An elegy to the author’s parents and to America past and present

The author’s romanticizing and grieving for her lost parents and America extends from the Prohibition era, its glamour and notoriety, with figures like Warren Harding and Josephine Baker to Enron, urban decay, and illegal immigration.

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Endorsements:

“. . . American Rhapsody is a charming, witty, musical portrayal of American life in the 1920s and ’30s and of its larger impact on the nation today. Stone evokes the sublime of Le Jazz Hot and the seediness of rum-runners, marathon dancers and racketeers. Through it all she muses on the hope and destiny of the American dream, elegizing believers who ‘live / as language / in my inky heart.’ ”—Grace Schulman

From the Book:

Rhapsody in Blue

Gershwin bends over the Steinway,
huge orchestra behind him. Ira, backstage,
hums along, unaware of the tumor
squeezing his brother’s brain.

He’s got the blues, them there blues,
he thinks when George misses notes,
bowing too low until the clapping dies.
Afterwards, brownstone parties

where he pounds the piano keys until dawn.
‘S wonderful. It’s awfully nice. It’s Paradise.
How crazy, how sad
Gershwin should die at thirty-nine.

At ten, swaying
to Paul Whiteman’s orchestra
on the tinny Victrola my parents left me,
rhapsody and mourning mix.

Let’s call the whole thing off.