The Ragtime Kid

What makes a historical novel work for me is that the story as presented could not take place at any other time or place in history than where it is. Too many times in recent years, I've stopped reading because the characters are not sensible of their time in history, or the clothing or manners or locale or vocabulary just don't match the time and place. It can't happen there just because the author says it does. To me, that indicates a lazy author and/or editor, and the result is simply not worth my time as a reader. The RAGTIME KID by Larry Karp is an absolutely perfect example of everything as it should be. There are a sprinkling of real people, so cleverly mixed with characters created by the author that the the two groups are virtually indistinguishable from each other. It's true I was not in Sedalia Missouri in the summer of 1889, but I can't believe it was one bit different from that location as described a century by Mr. Karp. I know the music descriptions are accurate as well as the clothing, and I'm quite certain that the social history regarding the Civil War and left-over feelings regarding blacks and whites and their interactions with each other are presented exactly as they really were at that time. (Unhappily, as a nation, we still haven't progressed very far from too many of the ignorant opinions expressed by some very intolerant persons in this book.) The secret to good ragtime is that it must be rendered slowly. That advice pertains to this novel as well. If you follow that advice while reading it, you will afford yourself innumerable pleasures as they expose themselves slowly, a layer at a time. This is also a mystery novel, in addition to being a dandy historical tale, and all the clues are right there in front of one's eyes. This is where reading slowly and savoring it as you go will serve the reader well. Read too fast, and you'll miss out on myriad clues that will leave you asking 'where did *that* come from?' Scott Joplin was a gentleman of great talent and intelligence. He was also dark-skinned, and that fact alone could easily have negated every other facet of his existence, had it not been for fair-minded persons who gave him the oppportunity to be himself. He was very capable of playing the 'classical' music of his time, by the pre-eminent European composers -- Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin and others. But he wanted to join their ranks by creating a new genre -- classic ragtime. In spite of the opposition he encountered, he did just that, as exemplified by his music that lives on, a century after he wrote it. Of course, Joplin wasn't the only creator of ragtime music, but his particular style may be the best-known today. Fortunately, some of the events that unfold in this scintillating novel didn't really happen, afater all, or we might not know the music of Scott Joplin at all. We would all be the poorer, had that happened. Also fortunately, Mr. Joplin had the great good fortune to encounter people of foresight

I've just re-read Larry Karp's The Ragtime Kid, and just as you shouldn't play ragtime too fast, you shouldn't read Karp's book too fast, either, lest you miss the music of his prose and the nuances of the stories he tells. In this, his latest book, it's 1899, and young piano player Brun Campbell has run away from his rural home in Oklahoma to Sedalia, Missouri. He's only just heard ragtime for the first time, and hopes to learn this new music from the master himself, Scott Joplin. Arriving in Sedalia, and looking for a room for the night, he stumbles, literally, upon the body of a woman, and picks up two objects that will become vital to the solution of her murder. He finds employment at a music store, and begins studying with Joplin, but when a man he knows is innocent is arrested, Brun is, however unwillingly, drawn into the search for the real murderer. Though Sedalia is a town filled with music, it is only 30 years since the end of the War Between the States, and racism is very much a part of this story. Joplin insists on being taken seriously as a musician, and receiving royalties on the sheet music which will bear his name as composer, an unprecedented demand for the times. Thus, another plot line develops, as Joplin pursues his ambitions despite some unprincipled and amoral adversaries. The characters here are a mixture of real, from Joplin and Campbell and other musical figures, and fictional, to some of the townspeople. In skin color, they are black and they are white, and in character they are black and white, as well, but the two categories do not necessarily overlap. Brun himself is a fifteen-year-old, a musical Huck Finn in some ways, coming of age in a world more complex than he ever imagined, and he's learning, at first hand, what black and white are all about. As events unfold, Karp vividly captures the sheer awfulness of racial (and other) bias as it was then. Just as there are two plot lines, there are two narrative voices here, speaking in a gentle counterpoint. One voice is someone who knows Brun and tells his part of the story, occasionally noting that "Brun once told [him]" about one event or another. The other voice is an omniscient third-person narrator, who recounts Joplin's story, and the ongoing search for the murderer of the woman whose body Brun found. As Brun's music lessons commence, his plot and Joplin's intertwine, connected by some unscrupulous music promoters, and by his own efforts to absolve the innocent man. All the characters, and some of them are surprising, are vividly realized, and they all speak very much in their own voices. Those voices, moreover, are often eloquent. Early in the book, Joplin tells Brun that ragtime is like "a bright sunny day, just a perfect day, but . . . sooner or later, the lovely day will have to end." Even more moving is a grieving father's lament for the brutal death of his son, which he knows will not be investigated: "[We] was born slaves, and now we been

Larry Karp writes books. He doesn't just write genre fiction; he writes each work as an individual, well-crafted, offbeat narration. Even in his Music Box series, published by the now-defunct Write Way, all three novels were entirely singular, and unique. So, too, is *The Ragtime Kid*, an outstanding piece of historical intrigue that focuses on the origins of ragtime music and is written within the murder mystery/crime literature category of fiction. Dr. Karp is a particularly fine writer, and his prose shines, but here, the story itself--and the characters--truly dominate. The protagonist of the book, young Brun Campbell, is so drawn by the allure of the new music craze, ragtime, that he runs away from home to study with the great Scott Joplin in Sedalia, Missouri. Just off the train, Brun stumbles over the body of a woman, Then, not long after, he has himself a job and becomes a student of the elegant black composer, Joplin, who very well might be a homicide suspect. Another great theme of the book is American racism. Although the Civil War has been over for a good long time, those who fought in the war--and many in Sedalia did--haven't forgotten--from one side of the great divide, or the other. Racism, ragtime, and murder are his topics, and Karp intertwines the three adroitly for the novel's readers, then throws in a little romance as a sort of seasoning. Male/female relationships are as complex in The Ragtime Kid as they are in real life. But perhaps the element that tickled me most about the book is the fine detailing of the time and place. Karp, a longstanding ragtime enthusiast, took the Scott Joplin biography and that of the real-life Brun Campbell, and without distorting the documented facts, wove a tale of what might have occurred. Behind that marvelous foreground though lies a backdrop lending the intoxicating particulars of the time: memories of the Chicago's World Fair in 1893, a young woman eager to perform in vaudeville, a spring-powered fan to drive away the heat, and yellow streetcars providing the Sedalia citizens their transportation. In short, Karp has created a darn good read, a compelling and literate story that entertains on many levels--as a novel, as a mystery, and as a chronicle of one stage in our national history--a tale peopled by very real and believable characters. *The Ragtime Kid* proves itself to be both a fun and an enlightening pastime. G. Miki Hayden, author of *Writing the Mystery* and *The Naked Writer*.

We already knew that Larry Karp was a talented mystery writer, thanks to his previous novels. This latest work shows that he can write historical fiction and make it fascinating. Even though I started the book knowing nothing about ragtime music, by the end I wanted to learn more! His other strength is his ability to create characters that are so real, and so endearing, that the reader quickly begins to identify with and root for the protagonist(s). This makes the book a real page-turner, because you can't wait to read more about what "your" characters are doing! If you haven't read anything by Larry Karp yet, you're in for a treat!

Brun Campbell loves to hear and play music. In Oklahoma city he listens to some musicians in a music store playing a tune by Scott Joplin and knows instantly that is what he wants to learn how to play. He runs away from home at fifteen and hops a train for Sedelia, Missouri in the hopes that he can get Mr. Joplin to give him lessons. On the way into town he runs across the body of a woman strangled to death and he takes a musical money clip that is nearby and a locket on her neck. In town he meets businessman Mr. Fitzgerald who stakes him to a room at the YMCA and money to buy food while he looks for work. Someone who hears him playing music recommends he ask music store owner Mr. Stark for a job. Mr. Stark listens to him play and offers him a job on the spot. He also auditions for Joplin who agrees to give him lessons. When Mr. Fitzgerald is arrested for the murder of the woman Brun saw the first day he was in town; he knows the man didn't do it. The money clip which belonged to Joplin could implicate him and Brun in the murder. Brun decides to find the killer with the unwitting help of the townsfolk as he maneuvers them in the direction he wants them to go for information relating to the murder. As historical mysteries go, THE RAGTIME KID is one of the better ones. The author doesn't only write a good who done it, he shows the readers how the plight of the black man had changed very little since Emancipation back three decades earlier. Scott Joplin takes a big risk to be paid in royalties with his name as the arranger of the music, something unheard of in the 1890's. The protagonist has a touch of larceny in him that helps him get what he wants but he is so adorable, readers will root for him in spite of his faults. Harriet Klausner