Synopses & Reviews
Advance praise for
The Clarinet Polka “Deeply and authentically rooted in Polish-American culture, The Clarinet Polka also brilliantly resonates into the universal human condition. Keith Maillard has created a fictional landscape in and around Raysburg, West Virginia, that brims with life as we all live it. This is a remarkable novel from an important writer.”
- Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
“Great novels immerse their readers into a world previously unknown and by that test alone, this is a great novel. A West Virginia Polish community is the setting for this touching story, a place where dreamers, misfits, lost souls, saints, and sinners all dance to the rhythm of the joyful polka which will, given time, heal all their wounds. I promise these are people you will never forget and will be glad you got to know.”
- Homer H. Hickam, Jr., bestselling author of Rocket Boys
“Encore! Ill play over and again in my mind this hard-edged, sweet-souled story of a hearts homecoming.”
- Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of Songs From a Lead-Lined Room and Hoopi Shoopi Donna
Praise for Gloria
“Keith Maillard gets the details right . . . succeeds in building a gilded, crinoline-draped labyrinth and watching his lithe, artful protagonist wiggle and reason her way to freedom.”
- New York Times Book Review
“A mesmerizing story . . . succeeds in prompting reflection on the nature of authenticity in a culture that easily surrenders to stereotypes and sound bites.”
- Boston Sunday Globe
“Beautifully detailed . . . enormously entertaining.”
- Marie Claire
“Recalls Balzac or George Eliot. . . . Meticulously observed, immensely satisfying.”
- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A merciless and accurate picture of the power grid of American class and gender at mid-century, a meditation on the nature of human consciousness and creativity, an investigation into the horrors and delights of emergent sexuality, an homage to the powers of friendship between women. . . . This is a book that delivers profound pleasures of the body, the mind, and the spirit.”
- Vancouver Sun
Review
"Maillard makes the connections seamless, and his prose is often as buoyant as the polka music he describes."
Review
"[Maillard] gets so many things so right . . . . I guarantee, you'll have a ball." Washington Post
Review
"Music, family and heritage are the spirits that give life to Keith Maillard's new novel." Denver Post
Review
"Jimmy's irreverent voice remains strong. . . . [A] stylistic re-creation of a turbulent era in our history." Rocky Mountain News
Review
"Music, family and heritage are the spirits that give life to Keith Maillards new novel."
Review
"Maillard succeeds in giving Jimmy a distinctive voice . . . he's an older but less cerebral version of J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield."
- The Charleston Gazette, 3/23/02
"Deeply and authentically rooted in Polish-American culture...This is a remarkable novel from an important writer."
- Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
"Rings utterly true . . . with a wicked sense of humor that keeps a reader hanging on his every word..."
- Detroit Free Press 2/23/03
Review
1. Discuss Polish stereotypes and how they are dispelled, reinforced, or explained in
The Clarinet Polka. How do characters like Jimmy, Patty, Linda, and Mary Joe acknowledge and deflect these attitudes?
2. Discuss the friction between first-, second-, and third- generation Poles in South Raysburg and how this friction ties into European ideas of class, and how it lessens during the process of “Americanization.” What does it mean to “be an American” to each of these generations?
3. Describe the life/death cycle of an ethnic community as portrayed in The Clarinet Polka. Is there a fundamental contradiction between becoming an all-American boy or girl and preserving ethnic culture? Compare Raysburgs Polish community with other American ethnic communities with which you are personally familiar.
4. Discuss the effects of war on Czeslaw, Georgie, and Jimmy. Do you think that Jimmy suffers from a form of “survivors guilt,” having gone to Guam but not Vietnam? How do Georgie and Czeslaw come to terms with the horrors of war and their own survival?
5. The Clarinet Polka is a love story with a happy ending. Is this realistic? Discuss the love storys parallels with the folk-tradition polka lyrics that thread through the book. Discuss the archetypal pull on Jimmy, of the “bad” married woman and the “good” virginal girl.
6. What is the importance of Polish Catholicism, prayer, and specifically the role of Our Lady, in the Polish psyche? What are the similarities between Christian spirituality and the principles put forward by AA that enable Jimmy to come to terms with his alcoholism?
7. Some people feel that alcoholism is too boring or depressing a subject for a novel. Do you think alcoholism is realistically portrayed in The Clarinet Polka?
8. The author has used Raysburg as the setting for his previous books, including Gloria, which was set in the 1950s. Talk about the role of Raysburg in the book, and how the town is like a character in the story. "Maillard makes the connections seamless, and his prose is often as buoyant as the polka music he describes." New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
The year is 1969, and young Jimmy Koprowski returns from his stint in the airforce to Raysburg, his blue-collar Polish American hometown where nothing much happens beyond working at the steel mill and getting drunk at the local PAC. But things change when his younger sister starts an all-girl polka band, and the threads of Jimmy's family life, and the healing power of music, language, and tradition all begin to converge. This is a one-of-a-kind emotional novel with a voice that never fails.
Synopsis
Author Keith Maillard received critical acclaim with his novel
Gloria, which told the story of a young woman on the cusp of womanhood in a town called Raysburg, West Virginia. In
The Clarinet Polka, Maillard turns that same eagle-eyed attention to the other side of the tracks of that very same town and creates a stunning portrait of Polish America and of one mans struggle to find meaning in his life and roots.
The year is 1969, and young Jimmy Koprowski returns from his stint in the airforce to Raysburg, his blue-collar Polish American hometown where nothing much happens beyond working at the steel mill, going to Mass, and getting drunk at the local PAC. Jimmys efforts at rebuilding his life result in sleeping off hangovers in his parents attic and drifting into a destructive affair with a married woman.
But things change when his younger sister Linda decides to start an all-girl polka band, and Jimmy falls for the bands star clarinetist, Janice, whose young life is haunted by tragic events that happened before she was born. The threads of Jimmys family life, the legacy of WWII Poland, and the healing power of music, language, and tradition all begin to converge.
At once gritty and compassionate, moving and witty, The Clarinet Polka showcases the emotional and perfectly pitched voice of a lost soul finding his way.
About the Author
Keith Maillard was born and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia, the inspiration for the fictional town of Raysburg which serves as the setting for
The Clarinet Polka and
Gloria (shortlisted for Canadas Governor Generals Award). His previous eight novels include
Two Strand River and
Alex Driving South. He now lives in Vancouver with his wife and two daughters and teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia.
Reading Group Guide
Author Keith Maillard received critical acclaim with his novel
Gloria, which told the story of a young woman on the cusp of womanhood in a town called Raysburg, West Virginia. In
The Clarinet Polka, Maillard turns that same eagle-eyed attention to the other side of the tracks of that very same town and creates a stunning portrait of Polish America and of one mans struggle to find meaning in his life and roots.
The year is 1969, and young Jimmy Koprowski returns from his stint in the airforce to Raysburg, his blue-collar Polish American hometown where nothing much happens beyond working at the steel mill, going to Mass, and getting drunk at the local PAC. Jimmys efforts at rebuilding his life result in sleeping off hangovers in his parents attic and drifting into a destructive affair with a married woman.
But things change when his younger sister Linda decides to start an all-girl polka band, and Jimmy falls for the bands star clarinetist, Janice, whose young life is haunted by tragic events that happened before she was born. The threads of Jimmys family life, the legacy of WWII Poland, and the healing power of music, language, and tradition all begin to converge.
At once gritty and compassionate, moving and witty, The Clarinet Polka showcases the emotional and perfectly pitched voice of a lost soul finding his way.