The Fisher King - by Paule Marshall (Paperback)

About the Book

In 1949, Sonny-Rett Payne, a black jazz pianist, fled New York for Paris to escape his family's disapproval of his art and the racism that shadowed his career. His success in Europe and his subsequent death there form the dramatic background of a moving and revelatory story of jazz, love, family conflict, and the artist's struggles in society.

Book Synopsis

Paule Marshall, the highly acclaimed author of the classic Brown Girl, Brownstones, returns to a Brooklyn setting in this moving and revelatory story of jazz, class, and family conflict over four generations.

In 1949, Sonny-Rett Payne, a jazz pianist, fled New York for Paris to escape both his family's disapproval of his music and the racism that shadowed his career. Now, decades later, his eight-year-old grandson is brought to Payne's old Brooklyn neighborhood to attend a memorial concert in his honor. The child's visit reveals the persistent family and community rivalries that drove his grandfather into exile.

The Fisher King--a moving story of jazz, love, family conflict, and the artists' struggles in society--offers hope in the healing and redemptive power of one memorable boy.

Review Quotes

Edwidge Danticat The Washington Post The Fisher King masterfully carries us back and forth between the streets of Paris and the brownstones of Brooklyn, among French, American, Caribbean, and African-American cultures, and between a present that can't be avoided and a past that won't be dismissed....This is one of those novels that you will be reading again and again for many years.

Valerie Boyd Atlanta Journal-Constitution Lean and beautifully written, this novel -- like the jazz at its core -- swings and soars and deeply satisfies.

About the Author

Paule Marshall holds a distinguished chair in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University. She has won many awards, including the John Dos Passos Award for Literature, an American Book Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. She lives in New York City and Richmond, Virginia.