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Music of the Swamp
by
Lewis Nordan
In Music of the Swamp, Nordan focuses his magic and imagination on a single theme -- a boy's utterly helpless love for his utterly hopeless father.
Hardcover, 210 pages
Published
August 1st 1991
by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
(first published 1991)
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There are no adequate words to describe this novel's beauty:
"My mother made me a birthday cake in the shape of a rabbit--she had a cake pan molded in that shape--and she decorated it with chocolate icing and stuck on carrot slices for the eyes. It was a difficult cake to make stand up straight, but with various props it would balance on its hind legs on the plate, so that when I came into the room it looked almost real standing there, its little front feet tucked up to its chest.
At the sight o...more
"My mother made me a birthday cake in the shape of a rabbit--she had a cake pan molded in that shape--and she decorated it with chocolate icing and stuck on carrot slices for the eyes. It was a difficult cake to make stand up straight, but with various props it would balance on its hind legs on the plate, so that when I came into the room it looked almost real standing there, its little front feet tucked up to its chest.
At the sight o...more
The story is set in the 1950's, in the Delta of Mississippi. If you are looking for a strong Southern voice, the narrator will meet your request. Written in three parts, the first part is in third person limited, and the other two are in first person. You will hear the voice of Sugar Mecklin, a young boy who loves his father and is looking for his approval. This theme carries throughout the book, which spins ten connected but seperate stories of his life.
The story unfolds daily life in the back...more
The story unfolds daily life in the back...more
I have read many novels about childhood, many novels about the relationship between a child and a parent, but this one, in its small, unpretentious stature, is truly special. This is a book that very aptly and powerfully expresses three things--the wonder of childhood, that strange recognition we all have when we realize our parents are flawed, pain-filled human beings just like we are, and the scary revelation that who we are is, very often, largely a new version, a revision of our parents. In...more
I just read this book the second time (amazing for me to do). I found it at a thrift store about a year ago and just read it a couple of months ago, and then reread last week. It is very Southern, in the best way...weird characters acting very realistically. I am from Memphis originally, and believe I have my own "southern style" of thinking and writing, so these characters are very true in my mind. There's roosters and dead bodies and drunks and figs in syrup and Bessie Smith and much more.
I...more
I...more
This memoir of the author as a 10-12 year old boy growing up in the Delta resonates with the sights and smells of the Mississippi flatlands. You are there with him. Though I wasn't exactly able to always identify with some of what was happening with him, I certainly got a strong sense of what life was like, even if I didn't always understand it. Maybe that's exactly as he intended because he clearly didn't always understand it either, and isn't that what it's like to be a kid?
The book is short,...more
The book is short,...more
This is a beautifully told story. Nordan uses the adult looking backward technique to construct his child narrator, which I am normally not so fond of. However, he manages to pull it off without losing the magic and beauty of the child world. A lot of writers I've seen use the technique to bring in thoughts and judgments that the child cannot supply, but end up changing the wondrous world of the child to the cold sterility of the adult. Nordan doesn't fall into that trap. Maybe it's because the...more
Jun 01, 2010
Kristensilvermoore
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Dreamers; Fans of Southern fiction; Anyone who loves stories about idiosyncratic characters
Shelves:
my-favorite-books-of-all-time
“There’s pain in all love, but we don’t care, it’s worth it.”
Music of the Swamp by Lewis Nordan is one of my favorite novels of all time, in part because I relate to the main character, a young boy named Sugar Mecklin, whose worldview is filtered through his heightened imagination. If I had to describe this book in one word, I would call it "bittersweet," which is interesting, given the protagonist's name! Sugar is filled with hope and innocence, but the reality he encounters is anything but. S...more
Music of the Swamp by Lewis Nordan is one of my favorite novels of all time, in part because I relate to the main character, a young boy named Sugar Mecklin, whose worldview is filtered through his heightened imagination. If I had to describe this book in one word, I would call it "bittersweet," which is interesting, given the protagonist's name! Sugar is filled with hope and innocence, but the reality he encounters is anything but. S...more
This is the book I wish I had written. Magical Realism mixed with a family drama that keeps the reader on their toes. Set in a mythical town in the South, this book is a storyteller's work on a page. There are so many passages that stand alone as moving descriptions or fantasic dialogue. You can go back to any part of this book and read it as a part and it works, but when read as a whole this dark comedy makes me wish I could be Lewis Nordon so that I could say "Yeah, I wrote that".
Jan 31, 2010
Elizabeth
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
fans of wrist cutting music
Shelves:
2010
With the main narrator named Sugar and a setting in Mississippi, you really can't go wrong if you are a fan of southern lit like myself. the book is a great, quirky slice of southern life with an appropriate dark shadow that looms above. the kid who's ambition is to be an apple, come on! the best line from the book though that i am currently obsessing over...
I had been eating my last meal forever, and it was not what I ordered.
-Sugar
I had been eating my last meal forever, and it was not what I ordered.
-Sugar
Musical, interlocked stories about Sugar Mecklin, a Mississippi Delta boy growing up with an unstable family. Not as much momentum as Nordan's Wolf Whistle, but I was hooked by the climactic scene, Sugar's father's attempt to apologize to his family for his lifelong alcoholism.
A quick literary read. Odd, for sure. But I enjoyed the prose, and the funny parts matched the sad moments. The end left me wondering, including wondering why I like it. One to chew on. Did as part of a mini-book club with Briana ;-D
While I enjoyed the whole novel, the last short chapter entitled "Owls" really hit me. I reread it over and over; such a beautiful, prefectly crafted piece.
Jul 21, 2011
Relyn
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people who enjoy southern literature
Recommended to Relyn by:
A Common Reader Catalog
This was another book I discovered via A Common Reader Catalog. Lewis Nordan has an amazing way with words and description. He evokes the south very well. I so enjoyed this.
Apr 04, 2013
Jamie
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
the-dirty-south,
favorites
The music of the swamp, and the magic of the swamp, and the utterly helpless love for the utterly hopeless, and the dreams that might prove once and for all to be true. Holy hell, this was good. I’m glad I’ve got more Lewis Nordan here to dive right into.
We were like spoons together. We were like swamp-elves. And in this way we went to sleep, bare-assed children, the two of us, and in my memory not blameworthy for any sin and not even victims of the sins of our sad fathers, but, only that moment...more
We were like spoons together. We were like swamp-elves. And in this way we went to sleep, bare-assed children, the two of us, and in my memory not blameworthy for any sin and not even victims of the sins of our sad fathers, but, only that moment...more
This is a neat little book. Loved the author's voice, and the quirky characters. Written with a charm that keeps you hooked. :o)
I absolutely love Nordan's short stories. If you want to read Lewis Nordan at his best, pick up one of his collections; my favorite is The All-Girl Football Team. There are pacing problems in this novel, which I honestly expected coming from someone who so masterfully wrangles short fiction. Short stories & novels are two very different beasts, and being good at one doesn't always translate into success with the other.
At any rate, Nordan's style is timeless southern gothic; quirky, bizarre,...more
At any rate, Nordan's style is timeless southern gothic; quirky, bizarre,...more
Great writing, memorable characters.
excellent novel
Sep 02, 2007
Beth
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
southernfiction,
shortstories
"Douglas' only ambition when he grew up was to become an apple. Mrs. Conroy, his mother, was an angry woman. She seemed especially angry at Douglas, the child of low ambition...Once he wanted to be a cork. That night his mother cried herself to sleep while Runt sat lovingly beside her bed and wrung his hands and said, 'He could do worse, darling, he could do a lot worse.'"
One of my absolute favorites. That this isn't required reading all of the world (and the fact that it seems like no one outside of Mississippi has even read the damn thing) is a travesty, someone should be shot for it, etc. Never been a truer book about boyhood and storytelling, fathers and sons, place and leaving it, maybe, one day.
Jul 06, 2008
Andrea Conarro
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
southern-fiction
Freakish and capturing the languidness of the Mississippi Delta. A boy and his dad. The usual earnest boy, alcoholic dad. But told so well... "None of it is important. Only this day. The smell of gasoline at the pump, of souring cream, of defoliant and crisp leaves, a wagon pulling ice, noodles, broth, alcohol."
This guy spins yarns of gold out of mud and dirty under the house. Great magical quality to it all, with laugh-out-loud and eternally sorrowful moments.
By turns haunting and endearing. For: anyone from the south, people who might be interested in Faulkner-lite
Strange book about a childhood in the Delta. Well written and a good one after coming back from there.
My professor and friend Tom Franklin bought me this book. Part of the Algonquin Press canon.
Unnerving in a wonderful way. I think I've been in the cellar of Runt Conroy a time or two.
Go get this right now and read it tonight. Really. Go on. Now!
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lewis Nordan
Born August 23, 1939 (age 72)
Forest, Mississippi
Lewis Nordan (born August 23, 1939 in Forest, Mississippi) grew up in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He is a graduate of Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1983, at age forty-five, Nordan published his first collection of stories, Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair. The collection established him as...more
More about Lewis Nordan...
Lewis Nordan
Born August 23, 1939 (age 72)
Forest, Mississippi
Lewis Nordan (born August 23, 1939 in Forest, Mississippi) grew up in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He is a graduate of Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1983, at age forty-five, Nordan published his first collection of stories, Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair. The collection established him as...more
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“A thousand times, when the train slowed or stopped, I thought of jumping off. I wanted to die in a ditch. I wanted to disappear. I wanted a different history and geography. In rhythm with the wheels I said I want I want I want I want I stayed on the train.”
—
4 people liked it
“For one second the woman and I seemed to become twins, or closer than twins, the same person together. Maybe we said nothing. Maybe we only lay in the band of sunlight that fell across our bed. Or maybe together we said, “There is great pain in all love, but we don’t care, it’s worth it.”
—
1 person liked it
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