Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Charbon

Charbon’s new novel audaciously centers primarily on African-American characters.  He grew up in Columbia MD, an experimental planned community that mixed ethnic, economic and religiously diverse homeowners and many of his childhood friends were black.  This background helped inform the novel as does his fascination with popular culture – in this case jazz instead of comic books (Kavalier and Clay).  Archy Stallings (black) and Nat Jaffe (Jewish) are long-time partners in the “church of vinyl,” Brokeland, a used record store.  Their wives are also business partners as sought-after midwives.  Set in Oakland, the poor relation of neighboring Berkeley, by 2004 both businesses are in trouble.  A megastore, part of a chain owned by a famous NFL player, will soon compete with Brokeland, which is housed in a former black barbershop and still serves as a neighborhood gathering place.  A difficult home birth, and more difficult attending physician at the hospital that the mother is transported to, threatens the two midwives’ careers.  Add to the mix the sudden appearance of an unacknowledged teenaged son of Archy’s; his hugely pregnant wife’s impending delivery; and the death of a revered jazzman, and you get a complex plot.  But the real star of the novel is the writing.  Just brilliant on every page.  Well, maybe not that 11 page-long sentence…..  A worthy successor to one of my favorite novels, The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay.  480 pp.