I recently read Rafi Zabor’s 1998 debut novel The Bear Comes Home. Zabor’s tale of an up-and-coming NYC saxophone player and his quest to create a personal style that will build on, rather than imitate, his heroes Coltrane, Monk and Mingus, happens to be a walking, talking bear with opposable thumbs. His name’s The Bear, but friends call him Bear.
The Bear has the sensitive soul and single-minded obsessiveness of an artist struggling to find his voice. He’s also in love with a human woman, the law is after him for being an unlicensed bear, scientists want to study him and the record companies want to screw him. Through all that, The Bear just wants to find some transcendent truth inside his music.
The book is brilliant. Zabor’s prose sparkles like stage lights on a sax, moving effortlessly into and out of The Bear’s consciousness, which is fully human but also fully ursine. The Bear’s story is rendered with wit and a keen sense of the absurd, reminding the reader of the constant alienation The Bear feels in the human world. Little details had me laughing out loud such as The Bear’s nervousness before a recording session leading to a “light” breakfast of eight bagels and a salad bowl of coffee.
The real joy in Zabor’s novel, though, is the way he writes about music. Many of The Bear’s struggles and battles are fought out while improvising with other musicians (Charlie Hayden and other real life jazz legends make cameo appearances) and the pages-long descriptions of solos and jams allow the music to become a beautifully wrought metaphor for The Bear’s internal struggles.
If you love jazz and love bears, The Bear Comes Home is a must read.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
Caught up with you at last!
Your write-up of this book certainly piques my curiosity. One for the Amazon wishlist, I think.
I love your greyhound pictures. We’ve a friend who has had a couple of grey hounds, though now she’s got a rescued collie-cross. The older greyhound, a striking blonde, in particular had tremendous presence; other dogs on the beach who were after trouble quickly slunk off when Betsie appeared, without her having to utter a single growl.
And thanks so much for the mention and the compliment earlier on here, which is much appreciated.