Thursday, June 9, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on June 21, 2022 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.


The Ballad of Perilous Graves is the debut novel by author Alex Jennings and is a story that is very much a love letter to New Orleans and to old time Jazz.  These are two things I am very much not super familiar with, but the story sounded really appealing and featured a blurb from a really enjoyable author (Victor Lavelle) so I decided to give it a try when I got a free ARC from the publisher.  

I lead with these things because The Ballad of Perilous Graves is very much a story I bounced off of, and I'm not really sure that how much of that is the book's fault as much as the fact that I'm not quite the right reader for it - a White New York Lawyer with no connection to New Orleans, Jazz, or any of the topics dealt with here.  The story also is very much descriptive and imaginative as it imagines two different versions of New Orleans - one of which is wildly magical even if still very relatable to our own world - and descriptive fiction also is a bit of something I struggle with.  So you may very well enjoy this book if the above (and the further description below) is more of your things.  



--------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------
Magic and Music - both separate and intertwined - are the lifeblood of the City of Nola that Fifth Grade student Perilous "Perry" Graves has grown up in.  But despite the girl Perry crushes on - the orphan girl Peaches - having magical strength and abilities, Perry himself lacks talent in music or magic...or so he tells himself after an encounter that left him deathly shook and convinced him to transfer schools.  

And yet, when the city's great Musician/Magician, Doctor Professor, tasks him, his sister Brendy, and Peaches with the quest of finding nine songs of power that underline the City, Perry finds himself forced to confront his fears about magic and responsibility and to take action in order to save the soul of Nola....as things start going from bad to worse.  

Meanwhile, in the city of New Orleans, a young trans man named Casey returns to the city he fled years ago only to find the magic that scared him away - and the cousin who used to make it with him - is still there.  And when disaster seems to strike that cousin, Casey will have to embrace the parts of himself he has always feared and the magic that is part of who he truly is....
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The Ballad of Perilous Graves is told through a series of points of view, with probably the majority of segments told from the perspective of Perry, but other segments are also told from the perspectives of other characters in Perry's magical city of Nola, like his sister Brendy, his crush and superpowered girl Peaches, or a few other characters and antagonists who come up along the way.  The Nola featured in these chapters is full of magic and music, with real jazz songs showing up personified in various ways, with zombies and undead walking around along with people who are addicted to inhaling graffiti tags - even as it also has recognizable issues of racism, poverty, and horrifying storms preying on the City from time to time.  

And then you have on occasion, sometimes introduced by datelines, Casey's chapters in our real version of New Orleans, give or take a little bit of magic that Casey encounters and eventually lead him to the other Nola.  These chapters follow Casey's quest to get him to really to accept himself, not just for being trans (his family didn't take his transition well, and his misery over it possibly drove his girlfriend away), but to accept all the parts of himself like his magical drawing, rather than fearing the unknown and strange that makes Casey who he really is.  And well, it's a solid theme, and there are some parallels to Perry's own issues accepting his own magic and music and right to exist in this world he feels inadequate about....but at the same time, it never really feels to me like it's part of the same story as Perry's, and Casey's chapters are often so few and far between that they just always feel out of place even when they finally intertwine with Perry's story.  

But again, Perry's story and the story of Perry, Brendy and Peaches in Nola, is the real star here, and well here's where I struggle with this review.  So much of what happens here is in the descriptions of what Perry sees and of the music and its lyrics, and well, I have a hard time appreciating those or even focusing enough to read them - it's just now how I read, and well I'm also not familiar with what's being referenced in the songs and in New Orleans etc.  So to me, this felt a bit messy if not an utter mess, with the conclusion just never really feeling like it tied everything together in a coherent way....but that could be just because I was missing things in reading something that clearly wasn't for me.  So it's kind of hard for me to really judge this...and that goes all the way to the ending, which could be considered both wrapping things up and setting up a sequel all at the same time.  

So yeah, if you're more interested in descriptive/atmospheric fiction, have a greater knowledge and appreciation of New Orleans and old time Black music and jazz, this book might fit you a lot better than me, and it might wind up being something you like a lot.  But without me having those things, this one just didn't work for me, and the split narrative certainly didn't improve the book in that regard.  

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