The Fisher King
A young boy arrives at a forbidding brownstone in Brooklyn. His great-grandmother shows him how to “chase the keys” and fish for the music on a player piano. Her son had to leave the States to pursue his art, and now she looks for him in the namesake of Sonny-Rett Payson. Then Sonny meets his other great-grandmother. Florence McCullum is an outspoken as Ulene Payne is guarded.
Young Sonny-Rett loves his home in a rundown district a few blocks from the elegant boulevard of Paris cafes. His caretaker Hattie wants to move back to Paree Cinq, where the Belle Epoque club still features a poster of Sonny-Rett, jazz pianist.
Marshall sketches each character’s relationship to the boy, then fills in key scenes from each one’s past, branching out the point of view. She attributes dialog by a terse naming of the speaker, no verb. She builds a metaphor from the castles the boy draws, with himself a little knight. Racial relations are brought into high relief, human relations are complicated by envy and spite. In style and content, The Fisher King excels.
