I read Young Man with a Horn to fill a hole in my Century of Books project but, as has happened several times already, by the time I got to it, I had already read a book for that year. (I made a list of my to-read pile years to avoid this, but now I’ve lost the list!) However, at 171 pages, it qualifies for Novellas in November.
Young Man with a Horn is Baker’s debut novel and is still her best known. She seems to like to tackle complicated subjects and what were at the time fringe characters. (For example, she subtly indicates in Cassandra at the Wedding that Cassandra is gay.)
We know from the beginning that this novel is not going to have a happy ending. The anonymous narrator makes that clear in the Prologue. And about that narrator—the novel is related in a loose, conversational style, like someone might use to tell the story to a friend.
In the 1920s, Rick Martin is a 14-year-old orphan at the beginning of the novel. School isn’t working for him and he spends most of his time in the library until he finds a piano in an unlocked church and teaches himself to play, which doesn’t take long.
He decides he wants a trumpet, though, because it’s easier to carry around. His young aunt and uncle are very poor, so to buy one he needs a job. He gets one setting pins at a bowling alley. There he meets Smoke Jordan, an older Black boy who is a drummer. Eventually, they start hanging out to talk about music (after Rick gets over some racist notions). They like sitting behind a club where Smoke’s neighbor, Jeff Williams, has a band which is getting to be well known, a bunch of gifted Black men. Eventually, they are invited inside, and when Rick gets his trumpet, he convinces the trumpet player to give him lessons. It’s jazz Rick is interested in rather than the dance music the band plays in public. It becomes almost the only thing he is interested in.
The book traces his career as he becomes one of the best jazz trumpet players in the country. Baker draws a convincing portrait of an obsessed personality. It’s fairly fast-moving, and the only part I didn’t really appreciate was the blaming of his wife for the failure of their marriage.
What? Me Read? 