The Clarinet Polka
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Author Keith Maillard received critical acclaim with his novel Gloria, which told the story of a young woman on the cusp of womanhood in a town called Raysburg, West Virginia. In this book, The Clarinet Polka, Maillard turns that same eagle-eyed attention to the other side of the tracks of that very same town and creates a stunning portrait of Polish America and of one man's struggle to find meaning in his life and roots.
The year is 1969, and young Jimmy Koprowski returns from his stint in the airforce to Raysburg, his blue-collar Polish American hometown where nothing much happens beyond working at the steel mill, going to Mass, and getting drunk at the local PAC. Jimmy's efforts at rebuilding his life result in sleeping off hangovers in his parents' attic and drifting into a destructive affair with a married woman.
But things change when his younger sister Linda decides to start an all-girl polka band, and Jimmy falls for the band's star clarinetist, Janice, whose young life is haunted by tragic events that happened before she was born. The threads of Jimmy's family life, the legacy of WWII Poland, and the healing power of music, language, and tradition all begin to converge.
At once gritty and compassionate, moving and witty, The Clarinet Polka showcases the emotional and perfectly pitched voice of a lost soul finding his way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Maillard (Gloria) turns the spotlight on the Polish-American community in fictional Raysburg, W.Va., a steel town modeled after his native Wheeling and the setting for six of his previous novels. Discharged in 1969 after serving in Guam, noncombatant Vietnam-era vet Jimmy Koprowski returns to his parents' house and his old childhood bedroom ("the sloped ceiling is covered with all the Playboy centerfolds I taped up in high school, and if you can imagine anything more depressing than Miss November from 1960, then tell me about it"). He takes a job doing TV repairs for "a couple cents above minimum wage" and tries to readjust to the smallness of life in Raysburg, mainly through excessive boozing and sordid back-alley trysts. After an erotic encounter outside the local mall, Jimmy gets caught up in a messy affair with a neurotic society matron named Connie. The last straw for his jangled nerves comes when his 21-year-old sister, Linda, also living at home, decides to take up the trumpet and start an all-girl polka band. Jimmy finds himself playing chauffeur to 15-year-old clarinet virtuoso Janice Dluwiekis, the goody-two-shoes daughter of a prominent accountant and the star of Linda's band. The engrossing tale traces Jimmy's losing struggle to tame his drinking as his carnal obsession with Connie and his disturbing feelings for the innocent Janice spiral out of control. Jimmy is a wry, down-to-earth, irresistible narrator, and Maillard draws all the characters in the working-class community with compassion and obvious affection. This moving, well-drawn story of sin and redemption in a fading industry town may remind readers of Richard Russo.
