Blue in Green

The latest work from the veteran novelist called “one hell of a writer” by James Baldwin, “wonderfully wry” by Donald Barthelme, and a “writer’s writer” by Ishmael Reed, Blue in Green narrates one evening in August 1959, when, only eight days after the release of his landmark album Kind of Blue, Miles Davis is assaulted by a member of New York City Police Department outside of Birdland. In the aftermath of Davis’s brief stint in custody, we enter the strained relationship between Davis and the woman he will soon marry, Frances Taylor, whom he has recently pressured into ending her run as a performer on Broadway and retiring from modern dance and ballet altogether. Frances, who is increasingly subject to Davis’s temper—fueled by both his professional envy and substance abuse—reckons with her strict upbringing, and, through a fateful meeting with Lena Horne, the conflicting demands of motherhood and artistic vocation. Meanwhile, blowing off steam from his beating, Miles speeds across