Dangerous Blues by Stephen Policoff
What's It About?
When Paul and his daughter move to NYC to get a fresh start, Paul can’t stop seeing the ghost of his wife.Reference to the old Chinese superstition, “To dwell upon those who are no longer with us brings bad fortune … makes hungry the ghosts who have not departed, hungry for more than they have.”
It’s not easy to not dwell upon the past when your wife has recently died, forcing you and your 12-year-old daughter to relocate from your upstate New York home to a sublet in New York City’s Greenwich Village. And it’s especially hard when you think you keep seeing her ghost.
That’s a key storyline in Stephen Policoff’s tightly written Dangerous Blues (Flexible Press), which is subtitled “Kind of a Ghost Story.” Kind of, because yes, it’s a ghost story if you want it to be, or a touching portrait of a young parent trying to find himself and cope with great loss, or a coming of age story of a middle-grade girl who has lost her mom, or a tale of New York with a gritty feel for the streets, the clubs, the sounds, the sensations. And a tale of the supernatural. And let’s throw in a strange cult. Dangerous Blues is all these things.
New, Strange Beginnings in New York
In the story, Paul Brickner sublets an apartment in New York with his daughter Spring in order to distance themselves from the death of Nadia. Everything about their upstate home exudes memories of life with Nadia. A new start is what they need.
Spring adapts to her new lie, but Paul lacks direction and purpose. He is an out-of-work editor not presently motivated to change that. And as he stumbles through his new life in New York reconnecting with people and the scene, he keeps seeing Nadia’s apparition.
Is it real? “What if a ghost is more like a tangible memory, some kind of extrasensory hologram we produce with the powerful pent-up energy of grief?” Paul asks. “Or what if it’s a laugh or a gust of wind?”
More metaphorically, Policoff writes, “Maybe the soul is like a file you think has been erased from your computer yet remains on the hard drive and shows up sometimes when you hit the wrong key combination.”
The story gets more complex when Paul meets a blues singer, Tara, whose daughter Irina happens to be in Spring’s school class. A strange relationship develops between Paul and Tara, compounded by a Tibetan flask that Tara possesses, apparently taken from the mysterious cult that she formerly belonged to. Two “brothers” from the cult, known as The Dream People, continuously show up, seeking to repossess the vessel, which may or may not have more value than just its symbolism.
A “Kind of” Ghost Story — And So Much More
All this is to say that Policoff has written a “kind of” ghost story with many moving parts, incorporating a range of lifestyles, personalities, interests and objectives. And what better setting for his narrative than the city that never sleeps. He has created flawed characters that you sympathize with and root for. He has sprinkled in the supernatural. But in the end, Dangerous Blues is a moving story where readers connect with a man trying to outrun his demons and find peace in a complicated world.
Slumped on a city bench, Paul observes, “Instead of beginning to navigate past the memory of Nadia, I am immured in it. Instead of finding some new life in New York, I am encircled by the old one.”
They say the spirit of those we lose always stays with us. How much of that spirit — or Nadia’s existence in Paul’s consciousness, whatever form that takes — can help Paul see his way through?
That mystery is left for readers to discover.
About Stephen Policoff:
Stephen Policoff is the award-winning author of Beautiful Somewhere Else and Come Away. His work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, New Age Journal and many other publications.
