Mozart and Leadbelly:
stories and essays

by Ernest Gaines

compiled and edited by
Marcia Gaudet and Reggie Young

reviewed by David Loftus

[A version of this review appeared in the
Oregonian on December 4, 2005.]

With only a half dozen short novels and one story collection published over 40 years, Ernest J. Gaines is a "stealth writer" -- perhaps not among the first that come to mind, but always rewarding to read.

Were it not for Oprah, he would be the unsung master of the slim southern epic. But her inclusion of 1993's A Lesson Before Dying in her book club in late 1997 boosted his last novel to record sales and the choice of Everybody Reads programs across the country. (It was Portland's Everybody Reads book in 2003.)

Gaines is an unparalleled storyteller who creates a powerful sense of a place (mostly southern Louisiana) and its people. He seems to enter the souls of poor blacks, women, and children almost effortlessly, though it can't be easy: since the 1970s, each of his slim novels has taken six to ten years to perfect.

No surprise, then, that the jewels in this book are its stories: only five, which total a regrettably brief 65 pages in an already thin, 159-page book.

In "Mary Louise," a young woman learns the true picture of her long-time relationship with a male friend. A homeless bum in San Francisco tirelessly hunts for the Messiah he was certain he once glimpsed, in "Christ Walked Down Market Street."

The editors praise the author's indirection -- "playing around the note," like Lester Young blowing "My Funny Valentine" -- and that eloquent reticence graces most of Gaines's work. The threat, promise, or destabilizing reality of sex, and less often violence, is omnipresent, but rarely onstage.

Here, a father takes his boy to the local professional girls for initiation in "The Turtles." In "The Boy in the Double-Breasted Suit," another little boy is torn between his widower father, who reflexively slaps the preacher over a chicken dinner, and the woman who'd like to be his new mother.

Though one must be grateful for the contents, it is lean stuff. Also, these tales are all 30 to 40 years old. Surely it was not Gaines's idea to issue this lovely but skinny package. I blame the editors. (Their fawning introduction is embarrassing.)

The "essays" in this book are mostly scripts for public talks. The book closes with a leisurely interview conducted by the editors. All are congenial, but not terrifically illuminating or entertaining.

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