Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition [Paperback]

Adam Gussow (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226310981 | ISBN-13: 978-0226310985 | Publication Date: December 1, 2002 | Edition: 1

Winner of the 2004 C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature.

Seems Like Murder Here offers a revealing new account of the blues tradition. Far from mere laments about lost loves and hard times, the blues emerge in this provocative study as vital responses to spectacle lynchings and the violent realities of African American life in the Jim Crow South. With brilliant interpretations of both classic songs and literary works, from the autobiographies of W. C. Handy, David Honeyboy Edwards, and B. B. King to the poetry of Langston Hughes and the novels of Zora Neale Hurston, Seems Like Murder Here will transform our understanding of the blues and its enduring power.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Beneath the effusive and effervescent tone of Mister Satan's Apprentice lie gnawing questions of race and identity, of cultural imperialism and human connection. And precisely because Gussow stays close to his story, with all its eccentricity and youthful abandon, he arrives at a kind of profundity that eludes [most] commentators." - Samuel G. Freedman, Washington Post Book World

From the Inside Flap

Winner of the 2004 C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature.

Seems Like Murder Here offers a revealing new account of the blues tradition. Far from mere laments about lost loves and hard times, the blues emerge in this provocative study as vital responses to spectacle lynchings and the violent realities of African American life in the Jim Crow South. With brilliant interpretations of both classic songs and literary works, from the autobiographies of W. C. Handy, David Honeyboy Edwards, and B. B. King to the poetry of Langston Hughes and the novels of Zora Neale Hurston, Seems Like Murder Here will transform our understanding of the blues and its enduring power.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (December 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226310981
• ISBN-13: 978-0226310985
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,619,387 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Race and Art in America, July 21, 2005

By 

HenryC "HenryChorley" (San Bernardino USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition (Paperback)

Adam Gussow has written an absorbing and innovative study of American "blues texts" over the past century, demonstrating that this genre permeates several media, from music and fiction to autobiography and journalism, and that a pervasive theme in the blues, even its prime initiative, is a response to the wave of race murders and lynchings that occurred in the Southern states after 1890. "Spectacle lynchings," widely-publicized acts of mob vigilance, gave rise to a rhetoric of retribution in the blues, understandably directed toward white oppressors, but also more tragically toward black bodies and souls. The complex burden of the blues, Gussow argues, is to perform rites of exorcism that re-enact violence without the comfort of catharsis or transubtantiation, the usual consequences of tragedy.

His chapters successively explore the subjects of lynchings, dismemberment, murder, riot, and knifings, each time through a central author or text, set amidst a rich array of ancillary texts and voices. The chapters are models of rigorous historical research and intelligently modulated critical discussion. This book is an accurate and eloquently argued work of cultural imagination. It raises deeply troubling questions about race and art in America, and it will endure for a long while as a very distinguished publication.

5.0 out of 5 stars History and the Blues Woven Together Well, January 15, 2012

By 

Coach Connye - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition (Paperback)

The scholarship is well documented. The book turns a bright light upon a dark, tragic period in American history. If blues music interests you, then this book is a real history of why the blues are what they are.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not for the faint of heart, September 17, 2007

By 

John R. Stanley (Shongaloo, LA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition (Paperback)

This was an interesting read though a bit too scholarly at times. I am a fan of Mr. Gussows work and while I enjoyed this book I don't know if it will be everyone's cup of tea. If you have an interest in the subject matter I do recommend this to you as there is nothing else out there quite like it.