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Joplin's Ghost

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No one will know me until fifty years after I'm dead," Scott said. ~ Excerpt from Joplin's Ghost

Tananarive Due's latest release, Joplin's Ghost, exemplifies the restless and wandering spirit of musical genius Scott Joplin. The title says it all; however, this is more than just your typical ghost story. Due combines speculative and historical fiction with a splash of romance and urban drama to produce a great story - period. Joplin's Ghost centers on a young, eclectic, emerging Rhythm & Blues female musician, Phoenix Smalls, managed by an overprotective father and a flashy, high-profile, mega-record producer boyfriend. As a child, Phoenix suffered through an eerie accident involving a piano which led to months of agonizing rehabilitation. Shortly thereafter, a foreboding sleepwalking episode finds a ten-year-old Phoenix playing highly complex ragtime scores - years beyond her training. Nearly a decade later, as her star begins to shine, she somehow channels Joplin's ghost and composes what appears to be scores from his lost opera, A Guest of Honor, inspired by Booker T. Washington's visit to the White House. Phoenix avidly researches Joplin's life and discovers many uncanny parallels to her own, including a belief that she may be the reincarnation of his wife, Freddy.

The Ghost is relentless; the possessions rise in intensity to the point of near-death experiences. It is during her dreams that Phoenix is transported to Joplin's world, late 19th century Missouri. Here Phoenix learns that Joplin was hailed the "Ragtime King," and at one time celebrated as one of the most sophisticated and tasteful ragtime composers of the era, having unprecedented success with "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899, and "The Entertainer" in 1902. He passionately pursued his great aspirations. Scott Joplin's only surviving opera, "Treemonisha" unfolds the proud story of an educated daughter of former slaves who rises to greatness in the post-bellum 1800s. Unfortunately, true greatness eluded Joplin; Treemonisha failed and bankrupted him shortly after its shaky start. The world was not ready to receive such a progressive tale, leaving the soft-spoken musical genius trapped and victimized by the social ignorance and racial politics of the era. At times, it seems like Joplin is foredoomed because the opera's failure was not Joplin's only exposure to bad luck, but also because it seemed to plague him all his life: his daughter died in infancy, his first wife abandoned him; his closest brother died prematurely, and his beloved second wife (Freddy) died after only 10 weeks of marriage. Joplin is portrayed as frustrated, yet still driven; as he suffers a prolonged and agonizing death from tertiary syphilis at age 49, tragically dying heirless and penniless in obscurity in a New York mental ward a few days before the outbreak of World War I.

Due is ingenious in that she fuses Treemonisha's message of courage, education, and self-motivation into Phoenix's modern day music to reach and teach today's youth about social responsibility and history. The duality of the novel is that it serves as a wonderfully imagined work on the trials and tribulations of Joplin; and through Phoenix's ordeals with Joplin and other leading characters, Due subtlety mirrors and demonstrates the ill effects of record label rivalry and the misogynistic, sexual, and violent lyrics commonplace in today's Hip Hop music. Phoenix and Joplin's bedeviled journey is weird and intense, evolving into a life-altering experience for both beings as Phoenix hurries to free herself and Joplin from their cursed bond.

No one knows for sure if Joplin ever stated the prophetic opening quote, but if he did, he was off by only a couple of decades. "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer," featured in the 1974 film "The Sting", earned two Academy Awards for its musical score; and Treemonisha was adapted for a Broadway presentation in 1975, which earned Joplin a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

Reviewed by Phyllis

APOOO BookClub

Nubian Circle Book Club

I have been a fan of Tananarive Due and her husband, Stephen Barnes from the very beginning of their writing careers. In Ms. Due's current book, JOPLIN'S GHOST, she does another masterful job of making the supernatural seem plausible and leaves readers wondering if those bumps in the night are really "just" their imagination.

Phoenix is an incredible character. She is strong yet vulnerable and through her eyes, we get to see Scott Joplin in all of his perfections and his flaws. Scott Joplin dies of syphillus and the way Ms. Due weaves in reality with "unreality" one is left in the uncomfortable position of trying to figure out what reality truly is.

There is a line where Mr. Joplin asks Freddie/Phoenix is she really there and if he is mad. She tells him yes he is mad and yes she is there. To me, that line challenges the age-old question of what is real and what isn't. Is reality what exists in each individuals mind or is it something that must be shared collectively.

I'm not sure if those answers are given, or even if they need to be, but I will say this book is one of my favorites of Ms. Dues. Her writing only gets better and better with time.

Nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for The Between, and recipient of the 2002 American Book Award for another horror novel, The Living Blood, Tananarive Due is an accomplished juggler of the real and supernatural, able to weave a spell which makes readers willingly suspend their disbelief. Here Due adds historical elements to the supernatural, telling the tale of a young R&B singer, who finds herself irrevocably tied to rag-time composer/pianist Joplin and his ghost.

Seriously injured by Joplin's ancient piano, which mysteriously fell on her when she was ten, Phoenix Small, at twenty, is on the verge of a major music career when she suddenly starts seeing and hearing Joplin's ghost--a man in her apartment, a voice calling to her, and Joplin's music appearing in her own computer music program. She gives piano concerts of Joplin's lost music while asleep and believes that "Joplin was the only person who could teach her what she needed to know."

Due gracefully alternates Joplin's sad, turn-of-the-century biography with Phoenix's present music world, a time of gangsta rap and rock, showing the efforts of black musicians in both periods to give voice to the black experience. Due is particularly sensitive in evoking the life of Joplin, beginning the novel with a wrenching account of his final days as a crippled and mentally disturbed syphilitic at Bellevue. Her ability to pack her descriptions with lively sense impressions brings the music world alive in both periods, and the characters, even the minor ones, live and breathe, adding to the the supernatural suspense. Love stories for both Joplin and Phoenix, unabashedly sexual, reveal their passion for life and the ability of love to color their music.

As Phoenix mysteriously channels more and more of Joplin's lost music, including his first opera, believed to have been burned, she finds it dominating her own music and her career, and as Joplin's love story takes tragic turns, Phoenix, too, finds her own love story and her family life becoming dramatically affected. Joplin's piano, the one item which connects the real world of Joplin with that of Phoenix, takes on a life of its own, and as the tension builds to a dramatic confrontation between Phoenix and her ghost, the piano plays a key role.

Filled with fascinating historical detail about the life and times of Scott Joplin, from the turn of the century until Joplin's death in 1917, this exciting, sure-to-be-popular novel finely captures the status of black music at two different periods. Despite its excessive description, which would have benefited from pruning, the novel is fun to read-- "soft horror," rather than a blood-and-gore extravaganza. n Mary Whipple

With JOPLIN'S GHOST, Tananarive Due breaks new literary ground by fusing elements of her historical novel (THE BLACK ROSE) with her many superb supernatural thrillers (MY SOUL TO KEEP, LIVING BLOOD, GOOD HOUSE, etc.).

The effect is at once marvelously jarring, and thrill-ride exciting, giving the reader multi-dimensional characters they will honestly care about, plus a deftly paced plot, and otherworldly adventures; all woven into an excellent tale they won't be able to put down.

In JOPIN'S GHOST, an up-and-coming female R&B dance-diva, Phoenix, has an unexpected encounter with the ghost of Scott Joplin, which leads to a full-on, all-out haunting. Whether being scared out of her wits by creepy telekinetically-moving objects, or channeling Joplin's lost musical scores, or enjoying the "special touch" of the apparition, Phoenix is drawn in more and more, all but a prisoner to the macabre manipulations of her ghost. Those who love Phoenix are in a race against time to break her free from this eerie svengali, before he finally pulls Phoenix over to The Other Side, together forever with him in the hereafter.

Also, the novel presents an intriguing peek into the struggles of black musicians, both modern-day and past, and presents the dilemma all artists face: how to merge commercialism and art without risking artistic integrity. Interesting family dynamics are portrayed as well, which play nicely into the book from beginning to end.

Ms. Due wisely chose to avoid the clichés of hardcore slasher horror and opted instead for a character-driven literary ghost tale that paints vivid cinematic pictures (as only she can do), and gives the reader flesh-and-blood folks they will be musing about for many nights to come. Thought-provoking + Page-turner = Definitely recommended.

Due is my favorite black horror writer. I expected so much more from such a creative and engaging author. The concept of Scott Joplin's ghost was very fascinating considering I knew very little about his life. I enjoyed the historical fiction component of the novel. However, Due's character development for the contemporary music chapters was very weak and seemed contrived. Due's attempt to connect hip hop culture with ragtime was sincere but I had little emotion for any of the present day characters except for Sarge (Phoenix's dad) and Carlos (Phee's boyfriend).

On the positive side, Due kept with her style and depicted a loving couple willing to face any challenge together and with undying love. Due keeps with the theme that continues to run through all of her books -strong loves despite supernatural barriers.

Also there were many editing mistakes that are not characteristic of Due's publisher and very sexually graphic scenes that didn't add anything to the story.

I hope Due isn't trying to sell out her gift with hopes of making money off of the Urban Fiction craze. She is one of the few genius writers we have left.

Phoenix Smalls, a budding R & B star, had an interesting childhood. When she was ten, a piano crashed down a flight of stairs into her, leaving her in a coma for weeks. After she regained consciousness, her father found her sleepwalking and playing ragtime music that she normally wouldn't have had the skill to perform. Later, under the management of her strict and austere father, Phoenix's career in music began to take off. Then, once again, strange things started happening to her. The first incident was finding a man in her hotel room. The police searched the room and found no one, but because her cousin told the police about a fan who spent the night with Phoenix, it caused personal, emotional pain for Phoenix. Also, when visiting the home of Scott Joplin, at her father's insistence, she saw a man in the living room after the proprietor told her she was alone.

Those aren't the only incidents of spotting men, of having her dreams disturbed or performing music she was unfamiliar with. During a radio program, instead of performing her hit song, she launches into an opera by Scott Joplin. Phoenix begins to recognize that she is in communication with the late ragtime artist. Scott Joplin is persistent; he wants the world to hear his music, to know and acknowledge his genius, which doesn't happen when he is alive. Gradually, he takes over Phoenix's life; pushing her in the direction he wants her to go.

Tananarive Due includes so much wonderful history, not only about Scott Joplin, but also about how black musicians were viewed by society at the turn of the last century. She tells of the segregation of the artists and how society accepts some kinds of music, while rejecting others. Ms. Due lets us into Scott Joplin's life, with its ups and downs, his wives, his frightening illness and his early death. Because of the way Ms. Due intertwines Phoenix and Scott's lives, it is easy to really believe that Mr. Joplin is actually in Phoenix's life, pushing her, and controlling her talents. There were many parallels between Joplin's life and Phoenix's desire to become a great musician and the drive that pushed them both. In some places, the story was a bit slow and a faster pace would have made for easier reading, but I truly appreciated all the history about music that is included and it is information that I was totally unaware of. It made me start exploring the music of Scott Joplin and appreciating it more than I had in the past. It is a novel well worth reading.

Reviewed by Alice Holman

of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

Joplin's Ghost is historic fiction based on events in the life of Scott Joplin at the turn of the 20th century and the fictional character of Phoenix, a female hip-hop artist, set in the turn of the 21st century.

This is a story of the ghost of Scott Joplin and a piano he haunts. His unrest is the result of his life-long anger in learning of his syphilitic death sentence, losing his second wife, Freddie, to pneumonia, and never being recognized and compensated for his musical genius.

Phoenix is what you may call a hip-hop prodigy whose talent to play the piano was overshadowed by her more marketable singing voice. Her loving father is her over-bearing manager who is responsible for her success. She has just been signed to a hip-hop label owned by entertainment mogul "G-Ronn" who reminds me of Def-Jam Records president Jay-Z. "G-Ronn" was also her love interest until she has a "lapse in judgement" and agrees to a sexual tryst with a teenage fan. Of course, the story ends up in the entertainment tabloids.

Joplin's ghost uses her to channel his drive to expose African American audiences to the ragtime genius of his time in the 21st century. While under Joplin's spell, Phoenix performs one of Joplin's operas on a talk show instead of singing her latest smash single!

Tananarive Due outdid herself on the historical context of this story mentioning James Resse Europe and his Clef Band, the infamous Herbert Wright (Europe's assassin), and W. C. Handy. References were made to the historic Chestnut Valley neighborhood, the Rosebud Café, and of course, Joplin's home all when St. Louis was in its Black entertainment heyday.

On the contemporary level, it was just "a'ight" that the heroine of the story happens to be a hip-hop star. Not very original, but I read all 477 pages in a couple of days as I was looking forward to what was coming next.

The author also did a good job developing the characters on the historic and contemporary side. In fact, the characters are what really held my interest. The detail spent on the characters was not spared but story development left me somewhat unsatisfied. There were two issues of under aged sex that could have made the contemporary side of the story more substantial. Also, I would have liked the piano to be a little more "demonic."

When I finished the book, I felt I learned a little something about the history of African American musical culture...Jazz: America's only original art form.

Tananaruve Due's gone and done it again. As she did in her historical novel, The Black Rose, Due has me delving into the history books looking for the real person behind the story. The Black Rose told the story Madame C. J. Walker, but this time she takes on the King of Ragtime, Scott Joplin.

Joplin's Ghost is a fabulous mix of ghost story, history, and 1990's music world. The book opens in 1917 with Joplin dying of syphilis in the Manhattan State Hospital. As he is wheeled into the day room, he notices a beat-up piano in the corner and tries to play it. The scene is heartbreaking; imagine those fiery fingers gnarled and twisted from that awful disease, unable to do anything but create a cacophony of noise.

Then flash forward to 1991. Phoenix Smalls is but a child of ten when a piano falls on her and she almost dies. That's when it starts; the music that Phoenix can't ignore. The music she plays and writes without any knowledge of having done so. After growing up in a Miami nightclub, Phoenix wanted to be a singer. She formed a band, made a couple of CDs, but soon fizzled out.

Still, she's been working hard to make it alone. When in St. Louis, her manager/father forces her to make a pilgrimage to Joplin's apartment, the site where "The Entertainer," featured in the movie "The Sting" was written. It's there that Joplin makes his first appearance. He attaches himself to her and begins to channel his lost music through her, thus restoring it to a public who can only dream of ever hearing it again.

At the crux of this delightful novel is the music. A lot of Joplin's music has been lost, especially his opera "Guest of Honor." The story weaves between Joplin's life, especially when he lived in St. Louis, and Phoenix's life. Part romance, part ghost story, part urban contemporary, part historical fiction, this complex and absorbing novel is completed, yet simple, and unerringly readable for fans of many genres.

Armchair Interviews says: The characters, past and present, feel real.

I am not normally a reader of ghost stories, or horror. I have never finished a Stephen King book, because they have not held my interest. Somehow, though, this ghost story grabbed me, and several times through the course of the book, it really did give me shivers.

I disagree with the reviewers who didn't like the characters. I found them satisfyingly likable and felt real, three-dimensional.

Another excellent thing about the book is that the author does seem to really know a lot about music, and what it is like to make music. Too often, movies or books about musicians ring false, because the process of music-making is portrayed as being all about having a vague sense of "feeling it," or being "carried away." There's some of that here, but this book also has a satisfying sprinkling of things that make me believe that the author has some familiarity with the nitty-gritty details of what musicians actually think about. Time-signatures, chords, bass-lines, scales. I appreciated that.

It wasn't a perfect book. Shivers aside, the book did not provide a huge amount of fear or suspense. That said, I still recommend it, and believe I will soon be reading other books by this author.

For as long as she can remember, music has always been an integral part of Phoenix Smalls's life. Now everything seems to be on the fasttrack...after a floundering start, Phoenix and her band have found their way to the inner circle of G-Ronn, a wildly successful hip-hop music producer. With father Sarge's guidance, Phoenix seems destined for stardom; and of course, dating your boss could also earmark one for success...

Everything changes for Phoenix when at her father's urging she visits the Scott Joplin house while touring with her band. Shortly thereafter Phoenix starts writing music..ragtime, mostly, in the hand of the dead musician, resurrecting pieces that musical historians had long thought lost. But will Scott's singular desire to reintroduce his music to the world overcome Phoenix and end her own musical career before it even starts? An intriguing tale of love that transcends even death...and of the struggle of one young woman to balance the needs of the living with those of the dead....without losing her own life in the process. A fabulous novel that I quite literally could not put down.

DYB