The sort of enjoyable tension that keeps readers turning the pages as fast as they can read requires two very different skills. Plotting is front and center when generating tension. One thing happens and we expect a knock-on, but instead – and now we’re on a different path. Paths and problems keep us guessing what’s going to happen, and turning the pages to find out.
Equally, and perhaps more important, are the characters. They need not be sympathetic, but they must be compelling. If we enjoy “being” with all the characters we meet in a book, then we’ll read the pages as well as turn them. With Symphony of Secrets, Brendan Slocumb masterfully creates characters we enjoy our time with (ie, reading about) and crafts a very original plot that slaloms between the past and a present misinformed about that past. Between his inventive plotting and compelling (but not always sympathetic) characters, Slocumb has created a novel that is thoroughly enjoyable, a true can’t-turn-the-pages-fast-enough thriller and inspires timely self-questioning about race, art, and appropriation.
The novel opens in 1936, as America’s greatest composer of classical music, Frederick Delaney, prepares for the debut of his masterwork, the opera RED. He’s tired of being called a has-been. Then we skip to the present day, as musicologist Bern Hendricks receives a mysterious communiqué from the Delaney Foundation. A specialist in all things Frederick Delaney, he’s been asked to authenticate a new piece of music. It should be a straightforward task, but with the help of his IT-genius friend Eboni Washington, as the layers of lies surrounding Delaney unravel, the tension ramps up. The truth may not be kind to folks with lots of money, people who may have enough on hand to prevent Bern and Eboni from either determining just what is true, or failing that, prvent them from sharing that truth.
Once we know where things stand in the present, Slocumb follows up on Delaney’s story in the past. Here, we meet a younger Frederick Delaney, selling sheet music in New York. Slocumb’s world-building of the1920’s and 1930’s music business if truly engrossing. Delaney meets Josephine Reed, a young black woman who lives on the streets, sneaks into jazz clubs, and is a natural musician. Entranced, amazed by her talent, he begins to work with her. Slocumb’s gradual revelation of their relationship is simply astonishing, riveting, believable and fraught with tension. As he weaves between Bern and Eboni and Frederick and Josephine, readers will enjoy that peak state of tension, worrying about the compelling characters wound up in situations that may prove to be more than they can competently or morally contend with.
While Symphony of Secrets is a thrilling, fun novel to read, Slocumb is ever effective at providing the ingredients for more than just pleasant page-turning. He doesn’t have to ask the hard questions, they’re all around us. He melds the fascinating and the flawed into an exciting plot with great characters on both sides of more than one spectrum. Symphony of Secrets uncovers hidden truths to power a propulsive story.
Brendan Slocumb is a great writer because he knows how to trust an entertaining narrative. The joy he finds in creating narratives is obvious, and you will find yourself caught up in his happiness as well as his stories about writing Symphony of Secrets by following this link to the download of our conversation; or, listen below.
Narrative Species 