Don't the Moon Look Lonesome A Novel in Blues and Swing

Stanley Crouch's gloriously bold first novel provides an intimate and epic portrait of America that breaks all the rules in crossing the boundaries of race, sex, and class. Blonde Carla from South Dakota is a jazz singer who has been around the block. Almost suddenly, she finds herself fighting to hold on to Maxwell, a black tenor saxophonist from Texas. Their red-hot and sublimely tender five-year union is under siege. Those black people who oppose such relatonships in the interest of romantic entitlement or group solidarity are pressuring Maxwell, and he is wavering. As Carla battles to save the deepest love of her life, her past plays out against the present, vividly bringing forth a startlingly fresh range of characters in scenes that are as accurately drawn as they are unpredictable and innovatively conceived.

Stanley Crouch has been a contributing editor to <i>The New Republic¸</i> is an editorial columnist for the New York <i>Daily News,</i> and is a frequent panelist on television and radio talk shows. He is the author of <b>Always in Pursuit</b><i>, T</i><b>he All-American Skin Game</b> (which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award), and <b>Notes of a Hanging Judge</b><i>.</i> For years a staff writer for the <i>Village Voice,</i> he is artistic consultant to jazz at Lincoln Center. A recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, Crouch lives in New York City.