Jonah Man

Starred review from March 12, 2012
The title of this distinctive first novel is an expression that refers to a performer who, despite great effort, reaches the inevitable dwindling down of his career. The good news is Narozny’s fascinating glimpse into vaudeville in 1920s America does anything but stagnate. Told from the perspectives of a one-handed juggler whose prospects have gone south, a teenage boy with a talent for stealing the show, his wheeler-dealer dad who boozes and canoodles, and a police inspector with close tabs on them all, the narrative traces the gritty life on the show circuit, one schmaltzy act after another. But beneath all the fake glitz and glamour, there’s another story to tell: both the juggler and the drunk are addicted to an incandescent silver-blue substance, selling it to susceptible patrons on the side and skimming off their stash. All the characters are three-dimensional, each with a hidden soft spot that others unfortunately find opportunities to exploit. When the boy’s drunk dad is found murdered with a prostitute, her “wig crumpled blonde and bloody beside them,” and the cop investigates, there’s motive around every corner. A classic whodunit ripe with spare, snappy prose and riddled with period language, this is one show-stopper that deserves a standing ovation. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Foundry Literary + Media.

March 1, 2012
Narozny draws an intriguing literary debut from the unexpected milieu of yucks and pratfalls, "browsers" and "sleeper jumps" of 20th-century vaudeville. It is 1922, glory days for skits and novelty acts on stages large and small. But Swain, a one-handed juggler, scrambles for second-tier bookings, relegated to chase audiences after the performance of a child artist as gifted as a young Chaplin, a youngster named Jonson. Swain also is a drug courier, distributing vials of silver-blue liquid around the hinterland, vials he notches carefully each time he samples and then dilutes the contents. Narozny supplies ample back story for Swain. Twenty years earlier a major headliner as a wire act, and then he fell. Confidence gone, Swain partnered with Connor, a medicine show charlatan until, missing the vaudeville lights, he makes an unspeakable choice to return. The novel is divided into quarters, with Jonson pere, soon to be Swain's nemesis, the focus of the most compelling segment. Jonson too was vaudeville, in a husband-wife act, but his wife died in childbirth, leaving him with his son. Easing his pain with booze, Jonson takes work as a piano player in a high-society brothel, allowing his boy to be mothered by one of the girls. Jonson also becomes an ally of the madame, and she sends him back to vaudeville, accompanied by the boy already so talented as to be "a hytone note on a bill of hokum." Jonson is also to deliver the silver-blue narcotic and shadow Swain's drug dealings, an easy task since he's already suspicious of Swain's intentions toward his son. There are murders, with the final two segments unreeling from the point of view of the boy and of a nameless detective identified as the Inspector. The story unfolds believably, albeit with a subtle shadow of near surrealism. An original and promising literary debut.

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April 15, 2012
A drug-addicted, one-handed juggler, a talented but oppressed young performer and his abusive father, and a police inspector trying to track a drug-trafficking ring all play roles in the vignettes that make up Narozny's offbeat historical novel set in the world of mid1920's vaudeville. Narozny gives each character his piece to speak, and each packs a punch. Narozny makes good use of the vaudeville vernacular of the daythe title refers to a performer who is down on his luckand mixes it with stark descriptions of low-level entertainers trying to make enough dough to catch a train to the next show on the circuit. This is not the sugar-coated circus we saw in Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants (2006). Rather, it combines an almost Faulknerian cast of characters and a view of vaudeville that evokes Fredric Brown's equally gritty tales of carnies on the make. Pay attention to Narozny. He is an emerging talent likely to become more widely known in short order.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)