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4.5
Singing the BluesMAN IN THE BLUE MOON gives Michael Morris' readers his latest rendition of the Blues, and in the first verse of this song, we see again that a woman is singing them. Her name is Ella, an appropriate name for a singer of the Blues. We learn that she has had a dismal beginning in life but has a rare second chance with her Aunt Katherine, a dreamer, after losing her parents, a prostitute and a drunk. As with any good Blues melody, there is a disheartening turn of events. Ella falls prey to a gambling, drug-abusing snake named Harlan Wallace. They dance, and the union results in the births of three boys, a second mortgage on the land and store she had owned outright, his disappearance, her fear of homelessness, and a mysterious box from the Blue Moon Clock Company. We onlookers see, with a not inconsiderable degree of obviousness, that these are the ingredients for a cataclysmic Shakespearian fall.The second verse of Ella's song does not disappoint. Lanier Stillis arrives encased in a box meant to house a grandfather clock. The mysterious box bears the name Blue Moon Clock Company, but Stillis emerges instead with his own song of sorrow. All of the craziness that he is seeking to escape took place in Georgia--Flannery O'Connor would approve. Lanier is on the run from his brothers-in-law for the murder of his wife. They have something that belongs to him--a piece of his ear, and like bloodhounds, they follow his scent to get revenge, even though he has been acquitted of the murder by a judge and jury. He has also inherited the ability to heal the sick, which makes him an overnight sensation in the community of Dead Lakes, Florida. The townspeople of neighboring Apalachicola, after hearing of his miraculous powers, put him on trial again, accusing him of black magic and being in cahoots with Lucifer. To Ella, though, he is a savior who has healed her son and others, and he shores up her life by giving her hope and courage. She can see herself in him; they are both artists and close to nature. Both are rudderless, however, and believe they are cursed by the sins of their parents, and both have abandonment issues.The third verse of this refrain becomes white noise as the forces around Ella threaten to blare her into non-existence. Narsissa, a Creek Indian living in a shack behind Ella's store, is not unacquainted with misery herself, having been abandoned by her husband. She and Ella bond in that respect, but Narsissa constantly harps on the same string, warning of disaster she is sure follows Lanier. Her presence is a constant reminder of the blues they share as women. In addition to Narsissa's never-ending harassment, Clive Gillespie, who owns the bank and almost everything and everyone else in town, haunts her dreams and threatens her very existence by promising to foreclose on her property if she does not pay her overdue mortgage. He is harboring a long-term grudge because Ella and her land were snaked away from him by her worthless husband.The last verse deals with the magical, healing spring found on Ella's property. Like any water that ripples when a stone is tossed into it, this spring soon ripples with negative energy and seems to lose its power to heal. Also like most woodland springs, it has its share of snakes. When Reverend Alfred Mabry arrives in town with his wife Priscilla, who is ill and needs the spring to revive her, the story reaches a boiling point that no amount of water can slake. Unlike Huckleberry Finn, neither the Apalachicola River nor the spring offer any aid, miraculous healing, or escape from reality and the problems that follow every human being. Unfortunately, there is no "Eden Everlasting" here on earth, as Rev. Mabry suggests, and he has to surrender his dream of a cure for his wife's cancer and a resort that offers hope to ailing visitors. As Eden was abandoned so was the hope of offering physical and spiritual nurturing from the spring in Dead Lakes. My favorite disruptor in the novel is the child-like Ruby--the audacious--the mentally challenged--the leader of fake parades--the institutionalized glorious Ruby. She eventually leads the town to comprehend the nature of a true viper embodied in Clive Gillespie. She stands up at a tent revival and declares him to be the father of her unborn child.We need to raise a glass to Michael Morris, the maestro. I thank him for glorifying strong, sensational women who seem to be mired in concrete while fighting almost insurmountable odds. They are brave, enduring the most difficult hardships. My inclination is to sit down and devour a good book like a sinfully delicious dessert, but I savored every word of this one, shadowing the characters as they moved through the pages. Like every great song, I want to play it again and listen carefully to the words. After all, the Blues, like an interpretive piece of literature, teaches us how to better deal with our own problems. Music can have restorative power, whether sung or written, and can offer hope and escape from our troubled lives. As we have seen all too often, evil has a way of snaking into our lives, and we sometimes punish out of ignorance and fear those we do not understand because they are different from us with beliefs that are different from our own, atrocities such as the Salem Witch Trials a distant though visceral memory. Michael Morris shines a light through the power of his writing on those vigilantes living in our times. My hope is that you read and learn from his simply eloquent narrative.My favorite quote in the novel states, "People [are] in the world not just to observe but to impact." Michael Morris is a living testament to that philosophy.
