Feel the passion of music through a young fiddler

"Fiddler's Dream"

by Gregory Spatz

Southern Methodist

University Press,

248 pp., $22.50

Jesse Alison is a gifted bluegrass musician. At 19, he leaves his home in Vermont for Nashville in hopes of auditioning for the famed Bill Monroe, the "father of bluegrass." Jesse stays with an old acquaintance, Genny Freed, who makes and repairs violins for local musicians.

Through Genny's contacts, he soon finds himself playing with the best bluegrass players in Nashville. He also finds himself attracted to Genny ... and allured by her violins. In fact, pages and pages are devoted to the qualities of the fiddle — the tuning, upkeep and structure — underscoring the instrument's importance to the musician. As he becomes a real contender in town, Jesse gains the courage to travel to Mississippi and meet his estranged father, once a famous bluegrass musician like Bill Monroe. In the end, he strips away the delusions he's held of his father and is on the road to becoming an accomplished bluegrass musician.

Author and Spokane resident Gregory Spatz has written a prior novel, "No One But Us," and a story collection, "Wonderful Tricks." His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Iowa Review and New England Review. In addition to teaching at Eastern Washington University in Spokane, he plays fiddle in the bluegrass band John Reischman and the Jaybirds.

The novel "Fiddler's Dream" is not just a coming-of-age story but a poetic insight into the world of the musician. Don't expect a history of bluegrass music but rather a tightly focused chronicle of one fiddler's odyssey, down to the throbbing fingers. Although the dramatic build up just prior to Jesse meeting his father seems to go on too long, Spatz cuts this novel off on just the right notes, creating one of most inspired final sentences I have read in a long time.

Slow down when reading this one and enjoy the music in every sentence.