"Temptation Rag" by Elizabeth Hutchinson Bernard is a richly satisfying and beautifully rendered tale of the syncopated rhythms of the lives of May Convery, Mike Bernard, and those who inhabited the gritty world of New York's City's vaudeville theaters and ragtime bars. This novel is historical fiction, since many of the characters actually lived. Ms. Bernard has used poetic license to fill in the voids that history has left blank. Her style and subject matter reminded me in many ways of the late great E. L. Doctorow.
May embodies Upper East Side wealth and privilege. Mike hails from the tenements of Jewish Lower East Side. Their worlds collide when the Convery family hires Mike to teach piano to the two daughters. Teenager May falls in love with Mike, and they secretly marry, but May's authoritative and patrician father squelches the marriage and has it annulled. Mike feels helpless and powerless, and May is devastated and enraged that her husband did not take a stand against her father. May and Mike remain estranged throughout the course of the narrative - their lives playing out in counterpoint that often crashes as a dissonant and unresolved chord. While Mike carves out a music career that has him proclaimed "Ragtime King of the World," May breaks free of her stifling golden handcuffs to carve out a successful career as a published poet and early feminist.
The bass notes for this narrative touch on the racial tensions of the early decades of the 20th century, the tension between white and black musicians over who "owns" ragtime music, and the perennial chasm that separates the Uptown Robber Barons from the denizens of the suffocating ghettos Downtown.
What is the price of freedom? How do we leave a legacy? How does one forgive the unforgivable? These questions and many more under-gird this well told tale of real people whose lives and art are shone in fascinating light by this gifted writer.
Enjoy!
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