Sky

Fifteen-year-old Sky is not one for making scenes -- or even speaking up. Instead he speaks through his music, his jazz piano. This novel, in three sets and an encore, plays all the chords and paradiddles of Sky's life -- at the moment, the life of a runaway in New York City, 1959. So how come he's hiding in a tenth-grade homeroom coat closet?

Since his mother died, Sky and his father have had their umpteenth fight about the future. Like many a kid, Sky must leave home to get home. For him it's the world of Beat poetry and cool jazz. Along the way, he discovers an unexpected guide -- a blind musician who shows Sky how to see -- and learns what he has to lose to gain his own voice.

In New York City in 1959, fifteen-year-old Alec Schuyler, at odds with his widowed father over his love of music, finds a mentor and friend in a blind, black jazz musician.

Alec Schuyler has two immediate problems: what to do with the rest of his life, and what to do about Suze Matheson. She's his date for the Winter Dance. And she's got trouble of her own. The English teacher, Mr. "Call me Mark" Truscott, has made a move on her, a move which Sky has witnessed from his hiding place in a coat closet.

Fifteen-year-old Sky is not one for making scenes — or even speaking up. Instead he speaks through his music, his jazz piano. This novel, in three sets and an encore, plays all the chords and paradiddles of Sky's life — at the moment, the life of a runaway in New York City, 1959. So how come he's hiding in a tenth-grade homeroom coat closet?

Since his mother died, Sky and his father have had their umpteenth fight about the future. Like many a kid, Sky must leave home to get home. For him it's the world of Beat poetry and cool jazz. Along the way, he discovers an unexpected guide — a blind musician who shows Sky how to see — and learns what he has to lose to gain his own voice.

Publishers Weekly

Set in New York City in 1959, this lively novel introduces jazz pianist Alec (Sky) Schuyler, a misunderstood 15-year-old with whom contemporary readers can relate. While Sky remains "invisible" and "inaudible" to most of his private-school classmates on New York's Upper West Side, he is one cool cat among his avant-garde circle of friends-fellow band members Max the drummer, bass player Larry and cheerleader Suze, who doubles as the boys' band manager. But Sky's widower father, a conservative, hardworking man, does not appreciate his son's passion. When he catches Sky sneaking back from hearing Count Basie in the middle of the night, his father takes away his prized possession: the piano that once belonged to his mother. Sky eventually runs away and roams the streets of Manhattan, practicing piano whenever he can at a local church. Circumstance brings him together with Art Olmedo, a renowned blind jazz pianist, whose health is rapidly declining and who takes Sky under his wing. From Olmedo, Sky learns some important lessons about both music and life. Dropping references to 1950s artists (Thelonious Monk, Lester Young, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg) and conjuring colorful images of New York streets and nightclubs, Townley (The Great Good Thing) brings the beatnik era to life while expressing timeless, universal themes about the generation gap. Budding musicians interested in innovative new sounds will especially be in tune with Sky as he stubbornly and energetically refuses to compromise his dreams. Ages 12-up. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Roderick Townley's first book about Sylvie, The Great Good Thing, was a Top-Ten Book Sense Pick, praised by Kirkus Reviews as "utterly winning...a book beloved from the first page." Its sequel, Into the Labyrinth, was hailed by the New York Times as "a hopping fine read." The present volume completes the Sylvie cycle.

Mr. Townley has also published the novel Sky, described by VOYA as "one hell of a book," as well as volumes of poetry, nonfiction, and literary criticism. He has two children, Jesse and Grace, and is married to author Wyatt Townley.