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Francis Spufford: Cahokia Jazz (Hardcover, 2023, Faber & Faber)

In a city that never was, in an America that never was, on a snowy …

Astonishing masterpiece

This book does so many things, and all outstandingly. It's a portrait of a Cahokia that in our timeline was never allowed to exist. It's a noir detective thriller. It's an intense character study of a deeply relatable protagonist. It's a love poem to 1920s jazz--the music and the cultural space it created.

I'm having difficulty actually talking about it coherently without massive spoilers. So just go on and read this book.