Jazz Fiction: Take Two

Jazz Fiction: Take Two is the sequel to Jazz Fiction: A History and Comprehensive Reader’s Guide (2008). The earlier work filled a pressing need in jazz studies by identifying and discussing 700 works of fiction with a jazz component. Take Two surveys over 500 newer works of jazz-inflected fiction that have appeared from the turn of the 21st century to the present. The essay-reviews at the heart of the book give readers a sense of the plot of each surveyed work and characterizes its debt to jazz. The entries are written with both general readers and scholars in mind and are intended to entertain as well as inform. This alone qualifies Jazz Fiction: Take Two as an original and useful resource.

Sascha Feinstein, Founding Editor of Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature and several books on jazz, says of Jazz Fiction: Take Two: “With this companion volume to Jazz Fiction, David Rife enhances his position as an indispensable scholar of jazz-related fiction. The copious entries—each written not only with deft concision but irresistible linguistic flair—provide the kind of insight that only someone profoundly well-read in the genre could cultivate. One could not ask for a more delightful guide.”