A review by kitnotmarlowe
Young Man with a Horn by Dorothy Baker

emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

On the one hand, I'm glad I read Cassandra at the Wedding before Young Man with a Horn because I might not have read Cassandra at the Wedding otherwise. On the other hand, throughout Young Man with a Horn, I kept thinking, "Well, it's no Cassandra at the Wedding." Of course, Cassandra is a life-changing masterpiece, but Young Man isn't too shabby either. Dorothy Baker invented the Jazz Novel with her debut, after all.
 
So, Young Man with a Horn, a book, my reading of which was coloured by the fact that I was spending most evenings bedside at the hospital. I'm not saying this to gain sympathy but rather for context. 
 
Young Man with a Horn's cardinal sin is the pacing. Almost all of the plot's momentum occurs in the final quarter. Rick meets Amy; Rick marries Amy; Rick and Amy's marriage falls apart. Rick gets a big career break; Rick pushes himself too far; Rick's career and life fall apart. This technique could work if there was more room for it, but the NYRB edition is 185 pages, including an afterword. Baker's setup is fantastic, but her execution is less so. Amy is only introduced on page 126! She's delightfully noir and a fascinating character in both the story and the larger context of early queer lit (things look pretty good for her at the end of the story). Unfortunately, her significance is undermined by the brevity of her appearance.

I wouldn't be myself if I didn't point out that, along with Rick and Amy's fagdyke failmarriage, there's ALSO something lavender going on with Rick and Smoke. It's refreshing to read about a friendship between two men founded on mutual respect and a love of music. The politics are, of course, Of The Time, but Baker avoids cliches and low-hanging fruit. Things would have been different, I'm sure, if both men played the same instrument, dooming them to be nothing more than competitors for solos and contracts. Instead, because one plays trumpet and the other drums, they have no choice but to complement each other. In the afterword, Gary Giddens notes that "Rick is constantly integrating his bands, since a man's colour is invisible on a recording." (p.179) 
 
Why is it so sad that I'm like, "Wow, revolutionary! Men can be friends!" However, because this is Dorothy Baker, there has to be some gay shit going on. We hit the ground running in Smoke's first appearance, where he is described as Rick's "first, last, and always friend." (p.24)
 
Then, we get this lovely scene when Rick apologizes for calling Smoke "a horse's ass":
"Why I said it is I like you better than anybody. Damn, it, honey, don't cry any more or I'll have to too. I'm sorry I said it, and I didn't mean it. Honest to Christ, I didn't mean it."
He did the best he could, considering that this was the first time he'd handled tenderness directly. His knowledge of the jargon was limited to the lyrics of popular songs. He made it work, though, well enough to make Smoke stop crying. Both of them rose from the piano bench recovered, the one reassured and the other exculpated and neither one embarrassed, though one had certainly wept like a nervous woman and the other had fallen into the wrong terminology." (p.64)
 
This entire passage makes me feel like the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper. Baker's portrayal of Rick's egolessness contrasts with the overwhelming egocentricity we see later in Cassandra. Rick doesn't need to be egotistical because he's talented enough to get by without a facade. Moreover, he's never learned to put one up. This makes him more tragic than if he were simply a prodigy who got too big for his britches. Instead, he's a modest kid with one blazing talent that makes him self-destruct. The first section is the literary equivalent of whatever girls do at sleepovers. This was the first time he'd handled tenderness directly...
 
There's this quote from p.118:
"Rick looked at Smoke Jordan's black face shining above that magnificent collection of white-skinned drums, and he saw how much the same he was. Same one that used to do the hot sweeping at Gandy's, only that one wore yellow cords and this one wore a white tuxedo. Daniel Jordan in a white tuxedo pounding the prettiest set of drums in existence. A dazzling sight. His eyes were turned obliquely upward and he chewed his lower lip all the while he played; then, he'd knock out a beauty and turn his eyes down, startled as if he'd surprised even himself with that one. If he knew Rick Martin was in the room would he play any better or worse? He couldn't play any better."
 
That's romance, baby. Smoke actually calls Rick "baby" twice. On p. 157:
"Did I look bad tonight?"
"Baby, you never looked better in your life."
 
And when Rick is on his deathbed on p. 171:
"Take it easy, baby; I'm going to get you out of here."
 
Anyway, that's my thesis. This book is about two Kinsey 5.5s who marry because they don't know what else to do. I will watch the film (can you, in good faith, call it an adaptation when they change the central thesis of the novel along with everything that matters?) but will do so begrudgingly.