Phonographic Memories: Popular Music and the Contemporary Caribbean Novel (Critical Caribbean Studies)

__Phonographic Memories__is the first book to perform a sustained analysis of the narrative and thematic influence of Caribbean popular music on the Caribbean novel. Tracing a region-wide attention to the deep connections between music and memory in the work of Lawrence Scott, Oscar Hijuelos, Colin Channer, Daniel Maximin, and Ramabai Espinet, Njelle Hamilton tunes in to each novel’s soundtrack while considering the broader listening cultures that sustain collective memory and situate Caribbean subjects in specific localities. These “musical fictions” depict Caribbean people turning to calypso, bolero, reggae, gwoka, and dub to record, retrieve, and replay personal and cultural memories. Offering a fresh perspective on musical nationalism and nostalgic memory in the era of globalization, __Phonographic Memories__ affirms the continued importance of Caribbean music in providing contemporary novelists ethical narrative models for sounding marginalized memories and voices. [NjelleW. Hamilton's Spotify playlist to accompany Phonotgraphic Memories:https://spoti.fi/2tCQRm8](https://spoti.fi/2tCQRm8) Phonographic Memories is the first book to perform a sustained analysis of the narrative and thematic influence of Caribbean popular music on the Caribbean novel. Tracing a region-wide attention to the deep connections between music and memory in the work of Lawrence Scott, Oscar Hijuelos, Colin Channer, Daniel Maximin, and Ramabai Espinet, Njelle Hamilton tunes in to each novel's soundtrack while considering the broader listening cultures that sustain collective memory and situate Caribbean subjects in specific localities. These "musical fictions" depict Caribbean people turning to calypso, bolero, reggae, gwoka, and dub to record, retrieve, and replay personal and cultural memories. Offering a fresh perspective on musical nationalism and nostalgic memory in the era of globalization, Phonographic Memories affirms the continued importance of Caribbean music in providing contemporary novelists ethical narrative models for sounding marginalized memories and voices. Njelle W. Hamilton's Spotify playlist to accompany Phonotgraphic Memories: https://spoti.fi/2tCQRm8 Cover Page 1 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 8 Preface 10 Introduction 16 Chapter 1. Phonographic Memory: Tracing the Calypsonian’s Work in Lawrence Scott’s Night Calypso 39 Chapter 2. “Record Your Memories”: The Bolero Aesthetic in Oscar ijuelos’s The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love 66 Chapter 3. Re-membering “Body and Soul”: Gender, Jazz, and Gwoka in Daniel Maximin’s Lone Sun 94 Chapter 4. Roots, Romance, Reggae: (Dis)Placing Memory in Colin Channer’s Waiting in Vain 125 Chapter 5. Memory as Mixtape: The Dub Aesthetic in Ramabai Espinet’s The Swinging Bridge 157 Coda 186 Acknowledgments 196 Notes 200 Works Cited 216 Index 230 "Phonographic Memories is the first book-length analysis of Caribbean popular music in the Caribbean novel. Tracing a region-wide poetics that attends to the centrality of Caribbean music in retrieving and replaying personal and cultural memories, Hamilton offers a fresh perspective on musical nationalism and nostalgic memory in the era of globalization"-- Provided by publisher Provides a sustained analysis of the narrative and thematic influence of Caribbean popular music on the Caribbean novel. Tracing a region-wide attention to the deep connections between music and memory, Njelle Hamilton tunes in to each novel's soundtrack while considering the broader listening cultures that sustain collective memory.