Word: bluesã
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...bought for their iPod and hit play. Slow piano filled with the car, and then Marc Cohen’s voice, and then the drums: “Put on my blue suede sho-oes, …touch down in the land of the De-elta blues?? I was walking in Memphis!” Sitting in the driver’s seat, Andrew looked out his window, embarrassed; a baseball game had just ended, and happy fans were passing the Volvo in droves. “Hold on,” he said to Matt...
...problem, however, is that “Omaha Blues?? is not really his story...
...issue is not one of invention or hyperbole, of motive or execution, but rather one of focus. The country of memory Lelyveld establishes in “Omaha Blues?? feels like a homestead awarded him by chance, a claim better left unworked in favor of more fruitful ventures. His experience reporting overseas would seem to be rich territory upon which to build a memoir, but those are not the years and the events he chooses to survey in this text...
...latter part of “Omaha Blues?? functions as a tribunal intent on uncovering the vagaries of a misremembered, distorted, and often undocumented past outside of Lelyveld’s own experience, a Rashomon-like court set with the tasks of weighing evidence, collecting testimony, piecing together a mystery...
...result, however, is a work that itself reads as mysteriously pieced together. Lelyveld’s goals work at cross-purposes, leaving the reader confused and disappointed. “Omaha Blues?? shows how difficult it is to both conjure a ghost and purge restless memories within a single text. The endeavor is a valiant one, but it would have been better served by reserving its disparate aims for independent ventures...