Customer Reviews

The Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Christopher Bram has written perhaps the most unique and adventurous novel of the new century. By his own closing page note he attributes his inspiration for this amazing novel to great writers both of history and contemporary. The Notorious Dr August scoops us up from the very first page and runs with us hand in hand through the extraordinary life of a dreamer who starts as a fife player in the Civil War, becomes intimately bound to a freed slave, turns a potentially harmful sexual history into a revealing life pattern, using his musical skill to become a Spiritulaist Pianist to wander fascinating European cities in support of an adopted family. But oh, trying to capsulize this incredibly well-spun story into a sentence is as difficult as condensing Joyce's Ullyses into a paragraph. You simply must read this magical tale of intrigue, love, commitment, spiritual journeys for yourself. Bram is a consummate storyteller and has the guts to present us with characters who are potentially unloveable and make us thrill to sail through their development and destinies. This book has it all - the complete spectrum of love, the importance of self discovery, an examination of the post Civil War dilemma of racism, and the struggle of the Victorian era coming to grips with real people instead of comfortable stereotypes. Funny, tender, tragic, moving, entertaining - A thouroughly wondrous book by an incredibly gifted writer. A MUST READ for everyone!

I would have been entertained by Bram's ingenious plot line and the remarkable use he makes of historical mileposts, from the Civil War to the great Coney Island Dreamland fire; trekking from Norfolk to New York to Constantinople over more than half a century. Those mileposts are parts of us through life's reading, travel, modern media. Colorful descriptions throughout give emotional and nostalgic thrills. Bravo to wonderful story telling! But the most joy came from immersing me in my great personal issues - race and its inexplicable importance in our society - my life's joys and fears in sexuality - and my regrets at living comfortably for 74 years within society's rules. My vicarious journey with Dr. August and his loves was an intellectual and erotic pleasure.

Christopher Bram pulls off a tour de force in his latest novel, "The Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes". As a fan of his work, I eagerly awaited his latest contribution to my literary world, and found not the least bit disappointment in this story.

In the book, he spins the yarn of Dr. August, or Fitz, a musical spiritualist who communicates to his audience messages through playing the piano. At first reading, I worried this device would become overblown, but through some excellent writing and plot twists, it manages to keep the story focused without totally consuming it. Dr. August is a great character, gifted without seemingly so, and yearning for love and companionship that is just beyond his grasp. Throw into the mix Isaac, an ex-slave who bravely overcomes his upbringing and learns to lead with his heart, and Alice, a 27 year old "spinster" just brave enough to buck societal norms, and we have a triangle that is complex, and so much more.

You will notice upon reading "Dr. August" how quickly paced the story is. Never dwelling too much on any one moment, it is a brisk and consuming read. Yet Bram leaves nothing out, and creates a real world before, during, and after the turn of the century. Absolutely, spotlessly breathtaking.

Do not delay in reading this fine work!

This is the fourth book by Bram I've read, and his writing is just getting better! I found the story utterly captivating and compelling. Beginning in the later years of the American Civil War through the 1920s, we follow the life of Augustus Boyd, a.k.a Dr August. He falls in love with an ex-slave named Isaac, eventually convincing him to make it an intimate relationship. August becomes an improvisational pianist, inspired by his "spirits", with Isaac as his manager. While on a voyage to Europe, Isaac is enraptured with a white governess, and breaks off the love affair with August to pursue Alice. Isaac & August remain friends & business partners as Isaac weds Alice, and the two have children. The love triangle is a strain on all, and it snaps finally in Constantinople, when Isaac meddles in August's new love affair with a teen. The outcome of a tragedy causes the destruction of the trio, and its reconfiguration into a strange new alliance, without one of its core members. Beautifully exploring issues of race, sexuality, class, sprituality, and the notion of love, "The Notorious Dr August" is a magnificent story including fully-fleshed characters and a delightful rendering of history. Bram rocks!

The author of this book was unknown to me. Now, I'll seek him out. This book will certainly become a motion picture someday. If they made his other book (Father of Frankenstein) into the movie, Gods & Monsters...then, this will be up for film rights. It's an astonishing epic that mixes music into a novel that flows like non-fiction. It's so well written. You get caught up in the charachters of Dr. August (Fitz), Isaac, Alice, Fanny/Lady Ashe and more. What was amazing is that it takes you back in time to a time when something like this could NEVER have been written about. What a love triangle...I loved experiencing the end of the Civil War, the early 1900's in New York, a cruise ship, London, and Constantinople. If you want an ESCAPE...this book is your best bet! I SIMPLY LOVED IT. There were plenty of significant lines that you'll take with you too...There are just too many favorite lines for me to list here...but the story is quite unique. It's an A+.

This book was a great pleasure to read and I highly recommend it. Bram's skill in combining imaginative fiction with well-researched fact, (read also "Almost History"), is used here to great effect. I came away feeling that I had shared a lifetime with Augustus Fitzwilliam Boyd, (a.k.a. Dr. August), and what a life it was. From the civil war South to Coney Island in the 1920's with Paris, London and Constantinople in between, the book explores themes of love, loss, family, religion and the spirit world. The history through which the story passes is so richly detailed that it becomes a character in itself, and the musical references throughout are the closest I've come to reading a novel with a (classical) soundtrack. If you're interested in taking a journey through a life and its times, I can't think of a more fascinating guide than "the notorious" Dr. August.

Rare is the novel that manages to disarm, titillate, and enlighten the reader. "Dr. August" pulls off all three, using engaging prose to explore love, race, sexuality, spirituality, the afterlife, and any other number of critical issues.

Young and already on the touring circuit, August gets tangled in the end of the Civil War when a horse tosses him into the midst of a Confederate camp (his uncle, in what turns out to be a family trait, rides off full speed with nary a backward glance). That inglorious splash into Rebel mud turns out to be a life-altering event. August there meets and falls in love with ex-slave Isaac Kemp, who joins him in touring the country,and eventually Europe,with a strange spiritualist-pianist act which may be a gimmick, or may be very real. When Isaac falls in love it is not with August but with unlikely Alice, whose tart diaries of life in the governess profession make some snappy reading. This unorthodox trio travels the world until the proud, moralistic Isaac redefines their triangle forever.

"The Notorious Dr. August" has plenty of sweep and revels in sharply observed historical detail. Surprising, funny, aching, and always interesting, it's a hard book to put down.

So much is wrong with this book that that in itself adds to its indisputable stature. It is a tribute to Bram's genius as a writer that he gets away with a plot as twisted and overdressed as this one, hinging on a few extremely unlikely coincidences and introducing Brahms and Freud as walk-ons just to add some extra nostalgic flavour. And he not only gets away with it, he drags the reader along. This is old-fashioned, big time, deeply engrossing story-telling. But the ultimate success of the book is in the details of the characters, even the minor ones. The unforgettable image of Brahms blowing smoke-bubbles on a Baden-Baden street is not only very touching, but seems to tell us almost as much about the man as half a biography might do. And Bram pulls off this trick with equal deftness if the person at hand happens to be fictional. His main characters are few in number and the real plot is in their emotional development, which is quite as complicated as the surface plot of the book, but in contrast to that totally believable. It even makes you tolerate the absurd unlikelihood of, say, meeting an American enemy from many years ago in the streets of Constantinople, or happening upon your childhood friend from the brothel who is now rich and famous, and then falling in love with her son... I should add that at times I wondered if Bram was anticipating the (I suppose inevitable) movie to be made of this book.
So why not five stars? Well, frankly, towards the end all the symbolism and the search for a deeper meaning do get the better of Bram, and the characters turn slightly annoying. They have run their course, and the aftermath is distinctly less compelling. Also, just a little too much gay pride propaganda seems to seep in. Furthermore, the weird collection of characters suddenly crowding the story in the Coney Island finale give it a disconcertingly John Irving-like twist that to me felt very out of place, and even out of style. Nor does the compulsion for closure do much good; things are wrapped up just a little too neatly at the end. Actually, the book would have been better had it finished somewhere near the passage where the narrator himself observes that most books would end there.
Still, all this grumbling should be no reason for you not to read this book, because believe me: not many are better, and most are much, much worse! Bram is, no doubt, a very great writer, and I for one eagerly look forward to his next creation.

What impressed me most of all about this novel was the old-fashioned, respectful tone the author uses in telling the story, as if he is conscious of the readers' presence and wishes to reward them for their time and trust. "Dr August" is a most unusual story, and despite the fact that the title character's psychic abilities and psychological make-up are unevenly expressed, the novel is populated with unforgettable characters that you can't quite believe never existed. Bram does an outstanding job at the book's end of interweaving God, athieism, pain, happiness, love and despair as common threads of human existence. "Dr August" is a gentle, remarkable piece of fiction that is pleasantly unpredictable throughout.

Christopher Bram is a literary whirlwind who should be riding this recent wave of success well into the Millennium. Here is a tome that thrusts the unsuspecting reader into the world of Brahms, Schubert, Beethoven and the great pianists throughout its colourful history. Doctor August is a shrewd, lewd, conniving yet inescapably heart rendered character who still haunts me weeks after his character disappeared with the last printed word. His unbiding, unflailing love for Isaac Kemp is a refreshing view in a gay literary world that seems full of one-night-stands and senseless partnerships. His honest, worn on the sleeve emotions pierced my heart and took me back to that first seemingly unrequited love of my life. Tristan, Isaac's son, and the minor character to whom August is dictating this mystical, lyrically evocative novel, stole my heart with his patience, perserverance and trust that what August revealed was solid truth. Such is the ending of this story with the snake biting its own tail, so does this story prepare us for another similar journey when Tristan sets out to seek true love. I should love to see a continuation of this series into the near future. Are you listening Christopher?