Book Club February 2022- Wild Women and the Blues
By: Denny S Bryce
Pages: 352
Published Year: 2021
Publisher: Kensington
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): “Why would I talk to you about my life? I don't know you, and even if I did, I don't tell my story to just any boy with long hair, who probably smokes weed. You wanna hear about me. You gotta tell me something about you. To make this worth my while.”
1925: Chicago is the jazz capital of the world, and the Dreamland Café is the ritziest black-and-tan club in town. Honoree Dalcour is a sharecropper’s daughter, willing to work hard and dance every night on her way to the top. Dreamland offers a path to the good life, socializing with celebrities like Louis Armstrong and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. But Chicago is also awash in bootleg whiskey, gambling, and gangsters. And a young woman driven by ambition might risk more than she can stand to lose.
2015: Film student Sawyer Hayes arrives at the bedside of 110-year-old Honoree Dalcour, still reeling from a devastating loss that has taken him right to the brink. Sawyer has rested all his hope on this frail but formidable woman, the only living link to the legendary Oscar Micheaux. If he’s right—if she can fill in the blanks in his research, perhaps he can complete his thesis and begin a new chapter in his life. But the links Honoree makes are not ones he’s expecting...
Piece by piece, Honoree reveals her past and her secrets, while Sawyer fights tooth and nail to keep his. It’s a story of courage and ambition, hot jazz and illicit passions. And as past meets present, for Honoree, it’s a final chance to be truly heard and seen before it’s too late. No matter the cost...
What I thought
The cover of this book is so pretty. I would love to wear that dress and live in the moment of that cover.
When I first started reading historical fiction I mostly read World War Two stories. The past few years I’ve been branching out into different eras so I was excited to try this one that occurred in 1925.
Honeree is a dancer at a jazz club in Chicago in 1925. She is auditioning for one of the more prominent clubs when she ends up in the middle of some trouble. Sawyer is a film student in 2015 who has found a box in his grandma’s attic with pictures of Honeree and potentially a lost film from Oscar Micheaux. When he discovers she’s still alive he decides to go interview her.
The majority of the story is told in 1925, but it does bounce back and forth a decent amount to 2015. I was interested in more stories but as the book went on I became more interested in the present because I wanted the mystery solved.
The beginning of the story really hooked me in. I loved reading about what Honeree was doing and the gangsters and club life of Chicago in the 1920s. I wasn’t as interested in Sawyer’s interview with Honeree but I did enjoy those chapters. There definitely was certain story points that were off and didn’t sit right with me but I wasn’t able to completely figure out what it was. I had vague hunches what the mystery was going to turn out to be but I think I was so focused on other parts of the story that I didn’t end of figuring out what it was that was niggling the back of my mind.
If you are interested in the 1920s I would recommend checking out this book. I learned a little bit about the club life, especially for African American clubs that I didn’t know much about. If I had to critique something it would be that there was almost a little too much going on. I think a few of the storylines in the past could’ve been trimmed because other ones ended up not getting fleshed out enough. There was a lot that I thought was going to be a focus in the beginning of he book that never came about again.
I did really enjoy the story though and it had be interested from the very beginning.
What Book Club Thought
It was interesting because a few of us got into the book right away and others did not. When we discussed it further we realized it was because some of us were more interested in the past story and others in the present. I was one who was more interested in the past and I think that helped me get into it a little quicker. We all talked about how we thought it was interesting to see Chicago in the 1920’s and that we enjoyed that view as well. None of us saw the twists coming and I shared how I felt like there were a few storylines that were left underdeveloped and they agreed. It was a fun discussion especially considering all of the mystery and intrigue. I would definitely recommend this as a book club book if your book club likes historical fiction.