Coming Through Slaughter

(Paperback)

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Description

Michael Ondaatje's incredible debut novel of Jazz and strife, published for the first time in Vintage Classics alongside his memoir, Running in the Family Discover Michael Ondaatje's debut novel, 'a beautifully detailed story, perhaps the finest jazz novel ever written' Sunday Times Based on the life of cornet player Buddy Bolden, one of the legendary jazz pioneers of turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans, Coming Through Slaughter is an extraordinary recreation of a remarkable musical life and a tragic conclusion. Through a collage of memoirs, interviews, imaginary conversations and monologues, Ondaatje builds a picture of a man who would work by day at a barber shop and by night unleash his talent to wild audiences who had never experienced such playing. But Buddy was also playing the field with two women, and inside his head was a ticking time-bomb which he was unable to stop.

Reviews

The downtown world of bars, whores, streetlife bursting with music is evoked so vividly, so pungently you seem to breathe in the atmosphere... I haven't been so excited by a new writer for a long time * Time Out *
A beautifully detailed story, perhaps the finest jazz novel ever written * Sunday Times *
Not only the best jazz novel ever written, but one of the best novels of any kind published in English in the last ten years * The Musician *
Michael Ondaatje is a novelist with the heart of a poet * Chicago Tribune *

Author Bio

Michael Ondaatje is the author of several novels, as well as a memoir, a nonfiction book on film, and several books of poetry. Among his many Canadian and international recognitions, his novel The English Patient won the 1992 Man Booker Prize, was adapted into a multi-award winning Oscar movie, and was awarded the Golden Man Booker Prize in 2018; Anil's Ghost won the Giller Prize, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and the Prix Medicis; and Warlight was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. Born in Sri Lanka, Michael Ondaatje lives in Toronto.