Blues and Trouble: Twelve Stories

by Tom Piazza

Overview

Exploring the diverse landscape of American life, the stories in Blues and Trouble: Twelve Stories capture the lives of people caught between circumstance and their own natures or on the run from fate, from a Jewish couple encountering a dealer in Nazi memorabilia to the troubled family of a Gulf Coast fisherman awaiting a hurricane.

Tom Piazza’s debut short story collection, originally published in 1996, heralded the arrival of a startlingly original and vital presence in American fiction and letters. Set in Memphis, New Orleans, Florida, Texas, New York City, and elsewhere, the stories echo voices from Ernest Hemingway to Robert Johnson in their sharp eye for detail and their emotional impact. New to this volume is an introduction written by the author. Drawing themes, forms, and stylistic approaches from blues and country music, these stories present a tough, haunting vision of a landscape where the social and spiritual ground shifts constantly underfoot.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496841957
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	09/20/2022
Series:	Banner Books
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	164
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Tom Piazza is a novelist and writer on American music. His twelve books include the novels A Free State and City of Refuge, the post-Katrina manifesto Why New Orleans Matters, and the essay collection Devil Sent the Rain: Music and Writing in Desperate America. He was a principal writer for the HBO drama series Treme and the winner of a Grammy Award for his album notes to Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: A Musical Journey.

Editorial Reviews

In ``Burn Me Up,'' the most effective of the 12 achingly moody stories in this virtuoso collection, Memphis city councilman Archie Lucas recalls the spring of 1948, when he felt ``a sense of longing and possibility mixed with a strange directionlessness.'' His ennui is later shattered by the rock-and-roll voice of Billy Sundown on the radio. Raunchy Billy is Archie's former schoolmate, and his Jerry Lee Lewis-style fame and troubles have propelled him into a peripatetic world of backwater lounges. The painful counterpoint of these two lives resounds through this and other pieces that contrast pure-on-the-road blues and frustratingly settled existences. Set in motion by the soul-sapping ``Brownsville,'' in which the narrator sits alone in a steamy New Orleans bar and vows to quit running when he gets to dusty Brownsville, a town he has chosen ``because I've got no reason to go there,'' these stories are sequenced in perfect call-and-response rhythm. Piazza has found the common American experience in the attachment-detachment struggle. Ranging from New York City to coastal Texas to Santa Monica, and crisscrossing through Memphis, he draws into his edgy cosmology characters from disparate segments of our population, what Stanley Crouch in his introduction calls ``so many out-of-tune lives'': the diaspora Jew trapped in the commuter ethos (``A Servant of Culture'') as well as the Tennessee trucker who can't act ``right'' in sedate Ohio society (``Memphis''). If there is a flaw here, it is that women are depicted only as speed bumps that throw men off course. Told in a clear tenor voice, Piazza's first collection is as wonderfully dislocating as an all-night drive. Piazza is a recipient of a 1995-96 James Michener Award. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

These 12 stories, some of which have appeared in Story or American Short Fiction, provide readers with a glimpse of a cross section of contemporary Americans looking for meaning in their troubled lives. The stories share travel as a common motif with each character searching outside her- or himself for happiness. We are taken into the abject life of an entertainer named Billy Sundown and witness his unusual effect on the life of a former classmate; a Gulf Coast fisherman having an affair with a college instructor safeguards his home and family against a threatening hurricane; a businessman unknowingly carries a loaded gun into his girlfriend's home for Thanksgiving; and a pair of Jewish tourists in Memphis stumble into a shop with Nazi memorabilia. The author's terse style paints a revealing picture of our perplexed culture. Piazza's first book revives the essence of the short story and allows readers, unlike the characters, to "sit still and look inside yourself." Recommended for all collections.-David A. Beron, Westbrook Coll. Lib., Portland, Me.

Library Journal

An underrecognized masterpiece.--Robert Olen Butler

Kin to everyone from Huck Finn to Jack Kerouac and blues guitarist Robert Johnson . . . Piazza's book revives the essence of the short story.--David A. Berona "Library Journal"

The lonely, restless pursuit of a liberating future is a staple of American fiction. Every so often, through clarity of vision, keenness of ear, and sheer élan, a writer shakes it to life again, which is exactly what Tom Piazza has done.--Peter Franck "Washington Post Book World"

A sense of displacement pervades the stories in this first collection. Although many of the stories are set in the South, they are not specifically southern. Most often, they take place between here and there, both geographically and figuratively. Specific locales or epiphanous moments might be the road to Daytona Beach, as in 'Born Yesterday'; a high school gym where evacuees take shelter during a storm in 'Port Isabel Hurricane'; or, in 'Bum Me Up, ' a middle-aged man's encounter with a Jerry Lee Lewis-type singer whom he knew as a child and has held as an icon over the years. Characters tend to be outsiders, often on the run, sometimes from failed relationships. Sometimes, too, the most enduring relationships are also the most unlikely, as in 'CSA, ' in which a white antique-store owner, a dealer in Confederate memorabilia, and his black assistant have a perfect understanding. The stories are strengthened by a specificity of detail only occasionally lapsing into over explanation.--Mary Ellen Quinn "Booklist"

In these stories, Tom Piazza is touching the grain of actual, as opposed to imaginary, human life. He sees both the pain and the humor, the tragic as well as the comic.--James Alan McPherson "Ploughshares"

Piazza has found the common American experience in the attachment-detachment struggle. Ranging from New York City to coastal Texas to Santa Monica and crisscrossing through Memphis, he draws into his edgy cosmology characters from disparate segments of our population. . . . Told in a clear tenor voice, Piazza's first collection is as wonderfully dislocating as an all-night drive.-- "Publishers Weekly"

Piazza is throwing his hat in the ring where In Our Time did its timeless tricks, or where Go Down, Moses went for broke. A signal achievement.--Stanley Crouch

Tom Piazza plays variations on both the form and the traditional content of the blues. In a few notes he can summon up a character's voice or create a locale: a New Orleans cafe, a New York music company, a Gulf Coast fishing port.--Michael Harris "Los Angeles Times Book Review"

Tom Piazza's writing is filled with energy and tender, insightful words for the brilliant and irascible, from Jimmy Martin to Norman Mailer. He identifies the unlikely, precious connections between recent events, art, letters, and music; through his words, these byways of popular culture provide an unexpected measure of the times.--Elvis Costello

Tom's stories are like the silence in a queer room--they pulsate with nervous electrical tension, reveal the emotions that we can't define.--Bob Dylan

From the Publisher

Tom’s stories…pulsate with nervous electrical tension, reveal the emotions that we can’t define.”

American singer and songwriter Bob Dylan

In a few notes he can summon up a character’s voice or create a locale: a New Orleans cafe, a New York music company, a Gulf Coast fishing port.”

Los Angeles Times Book Review

Tom Piazza’s writing is filled with energy and tender, insightful words for the brilliant and irascible.”

English singer and songwriter Elvis Costello

Characters tend to be outsiders, often on the run, sometimes from failed relationships. Sometimes, too, the most enduring relationships are also the most unlikely.”

Booklist