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Overview
E. Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes is a masterpiece of storytelling that spans a century and a continent. Proulx brings the immigrant experience in America to life through the eyes of the descendants of Mexicans, Poles, Africans, Irish-Scots, Franco-Canadians and many others, all linked by their successive ownership of a simple green accordion. The music they make is their last link with the past—voice for their fantasies, sorrows and exuberance. Proulx’s prodigious knowledge, unforgettable characters and radiant language make Accordion Crimes a stunning novel, exhilarating in its scope and originality.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781416588887 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Scribner |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2007 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 432 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Hometown:
LaBarge, WyomingDate of Birth:
August 22, 1935Place of Birth:
Norwich, ConnecticutEducation:
Attended Colby College in the 1950s. B.A., University of Vermont, 1969; M.A., Sir George Williams University, 1973Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
The Accordion Maker
The instrument
It was as if his eye were an ear and a crackle went through it each time he shot a look at the accordion. The instrument rested on the bench, lacquer gleaming like wet sap. Rivulets of light washed mother-of-pearl, the nineteen polished bone buttons, winked a pair of small oval mirrors rimmed in black paint, eyes seeking eyes, seeking the poisonous stare of anyone who possessed malocchio, eager to reflect the bitter glance back at the glancer.
He had cut the grille with a jeweler's saw from a sheet of brass, worked a design of peacocks and olive leaves. The hasps and escutcheons that fastened the bellows frames to the case ends, the brass screws, the zinc reed plate, the delicate axle, the reeds themselves, of steel, and the aged Circassian walnut for the case, he had purchased all of these. But he had constructed and fashioned the rest: the V-shaped wire springs with their curled eyes that lay under the keys and returned them to position in the wake of stamping fingers, the buttons, the palette rods. The trenched bellows, the leather valves and gaskets, the skived kidskin gussets, the palette covers, all of these were from a kid whose throat he had cut, whose hide he had tanned with ash lime, brains and tallow. The bellows had eighteen folds. The wood parts, of obdurate walnut to resist damp and warpage, he had sawed and sanded and fitted, inhaling the mephitic dust. The case, once glued up, rested for six weeks before he proceeded. He was not interested in making ordinary accordions. He had his theory, his idea of the fine instrument; with the proof of this one he planned to make hisfortune in La Merica.
He set the fourths and then the fifths with a tuning fork and his naked ear, catching an aching but pleasurable dissonance. His sense of pitch was sure, he heard harmonies in the groan of hinges. The button action was quick, the subtle clacking like the rattle of dice in a gambler's hand. From a distance the voice of the instrument sounded hoarse and crying, reminding listeners of the brutalities of love, of various hungers. The notes fell, biting and sharp; it seemed the tooth that bit was hollowed with pain.
The world is a staircase
The accordion maker was hairy and muscular, a swell of black hair rising above a handsome face, an ear like a pastry circle. His irises were an amber color: in his youth he suffered the name "Chicken Eye." When he was twenty he had defied his blacksmith father and left the village to work in the north in the accordion factories of Castelfidardo. His father cursed him and they never spoke again.
He returned to the village when Alba, his betrothed, sent news of the opportunity to rent a plot of land with a handkerchief vineyard and miniature house. He was glad to leave the city for he was embroiled in a dangerous affair with a married woman. His hairiness drew women's attention. From time to time in their marriage his wife accused him of infidelities, and there were several. Accordions and hair drew women, could he help this? She knew it -- his gift for music had attracted her powerfully, his silky pelt, the hair curling from the throat of his shirt.
He took chills easily, shivered when the sun passed behind a cloud. His wife was warm and it was possible to stand close to her and feel the heat that radiated from her as from a little stove. Her hands seized children, plates, chicken feathers, goats' teats with the same hot grasp.
The rented vines, Calabrese, Negro d'Avola, Spagnolo, made a harsh wine without name, sold as a blending wine to foreigners. It was the local custom to hold the fermenting must on the skins for a week, the source of the wine's rough character and purple-black color. Swallowed straight down, it raked mouth and throat and, as other astringent liquids, was reputed to have beneficial medicinal qualities. The foreign buyers paid very little for it, but as it was the only possible source of cash income, the growers could not protest. The lack of land, money and goods, the boil of people, produced an atmosphere of scheming and connivance, of sleight of hand, of oaths of collusion, of brute force. What other way through life?
Besides the vineyard the accordion maker and his wife rented five old olive trees and a fig espaliered against the wall, and their lives were concerned with children, goats, hoeing and pruning, lugging panniers of grapes. At night the poverty of the place sounded in the whistle of wind through the dry grapestalks and the rub of moaning branches. Their hold on the plot of land weakened as the landlord, who lived in Palermo in a house with a copper roof, increased the rent one year and again the next.
The accordion maker's shop was at the end of the garden -- a hut that once housed sick goats with a floor space no larger than a double bed. On a shelf he had pots of lacquer, a box of flake shellac, various glues and sizings, squares of mother-of-pearl, two corked vials the size of a little finger containing bronze paint. Here were files, scrapers, his chisels -- one a flake of chert he had unearthed from the soil -- and gouges, taps, dies, metal tongues and hooks, tweezers and lengths of spring-steel wire, calipers and rules, nippers, punches and clamps, many of these tools stolen from the factory in Castelfidardo -- how else to gain possession of these necessary things? With a rigger's brush of a few sable hairs he painted scrolls and keys, flourishing triple borders bristling with bronze thorns. He sold the instruments to a dealer in the market town who, like the wine merchants, paid him almost nothing, enough to feed magpies, perhaps.
As the accordion maker gained mastery over his craft he began to imagine a life not possible in the malicious village, but likely enough in the distant place that rose and set in his thoughts: La Merica. He thought of a new life, fresh and unused, of money hanging in the future like pears hidden in high leaves. He whispered and murmured at night to his wife. She answered, "never."
"Listen," he said aloud furiously, waking the baby, "you know what your brother wrote." That bracket-faced fool Alessandro had sent a letter, spotted with red sauce and grimy fingerprints, that said come, come and change your destiny, turn suffering into silver and joy.
"The world is a staircase," hissed the accordion maker in the darkness. "Some go up and some come down. We must ascend." She refused to agree, put her hands over her ears and moaned when he announced a departure date, later pointed up her chin and rolled her eyes like a poisoned horse when he brought home the trunk with metal corners.
The General's paralysis
The accordion maker's posture, suggestive of hidden violence and challenge, caught the eye of other men. He stood with the left foot planted, the right cocked suggestively, his shoes black broken things. His character betrayed his appearance; he seemed louche and aggressive, but was not. He disliked grappling with problems. He depended on his wife to comb through difficulties. He produced the vaulting idea, the optimistic hope, she ordered the way in everything -- until now.
How many wake in the night, stretch out a hand to the sleeping mate and encounter a corpse? In the evening the accordion maker's wife had wept a little, lamented the looming journey, but there was nothing, nothing that gave a sign paralysis would come in a few hours to crouch above her ribs and thrust shims into her joints, stiffen her tongue, freeze her brain and fix her eyes. The accordion maker's fingers trembled up the rigid torso, the stone arm, the hard neck. He believed she was a dead woman. He lit the lamp, cried her name, slapped her marble shoulders. Yet her heart beat, sending the blood pounding through the pipes of veins until her rib-harp vibrated and this encouraged him to believe the afflict
Reading Group Guide
Accordion Crimes: A Novel
By Annie Proulx
Reading Group Discussion Guide
1. Describe the maker of the green, two-row button accordion that gets transferred from character to character over the course of a century in Accordion Crimes. What does he hope to do with accordions in America, and how does his dream get interrupted?
2. Who are the three Germans-Beutle, Messermacher, and Loats-who settle the town of Prank, and why are they loved and loathed by their community? How are they affected by anti-German sentiment? Compare their experiences as European immigrants to the Midwest to the prejudices encountered by the Sicilian accordion maker in New Orleans.
3. How is Abelardo Relampago Salazar defined by his accordion? When he tells his daughter, Felida: "A woman cannot play the accordion. It is a man's instrument," what does he mean? Why does Abelardo conceal the thousand-dollar bills inside his instrument, and what is significant about the manner in which he earns them?
4. "He wanted to play that music, music that belonged to him by blood inheritance, but could not learn it because he didn't speak French." What is ironic about Dolor Gagnon's inability to speak French? What does his trip to Quebec to hear the old accordion music help him to understand about himself? How does he embody alienation from one's ethnic heritage?
5. How does the green accordion find its way to the Malefoots? Describe the atmosphere in the home of this Cajun family. What roles do superstition and fate play in their day-to-day lives? How does superstition factor into Octave's obsession with the green accordion? Discuss race relations in the South in the 1960s, as conveyed through the experiences of Ida, Octave's sister.
6. What are some of the racial tensions between the Polish and black communities in Chicago, as experienced by the Przybysz family? How do these problems influence Joey's assumptions about the theft of his performance accordions? How do Joey and Sonia play on their Polish heritage to make ends meet?
7. What brings Vergil Wheelwright to Montana with Josephine Switch? How would you describe Vergil's encounter with Fay McGettigan? What are some of the qualities of life that attract people like Fay McGettigan and the Basque sheepherders to Montana?
8. Discuss some of the bizarre occurrences that befall the Gasmann family in Old Glory. What happens to Nils Gasmann and his son, Ivar, when the Atomic Power Trailer Church comes to town? Describe some of the strange circumstances surrounding Vela Gasmann's tragic maiming, and discuss how Vela's rejection of accordion music plays a role in her recovery.
9. What are some of the unusual coincidences in Accordion Crimes that bring the accordion to each of its temporary owners? Discuss the accordion's brief stays in taxi cabs and pawn shops. How does the title, Accordion Crimes, relate to the nature of the stories told in each chapter?
10. How does the accordion's passing into the hands of ethnic communities across America suggest the scope of the immigrant experience? Consider aspects of the Sicilian, Mexican, German, Polish, African, Irish-Scots, Norwegian, and French-Canadian immigrant experience in America in this novel. Which, if any, of these stories resonated most with you? Why?
11. How does the music of the accordion affect the immigrants profiled in Accordion Crimes? Why do you think the accordion elicits such powerful emotions in people from so many different cultures?
12. Of all of the stories told in Accordion Crimes, which do you find especially memorable? Why?
ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION Make your own melting pot! Many of the ethnic communities profiled in Accordion Crimes are well known for their marvelous food. For your next discussion, ask each member of the group to bring a dish that is associated with one of the following ethnic American communities profiled in the novel: Sicilian-American, Irish-American, Cajun, Mexican-American, Polish-American, and Norwegian-American...or pick a favorite ethnic restaurant and have your discussion there.
Many of the characters in Accordion Crimes emigrated to the United States from other countries. Determine how many members of your book club can trace their family's origins to the time of their arrival in the United States. To prepare for your discussion, you may want to visit ellisisland.org/immexp/wseix_2_3.asp to learn more about the exciting online opportunities to perform family ancestry searches.
Accordion Crimes, tracks the progress of a double-row button accordion over the course of a century through the immigrants who acquired it. To help your group learn more about accordions, visit pbs.org/accordiondreams/main/index.html where you will find a helpful timeline of the accordion's production as a musical instrument, fascinating images of the different kinds of accordions in production, and a series of links to musical recordings.
