★ 11/10/2014 Howard (Like Trees, Walking) brings readers back in time to postwar Alabama, in this velvety smooth fictional memoir. The story starts on the day of a long-awaited concert in Montgomery in 1956, featuring native son Nat King Cole. The narrative returns to this day repeatedly, but the events of the novel begin a decade before. Nathaniel Weary is just back from the European front and is looking forward to a concert by Cole, his now-famous childhood friend. During Cole’s first song, though, he is attacked by a white man, and Weary literally leaps from the balcony to the singer’s defense. Cole is saved but Weary is sentenced to 10 years in prison for “inciting a riot.” Howard moves back and forth in time, describing Weary’s days at war, his recollections of his family, his time in prison, and, eventually, his years in L.A. as Cole’s driver and bodyguard. This story about a strong man, living with his head held high, is set against the backdrop of Jim Crow and the Montgomery bus boycott. Howard’s prose goes down like the top-shelf whiskey that Weary favors, making for a heady reading experience. (Jan.)
Heartbreaking…. A bold reimagining of [the] civil rights era…. Howard’s choices…are daring.
Excellent…moving….Weary is a marvelous character…. Readers who appreciate beautifully written, compelling novels with great depth and humanity will be more than pleased.
By following Howard’s characters, we are allowed a sidelong but penetrating glimpse into one of the most important events in American history…. Howard bends history…proving that the past can be best felt through refracted light rather than under the harsh glare of historical fact.
Alternating between the cities and Weary’s past and present, Howard explores race relations in the pre-civil rights era and the strong ties forged between two extraordinary men.
★ 01/01/2015 This low-key yet powerful novel set in Howard's (Like Trees, Walking) hometown of Montgomery, AL, in the 1950s takes as its springing-off point a real-life incident of an assault on singer Nat King Cole by white men during a concert in Alabama. In this fictionalized account, the paths of the singer and a returning soldier—childhood friends from Montgomery, both named Nat, both African American—had diverged widely, and then came together in a life-changing moment that sent Nat Weary to prison for a decade. Six years after his release, bringing the singer back to perform in Montgomery once more, Nat Weary relates his story in the form of shifting memories, jumping back and forth between past and present, blending a lyrical medley of experiences from childhood, first love, wartime, imprisonment, and postrelease employment as the driver/bodyguard in Los Angeles for Nat King Cole. VERDICT Drawing on historical events from the nascent civil rights movement, including the Montgomery bus boycott, this novel is a personal, poignant portrayal of how the lives of African Americans could be so easily derailed by racial inequality under the law. [See Prepub Alert, 7/17/14; library marketing.]—Laurie Cavanaugh, Holmes P.L., Halifax, MA
2014-12-22 A historical novel places Nat King Cole, as seen through the eyes of an ill-starred friend, at the epicenter of mid-20th-century America's racial transformation.In April 1956, Cole, at the crest of his widespread, cross-cultural renown as a pop vocalist, was assaulted by white supremacists while performing at the Birmingham State Theater in his native Alabama. Six months later, he became the first African-American to headline his own TV variety series, just as the epochal bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr. was about to enter its second year. Howard, whose previous novel, Like Trees, Walking (2007), was inspired by a real-life lynching, conflates these events into a novel of reimagined history in which the attack on Cole is pushed a decade back to Montgomery just after World War II. An ex-GI and childhood friend of Cole's named Nathanial Weary thrusts himself between a pipe-wielding racist and the singer's head. Weary is charged with inciting a riot and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Upon his release, he's hired by Cole—who's never forgotten his friend's sacrifice—as his bodyguard and driver in Hollywood. Within this revisionist framework, Howard seeks to recount through Weary's voice the harsh truths of postwar Jim Crow as it comes under direct siege in the 1950s. That narrative voice—tough, shrewd, barely containing the hurt from public and private injustices—is the novel's finest attribute. And yet, readers may lose their moorings within the novel's time-shifting tactics. Not that there's anything wrong with shifting facts in fiction for the sake of larger truths; some great Western films have come from such tactics. But you're never altogether sure at the start of each chapter whether you're in the '40s or the '50s. Such uncertainty contributes to a gauzy, almost dreamlike aura that makes the characters, even the stoic Weary, elusive, almost spectral figures. This is especially frustrating with the novel's depiction of Cole, who is conceived with much charm, some quirky nervous tics and not much else. Maybe Nat King Cole will always be something of a hallowed enigma among the great American musical icons. But one would think even a delicately woven novel that dares to reconfigure historical events might have taken more risks with its characterizations.
Ravi Howard tells a thoroughly convincing story about the singing star Nat King Cole’s best friend…. [A] warmly enveloping book…. Appealing.” — Janet Maslin, New York Times
“A moving tale about bigotry and the power of friendship.” — People
“Excellent…moving….Weary is a marvelous character…. Readers who appreciate beautifully written, compelling novels with great depth and humanity will be more than pleased.” — Philadelphia Inquirer
“ Heartbreaking…. A bold reimagining of [the] civil rights era…. Howard’s choices…are daring.” — Los Angeles Times
“By following Howard’s characters, we are allowed a sidelong but penetrating glimpse into one of the most important events in American history…. Howard bends history…proving that the past can be best felt through refracted light rather than under the harsh glare of historical fact.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“In an easygoing style, with Weary as his guide, Howard pokes into under-viewed corners of the fight while never losing sight of the humanity of both the cause and its effects.” — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Howard brings readers back in time to postwar Alabama, in this velvety smooth fictional memoir. . . . [His] prose goes down like the top-shelf whiskey that Weary favors, making for a heady reading experience.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Gifted novelist Howard...takes readers of all races, ages and classes into the world of pre-civil rights era black people, offering insight on and understanding of one of our country’s most tumultuous periods.” — BookPage
“Alternating between the cities and Weary’s past and present, Howard explores race relations in the pre-civil rights era and the strong ties forged between two extraordinary men.” — Booklist
“Powerful…. A personal, poignant portrayal of how the lives of African Americans could be so easily derailed by racial inequality.” — Library Journal (starred review)
A moving tale about bigotry and the power of friendship.
Gifted novelist Howard...takes readers of all races, ages and classes into the world of pre-civil rights era black people, offering insight on and understanding of one of our country’s most tumultuous periods.
Ravi Howard tells a thoroughly convincing story about the singing star Nat King Cole’s best friend…. [A] warmly enveloping book…. Appealing.
In an easygoing style, with Weary as his guide, Howard pokes into under-viewed corners of the fight while never losing sight of the humanity of both the cause and its effects.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Heartbreaking…. A bold reimagining of [the] civil rights era…. Howard’s choices…are daring.
Alternating between the cities and Weary’s past and present, Howard explores race relations in the pre-civil rights era and the strong ties forged between two extraordinary men.
Narrator Adam Lazarre-White perfectly conveys the two very opposite voices of 1950s African-American singer Nat King Cole and his driver, Nat Weary, in this novel based on fact. When Cole is attacked on stage by a pipe-wielding man, Weary saves his life. Lazarre-White inhabits Weary as he serves time in a tough Southern prison and then portrays his changed life when he works for Cole. Listeners will feel as if they're privy to conversations in pre-Civil Rights America, a period when buses were boycotted and Cole had to sponsor his own 15-minute program. Most impressive is Lazarre-White's rendering of Cole's lovely, mellow speaking voice. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine