Book Review: Now's the Time by Larry Strauss

From the Publisher's Website:

Part mystery, part journey, completely heart-felt, “Now’s the Time” follows jazz trumpeter Didi Heron as she searches for the lost tape of her father’s last gig before he tragically died. A celebration of family ties and musical legacies, “Now’s the Time” is a meditation on jazz and jazz players. Drawing inspiration from a potpourri of stories from the American jazz tradition, notably those of trumpeter Clifford Brown, Strauss has created a fictional work rooted in historical fact.


About the Author:

A former subway graffiti artist, stand-up comic, television writer, ghost writer, and corporate poet, I write the kind of fiction I like to read: funny, surprising, insightful, and poignant. I teach high school English and coach basketball in South Central Los Angeles, and try to recruit boys out of materialism, violence and despair and into the world of ideas.


My Opinion:

Part of the reason I started doing book reviews was to stretch my reading muscles. Typically if I walk into a book store I head directly to the historical fiction section and start choosing a novel that takes place in either the Tudor period, the Arthurian period or I might go all wild and crazy and pick one that covers the French Revolution. Or medieval Wales. When I had a specific amount of money to spend on books I wanted to be sure I was going to enjoy the books I bought.

Book reviewing has brought me a world of new genres; sometimes that is good, sometimes I wonder, "what was I thinking?" This book is a prime example - I NEVER would have picked it up in the book store but I am so happy I read this book!

I know very little about jazz music. My husband likes it far more than I do so I hear it when he is playing it around the house. The names dropped in the book were familiar but I would hope they would be familiar to most people - jazz is THE American music.

The book opens with a bang - a car crash detailing the death of the protagonist's father. He was a member of a bebop quintet in the '50ies. She was a toddler when he died and her memories are vague but she did follow somewhat in his musical footsteps - she plays "the horn." But her playing lacks a certain soul.

Through a serious of happenings Didi learns that there is a tape of her father's last performance and in that performance he went from being a background pianist to being ON FIRE. Suddenly she is driven to find this tape.

In her push to seek the tape and hear her father play as he had never played before she ends up finding a family she didn't realize she wanted or needed.

The book was a bit of an education for me in mid-50ies jazz and bebop. It was by no means a textbook. The book moves along quickly and is written with a lot of wit and just enough suspense. The characters are very funny. Very funny.

I enjoyed traveling with Didi as she searched for her father and for herself. Now I think I need to find me some jazz to listen to.

Now's the Time is available at Kearney Street Books and on Amazon.com
















Disclosure: I received a gratis copy of Now's the Time from Media Muscle. Any opinions expressed are my honest opinions and were not impacted by the receipt of the free book. I received no monetary compensation for this post.