Hearing the sound of your own soul can be an enlightening and satisfying thing, even if it isn’t a pretty sound.

This novel was recommended to me by someone whose taste generally crosses with mine. I read the first chapter before deciding I would read the book, and I found it quite strange but somehow interesting. I took a leap of faith and chose it as a group read, and I might owe my apologies to the group! I’d say it isn’t for everyone.

It isn’t the worst thing I have ever read, in fact it is oddly mesmerizing, with some eloquent prose and some catchy characters. It is also just exceedingly weird and at times totally meaningless. I believe it is meant to be about death and the cycle of life, but it is a mix of too many floating ideas for me to be sure that is even the impetus. It no doubt falls into the Magical Realism category, which isn’t a favorite for me, although the magical part of this is part of the Louisiana bayou voodoo culture and seems to blend in believably with the environment it is set in.

Imaginary people real, too—in their way. If a person can remember or even dream up a face, then the face does exist in some kinda way. Things remembered are sometimes more real than what a person holds in his hand.

At about halfway through, courtesy of a fellow reader, I found out that one of the characters, Buddy Bolden, was a real person. He is held to be the first Jazz player and made his way through the seedier side of New Orleans nightlife and brothel areas, playing his trumpet in his own distinctive style. Somehow, knowing that at least one of these characters actually existed, added some grounding and credence to the novel itself.

When we think about death and New Orleans, there is a marked difference from death in other places. The way the dead are buried, the way they are seen to their graves in parades and with music, and the always sweeping threat of the water.

In this city there is a long and curious relationship with death, a closeness, a delicate truce. They say in New Orleans death is so close that the dead are mostly buried above ground, that the dead share altitude with the living.

This book is more about the dead than the living, but then, in this book, it is sometimes hard to tell which we are dealing with. In the end, it was just a little too strange for me. 2.5 Stars, rounded down.




( )

I enjoyed the first third of this novel. It was intense, but interesting and had just the right amount of spookiness to keep me engaged. I was a little weirded out by Typhus' behavior but since I believe that was the author's intention, I was able to go with it.

About halfway through I started having second thoughts. It's rare for me to put down a book I've started and not finish it, even though I've lost interest or it's too strange or what have you. I will even finish books that I feel are poorly written because I feel as though I've made an agreement with the author to give it a shot. As a writer myself, I know the amount of work that goes into crafting a novel length manuscript so I feel as though the author deserves the respect of my attention to the end for the simple reason that they put the time and sweat and quite possibly tears into crafting it. Having explained all that, even though I was starting to dislike this book by the middle, I kept going. The thing that really turned me off of it was the animal cruelty described within. I am highly sensitive to that and although it is fiction, I understand that the things the author wrote about probably did happen and may happen still. It deeply upset me.

Overall, I would say that the story was well-crafted. It was confusing at points and perhaps a little further "out there" than I would normally go, but since my own writing is semi-fantastic, I enjoyed the risks the author took. It was an interesting idea and I think well executed. I just couldn't get past the treatment of animals which colored my opinion and is largely why I am only giving it 3 stars. ( )

The Sound of Building Coffins is set in New Orleans in the late 19th Century. The book examines the lives of seven people whose lives are irrevocably damaged by a voodoo curse put in motion years before. This novel captures the heart and soul of New Orleans. I would recommend this book to fans of the literary or historical fiction genres. ( )

New Orleans in the late 18th to early 20th century. A place full of death, hope, and rebirth, of yellow fever, voodoo, and the discovery of jazz. This story is about the Morningstar family and a cast of others connected with them through fate, coincidence, or love. It is hard to place Maistros’ book into one particular genre. It is historical fiction, magical realism, and horror, but more importantly it is also literature at its very best.

From the very first page, the grotesque (a theme throughout) is evident as we are introduced to a nine year old boy carrying “a burlap bag, full of fresh fetuses.” The supernatural permeates the story; ghosts, zombies, and voodoo Queens. Music is also important, one of the main characters is Buddy Bolden said to be the first man to front a jazz band. But not just music in an abstract way, rather literally music - lyrics and sound - are central to the plot of this story. In fact, the entire book is a sensual experience, encompassing the sights of turn of the century New Orleans, but also the sounds, smells, and even the texture of the city.

Maistros’ novel is about people, the hard times they lived in and the difficult choices they had to make admist death, violence, and racism. Ultimately, however, the author has produced a story about hope and rebirth (both literal and metaphorical). Water is a key symbol of these themes whether in the form of the Mississippi River, the bayou, or the storms that bring flooding (both nurturing and destructive). It is hard to imagine this book in a pre-Katrina era. The motifs that take center stage here are ones expressed recently by residents of New Orleans who did not evacuate or those who left only to return because they could not stay away.

The Sound of Building Coffins is an amazing first novel, an amazing book in general that I would recommend to anyone no matter your usual taste in books. I won’t say that it is perfect of course. There is some initial disconnect between Book 1 and Book 2 (it takes place several years after the opening scenes). It took me a few chapters to get back into the story after the break. Also the writing is at times disjointed, but for me this fit with the mood of the story. Regardless of these minor issues, this book is absolutely worth checking out! ( )

Well written book with a mystical quality. A good fit for New Orleans. ( )