Reviews
Publishers Weekly: STARRED REVIEWIn this beguiling coming-of-age memoir, a former Time Paris bureau chief takes a heartfelt look at his unusual Crescent City childhood during the 1950's and 60's. At 13, the author, son of a liberal white journalist-turned-novelist and a Mississippi debutante, begins clarinet lessons, learning to play traditional New Orleans jazz from veteran black musicians who were the heart of Preservation Hall in the famous French Quarter and the soul of the local black community. Sancton loves the music, but at the same time lives the life of a middle-class white teen, expected to share the prejudices and enthusiasms of his peers. Caught between disparate social worlds and racial realities, he, "[l]ike Clark Kent…, had a double identity." This enduring portrait of a particular side of New Orleans which Sancton (Death of a Princess) notes "had mostly faded into history long before Katrina struck" vividly captures the author's complicated relationships with his father, his hometown and the wonderful characters drawn to it. Sketches pay homage to clarinetist George Lewis, banjoist Creole George Guesnon, and others in prose that can emotionally mimic the sound of a horn and summon the taste of red beans and rice. (June) Woody Allen: "Finally a book about New Orleans music from a totally fresh perspective. Tom Sancton was fortunate to have had a very colorful upbringing in the cradle of jazz and we're fortunate that he wrote about it so rivetingly." Wynton Marsalis: "This is an important inside look into an underinvestigated period of New Orleans music. It tells a story with an insider's heart, a reporter's eye, and the pure feeling of a New Orleans musician. Enjoyable, informative and engaging." Library JournalWilliam G. Kenz A memoir in the truest sense of the word, this is the story of a young white boy discovering life at its most meaningful and bittersweet...Brimming with the creatively ripe atmosphere of New Orleans pre-Katrina. Time Magazine In his memoirSong for My Fathers, former TIME Paris bureau chief Tom Sancton recaptures the jazz-filled spirit of New Orleans in the 1950s and '60s, recounting his experiences and fellowship with "the mens," the black musicians of Preservation Hall. A white clarinetist caught between his father's belief in racial equality and the prejudices of his peers, Sancton finds a second family in these aging jazzmen and the world they created--a world, he writes, that "had mostly faded into history long before Katrina struck." New Orleans Times PicayuneSusan Larson Song for My Fathersis a serenade to many things -- to "the mens," who gave Sancton a sense of artistry as well as a model for endurance; to his own unconventional father, who found in "the mens" a metaphor for, and a hope of, his own redemption; middle-class family life in 1960s New Orleans; and the hope for racial harmony, or the wisdom that comes through understanding. This book has many strengths -- it is that rare chronicle of a young person growing up in New Orleans who is able to bridge the racial barrier, as well as an equally rare account of a young person's public school education here. French Quarter characters and musical legends spring to life in these pages -- George Lewis, George Guesnon, Percy and Willie Humphrey, Harold Dejan, Sweet Emma Barrett, Punch Miller, Chester Zardis, artist Noel Rockmore, Sandy and Allan Jaffee, Larry Borenstein, Bill Russell, Mike Stark, even a very young Quint Davis.Song for My Fathersstruts with the energy of youth, tempered a bit by the wisdom of middle age, and the bittersweet certainty that change is inevitable. Every page of this newly minted classic of life in
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