During the innocent time of 1954, in rural Michigan, Martin Dijksterhuis a high school senior falls in love with his neighbor, Cory Williams who is an African American. With the optimism of youth Martin believes in dreams and that love will overcome. This is the stage set by Robert Hellenga in his third novel Blues Lessons.

Martin and Cory are constant companions since childhood. Martin's family owns the orchard where Cory's father is employed as a foreman. One evening Cory and Martin sneak through the orchard to listen to the migrant workers playing the blues. Martin uses the money he has saved from the Summer of working the orchards to purchase the beat up old national steel from the guitar player. He thinks has found his calling and the love of his life.

Hellenga nicely captures the hope and delicacy which exists in first love. Martin's feelings for Cory are beautiful and fragile. Love is never as simple as we hope when we are teenagers. Hellenga's story shows how family relationships can be strained to the breaking point when we try to choose other's path.

For those who have read Hellenga's previous book The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons may be a bit of a disappointment. The story doesn't move at quite the same pace nor does it have the angst that was so apparent in The Fall of a Sparrow. While it doesn't have the Harrowing emotions of his previous book it does examine the impact which family members have on each other and the life choices they make and the reasons behind choosing vocations.

As a lover of the blues I appreciate the story of Martin's love of the blues and his developing career as a blues artist. It examines the period in 1960's when blues was "rediscovered" and many of the original delta blues artists were "found."

For those who appreciate stories about family relationships, I recommend this book.

Robert Hellenga's "Blues Lesson" is not only about what happens when one follows one's dream but also when one doesn't.
Martin is a young man of Appleton, Michigan living on an apple farm who has big dreams of going to college and making something of his life. His mother in particular, who teaches languages at the local high school shares and even pushes him towards her alma mater, the University of Chicago.
But Martin has a couple of other interests: the Blues, which he hears the day laborers, employed by his father, sing really rejoice in... and a young lady named Corrina Williams.
When Corrina becomes pregnant with Martin's child and leaves town at the behest and with the financial backing of Martin's parents, Martin's life goes into a tailspin: he drops plans for college, gets a job with the US Postal Service and fervently pursues the learning and performance of the Blues.
Hellenga has some magical things to write about performance: "Every night, at small venues around the country, thousands of performers like me walk out onto small stages to sing their songs, to tell their stories...sometimes we die a thousand deaths; but other times the music opens our hearts, lifts the veil of familiarity, reveals the mysterious inner life of things--raw,fresh, fragile."
Robert Hellenga's "Blues Lessons" is a gentle story, rife with the every day things of lives, missed connections, unfulfilled dreams and mis-placed emotions. But it is the cumulative effect of these factors which make it such a fine and thoughtful read.

Hellenga's third novel is more complicated, more mature, and more consistent than his earlier novels. The voice of the beautifully compelling and flawed main character rings true at every stage, especially when the reader knows more or sympathizes differently than he does. I really appreciated the extensive research that went into this novel and how it enriches the story, especially a sense of time and place, rather than revealing an authorial hand.
This story captures complex aspects of race, with the white, male protagonist's first love and developing fascination with blues culture. He wants to believe that he can follow his heart, that his heart is pure, that his passions are blind to color, that cultural divisions can be crossed--beliefs he can cling to for awhile because he's a young, male, Midwestern, white boy--but life's not that simple. Hellenga really stretches his talent with Blues Lessons, and readers will probably think twice about who they are--and why.

THE SIXTEEN PLEASURES epitomizes perfection in a novel. This is a small book that uses language which is quiet, and phrasing that is careful and deliberate. The novel tells a story which is distinctive, complex and compelling; the plot is unpredictable right up until the last page. Only after completing THE SIXTEEN PLEASURES does it become obvious how rich and full a novel it actually is.

THE SIXTEEN PLEASURES is set in Florence, definitely one of the most beautiful places on our planet. As the tale unfolds, the reader is instructed about the great flooding of the Arno in 1966, about cloistered religious orders, and about the preservation of rare books.

The "pleasures" of the title allude to a medieval ... manual that is the property of a religious order of nuns, a manual which has been damaged in the flood. The whole novel is reported in the first person by the narrator, a female book restorer from America. She is seduced by everything with which she comes in contact, including the life of a cloistered nun, the Tuscan region itself, and a male art restorer with whom she re-enacts some of the pleasures.

At all times, the language, under the control of author Robert Hellenga, is lyrical. THE SIXTEEN PLEASURES is as close to perfection as a novel gets.

...and that's 5 out of 5. Some books we read don't elicit much discussion, so that our group has plenty of time to catch up on gossip, but "The Sixteen Pleasures" engaged us in coversation for a full hour--certainly a record for our book club. The plot involves a woman in her mid-twenties who goes to Florence to help after the big flood there. She is an expert in book restoration, and gets to restore a rare medieval book of erotica that some nun-friends of hers have. We enjoyed the main character's development; found her credible, likeable; same for her family and the complex emotions involved with them. Some of our members barely tolerated the details about art and book restoration, but others enjoyed learning about it. The novel's plot gets moderately gripping at the end, although it takes a long build-up to get there. And the very end of the book is satisfyingly ambiguous; no pat endings here. One universal disappointment: the cover promises an erotic adventure, but of all the sixteen pleasures, we only get to hear about one of them in much detail. Oh well. Italy is its own erotic adventure, so read it for that.

... I found a book in the cupboard next to my bed where I keep books I intend to read. My sister had lent it to me, saying it was very good. But it was one of those books about an American in Florence, and since I am American expat in Florence I was skeptical. Usually these stories are based on preconceived ideas of Italy as a 3rd world country with charming farmers living next to your summer rental which is falling apart in such a charming way as you sip your cheap red wine. A new paperback, the book was musty smelling as I started reading this fascinating story about a woman who came to Florence after the flood in 1966, armed with amazing expertise in book conservation, and a lot of courage I'd say, given that she didn't have much to back her up in terms of money or connections. She finds her way day by day, new friend by new friend, establishing herself in her new city. I found the description of her story as it evolved very natural, and very familiar. Those of us who have moved to this city, trying to make it our new home, have all experienced the wonderful taste of trust from strangers who take us under their wings, protect us, and show us the way through the Italian labyrinth, and the betrayal by lovers who leave us or employers who dump us. So, if you find this book in the cupboard next to your bed, read it! It's a treasure.

After reading and enjoying "The Sixteen Pleasures," I was profoundly disappointed with the pretentious and overwritten "The Fall of the Sparrow." The main character--so obviously Hellenga himself--is a weasly fool who doesn't have the sense to toss a drunken student out of his bed. He just seems to bumble from one event to another with absolutely no sense of honor or conviction. The sex scenes are embarrassing, for they smack of mid-life crisis gone mad. The convenient way the wife takes off for a monastery is not only unbelievable, but cruel, for what mother would turn her back on her remaining children after they already suffered the loss of a beloved sibling? The shifts in point of view are annoying and seem to have no point whatsoever. One minute we are seeing things through Woody's eyes, then Sara's. Hellenga did the same thing in "The Sixteen Pleasures," but at least that was a tightly contained, beautifully written book about characters you loved and wanted to know in real life. I didn't want to know anyone from "The Fall of the Sparrow."

This is an expansive book, told by multiple voices, traveling across time and place (from small town Illinois, to Iran, to Bologna) with a fulcrum that's equal parts classical literature and the exploration of love and loss.
Sound like a lot? Throw in bats, guitars, the blues, Italian terrorism, museum installations, chaos, cooking and a nun or two and you get the idea of the richness and variety of this deftly written book.
The story is moving and well-woven. The central character is likable, interesting and a pleasure to watch, even as he stumbles in the wreckage of a life devastated by tragedy.
Does the author pull it off? Sort of. The ending falls a bit flat, the voices sometimes waver (and so does the prose), the well-researched details sometimes lack a deeper verisimilitude or empathetic human understanding and the explorations don't always lead anywhere. Still, it's a rich, intelligent, ambitious ride and well worth reading.

I'm an insatiable reader and I open a new novel hungry for...what? Truth, beauty, an engrossing experience, a convincing, compelling world not my own that I can inhabit, thrillingly, for a short time, and return from (at least in the best of novels)with both reluctance and relief. Well, The Fall of a Sparrow IS the best of novels, a true feast. The world of Woody Woodhull, revered Classics professor at a small midwestern college and beloved and very domesticated father of two daughters on the brink of adulthood, is a complex and fragile place. As the book opens, Woody is on emotional hold. Almost seven years ago his oldest daughter Cookie died in a political bombing in Bologna, Italy. Since then his wife has turned from the family to life in a convent near Chicago. Now his daughters, too, are leaving home, one for college, the other, Sara (the book's second narrator)for her first job in Chicago. Gradually, in what Woody first interprets as his moving beyond Cookie's death, he opens his heart again--falling in love first with a guitar, and then with a student. But in opening himself once again to the life of the senses--sex, food, singing the blues--he eventually discovers he has opened himself also to a deeper understanding and appreciation of who his lost daughter was, and then, as the novel moves to Italy, to a coming to terms with how she died.

This is a very rich and complex story. Without giving away too much to potential readers, I can promise a compelling, intelligent narrative, deliciously sensuous prose, and a level of emotional involvement in the characters that is both heartbreaking and wonderfully satisfying. Irresistible...I'm just waiting for the accompanying blues soundtrack and the cookbook!