by Deborah Rogers –
Francis Spufford’s Cahokia Jazz presents an intriguing premise. Set in the United States in the early 1920s, it imagines what society might be like had the Indigenous population not been decimated by smallpox, but instead equaled in number those with European and African ancestry. The novel is set in the city of Cahokia, and Spufford even invents a dialect, “Anopia,” for this reimagined southern state. Many things are the same in his 1920s including prohibition, smokey jazz clubs, crime gangs, crooked policemen, and a press that’s seemingly in the pocket of a local businessman.
In some ways Cahokia Jazz is simply a murder mystery. The story opens with a grizzly killing; Phil Drummond and his Indigenous sidekick Joe Barrow are the detectives in charge of the case. It’s quickly apparent that the murder could be a catalyst to the uneasy racial tension in the city, and we start to meet the key players from each group and witness Cahokia unravel through the eyes of Joe, who is just starting to understand his place in it.
The book spans only a week, but it is long and dense with description, and the inevitable explanation that such an ambitious setting requires. Despite the critical praise Spufford has received, our Seaside Book Club members did not find this book an enjoyable or successful read. The chief complaint (after the length and glacial pacing) was that we couldn’t understand the why of it. We wondered if this English writer was the right person to tackle a story that seemed to really require a strong understanding of Indigenous people and culture. We questioned why he would make this big change to the path of history, and then fail to explore anything except cursory, and sometimes offensively simplistic, caricatures. We wondered why he would choose to introduce a whole new language, adding a further barrier to the reader’s understanding of the narrative. And we felt there was not nearly enough jazz!
For the few readers who made it to the end, the book offered up some impactful scenes, and everyone felt the final chapter made for a satisfying conclusion. Spufford creates some beautiful characters, and Joe’s evolution through the course of the story is rewarding to witness. However, for us, Cahokia Jazz did not succeed, either as a detective story or as an alternative history.
Next month we will be discussing Commune: A Novel by Des Kennedy. We have a Book Club Set of this title available through the Sidney/North Saanich Library. Please contact them directly if you would like to borrow a copy. Our next meeting takes place on Tuesday August 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the library. Visit www.seasidemagazine.ca/book-club/ to sign up for our email reminders.
