The Economist - USA (2019-08-17)

66 Books & arts The EconomistAugust 17th 2019

2 on one more day...that might have given the

two leaders time to build their burgeoning

rapport and overrule sceptics in their dele-

gations. Mr Gorbachev, accompanied by

hiswifeRaisa,waswillingtogivethetalks

another 24 hours.Lonesomeandexhaust-

ed,Reaganwasnot.“Howmighttheworld

havechangedifNancyhadcomealongfor

theride?”asksMrSerina.

Probablynota lot,intruth.Thetwobig

superpowerswouldhardlyscraptheirnuc-

leararsenalswithouttheChinese,Indians,

Israelisandothersdoingthesame—and

howwouldthatbeverified?Still,despite

thefalsestartinReykjavik,thenegotia-

tionscontinued,withtheeliminationof

intermediate-range nuclear weapons in

Europeanddeep,verifiedcutsinthestrate-

gicarsenalsonbothsides.Happydays,by

contemporarystandards. 7

T

éaobreht, a prizewinningSerbian-

Americanauthor,hasa penchantfor

ghostsandexoticbeasts.Herdebut

novel,“TheTiger’sWife”,wasanaffect-

ingmeditationonwarandsurvivalinan

unnamedBalkancountrythatcircled

aroundthetitulartigeranda spectre

knownas“thedeathlessman”.Hersec-

ondnoveltakesthisotherworldlysensi-

bilityintotheArizonaTerritoryofthe

late19thcentury.“Inland”ishalfmagi-

cal,halfhistoricalfiction:thebraided

taleoftwounusualcharactersscratching

a lifefroma harshlandscape,whose

destinieswillsurelycollide.

ThebookbelongsmainlytoNora,

motherofthreeboysanda daughterwho

diedofheatstrokeininfancybutliveson

asa voiceinNora’sear.Herhusbandand

grownsonshavenowvanished;Norais

parchedandatherwits’end.Hertownis

threatenedbydroughtandeconomic

ruin.Meanwhile,elsewhereinthedesert

territories,anorphanandoutlawnamed

Luriefindshimselfjoinedtoanexotic—

andhistoricallyaccurate—parade:a

processionofcamelsontheirwayto

becomepackanimalsforthecavalry.

Thistalltale,likeMsObreht’sfirst,

conjuresa mythical,supernaturalworld.

It bearsa resemblanceto“DaysWithout

End”,a magnificentrecentWesternby

SebastianBarry,anIrishauthor.Both

novelsarelushandpoetic;bothnodto

theWest’sbloodyhistory,yethover

vaguely,andgorgeously,aboveit.“In-

land”ismostcompellinginitsstudyof

thepioneerwifewhosefrustrationsand

fearsleadtotragedy.Yet,disappointing-

ly,it succumbstoa sortofdreamyinev-

itabilityaboutthesettlementoftheWest

thatwilladdlittletomostreaders’grasp

oftheperiod.Nativesareseenonlyfrom

thesettlers’pointofview;thewholeis

awashintheslantedlightoffable.

MsObrehthasa giftforvividlanguage

anddeftstories-within-stories.Descrip-

tionsofthecamels,especially,arede-

lightful:“Theireyelidsarethatchedwith

thefinestlashesGodeverloomed.”She

giveswordsfreshpurposes,togreat

effect;verbssizzle.In“Inland”,Luriefills

thephilosopher’srole;hecanseethe

dead,andmournsthefactthatthey

cannotseeoneanotherandthusare

doomedtoroameternityalone.“Who

wouldspeakofthesethingswhenwe

weregone?”heasksina wistfulkey,

tickingoffthingsthatseemirrevocably

past:thenativepeople,thefirstsighting

ofa steamship,the“oldemptiness”ofthe

West.Thestoryquickenstoitshaunting

end—ifnottoanynewfrontier.

Ghost train

Magical realism

Inland.By Téa Obreht. Random House; 384

pages; $27. Weidenfeld & Nicolson; £14.99

Tragedy, camels and the supernatural in 19th-century Arizona

I

nthespringof 1899 a committeewas

convened in New York to investigate the

city’s police force—and the “protection” it

might be offering to Gotham’s saloons and

brothels. Politicians and do-gooders were

particularly interested in a new kind of

music known as “rag-time”, which William

Devrey, the police chief, called “a filthy

abomination”.

He was not alone in that opinion. As

Dale Cockrell writes in his terrifically en-

tertaining book, this was only a part of the

“public avalanche of criticism that ques-

tioned ragtime’s character and the moral

bearings of people who enjoyed it.” Arthur

Weld, a professor of music, pronounced

the genre “evil” and “vulgar”. It was nothing

short of a “national calamity”.

Mr Cockrell is professor of musicology

at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. In

“Everybody’s Doin’ It” he makes a bracing

case that New York was the hothouse in

which American popular-music culture

took root. He considers the intersection of

musicianship and morality from the early

days of “blackface minstrelsy”—in which

white performers insultingly darkened

their faces—through to the birth of ragtime

and jazz. The lives he writes about were

mostly lived below “the horizon of record”;

he mines newspapers and police reports,

as well as the testimonies of middle-class

witnesses that drip with condescension for

those “beneath their place”.

The result is an energetic, colourful

tour of the city’s dens of iniquity. “Dives”, as

such spots are known to this day, were usu-

ally in cellars, so people “dived” into them.

The bars, brothels and concert halls that Mr

Cockrell describes were places of sexual

liberation, where men and women danced

the hoochie koochie, the bunny hug, the

wiggle and the shiver; they spieled, they

hopped, they dipped. They inculcated ra-

cial freedom, too. Enslaved New Yorkers

were freed by 1827; by 1873 racial discrimi-

nation was outlawed in the city. Yet one

consequence of the increased regulation of

musical entertainment thereafter was seg-

regation, as moralisers frowned on racial

mixing. Thus “the spirit of Jim Crow started

casting its long, dark shadow over New

York’s social, political, and cultural life.”

The book’s focus may seem narrow, but

the vividness with which Mr Cockrell

evokes a vanished world is compelling. The

only thing missing is a soundtrack; readers

will long to hear “Roll Me Around Like a

Hoop My Dear”, “Meet Me Tonight in

Dreamland” or the “Boogie Man Rag”. Even

in silence, however, by the last page the au-

thor has proved his point: that the musical,

terpsichorean and sensual turmoil of the

great city made for “an explosive com-

pound of sounds and rhythms that would

prove quite impossible to extinguish.” 7

Music and morals in America

Boogie nights

Everybody’s Doin’ It: Sex, Music, and Dance

in New York, 1840-1917. By Dale Cockrell.

W.W. Norton; 288 pages; $27.95 and £19.99

Steps towards calamity