Twelve Bar Blues (Whitbread Prize Novel)

Description: Spanning three continents and two centuries, Twelve Bar Blues is an epic tale of fate, family, friendship and jazz. At its heart is Lick Holden, a young jazz musician, who sets New Orleans on fire with his cornet at the beginning of the last century. But Lick's passion is to find his lost step-sister and that's a journey that leads him to a place he can call 'home'. Meanwhile, at the other end of the century, we find Sylvia, an English prostitute, and Jim, a young drifter. They're in search of Sylvia's past, lost somewhere in the mists of the Louisiana bayou. Patrick Neate has written a story that straddles time and space, love and friendship, roots and pilgrimage and everything between. Poignant and hilarious, it will hook you - like a favourite tune - till the end. Review: If I could choose one current British writer to tell tall tales around my fantasy campfire, it would be Patrick Neate Daily Telegraph An endearing romp. Continents, and eras, come together in an infectious celebration of a mixed-up music - and the mixed-up people who create it -- Boyd Tonkin Independent A rollicking novel...energetic, divinely plotted. If the description of Lick raising the roof of a honky-tonk doesn't make your heart beat a little faster, there might be something wrong with your heart The Times Hugely enjoyable Independent on Sunday A formidable work of imagination Evening Standard Prizes: Winner of Whitbread Prize (Novel) 2001. Author Biography: Patrick Neate is the author of five novels: Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko, which won a Betty Trask Award, Twelve Bar Blues, which won the 2001 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award, The London Pigeon Wars, City of Tiny Lights and Jerusalem. His nonfiction includes Where You're At, which won the NBCC Award for Criticism in the USA. He is a Londoner.