Rhythm: A Novel

At 15, Jane Bowman has yet to emotionally process the fiery death of her mother, a famed Latin-jazz percussionist who perished three years prior in the nightclub where she was performing. Jane lives in tony Sewickley Heights, Pa., with her novelist father Sam and two outspoken housekeepers (“Mary One and Mary Two”) and forces herself to practice drumming, though the pastime reminds her too much of her beloved mother. At private school, Jane pals around with gay childhood friend Leo, but mostly keeps to herself, struggling with abandonment issues and weighty emotions always simmering just beneath the surface of her gruff, tomboyish exterior. Leo introduces her to Olivia Blue, a seasoned music teacher at a school for delinquent boys, hoping to stimulate Jane’s love for music. Their meeting stimulates Olivia to recruit Jane as the newest lead drummer of her school’s Allegheny Gatehouse Band, but it also ignites a romance between Olivia and Sam. After graduation, Jane heads to New York City, where her career as a percussionist blossoms with an eventful but short-lived stint with all-girl band Sisterhood of Soul, along with some heady sexual experimentation. The death of her grandparents creates a windfall of inherited wealth for Jane, but she manages to keep her bearings even in the midst of an opportunity to play with vulgar, cantankerous R&B star Bobby Angel. Love hits hard with a man from Jane’s past and the development of her own group nicely buoys the melodramatic denouement. Goldsby’s first novel (after her 2005 memoir Piano Girl), spans 15 years in the life of her gritty, resilient protagonist and is told with lyrical prose and deft characterization. Well-written, sympathetically earnest fiction. –Kirkus Discoveries