Mingus Fingers

by David Sandner, Jacob Weisman

Overview

When jazz legend Charles Mingus comes to town, playing his double bass at the Nighthawk Club, one struggling musician sees what no one else can: Mingus playing "in the soul," transforming into a giraffe. Mingus calls it the underground: the place he goes when the music is everything and he doesn't have to think at all.

Now Mingus sees something special in a younger musician, Kenny. Will Kenny have the same ability? Will he find the way to the underground?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781933846873
Publisher:	Fairwood Press LLC
Publication date:	11/05/2019
Pages:	68
Product dimensions:	4.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.16(d)

Editorial Reviews

09/23/2019

Scenes of jazz and boxing in 1950s San Francisco are interrupted by unexplainable transformations in this moody, meandering novella from Sandner and Weisman, who previously collaborated as editors of The Treasury of the Fantastic anthology. The nameless narrator, a session trumpeter and former boxer, is at home with his six-year-old nephew, Kenny, when a man comes to recruit him for a fight. The narrative then shifts focus to the jazz sessions the narrator plays with Charles Mingus, during which the trumpeter witnesses Mingus become a giraffe. Kenny is also subject to a surreal interaction with animals when he is mysteriously surrounded by rabbits and butterflies while playing in the backyard. The story returns to boxing in the end, when, during the final bout of the match for which he was recruited, the narrator momentarily feels himself being transformed into a bird before a punch to the face knocks him out. Though there is little narrative momentum, the odd magic and arresting imagery captures the feel of jazz. What this offbeat novella lacks in cohesion it makes up for in style. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"In Mingus Fingers, David Sandner and Jacob Weisman have given us a quietly intricate and intelligent merger of boxing, jazz music, the seductive lure of the artistic impulse, and the ultimate meaning of it all. I read it with pleasure and admiration. Highly recommended." —Rick Wilber, author of Alien Morning

"A stroll through jazz, boxing, the creative fire, and the prices of all three. Subtle, profound, and moving." —Kij Johnson, author of The River Bank

"Scenes of jazz and boxing in 1950s San Francisco are interrupted by unexplainable transformations in this moody, meandering novella from Sandner and Weisman, who previously collaborated as editors of The Treasury of the Fantastic anthology . . . the odd magic and arresting imagery captures the feel of jazz. What this offbeat novella lacks in cohesion it makes up for in style." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher