The Book Archive is based in Edmonton, AB which is located within Treaty 6 Territory and within the Métis homelands and Métis Nation of Alberta Region 4. We acknowledge this land as the traditional territories of many First Nations such as the Nehiyaw (Cree), Denesuliné (Dene), Nakota Sioux (Stoney), Anishinaabe (Saulteaux) and Niitsitapi (Blackfoot).
In 1918, Arthur Champion is one of a handful of Black students attending the Oberlin Conservatory of Music when he runs afoul of a vindictive professor and finds himself unceremoniously enlisted in the United States Army. What ensues is one man’s sweeping voyage through the decade, a kaleidoscopic view of America during seismic social shifts from the author hailed by The Chicago Tribune as “our current Great American Novelist.”
A brilliant interrogation of racism and ownership in art, Serious Music is a breakneck, high-octane read, thrumming with the electrifying humor and rigorous moral clarity that is the hallmark of this masterful writer’s contribution to American letters.