JAM: October/November 2003 Issue: Storyville

SUCH SWEET THUNDER
by Vincent O. Carter
Steerforth Press 2003; 537 pages, hard cover, $25.95

The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

-- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn chose the name "Such Sweet Thunder" for a playful tribute to the Bard they recorded in 1957. It's also the title given to an important newly published novel by Vincent O. Carter. Newly published, but hardly new.

Carter was born in the Kansas City, Missouri of 1924, at the heart of the Jazz Age in time and place. He finished his magnum opus by 1963, dedicating it to Ellington. Literary types expressed interest but a publisher never committed, apparently looking for a different brand of "Negro literature." Within the decade the author set aside the still unpublished work for good. Now, twenty years after his death, the lost manuscript has been found and is finally in print thanks to Steerforth Press.

Carter's work was simply ahead of its time. Not until 1974 with the appearance of Albert Murray's Train Whistle Guitar, its "Scooter" and the Mobile, Alabama of his youth, was the publishing world ready for a similarly positive representative anecdote of African-American life with universal appeal as aesthetic statement. Both books are sweet natured yet striking. They're driven by jazz, fueled with a gritty sense of antagonistic cooperation among diverse elements, and branded with affirmation in the face of adversity.

Murray and Ralph Ellison, author of extensive music writings in addition to the 1952 classic Invisible Man, see jazz as an institution at the core of American culture. Such a jazz-shaped perspective is nowhere more evident than in the life of Carter's protagonist, Amerigo Jones, and his hardscrabble Kansas City milieu. Amerigo inhabits a world frequented by jazz influences and personalities.

Musicians permeate the scene, whether actual (Jay McShann at 18th & Vine, Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on the airwaves) or thinly veiled (Bennie "Moton"). Colorful provincial characters like Ruben the dancer, Geetar Man, and Mr. Zoo the whistler also inform the novel's musical sensibility.

The setting is an urban cornucopia overflowing with syncopated sights, smells and sounds. To Amerigo's eyes, North End alleyway doors "firing a luminous pattern of crisscross trails" open onto neighborhood events after dark. During daylight hours "[s]weat and bottled liquor, fish grease, barbecue and beer" join "humid autumnal heat... to mingle with the dust of the streets, the topsoil of hundreds of miles of prairies." Like thunderclaps near and far, a rhythmic drumbeat -- Boom! Boom! Boom! -- punctuates his experiences and pierces his psyche.

Carter's vernacular rhythmic voice centers on family, friends, and other figures. None are more appealing than Amerigo's parents, Viola and Rutherford, mere teenagers at his birth. In the end, Amerigo's coming-of-age story is a heartrending testament to American identity, dignity and family, loss and love. Herbert R. Lottman, the distinguished American writer based in Paris, calls it the "most moving homage to parents" known in literature.

With positive response rolling in from all directions, the book is becoming a major literary milestone, and deservedly so. Such Sweet Thunder is a resounding work of art. Flawed, especially in an initial dream-state transition from the Winter 1944 Allied drive toward Paris back in time to Depression-era Kansas City, but brilliant overall. Often demanding yet consistently rewarding as it vividly evokes memorable characters and a palpable sense of place.

Carter graduated from Kansas City's Lincoln High School and earned a degree from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. After being drafted into the U.S. Army at age 17, he took part in the Normandy invasion. He moved to Europe in 1953, settling as expatriate artist in Bern with a longtime companion, Liselotte Haas. By 1957 he wrote an idiosyncratic memoir, then turned his attention to the novel, which he intended to call "The Primary Colors." Unlike the novel, The Bern Book: A Record of the Voyage of the Mind was published in his lifetime, albeit 16 years after completion.

The novel might never have reached print were it not for a dusty copy of Bern Book discovered on a used bookstore shelf a couple of years ago. The providential trail that followed is well chronicled elsewhere. Suffice it to say the connections extended through the publisher in Vermont to Lottman in France and ultimately Haas in Switzerland. Due to the vision, persistence, and improvisational skill of Chip Fleischer, an executive with Steerforth who, like Carter, hails from Kansas City, the 805-page manuscript was on his desk within days after Haas was contacted. Recovery of the long lost work served to resurrect Carter and his fictional alter ego in the process.

What if the manuscript, and Amerigo Jones with it, had disappeared without a trace? Try to imagine the American literary landscape without Scout Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird. Or picture the jazz scene if Charlie Parker fell at age 24 instead of 34. Vincent Carter left behind a celebratory, teeming gift well worth opening and savoring. Roll of thunder, hear his cry.

-- Tom Fredrick






	Search our site:		SUCH SWEET THUNDER by Vincent O. Carter Steerforth Press 2003; 537 pages, hard cover, $25.95 The skies, the fountains, every region near Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. -- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn chose the name "Such Sweet Thunder" for a playful tribute to the Bard they recorded in 1957. It's also the title given to an important newly published novel by Vincent O. Carter. Newly published, but hardly new. Carter was born in the Kansas City, Missouri of 1924, at the heart of the Jazz Age in time and place. He finished his magnum opus by 1963, dedicating it to Ellington. Literary types expressed interest but a publisher never committed, apparently looking for a different brand of "Negro literature." Within the decade the author set aside the still unpublished work for good. Now, twenty years after his death, the lost manuscript has been found and is finally in print thanks to Steerforth Press. Carter's work was simply ahead of its time. Not until 1974 with the appearance of Albert Murray's Train Whistle Guitar, its "Scooter" and the Mobile, Alabama of his youth, was the publishing world ready for a similarly positive representative anecdote of African-American life with universal appeal as aesthetic statement. Both books are sweet natured yet striking. They're driven by jazz, fueled with a gritty sense of antagonistic cooperation among diverse elements, and branded with affirmation in the face of adversity. Murray and Ralph Ellison, author of extensive music writings in addition to the 1952 classic Invisible Man, see jazz as an institution at the core of American culture. Such a jazz-shaped perspective is nowhere more evident than in the life of Carter's protagonist, Amerigo Jones, and his hardscrabble Kansas City milieu. Amerigo inhabits a world frequented by jazz influences and personalities. Musicians permeate the scene, whether actual (Jay McShann at 18th & Vine, Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on the airwaves) or thinly veiled (Bennie "Moton"). Colorful provincial characters like Ruben the dancer, Geetar Man, and Mr. Zoo the whistler also inform the novel's musical sensibility. The setting is an urban cornucopia overflowing with syncopated sights, smells and sounds. To Amerigo's eyes, North End alleyway doors "firing a luminous pattern of crisscross trails" open onto neighborhood events after dark. During daylight hours "[s]weat and bottled liquor, fish grease, barbecue and beer" join "humid autumnal heat... to mingle with the dust of the streets, the topsoil of hundreds of miles of prairies." Like thunderclaps near and far, a rhythmic drumbeat -- Boom! Boom! Boom! -- punctuates his experiences and pierces his psyche. Carter's vernacular rhythmic voice centers on family, friends, and other figures. None are more appealing than Amerigo's parents, Viola and Rutherford, mere teenagers at his birth. In the end, Amerigo's coming-of-age story is a heartrending testament to American identity, dignity and family, loss and love. Herbert R. Lottman, the distinguished American writer based in Paris, calls it the "most moving homage to parents" known in literature. With positive response rolling in from all directions, the book is becoming a major literary milestone, and deservedly so. Such Sweet Thunder is a resounding work of art. Flawed, especially in an initial dream-state transition from the Winter 1944 Allied drive toward Paris back in time to Depression-era Kansas City, but brilliant overall. Often demanding yet consistently rewarding as it vividly evokes memorable characters and a palpable sense of place. Carter graduated from Kansas City's Lincoln High School and earned a degree from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. After being drafted into the U.S. Army at age 17, he took part in the Normandy invasion. He moved to Europe in 1953, settling as expatriate artist in Bern with a longtime companion, Liselotte Haas. By 1957 he wrote an idiosyncratic memoir, then turned his attention to the novel, which he intended to call "The Primary Colors." Unlike the novel, The Bern Book: A Record of the Voyage of the Mind was published in his lifetime, albeit 16 years after completion. The novel might never have reached print were it not for a dusty copy of Bern Book discovered on a used bookstore shelf a couple of years ago. The providential trail that followed is well chronicled elsewhere. Suffice it to say the connections extended through the publisher in Vermont to Lottman in France and ultimately Haas in Switzerland. Due to the vision, persistence, and improvisational skill of Chip Fleischer, an executive with Steerforth who, like Carter, hails from Kansas City, the 805-page manuscript was on his desk within days after Haas was contacted. Recovery of the long lost work served to resurrect Carter and his fictional alter ego in the process. What if the manuscript, and Amerigo Jones with it, had disappeared without a trace? Try to imagine the American literary landscape without Scout Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird. Or picture the jazz scene if Charlie Parker fell at age 24 instead of 34. Vincent Carter left behind a celebratory, teeming gift well worth opening and savoring. Roll of thunder, hear his cry. -- Tom Fredrick RETURN TO OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2003 MAIN INDEX © Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2003. All rights reserved.