ju reviewed Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
A wonderful alternate history
5 stars
It has the tropes of the genre : a tired detective in a metropolis he doesn't quite know, powerful men, booze and prohibition, sleazy journalists, and of course, melancholia, jazz and femmes fatales. But the rest is a very smart departure in an alternate history: what if the smallpox brought to America was a non-lethal variant? The Native community would be thriving, along the Mississippi, it would have a city and a state built on their power and syncretic beliefs. That's Cahokia, where the delicate balance that holds it all is threatened by a gruesome murder. It's a book that takes you in, and embraces you and makes you believe that Cahokia is real and pulsating, on the right bank of the Mississippi.
It has the tropes of the genre : a tired detective in a metropolis he doesn't quite know, powerful men, booze and prohibition, sleazy journalists, and of course, melancholia, jazz and femmes fatales. But the rest is a very smart departure in an alternate history: what if the smallpox brought to America was a non-lethal variant? The Native community would be thriving, along the Mississippi, it would have a city and a state built on their power and syncretic beliefs. That's Cahokia, where the delicate balance that holds it all is threatened by a gruesome murder. It's a book that takes you in, and embraces you and makes you believe that Cahokia is real and pulsating, on the right bank of the Mississippi.