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Summary: Mr. Gussow writes about blues, the music and the feeling.
Review: _Mr. Satans's Apprentice_ tells two stories, one about a boy's fascination with blues music in its pickled and preserved academic form, and another of a man's learning about the blues as a living music, playing with real, complicated people. Like the singer-storytellers he emulated in his youth, Mr. Gussow knows how to touch his audience's memories, to get them to nod and say, "Yes, sir, I've been there, or somewhere very close." He is also wise enough as a writer to craft a narrative that neither ignores nor disrespects the racial, cultural, and psychological issues inherent in his subject matter. He knows that the story he is telling is one that pushes people's buttons, but he also knows that the only thing to do is tell it anyway, not in an abstract, theoretical, self-analyzing way, but in a way that keeps the story always on a human scale, a story not about movements but people, not paradigms but feelings. Anyone who has ever used music as a substitute for love, wrestled with love and lost, or loved someone, knowing what an irritant he can sometimes be, will nod his head in self-recognition as he reads this book, feeling that essential human connection that marks grea writing and great blues.
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