The two haunting, poetic novellas that comprise The Bass Saxophonebrilliantly evoke the comedy and sadness of life under the Nazi and Soviet dictatorships. They are prefaced by a remarkable memoir of Skvorecky's jazz-obsessed youth. Jazz is a symbol of freedom in both these novellas.In Emoke, which is set in the shadow of the Communist regime, jazz becomes the means by which a jaded young man plots the seduction of a mysterious girl enmeshed in superstition and the occult. Spurned, but fascinated, he is drawn into her tortured existence until catapulted into the final bitter comedy.In The Bass Saxophone a young Czechoslovakian student living under the rule of the Nazis is lured by his love of jazz - the "forbidden music" - into secretly and dangerously playing in a German band, with bizarre and unexpected results.Written with the lyrical intensity of a great jazz performance, these two extraordinary novellas are among Skvorecky's...

From the widely acclaimed author of Dvorak in Love and The Engineer of Human Souls comes an unusual Civil War novel based on the documented memories of Czech soldiers who fought for the Union in the 26th Wisconsin battalion under General William Tecumseh Sherman.

Girls, jazz, politics, the golden dreams and black comedy of youth--these are the compelling ingredients of The Cowards.May 1945, a small town in Czechoslovakia. The Germans are withdrawing. The Red Army is advancing. And Danny Smiricky is being forced to grow up fast. Observing with contempt the antics of the town's citizens playing it safe, he adopts the role first of reluctant conscript, then of dashing partisan.The Cowards is the story of an uncomplicated, talented youth caught up in momentous historic events who refuses to be bored to death by politics--or to lie down and die without a fight.--