Nighthawk Blues: A Novel [Paperback]

Peter Guralnick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2003

- The Year of the Blues reaches fever pitch in fall 2003 with the theatrical release (and airing on PBS) of seven documentary films, each by a noted feature director (Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders, Charles Burnett, Mike Figgis, and Clint Eastwood among them) and the release on CD of several major new blues compilations.- Peter Guralnick, celebrated for his bestselling two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love, is a master of narrative who knows the world of American roots music better than any other writer.- NIGHTHAWK BLUES was first published in hardcover in 1980 (Seaview Books) and subsequently in paperback (Thunder's Mouth Press). Both editions have long been unavailable.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is the story of Theodore Roosevelt Jefferson, known professionally as the Screaming Nighthawk, a guitarist and blues singer who is growing old with the century. PW found that "the novel catches very honestly the unique flavor of a black musician's life, a kind of melancholy swan song."
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Peter Guralnick's books include his prizewinning, two-volume Elvis Presley biography; a widely praised trilogy on the roots of American popular music, comprising Feel Like Going Home, Lost Highway, and Sweet Soul Music; and Searching for Robert Johnson. He lives in Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316735728
• ISBN-13: 978-0316735728
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,375,395 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"Peter Guralnick is widely regarded as the nation's preeminent writer on twentieth-century American popular music. His books include Feel Like Going Home, Lost Highway, Sweet Soul Music, Searching for Robert Johnson, the novel Nighthawk Blues, and a highly acclaimed two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book if you can find it, January 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Nighthawk Blues: A Novel (Contemporary fiction series) (Paperback)

I found this book at a used bookstore in Chicago after I had read the first part of Guralnick's Elvis biography, and after I learned he had written extensively about the blues.

This is one of Guralnick's forays into fiction, but the tale doesn't go too far from his nonfiction roots. In this book, a young white man from the Northeast (Guralnick, perhaps?) finds a stunning old bluesman in Mississippi and tries to make a national blues star out of him, kind of like when old bluesmen were "rediscovered" after the Rolling Stones and other white bands paid homage to them in the 1960s.

Of course, things do not go smoothly. The old bluesman is not in great health and does not have the mindset to bus from town to town playing one-nighters. Through the portrayal of the bluesman's home and other anecdotes -- like how his band's piano player disappears from a gig in Indianapolis, only to be found playing at a neighborhood dive -- the book seems to say that you can put someone on stage and call it the blues, but you can't really remove the blues from its environment. I get the feeling that Guralnick is channeling himself through the white promoter character, saying that the frustration with appreciating such great music is that you can't do it unless you come to it, not let it come to you.

The book is not so good that you should go to the ends of the Earth to find it, but if you liked Guralnick's nonfiction writing, Nighthawk Blues is worth picking up if you happen to see it.