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Book details
  • Genre:FICTION
  • SubGenre:Historical / General
  • Language:English
  • Pages:150
  • eBook ISBN:9781941478059

The Chicago Syncopator

A Bohemian Kid Tells About His Life in Jazz

by Philip T. Nemec

Book Image Not Available Book Image Not Available
Overview
“…I am a syncopator, a jazzman. I mark time by being offbeat. My beats make the weak ones strong and the strong ones weak.” With those words, the novel’s main character, George Nepras, son of Czech immigrants and living a hard life in blue collar early twentieth-century Chicago, spins a tale of his life in jazz and his soul’s redemption through it. Haunting the speakeasies of the Roaring Twenties, George studies early jazz greats like King Oliver and befriends jazz legend, Bix Beiderbecke. The road to his calling forces George to struggle against fate, virulent racial tensions, his insular ethnic neighborhood, and his own limitations in the tradition of James T. Farrell’s character, Studs Lonigan. Often confused by the conflict between his Czech past and American identity, George nonetheless tackles life with the quiet courage and tenacity of Santiago in "The Old Man and the Sea."
Description
“…I am a syncopator, a jazzman. I mark time by being offbeat. My beats make the weak ones strong and the strong ones weak.” With those words, the novel’s main character, George Nepras, son of Czech immigrants and living a hard life in blue collar early twentieth-century Chicago, spins a tale of his life in jazz and his soul’s redemption through it. Haunting the speakeasies of the Roaring Twenties, George studies early jazz greats like King Oliver and befriends jazz legend, Bix Beiderbecke. The road to his calling forces George to struggle against fate, virulent racial tensions, his insular ethnic neighborhood, and his own limitations in the tradition of James T. Farrell’s character, Studs Lonigan. Often confused by the conflict between his Czech past and American identity, George nonetheless tackles life with the quiet courage and tenacity of Santiago in "The Old Man and the Sea."
About the author
Philip T. Nemec grew up in the Chicago area and has been writing all his life. He currently lives in the Washington, DC area with his wife and two college age children.