista alcanza el grado de héroe. Empieza siendo el amigo de uno más avispado y con cada episodio va armonizando con su propia motivación. Va decidiendo cada vez más por sí, pero esas decisiones siempre se toman con información incompleta. Más si estás en la tierra de nadie de una terrible guerra, con poderosos adversarios en cada flanco. Aún así encuentra la importancia de trascender, y varias alternativas.

Es detective, es pianista de jazz, tiene ancestría Tacouma pero no raices. Lo arrastra el mito del Hijo Descartado. Lo invitan a tocar, comparte el escenario con grandes músicos. Saca a bailar a La Princesa.

Este libro estimula mis fantasías de un mundo en el que hacer música es algo muy común, no sólo para músicos profeisonales. Tal vez era asi antes, cuando no había tanto distractor. Tal vez se vuelva así después, cuando salgamos deste medievo y estemos más acostumbrados a asumir que a delegar, cuando ser sólo espectador se perciba como una oportunidad perdida de participar.