This book by Annie E. Proulx (Annie Proulx: ‘I’ve had a life. I see how slippery things can be’ | Annie Proulx | The Guardian) follows the movements of a small green accordion. The accordion maker leaves his native Sicily with his son Silvano in 1890 for ‘La Merica’. The promise of the land of dreams ends swiftly when he is lynched in a New Orleans riot.
The instrument finds its way into the hands of a German immigrant farmer, Hans Beutle, who settles in Iowa. Prospering for a while, Beutle’s fate is to die from a post-operative infection just in time for the Wall Street Crash to wipe out his money in 1929.
The next owner is not much luckier. Abelardo Salazar, a virtuoso player enjoys a career in the 1930s and 1940s promoting Tejano music only to be bitten by a venomous spider. The 1950s then see the accordion being played by French-Canadian owners before a move to Louisiana where Zydeco becomes popular. Poles and Norwegians also get their hands on the instrument, bringing out their own styles of harmony.
All these stories allow us to see how America has absorbed so many cultural traditions. The book amounts to a great panorama of the American immigrant working class over 100 years. Readers will enjoy the variety and vividness of characters conjured from the imagination of Annie Proulx.
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544 pages in Fourth Estate
First published 1996
ISBN-13 : 978-1857025750
