Bluesman

Taking it easy tonight and did much of today as I have a little bit of a flu. Eating meals out of one big bowl certainly contributes, and Willow and Souley's 1-and-a-bit-year-old son Lamin's too cute to not hang with, so when he has a little flu, he passes it on. So it goes. All in all, my health has been pretty ok these five weeks in Africa. Couple days of things running freely as it were, but overall not too bad.

Just finished a nice book by Andre Dubus III called Bluesman from 1993. Dubus III is best known for 1999's heartbraking The House of Sand and Fog. Bluesman prefigures some of the desperation and inevitability that one gets reading ...Fog. As the main character Leo begins to play blues harmonica alongside his father and uncle who he's watched and listened to for years, the more difficult and complicated his life becomes. Not an earthshaking read, but enjoyable nonetheless. ...Fog is more fully realized than Bluesman; its a beautiful, deeply tragic book, and its interesting to see the author at an earlier stage in his career working out themes he'll explore more fully six years later.