buttonsandbooks 's review for:

The Songbook of Benny Lament by Amy Harmon

4.0

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I’m a big Amy Harmon fan. If you ask me to recommend a book, the odds are good I’m going to recommend What the Wind Knows or From Sand and Ash. She writes in a way that is beautiful, emotional, and moving. Needless to say, when I saw The Song Book of Benny Lament was being released I had to have it immediately.

If you want people to understand change and not fear change, you need to show them what it looks like. That’s sort of the spoken/unspoken underlying theme of this work of historical fiction. Benny Lament is the son of a mobster. His Sicilian roots run deep in the mob world, but it’s not a life Benito wants for himself. He writes songs and plays piano like a maestro. He’s done so for lots of famous musicians and made a name for himself. He doesn’t need to scout new talent of manage a band, but that’s exactly what happens when his dad takes him to listen to Esther Mine sing for the first time. She leaves him shook and ends up changing his world and opening his eyes to family, love, and the oppressive racial tension of the 1960s.

I didn’t know how this book would end and was questioning it throughout since the chapters alternated between Benny and Esther’s history and a present tense interview Benny was conducting with the radio station that made he and Esther stars. The story was just beautiful though, in that unique way Harmon makes everything she writes poetry. Before the 1967 Loving case made it to the Supreme Court, there was Esther and Benny breaking barriers and showing people what change looked like. Gorgeous.