Poet Wheeler (Smokes
; Ledger
) riffs on lingerers at the eponymous Chicago record shop in a novel with all the snazzy syncopation of the jazz at its heart. Cindy, a recent California transplant, is supposed to be studying art history at the University of Chicago, but more often she's drinking in bars and looking through the selection at the dark and dingy but fully stocked music store owned by Acie Stevenson, a fat, jaded jazz lover staring 60 in the face. Cindy's also nursing an attraction to one Harnett Mtukufu, a music reporter and radio deejay who's later revealed to be Acie's irresponsible son, Bowtie. Enter also Philomena Stevenson, Acie's newly widowed white sister-in-law, who's got breasts like "bombs trussed up in cotton lace" and a mouth to match. It spells trouble for Acie first, who gets beat up in the club where he's taken Cindy for her birthday, and pretty soon it'll spell trouble for others, as Cindy's knowledge of art and art collecting proves useful for Bowtie's business in art forgeries as well as for recognizing the sketches in Acie's nasty bathroom as being valuable pieces by a German artist she's currently studying. Shifting narrators allow Wheeler's feel for the subtle variations in vernacular to shine in this knotty but mesmerizing little novel. (June)
