Classic Albom: American author’s musical fiction an instant classic

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This article was published 19/12/2015 (3647 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The first thing you must do before sitting down to read The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto is suspend disbelief, a pretty standard requirement for Mitch Albom novels.

This is the American author’s seventh novel; his earlier works have sold more than 35 million copies worldwide.

In this case, Albom has enlisted Music to be the reader’s guide — a pleasant, erudite companion who assigns a time signature to every segment of the story. So pull up a chair, maybe pour a glass of sherry, and enjoy.

You might, however, want to defer to Music’s sensibilities and have a pot of tea instead, for as she will tell you, she has lost many talented musicians to substance abuse. The abuse changes nothing, for “you may alter your state, but you will not alter this truth: I am music. I am inside you.”

The story opens at Frankie Presto’s funeral, and tracks back to his birth in a Spain ravaged by civil war. Music comes right to the point: “I am Music. And I am here for the soul of Frankie Presto. I am a loan, not a possession.” In Music’s view, everyone grabs a piece of some talent at birth. Presto has grabbed a large handful of Music.

The whole story unfolds under Music’s dictum that “Truth is light. Lies are shadows. Music is both.”

Through the voice of Music, Albom weaves a tale full of musical analogies and metaphors, religious symbolism and gypsy mysticism. There’s a constant theme running throughout linking pain, beauty and artistic talent.

Presto’s life intersects with a who’s who in the world of music, from classical to jazz to pop. While waiting for the funeral service to begin, these people share different parts of Presto’s story.

Presto was born in a church under attack by Franco’s soldiers. His mother dies after giving birth, and the young nun with her flees with Presto. She keeps him for about a year, but, only 16 years old, is unable to cope. She wraps him in a blanket and throws him in the river.

Like Moses, he is rescued from the river, only this time by a small hairless dog. He is taken in by Baffa Rubio, the dog’s owner, and raised as his son.

Music notes, “In every artist’s life, there comes a person who lifts the curtain on creativity.” In Presto’s case this happens when Rubio persuades El Maestro, a gifted guitarist, to give Frankie lessons.

At a still-young age, Presto finds himself alone on the docks in London where he meets Django Reinhardt, the fabled guitarist, who convinces him to come to U.S. with him on his tour with Duke Ellington.

From that first meeting flows a series of musical adventures, with everyone from Elvis Presley and Hank Williams to Kiss and the Byrds, and a raft of classical guitarists. The adventures take Presto from the jazz and blues of New Orleans to the pop and rock of Los Angeles to a tiny New Zealand island hideaway.

Woodstock, the legendary 1969 folk festival, is a major turning point in Presto’s life. Albom’s writing is at its most forceful where Music recounts Frankie’s desperate, drug-addled search through the grounds for his wife, Aurora, who is there only in his confused mind. Readers live his growing desperation as he plays a frantic solo onstage, hoping to attract Aurora.

After the solo, Presto slashes his left hand with a broken bottle, ending his playing career for many years.

And what about the magic strings of the title? A gypsy gave them to his mother, and Presto doesn’t discover the true meaning of their magic until he is near the end of his life.

Albom, who is in a band himself, gives a virtuoso performance as a writer in The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto. It’s the best of the lot he has written so far.

 

Gordon Arnold is a Winnipeg writer. His newest book, Corgi Tales, is now available.