Joplin's Ghost by Tananarive Due

Joplin’s Ghost was inspired by the legend of a ghost at the Scott Joplin house museum in St. Louis.  It is well known that the gifted ragtime composer led a tragic life, which author Tananarive Due translates into a fine story with supernatural elements.  No mere ghost story, the well-researched, finely crafted plot focuses on Phoenix Smalls, a contemporary R & B performer who has a connection Joplin’s ghost stemming from her childhood encounter with a piano that had once belonged to the composer, which forges the unique bond between them.  The story moves between Phoenix’s life and career in the early 21st century and Joplin’s in the early 20th.  The reader is treated to a primer on various forms of black music and their impact, social history, including the challenges of being black during some of the worst of Jim Crow racism, and a fine mystery.  Tananarive Due has credited Octavia Butler as an influence and I believe Ms. Butler would be proud.

496 pages/21 hours, 27 minutes (I switch between listening and reading)