graywacke 's review for:

Taft by Ann Patchett
3.0
reflective medium-paced

This book has some strikes against it. White author writing in the voice of a black narrator took me some adjustment. And it has none of Patchett's strengths of character and moment experience.  A novel of Beale Street in Memphis, John Nickel, who misses his young son, living in Miami with the boy's mother, managers a bar on Beale Street, and gets involved with some older teens who are struggling and going a little too crazy after their father died, and they were forced to move from the east Tennessee mountains to their aunt and uncles house in Memphis. 

It's actually enjoyable. But nothing special. For Patchett completists only.