Black Mahler The Samuel Coleridge Taylor Story by Charles Elford

This fascinating book, which deftly toes the line between historical fiction and biography, vividly recounts the true life story of the almost forgotten composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, best remembered for his "Song of Hiawatha" trilogy, which set the famous Longfellow epic poem to music and gave choral societies all over the world a much needed break from religious themed compositions.

Born in 1875 to a white mother and a young black doctor from West Africa, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was adopted by a white Welsh family, the Evans, and grew up in the South London suburb of Croyden. From an early age he showed promise as a musician, his first music teacher fondly recalled discovering the little black boy on the sidewalk outside his house playing marbles with his scruffy little violin case beside him. Victorian England was a much more hospitable climate to African-Americans, though racial prejudices, often rudely expressed, definitely existed there, it was not so bad as America where tolerance didn't equal acceptance or kindness in the decades after the abolution of slavery, and young Samuel was able to receive an excellent education, thanks to encouraging benefactors, and eventually received a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. There he met the woman who would become his wife, the indomitable Jess, and his lifelong best friend William Hurlstone.

While he was still a student, he became entranced by Longfellow's vivid and evocative images of the Native Americans in "the land of the Dakotahs" and decided to set the poem to music for his own pleasure, never realizing it would become a worldwide sensation and the masterpiece he could never surpass. Nor did he realize that selling the piece outright, as he always did with his compositions, would be a catastrophic mistake; while his publishers got rich, all Samuel Coleridge-Taylor earned from his masterpiece was a mere 15 shillings.

For the rest of his life, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor would work himself to death to support his wife and two children, barely managing to keep his head above the water. Despite the mistake with "Hiawatha" he always found it to his best advantage to sell his work outright, but it didn't always pay the bills or stave off debt for very long.

In the more racially tolerant England, he didn't realize how important he was to African-Americans, who hailed him as a hero and inspiration and loved his music, creating a choral society in his name. He visited America three times, always to great acclaim, and even met President Roosevelt.

Ironically, one might consider Samuel Coleridge-Taylor another victim of the Titanic. Though he was not on board the ship, the only copy of his Violin Concerto was. Already worn to a shadow, this stressed and exhausted man worked feverishly around the clock to rewrite this composition and get it to America on time. He met his deadline, but a few months later he collapsed waiting to catch a train and died shortly after. He was only thirty-seven years old.

This is a very readable and engrossing book about a thoroughly likeable man-some might even go so far as to say he was "too nice"-a sensitive, funny, generous, thoughtful, and self-effacing and doubting man who couldn't bear to let anyone down. It is a vivid portrait of a man and artist who should never be forgotten.

For those curious about the title, as I was, it comes from a great compliment paid to the composer during one of his American visits. Gustav Mahler, a conductor from Vienna, was then considered the greatest conductor to have ever visitied America. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was favorably compared to him, deemed by many to be Mahler's only equal, and thus he was dubbed "The Black Mahler."

For more information about the book and its author please visit www.blackmahler.com

A special note to readers of my Ficitonal Appearances blog (http://fictionalappearances.bogspot.com):

Normally only fiction is featured here as the purpose of this blog is to highlight real historical figures appearing in historial fiction, but this book reads like a novel, though it is based on a true story, and the book itself does not specify whether it should be classified as "ficiton" or "non-fiction" and it does not include footnotes or an index like most biogrpahies and non-fiction works do, so I have chosen to include it here. It's a touching, lively, and dramatic story, and I highly recommend it to those who enjoy fact-based fiction as well as biographies.

The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel

This novel is loosely based on the true story of Charles Byrne, the real-life “Irish Giant” who exhibited himself in London in the late eighteenth century, and whose bones were coveted, and dubiously acquired, by surgeon John Hunter and are today displayed in the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons alongside the diminutive skeleton of Caroline Crachami, “The Sicilian Fairy.”

The story begins in 1782 with Charles O’Brien and his band of followers quitting poverty and hunger stricken Ireland to make their fortune in London. The giant has a talent for telling Irish folk and fairy tales, songs, and poems, and this puts him a cut above the average giant working the sideshow circuit. Some of these stories are included and are one of the book’s best features. On the advice of his manager, the Giant changes his name to Charles Byrne, to sound more refined and attract a better class of custom.

Entwined with the Giant’s story is that of John Hunter, a poor Scottish farm lad whose ambition and determination pays off when he becomes London’s most renowned surgeon. He is a dedicated, obsessive man who in his quest for knowledge regularly consorts with bodysnatchers, experiments with artificial insemination, and even accidentally inflicts himself with syphilis while attempting to inject a pauper with the virus, but shrugs it off as this will allow him to chart the course of the disease better. He keeps abreast of any of nature’s oddities on display in London, hoping to dissect them and add their bones to his collection when Death calling, and when he sees Charles Byrne he becomes obsessed with adding his skeleton to his collection.

This is a rather sparse, bleak tale of the pursuit of, and fleeting nature, of fame and fortune. The Giant’s time as a star attraction doesn’t last, and neither does the money. More than once he is forced to reduce his price and change to cheaper lodgings and cater to a lower class of customers to keep in business. Friendships and loyalties fray, disillusionment sets in, though life is better than it was in Ireland the Irish are treated badly, and as his health begins to deteriorate, his band of followers, blinded by the glitter of gold, are tempted by Hunter’s offer to purchase the Giant’s remains.

For those who are interested in the history of medicine, bodysnatching, sideshows and human oddities, Irish folktales, and the not so glamorous life in 18th century London, this is certainly a worthwhile read.

The Favored Queen A Novel of the Third Wife of Henry VIII by Carolly Erickson

The latest volume in Carolly Erickson’s frothy and improbable line of “historical entertainments” is set in Tudor England and tells the story of Jane Seymour, third of the six wives of Henry VIII, and mother to his only legitimate son, Edward VI.

The novel begins with Jane, a devoted to the serene and gracious Queen Catherine of Aragon, who has tried many times, and failed, to give the King the son he covets, enduring her own sorrows over a man. Her engagement to Will Dormer is jeopardized by her father’s seduction of her fiancé’s fourteen-year-old sister. The couple plan to runaway to the Spice Islands to start a new life together, but, for various reasons, this is not to be, so Jane is on hand to be an eyewitness to the rise of the haughty and ambitious Anne Boleyn and the fall of her beloved Queen Catherine, and to surrender her virginity in a midnight rendezvous with a married French glazier she meets when he is hired to make improvements in Anne’s bedchamber.

When the Nun of Kent’s dire predictions of doom drive Anne Boleyn into a paranoid frenzy and her desperation to give Henry a son costs Jane’s lover his life, Jane becomes a quiet enemy waiting in the wings to destroy Anne and the gentle confidante who captures King Henry’s fickle heart.

I have read all Ms. Erickson’s “historical entertainments” to date (I just haven’t reviewed them all yet) and, while I enjoy some more than others, I always find them fun and a breath of fresh air amongst the more ponderous and serious tomes of historical fiction. If you’re not a historical fiction purist and can take them for what they are, and are open to the idea of Jane Seymour as a woman with all too human feelings and longings, neither sinner nor saint, then you just might enjoy this.

Hurricane by Jewell Parker Rhodes

As promised last year, here is my review of the third and final volume that completes Jewell Parker Rhodes’ Marie Laveau mystery trilogy starring the famous New Orleans’ voodoo queen’s descendant, Dr. Marie Levant.

The book begins with Dr. Marie, who has since changed her last name from Levant to Laveau, driving south, following a disturbing dream. This leads her to a shack deep in the Louisiana bayou where a family of three-father, mother, and child—lie dead; all have been murdered. When she goes to report the crime to the local sheriff, his brother takes her to their home and introduces her to their grandmother, Nana, an old voodoo woman, blind and riddled with cancer, who foretold Marie’s coming.

The town of Delaire has no doctor, everyone has always relied on Nana and her powers whenever they were ailing, and hearing that there is a real medical doctor in their midst, the locals flock to Nana’s house to see Marie. Strangely, many of them suffer from cancer and other diseases and have lived longer than they should have without modern medical care.

Marie does the best she can for them, but when she discovers that the sheriff has covered up the murders, burning the crime scene, she is furious and returns to New Orleans. There the police also show no inclination to investigate and advise her to just let it go. There are other things to worry about. The weather reports are full of a brewing tropical storm called Katrina and everyone is wondering if this will turn out to be “the big one.”

After a colleague is killed, possibly because she was mistaken for Marie, Marie races back to bayou country accompanied by a handsome red-haired Cajun doctor, K-Paul who wants to be more than just a friend to her. Marie is also perplexed by visions of two loas, Voodoo spirits, one half male and half female who freely shifts between the two genders, the other a teal mermaid water goddess.

Marie soon discovers the secret in Delaire that the powers that be hoped to keep buried—the preponderance of cancer and other illnesses in the area is due to environmental factors, oil pollution and damage caused and covered up by Vivco Oil. And Nana helped her people by using her powers as a sin eater to swallow their illnesses until she literally bit off more than she could chew and became sick herself.

And as the great storm of Katrina rages, battering New Orleans, it’s up to Marie Levant-Laveau to save the day.

Though I personally thought it the weakest volume in the trilogy, Hurricane kept my attention from start to end. I confess that, being long familiar with the legends about the real Marie Laveau and the stories told about her being swept up by a hurricane and presumed dead, I hoped the author would tie these into the series finale in some way, but they were never mentioned. But I always liked the heroine she created, and I was a little sorry to see her go, and could not help but wish her well, though at the same time I was also glad that this was not being stretched into an ongoing series. It was time to say goodbye and Ms. Rhodes ended it all upon a positive note.

Note: The first two books, Voodoo Season and Yellow Moon have since been reissued in trade paperback with their titles shortened simply to Season and Moon, you can find my reviews of both, under their original titles by either searching this blog or scrolling through the list of labels on the far right side of the screen.

Immanuel's Veins by Ted Dekker

With Halloween coming up we’ve got to have a vampire book, so here’s my review of Immanuel’s Veins by Ted Dekker. The year is 1772 and the hero and narrator is Toma Nicolescu, a soldier in the service of Catherine the Great. The Empress sends him to Moldavia, to the country estate of the Cantemir family, seated at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, just west of Transylvania. With his trusty friend Alex Cardei, he sets out on his mission, to protect the family in these times of political unrest, but, the Empress warns, steer clear of the notorious Cantemir sisters—impetuous blonde Natascha and wise brunette Lucine who, unlike the typical 18th century nobly born girl, have been brought up to live their lives for love, in pursuit of pleasure and passion. A marriage between one of them and a member of the Russian royal family may even be in the works, so they are officially off limits.

Of course, Toma and Alek ignore this and they soon pair up with the sisters, Toma with Lucine and Alek with Natascha. But Alek soon finds he has a rival, Natasha just can’t keep away from Castle Castile and the mysterious men and women who live there, living for pleasure sake and imbibing a special wine that bears a strong resemblance to blood; she repeatedly sneaks out at night to join them. But if you can’t beat them join them and Alek soon joins Natascha on her nocturnal visits and soon he is enthralled as she is and it is up to Toma and Lucine to put a stop to these antics and restore them to their senses. But Alek and Natascha don’t want to be rescued and instead try to convert them to the Russian’s free-love, do-as-you-please, live only for pleasure’s sake, lifestyle: “They are the model of love. The pounding of the heart, the touch of lips. They are God’s gift to the world, to love as you would be loved, with intense affection.”

More complications arise when the lord of Castle Castile, Vlad von Valerik, asks permission to court Lucine and her mother urges her to accept him, and, realizing that Vlad may be the marriage prospect the Empress spoke of, Toma finds himself turn between his love for Lucine and duty to the Empress and his country.

After tasting the Russians’ special wine, Toma blacks out in the embrace of Sofia, one of the mysterious Russian coven, and thus Lucine comes upon him. Soon afterwards, though Toma has decided to follow his heart come what may and damn the consequences, he will risk the ire of the Empress, Lucine decides to accept Vlad’s suit and begins to succumb to his charm and desire to please her. But after he bites her lip and she complains of the pain he suddenly becomes violent, and there are no more words of love and tenderness.

And like the hero of any vampire movie, Toma must save his beloved, but more perils and trials await him, and obstacles to overcome. But with the help of a mysterious old blind man who calls himself Thomas and gives Tomas a mysterious volume called The Blood Book that describes the origin of the Nephilim (the word vampire is never used in the book), the evil beings born of unions between fallen angels and human females, and, armed with this treasure trove of knowledge, and a new-found belief in God, Tomas returns to Castle Castile determined to save the woman he loves and slay the evil Vlad.

There’s really nothing new under the sun or moon where vampire fiction is concerned, but it’s still an interesting and entertaining tale. I personally would have liked a better sense of history as window dressing for the story, there were a few modern words that seemed out of place, like “slacks” instead of "trousers" or "breeches", and I’m not sure the term “party people” was used in 18th century Russia, but these are really minor points, little rocks in the road that shouldn’t be allowed to spoil this stirring tale of romance and adventure and good versus evil.

The White Devil by Justin Evans

Andrew Taylor thinks his luck has taken a turn for the worse—and quite rightly too it turns out--when his father sends him to London to attend The Harrow School an elite 400 year-old boarding school where the students, all born to wealth and privilege, wear the same style jackets, ties, and straw hats that students wore in the 19th century. It’s a whole new world for American Andrew with the different customs and accents and he finds it very hard to fit in. And when the boy who befriended him on his first day dies under mysterious circumstances Andrew is blamed and shunned as a rumor begins circulating that he gave the boy drugs that caused his death, even though the autopsy soon disproves this.

When another student notices that Andrew bears an uncanny resemblance to Lord Byron, one of Harrow’s most famous past students, he is cast as the lead in the school play. But things keep getting stranger and Andrew wonders if he is losing his mind when he starts having bizarre dreams, visions of, and perhaps ghostly visitations from, a pale effeminate boy with white-blonde hair. Research and clues lead Andrew to identify his nocturnal visitor as John Harness, a poor scholarship or charity student who attended the school during Byron’s time there. Byron took John under his wing, defended him against bullies, and the two eventually became lovers. Is the ghost confused and mistaking Andrew for Byron?

Then the past begins to repeat itself when the ghost mistakes Andrew’s girlfriend for a boy and thinks Byron is betraying him all over again, and Andrew must race against time to solve a 200 year old mystery, to save the lives of his classmates, friends, and teachers as the vengeful spirit unleashes a plague of deadly tuberculosis upon them.

I love ghost stories and this is one of the best I have read in a long time. I thought it breathed new life into the genre and I loved the way it mixed the past and present, the way history and its mysteries and facts long buried, forgotten and obscured by the passage of time, were unearthed or forced their way to the surface to demand confrontation. It blows the dust off the old familiar haunted school stories and gives the reader something novel and new.

The Mozart Conspiracy by Scott Mariani

Following the trend set by the bestselling The Da Vinci Code, this is yet another novel that blends past and present to create a fast-paced modern-day thriller when secrets and relics of the past can still claim lives centuries later.

When opera star Leigh Llewellyn’s brother dies under mysterious circumstances she asks her first love, Ben Hope, an ex British Special Air Service officer to investigate. Could Oliver Llewellyn’s supposedly drunken fall through the ice covering a frozen lake be connected to his unfinished book about Mozart?

As Ben and Leigh delve into Oliver’s files they disvoer that Mozart’s ties to freemasonry may have led to his murder at the hands of a powerful, elitist splinter group known as the Order of Ra. And the search is on to find a letter, supposed by many to have been a fraud, which, if authentic may prove that the famous composer was indeed poisoned.

When they receive a video of a man having his tongue cut out and then being disemboweled in a ritual sacrifice they learn that the Order of Ra is alive and well and will stop at nothing to keep their secret safe and Ben and Leigh are soon running for their lives across Europe with a band of assassins on their heels.

Overall, this was a pretty good mystery/thriller, it kept my attention and I flew through it. I personally thought it would have been a much better book if instead of being set entirely in modern times it had been interlaced with some 18th century scenes of Mozart’s life and last days, but don’t let that keep you from giving this a try if the storyline piques your interest. If you like thrillers laced with history and are interested in Mozart and the freemasons this might be a good book to curl up and pass some time with.