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The Clarinet Polka
A portrait of Polish America and of one man's struggle to find meaning in his life and roots.
The year is 1969, and young Jimmy Koprowski returns from his stint in the airforce to Raysburg, his blue-collar Polish American hometown where nothing much happens beyond working at the steel mill, going to Mass, and getting drunk at the local PAC. Jimmy's efforts at rebuilding his life result in sleeping off hangovers in his parents' attic and drifting into a destructive affair with a married woman.
But things change when his younger sister Linda decides to start an all-girl polka band, and Jimmy falls for the band's star clarinetist, Janice, whose young life is haunted by tragic events that happened before she was born. The threads of Jimmy's family life, the legacy of WWII Poland, and the healing power of music, language, and tradition all begin to converge.
The year is 1969, and young Jimmy Koprowski returns from his stint in the airforce to Raysburg, his blue-collar Polish American hometown where nothing much happens beyond working at the steel mill, going to Mass, and getting drunk at the local PAC. Jimmy's efforts at rebuilding his life result in sleeping off hangovers in his parents' attic and drifting into a destructive affair with a married woman.
But things change when his younger sister Linda decides to start an all-girl polka band, and Jimmy falls for the band's star clarinetist, Janice, whose young life is haunted by tragic events that happened before she was born. The threads of Jimmy's family life, the legacy of WWII Poland, and the healing power of music, language, and tradition all begin to converge.
406 pages, Paperback
First published August 4, 2002
15 people are currently reading
269 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
May 4, 2019
Hands down. By far. The best. Novel about alcoholism I have ever read. It's about so much more, yes, but at its crux, at its core... the addiction and the addictive personality. Maillard gets it. And delivers it in such achingly beautiful detail...
I fell in love with Keith Maillard with Gloria. Clarinet Polka clinched the deal. This book changed me. I forgot I was reading a book, that's how drawn into the story I was. The concept of "book" drops away and you are living it.
I don't have words. Just...this book.
This. Book.
I fell in love with Keith Maillard with Gloria. Clarinet Polka clinched the deal. This book changed me. I forgot I was reading a book, that's how drawn into the story I was. The concept of "book" drops away and you are living it.
I don't have words. Just...this book.
This. Book.
November 10, 2020
At some point this book began to remind me of Owen Meany. There’s no higher compliment I can give any book. I don’t want to mislead you - it’s not anything like Owen. But it’s a lot like Owen - this huge spiritual element, and the war, and the geography and culture. A lot less sex and weirdness. And I didn’t cry. But this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I’m going to buy it. And reread it. And you should too.
September 11, 2009
Possibly the best book I've read (and I'm neither Polish nor Catholic). This guy makes me want to stop trying to write myself. I mean, what's the point? When you can read his books--and I trust his others are nearly as wonderful--why bother reading or writing anything else?
This is the type of book and author you pass along to thoughtful readers. And I have. At the same time, I like feeling as though I'm in on the wonderful secret that is Keith Maillard.
Fantastic. There's nothing more to say.
This is the type of book and author you pass along to thoughtful readers. And I have. At the same time, I like feeling as though I'm in on the wonderful secret that is Keith Maillard.
Fantastic. There's nothing more to say.
November 8, 2013
Read this book. Period.
November 30, 2014
This is the first book I've read by Keith Maillard. I do plan to read more. It's the kind of book where I get so curious about some of the things he writes about that I have to look them up.
The Clarinet Polka is the story of Jimmy Koprowski, a young man growing up in the Ohio Valley region of West Virginia. He lives in a Polish immigrant neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else. Just back from four years in the Air Force, he struggles to find his place in life and self medicates heavily with alcohol. His sister Linda is attempting to start and all-girl polka band and seeks his help. This turns out to be life changing as he becomes fascinated with the young clarinet player, Janice. She's just a kid, ten years younger than he, but comes from a different kind of Polish immigrant family. The Dluwieckis came to the United States as Polish refugees after WWII so their experience is much different than earlier immigrants.
The story has so much going for it: the tight knit Polish Catholic community, the background of the steel mills in West Virginia, the descriptions and history of Polish-American polka music as well as the very real portrayal of Jimmy's alcoholism and the depths to which it leads.
With my current interest in all things Eastern European as well as a Catholic upbringing, I found the book to be well worth reading.
The Clarinet Polka is the story of Jimmy Koprowski, a young man growing up in the Ohio Valley region of West Virginia. He lives in a Polish immigrant neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else. Just back from four years in the Air Force, he struggles to find his place in life and self medicates heavily with alcohol. His sister Linda is attempting to start and all-girl polka band and seeks his help. This turns out to be life changing as he becomes fascinated with the young clarinet player, Janice. She's just a kid, ten years younger than he, but comes from a different kind of Polish immigrant family. The Dluwieckis came to the United States as Polish refugees after WWII so their experience is much different than earlier immigrants.
The story has so much going for it: the tight knit Polish Catholic community, the background of the steel mills in West Virginia, the descriptions and history of Polish-American polka music as well as the very real portrayal of Jimmy's alcoholism and the depths to which it leads.
With my current interest in all things Eastern European as well as a Catholic upbringing, I found the book to be well worth reading.
August 8, 2013
What a wonderful book. I am of Polish decent and I could have lived around the corner and been one of the characters in this book, so well has the author captured the time and the culture. Superbly written. Touching and at times, heart wrenching.
May 31, 2021
It's 1969 and Jimmy Koprowski has returned to West Virginia after his tour in the Air Force. (Guam, not Vietnam) His Polish-American community is full of characters, but none like Janice - a 15 year old that mesmerizes him. His sister, Linda, is trying to start an all-girls polka band and Janice, with her natural talent, is the essential clarinet player they need. Jimmy ha an affair with a married woman, struggles with alcoholism, and never can express his feelings for Janice. In the end, he has to move to Austin and reorganize before he comes home and, after not seeing her in over a year, asks Janice to marry him.
Maillard has a way of making all of his books seem pornographic- and this is no exception. The subtlety he had in "Gloria" is gone in this book. Jimmy's alcoholism seems to have no rhyme or reason and all the women are caricatures of the 1960's and/or foreigners. It took 400 pages for Jimmy and Janice to get together - something a reader picked-up on much earlier. The middle could have been so much more than anti-war, anti-Hitler/Stalin propaganda, but wasn't.
Maillard has a way of making all of his books seem pornographic- and this is no exception. The subtlety he had in "Gloria" is gone in this book. Jimmy's alcoholism seems to have no rhyme or reason and all the women are caricatures of the 1960's and/or foreigners. It took 400 pages for Jimmy and Janice to get together - something a reader picked-up on much earlier. The middle could have been so much more than anti-war, anti-Hitler/Stalin propaganda, but wasn't.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 18, 2022
I was surprised to read in the acknowledgments that the author has no Polish background. The Polish community portrayed in the book felt authentic (as far as I can tell, having no Polish background either), so research well done.
At 400+ closely printed pages and with a narrator who speaks directly to the reader while using a lot of conversational fillers ('you know', 'well', 'yeah', 'you know what I mean?', 'right?'), the book was way too long for my taste, but the story was OK.
Edit 18 June 2022: copying my text updates here in case they are disappeared:
May 13, 2021 – page 16
3.94% "I don't want to give you the impression he was mean or anything like that, but he was the kind of guy that ― well, let's just say he was a man of strong opinions and after he expressed them, he didn't leave you a lot of room. (p. 10)"
May 30, 2021 – page 195
48.03% "The narrator's conversational tone is starting to grate on me. Does he really need to use so many words? And I'm not even halfway through yet."
At 400+ closely printed pages and with a narrator who speaks directly to the reader while using a lot of conversational fillers ('you know', 'well', 'yeah', 'you know what I mean?', 'right?'), the book was way too long for my taste, but the story was OK.
Edit 18 June 2022: copying my text updates here in case they are disappeared:
May 13, 2021 – page 16
3.94% "I don't want to give you the impression he was mean or anything like that, but he was the kind of guy that ― well, let's just say he was a man of strong opinions and after he expressed them, he didn't leave you a lot of room. (p. 10)"
May 30, 2021 – page 195
48.03% "The narrator's conversational tone is starting to grate on me. Does he really need to use so many words? And I'm not even halfway through yet."
May 3, 2016
This is one of those finely crafted books that writers should read in order to learn about voice, point of view, effective use of colloquialisms, sense of place, and dialogue. It's also a book that is so finely executed and so accurate that it left me thinking "Well, no need to write about my Polish American family in Detroit, then. Maillard has done it to the nines." As a member of the type of community Maillard describes in this book, I believe he did it beautifully, and couldn't believe he was an outsider. Maillard is, like the best writers, also a hell of an ethnographer.
I found some of the passages about alcoholism and Constance Bradshaw a bit lengthy and tedious, but that's also a sign of Maillard's effectiveness: watching someone else descend to rock bottom does indeed feel tedious, and the alcoholic also becomes tired of him/herself, so in that sense, the point and emotion of these passages hits home.
Brilliant. Maillard deserves much greater acclaim.
I found some of the passages about alcoholism and Constance Bradshaw a bit lengthy and tedious, but that's also a sign of Maillard's effectiveness: watching someone else descend to rock bottom does indeed feel tedious, and the alcoholic also becomes tired of him/herself, so in that sense, the point and emotion of these passages hits home.
Brilliant. Maillard deserves much greater acclaim.
August 1, 2007
I really appreciated the nuanced central character. He wasn't easy to like, but wasn't a bad person, either. It wasn't until about page 300 that I started to really like him. That Maillard was able to keep me reading about someone I didn't really like is testament to how good the story-telling is.
I'm not a huge fan of the first person narrator who speaks directly to the reader, but in this instance it works.
I'm not a huge fan of the first person narrator who speaks directly to the reader, but in this instance it works.
February 28, 2008
This is probably one of the best books I've ever read and I really did not want this story to end!
Although I didn't grow up during the Vietnam War era or in West Virginia, this story could have easily taken place in Pennsylvania in the late 70s/early 80s (without the war context, obviously). I feel like I need to make a huge plate of golden pierogi!
Although I didn't grow up during the Vietnam War era or in West Virginia, this story could have easily taken place in Pennsylvania in the late 70s/early 80s (without the war context, obviously). I feel like I need to make a huge plate of golden pierogi!
May 20, 2008
Keith brilliantly transcribes first generation Polish life in America. Fabulous. A personal treasure for me. Hope to find more like this. WOW
July 18, 2017
Jimmy Koprowski is a returning Vietnam veteran who did not actually see any combat, but he is still having a difficult time adjusting to being out of the Army. He is back in his hometown of South Raysburg, WV and living at home while he looks for a job. But he gets involved with a married woman and is often drunk because the opportunity to drink is everywhere. His sister, Linda, with whom Jimmy is close, gets the idea to form an all-girl Polka band, and Jimmy gets involved with finding the right talent and getting the band set up with equipment and gigs. But Jimmy finds himself falling for the star of the polka band, 16-year-old Janice, who is 10 years younger. Janice and her family have some secrets going back to WWII and Poland. Did I mention that just about every character in this book is Polish and they all live in the same neighborhood and everyone knows everyone?
This story is well-told with fully-developed characters. The setting, the Polish-American neighborhood of South Raysburg, is itself a well-developed character. But the constant drinking and dumb decisions that Jimmy makes throughout the story kind of turned me off. The voice of Jimmy telling the reader his story is amazing and if you have any interest in life in an ethnic neighborhood around the time of the Vietnam War, then you need to read this book.
This story is well-told with fully-developed characters. The setting, the Polish-American neighborhood of South Raysburg, is itself a well-developed character. But the constant drinking and dumb decisions that Jimmy makes throughout the story kind of turned me off. The voice of Jimmy telling the reader his story is amazing and if you have any interest in life in an ethnic neighborhood around the time of the Vietnam War, then you need to read this book.
January 26, 2021
This heartfelt story of identity is led by a blabbering first-person narrator who moves at a brisk yet intimate pace. Like the plot and the character himself, he rambles along, directly addressing the reader with a wry point of view and a regional twang. He brings to life a rich cast of captivating characters overflowing with Polish pride. He is a sweet, sad, sentimental guy who goes with the flow, drifting through life and drowning in addiction until like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, he clicks his heels together and realizes what really matters in life.
February 9, 2018
The point of view is so spot on. The author’s ability to provide such a completely authentic voice in Jimmy is downright impressive. The culture, community, family, religion, music, depth of the alcoholism, atmosphere, and the love in the background that subtlety bleeds through the seams...it’s just all painted so vividly. I feel like I just got got schooled in several different subjects, dropped right into Jimmy’s life in that time and directly into an ethnic pocket of America.
January 23, 2018
It took a bit to get into this book, but I ended up becoming very engaged in it. Learned a lot about the Polish in WW2, veterans from Vietnam war, Polish-American communities, and alcoholism.
April 14, 2018
who could resist a book with clarinet in the title? I loved the story of this all female polka playing Polish American band.
July 21, 2018
Compelling story. Great characters. It’s not like anything big happened but so much happened.
April 17, 2020
lovely read-nice background of the Polish upbringing here. With all the polka lyrics, however-really should've included a cd in the back!
no errors.
no errors.
March 28, 2021
Loved it...it took me forever to read this book...but I hung in there & im so glad I did.
August 8, 2024
Just ok”
November 26, 2016
The Clarinet Polka by Keith Maillard is Jimmy Koprowski's story. After serving a tour of duty during the Vietnam War, Jimmy returns home to the dying steel town of Raysburg, to the working class Polish-American neighborhood he grew up in. Despite being stationed on Guam for the duration, Jimmy still thinks he deserves a little break before getting started with his life. So he moves back into his attic bedroom, takes the job his father finds for him of working part-time at a small appliance repair shop and begins drinking in earnest. He has plans to go to Texas, but never quite gets going. He ends up involved in an unhealthy affair with an unstable married woman, and in his sister's attempts to put together an all-girl polka band.
This novel is rich with details about Polish-American life; from the food and the language, to the church and the history of the immigrants who settled in this corner of West Virginia, against the Oho river, and worked in the steel mills. One of the girls in the band has parents who were DPs, and the novel explores how this new wave of Polish immigrants fit in with the second and third generation immigrants, as well as what happened in eastern Poland during the war. The Vietnam War, along with the student protests are also a large part of the novel, as well as how the returning vets readjusted to ordinary life.
The Clarinet Polka is dense with information, but it never bogs down. Jimmy is interested in this stuff, so he makes it interesting for the reader. I found myself enjoying pages about the history of polka music, to the point where I more than once had to listen to some of it. I still don't like it at all, but I enjoyed learning about it - which isn't something I thought I would ever say. And Jimmy's story is interesting, too. He's a likable guy, slowly being taken over by his addiction, which was beautifully handled in the novel. All in all, The Clarinet Polka is a book well worth the time spent reading it.
This novel is rich with details about Polish-American life; from the food and the language, to the church and the history of the immigrants who settled in this corner of West Virginia, against the Oho river, and worked in the steel mills. One of the girls in the band has parents who were DPs, and the novel explores how this new wave of Polish immigrants fit in with the second and third generation immigrants, as well as what happened in eastern Poland during the war. The Vietnam War, along with the student protests are also a large part of the novel, as well as how the returning vets readjusted to ordinary life.
The Clarinet Polka is dense with information, but it never bogs down. Jimmy is interested in this stuff, so he makes it interesting for the reader. I found myself enjoying pages about the history of polka music, to the point where I more than once had to listen to some of it. I still don't like it at all, but I enjoyed learning about it - which isn't something I thought I would ever say. And Jimmy's story is interesting, too. He's a likable guy, slowly being taken over by his addiction, which was beautifully handled in the novel. All in all, The Clarinet Polka is a book well worth the time spent reading it.
July 31, 2014
This was one of the best books I ever read.
The book was as much about a town as it was a love story between the two main characters, Jimmy, the narrator, and Janice. It took place in the late '60s in a tiny little West Virginian town, where everyone knows everyone and they all share a fierce and proud Polish heritage.
I absolutely loved the characters. Jimmy is a recently-discharged military man who loves his sister, his town, his church, and his booze. He's just coasting through after re-entering civilian life when he meets Janice, the much-younger friend of his little sister, who joins up a polka band with her. Jimmy's 25 and already carrying on with an ill-fated affair with a married woman, but something about Janice catches his eye. The problem? She's 15, and the daughter of some pretty strict, old-country parents.
I don't like love stories, but this one really sucked me in. Probably begins Jimmy was doing everything in his power not to make it a love story. He knew he was way too old for her, so he kept things platonic, but as time went by, he began to realize he wanted more.
Explained that way, it sounds kind of creepy, but it wasn't at all. One of the parts I liked so much about the book was, for all his flaws (fall-down drunk, uses his crazy married affair woman just for sex), Jimmy was just so honorable with Janice. I think it showed deep down, he was a really good guy--though clearly nowhere near perfect.
It was a letdown when this book was done, so I'm going to have to check out something else by Keith Maillard to see if he hits just the right spot again.
The book was as much about a town as it was a love story between the two main characters, Jimmy, the narrator, and Janice. It took place in the late '60s in a tiny little West Virginian town, where everyone knows everyone and they all share a fierce and proud Polish heritage.
I absolutely loved the characters. Jimmy is a recently-discharged military man who loves his sister, his town, his church, and his booze. He's just coasting through after re-entering civilian life when he meets Janice, the much-younger friend of his little sister, who joins up a polka band with her. Jimmy's 25 and already carrying on with an ill-fated affair with a married woman, but something about Janice catches his eye. The problem? She's 15, and the daughter of some pretty strict, old-country parents.
I don't like love stories, but this one really sucked me in. Probably begins Jimmy was doing everything in his power not to make it a love story. He knew he was way too old for her, so he kept things platonic, but as time went by, he began to realize he wanted more.
Explained that way, it sounds kind of creepy, but it wasn't at all. One of the parts I liked so much about the book was, for all his flaws (fall-down drunk, uses his crazy married affair woman just for sex), Jimmy was just so honorable with Janice. I think it showed deep down, he was a really good guy--though clearly nowhere near perfect.
It was a letdown when this book was done, so I'm going to have to check out something else by Keith Maillard to see if he hits just the right spot again.
December 5, 2014
3.5 STARS
"The year is 1969, and young Jimmy Koprowski returns from his stint in the airforce to Raysburg, his blue-collar Polish American hometown where nothing much happens beyond working at the steel mill, going to Mass, and getting drunk at the local PAC. Jimmy's efforts at rebuilding his life result in sleeping off hangovers in his parents' attic and drifting into a destructive affair with a married woman.
But things change when his younger sister Linda decides to start an all-girl polka band, and Jimmy falls for the band's star clarinetist, Janice, whose young life is haunted by tragic events that happened before she was born. The threads of Jimmy's family life, the legacy of WWII Poland, and the healing power of music, language, and tradition all begin to converge." (From Amazon)
I enjoyed this novel - great characters and very well-written.
"The year is 1969, and young Jimmy Koprowski returns from his stint in the airforce to Raysburg, his blue-collar Polish American hometown where nothing much happens beyond working at the steel mill, going to Mass, and getting drunk at the local PAC. Jimmy's efforts at rebuilding his life result in sleeping off hangovers in his parents' attic and drifting into a destructive affair with a married woman.
But things change when his younger sister Linda decides to start an all-girl polka band, and Jimmy falls for the band's star clarinetist, Janice, whose young life is haunted by tragic events that happened before she was born. The threads of Jimmy's family life, the legacy of WWII Poland, and the healing power of music, language, and tradition all begin to converge." (From Amazon)
I enjoyed this novel - great characters and very well-written.
April 24, 2012
One of the things I love about reading is being whisked away into a spot of life that you've never been - maybe never even heard of - and probably never had a chance to go as an insider. With Clarinet Polka you get to stomp your feet and swing about wildly with the residents of this blue-collar Polish American community in West Virginia while between sips of beer and stronger concoctions you peer into the lives of the individuals of Raysburg.
Jimmy Koprowski suffers from the effects of the Vietnam war - even though he only served in Guam - and falls in love with a girl whose family still carries the deep wounds from WWII.
So war and love and polka and beer and gritty sex. Played with an accordion, trumpet and clarinet with a steady polka beat.
Jimmy Koprowski suffers from the effects of the Vietnam war - even though he only served in Guam - and falls in love with a girl whose family still carries the deep wounds from WWII.
So war and love and polka and beer and gritty sex. Played with an accordion, trumpet and clarinet with a steady polka beat.
October 11, 2010
I learned a great deal about life in the 60s in a West Virginia steel town's Polish community, about Polish music and also the Polish suffering during the Nazi regime and Russian occupation. The main character Jimmy is an alcoholic in his early 20s attempting to reintegrate himself into his home community after 4 years in the Air Force, much of which was spent in bars in Texas. Jimmy befriends a 15-year old music prodigy who joins his sister's all-girl polka band. She shares with him secrets of her family's traumatic past during the Holocaust. The writing is superb, with Jimmy talking directly to the reader in a frank way that absolutely holds your attention. Highly recommend it.
January 7, 2013
After reading Maillard's Gloria, I wanted to read this book for some time. It took me awhile to pick it up, but once I did, I couldn't put it down. The story felt a tiny bit choppy at times but I loved the characters and the historical elements about WW2 Poland. I also loved the relationships between the characters and the way it never felt cliche or typical....but very genuine and honest. It made me laugh and cry.
You'll feel smarter after reading this.
You'll feel smarter after reading this.
August 4, 2013
I loved this book, this is a book club selection and one that I probably won't have read on my own -but I thought it was fantastic. A Polish American, Jimmy Koprowski comes home to West Virginia after four years in the service and can't get his life together. Jimmy's sister starts an all girl polka band and Jimmy falls for one of the polka players while battling addiction. The author Keith Mallard pulls the reader through Jimmy's struggles and you won't be sad that you went through the ride.
January 26, 2015
This is one of the VERY VERY few books which I checked out of the library and then later came back to purchase. When I first read it, I was lukewarm, because it wasn't Gloria: darker, uglier. (Just for starters, in this book Maillard touches on what, exactly happened to the residents of invaded European countries in World War II.)
April 10, 2015
Picked up this book at the local book fair for $1. Although I have never heard of or read books by Maillard, I thought the title and summary looked very interesting. I was not disappointed! I loved the detail, depth and research that created a full and complete story of the characters. Will definitely look for other books by this author.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews