The Ordeals of Elly Robin

Quaver (Unplugged) kicks off a nine-volume series with the immersive if simplistic story of a piano prodigy orphaned during San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. Six-year-old Elly Robins is touring in a vaudeville troupe with her parents when the earthquake hits. Because she barely speaks as a result of her trauma, she’s assumed to be mute and is sent to a charitable asylum for “unfortunate girls,” where a sadistic matron subjects her wards to electroshock treatments. After Elly escapes, she meets a group of older hoboes and pretends to be a boy in order to join them. In the vein of dime-store adventure novels, Quaver unspools a colorful picaresque, as Elly hops trains up and down California, learns the ropes of the hobo jungle, and by the time she’s 10, earns money playing piano in a saloon. Quaver’s attempt at channeling the language and sensibilities of the period leans a bit too much on stereotypes when it comes to his Black, Chinese, and Jewish characters; only Elly’s depiction feels truly inspired. Still, it’s an intriguing slice of Americana. (Self-published)