The Fisher King A Novel [Paperback]

In 1949, Sonny-Rett Payne, a jazz pianist, fled New York for Paris to escape both his family's disapproval of his music and the racism that shadowed his career. Now, decades later, his eight-year-old grandson is brought to Payne's old Brooklyn neighborhood to attend a memorial concert in his honor. The child's visit reveals the persistent family and community rivalries that drove his grandfather into exile.
The Fisher King-- a moving story of jazz, love, family conflict, and the artists' struggles in society -- offers hope in the healing and redemptive power of one memorable boy.Paule Marshallholds a distinguished chair in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University. She has won many awards, including the John Dos Passos Award for Literature, an American Book Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. She lives in New York City and Richmond, Virginia.Chapter 1

Had the brass-face to come round me playing the Sodom and Gomorrah music!

The old woman they said was his great-grandmother stood eyeing him from behind the locked iron gate to the basement of her house. She had ordered that he be brought to see her as soon as he arrived, if not the same day, then the one following. In either case, he was to visit her first, she'd said, before any of the other relatives, and certainly before the old-miss-young across the street at No. 258 Macon. And the visit was to last a full hour. She had insisted on that also.

Yet minutes had passed and she had made no move to open the gate and let him in. Nor had she spoken as yet, even though Hattie who had brought him over for the visit and was standing waiting behind him had politely greeted the woman and introduced him when she answered the bell.

Hello, Mrs. Payne, it's Hattie, she'd said. Hattie Carmichael? You might not recognize me it's been so long, so many years...And this is Sonny. His name's Sonny.

Not a word. Her rheumy, clouded-over eyes immedilÔ