The Magic Keys

"The Magic Keys winningly evokes the coming to maturity of one of the great characters in contemporary American literature: Scooter, the central protagonist of Albert Murray's highly acclaimed autobiographical novels "Train Whistle Guitar," The Spyglass Tree, and" The Seven League Boots. <BR>Growing up brilliant and curious in Alabama, Scooter was told he was destined for greatness. Now newly married and a graduate student in humanities at New York University, he goes about discovering just what he is destined to be great at. Anchored by Eunice, his "Mrs. Me," Scooter makes the rounds of Manhattan's libraries, jazz hangouts, galleries, skyscrapers, and endlessly fascinating streets, meeting the people who will help him find his way: dapper Taft Edison, who is setting their down-home dialect onto the pages of his novel-in-progress; Joe States, a drummer who brings old expectations to Scooter's new life; and Jewel Templeton, no longer his girl but still a believer. When his budding career takes him back to Alabama, Scooter discovers both the promise of everyday bliss and intimations of adventures to come.<BR>In his inimitably musical, ardent prose, Murray captures the joyful rhythms of youth and the pulse of life at the moment when everything seems possible, in an exhilarating, tender, and masterfully crafted novel.

If Gabriel Garca M‡rquez had chosen to write about Pakistani immigrants in England, he might have produced a novel as beautiful and devastating as Maps for Lost Lovers. Jugnu and Chanda have disappeared. Like thousands of people all over Enland, they were lovers and living together out of wedlock. To Chandas family, however, the disgrace was unforgivable. Perhaps enough so as to warrant murder.As he explores the disappearance and its aftermath through the eyes of Jugnus worldly older brother, Shamas, and his devout wife, Kaukab, Nadeem Aslam creates a closely observed and affecting portrait of people whose traditions threaten to bury them alive. The result is a tour de force, intimate, affecting, tragic and suspenseful.

Albert Murray was born in Nokomis, Alabama, in 1916. He grew up in Mobile and was educated at Tuskegee Institute, where he later taught literature and directed the college theater. He is a retired U.S. Air Force major. Albert Murray is author of The Omni-Americans; Stomping the Blues; The Hero and the Blues; Train Whistle Guitar; The Spyglass Tree; The Seven League Boots; South to a Very Old Place; Conjugations and Reiterations; and From the Briarpatch File; as well as co-author of Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie and Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray. He lives in New York City.