A journalist in a dead-end job finds more from what would otherwise have been a routine obituary of an aged musician. I have to admit to skipping through to the end of the story. It lurches between points of view quite disorientatingly, and then starts to pop back in time, leading to some awkward grammar, and introduces a heap of characters at breakneck pace. I’m hoping that it’s written in this style as a counterpoint to the jazz stylings of the the music to which the story relates, with members of the band overlapping, swapping and taking over from each other etc.
Two problems though : I hate jazz (way too cerebral for me), and Wilhelm’s last story in F&SF (The Bird Cage’ also suffered from perspective shiftage.
