Review: Cahokia Jazz, by Francis Spufford

Review: Cahokia Jazz, by Francis Spufford

a review by Rich Horton

Francis Spufford is a much-admired UK writer who began writing nonfiction, then wrote a sort of amalgam of nonfiction and SF called Red Plenty (2010), and since has published three novels: Golden Hill (2016), Light Perpetual (2021), and Cahokia Jazz (2023). (It would appear that he considers the proper number of words for a title to be exactly two!) I bought Golden Hill when it came out, but still have not got to it. (Though I will soon!) And I saw enough about Cahokia Jazz that I knew I had to read it, and so I have.

Cahokia Jazz is an alternate history murder mystery doomed love story political thriller. And all of those elements work. It is urgently readable, speculatively involving, full of action, with a profound moral center, and tremendously moving. It is also very well-written. It is my second favorite SF novel from 2023, after the very different Booker Prize winner Orbital. As Cahokia Jazz was not published in the US until 2024, it is eligible for the 2025 Hugos, and it will definitely be on my nomination ballot.

The novel is set in Cahokia, the capitol of the state of the same name, in the US in the 1920s. Cahokia is located roughly where the present day city of that name is located -- just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, though St. Louis is a small village in this alternate history. It seems that the Mississippian Culture of Native Americans (the Mound Builders or their immediate descendants) survived in Cahokia in until the coming of French missionaries around 1700, at which time they converted to a syncretic Catholicism. (In our history the Cahokian civilization had mostly dispersed by the end of the 14th century, and the remaining natives in that area were decimated by smallpox. The afterword to this novel posits a less severe strain of smallpox arriving first and conferring some resistance while causing far fewer deaths.) The natives, here called takouma, remain the political leaders of Cahokia, though they became a state during the Civil War. The city itself has a very roughly equal population of takouma, takata (whites), and taklousa (blacks). Joe Barrow, the main character, is mixed race, part takouma, part taklousa, and grew up in an orphanage in Iowa. He came to Cahokia with Phineas Drummond, whom he met in a military hospital while both were serving in the Great War. Now they are partners, detectives on the Cahokia police force. And their latest case is horrifying -- a man has been murdered on the roof of a major city building, in a way that resembles Aztec sacrifices, complete with the heart cut out of his chest.

It's quickly clear that the murder has political implications. The first suspects are a small radical group of takouma, who believe that they are descended from the Aztecs. And Joe and Phin begin to follow up on this notion. But Joe is summoned to meetings with the two major political leaders of Cahokia: Cuauhtemoc Hashi, the Man of the Sun, and Couma Hashi, his niece, the Moon. The Man of the Sun (called simply The Man throughout) is the true hereditary leader of the state of Cahokia, though the politics of statehood complicate his position. Hereditary succession is to nephews (or nieces if necessary) instead of to children, so Couma's brother is nominally the heir, but he has run off to Hollywood to be a movie star, and thus Couma acts as the Moon. This too is complicated, because women in Cahokian society have a specific role, different to that of men though quite as powerful. The Man is an admirable if devious person, and Couma is a very beautiful woman -- though also devious, and Joe is soon under her spell, though any sort of relationship is clearly impossible. The Man urges Joe to seriously investigate the case, and not to accede to a politically convenient solution.

So the story follows the investigation, which leads the Joe and Phin in unexpected directions. It's quickly clear that the murder was more of a false flag operation, but proving this and finding the real culprit will be tricky. Many of the whites in the city (including the murder victim) are under the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, which hates natives (and Catholics) as much as it hates blacks. And there are some takouma who are intrigued by the Aztec myth. There are powerful political figures involved, many of whom clearly would like to wrest power from the takouma. Throughout the course of the investigation we get to see a wide spectrum of city residents -- rich takata and poor, rich and poor takouma, and mostly poorer taklousa, including the jazz musicians with whom Joe -- a brilliant pianist -- likes to associate. We see the politics of the police department. There are some magical scenes with Joe playing piano in a couple of bars -- Spufford's writing about the music is exceptional. We meet laborers in a meat packing plant, and the middle class family of a takouma woman who works with Joe in the department, and takouma farmers out in the country, and the upper crust at parties -- at one of which Joe meets a certain anthropologist named Kroeber. (This book is set before Kroeber married Ursula's mother, and Spufford dedicates the book "In respectful memory of Professor Kroeber's daughter".) We get a fascinating look at the culture and society of Cahokia -- a plausible alternative to our own, though reasonably well integrated with the US society of that era, and presented as different -- neither especially better nor worse.

The story takes place over about a week, and the murder mystery -- though it is eventually and wrenchingly solved -- is less important than the political story. The fate of Cahokia truly hangs in the balance. Joe's fate, and that of his partner, and of the Sun and Moon, are intertwined with all this, of course. The events depicted are exciting, with some terrific action scenes, and some tragedy, some betrayals, some realpolitik. There is a host of characters, most sharply even if briefly portrayed -- besides the major ones I've mentioned there are newspaper reporters -- Mickey Casqui and Miss Anderson; and policemen: Doyle and Hanunu, plus Miss Chokfi, the capable and surprisingly deep office administrator (to use the current term); and a Klan-linked gangster; also Lydia Lee, the taklousa woman who runs the bar above which Joe lives; Sammy Noukouwa, a nasty takouma who has wholly bought into the Aztec myth; and the various members of a jazz band with whom Joe plays. One of the most beautiful things about the book is the descriptions of Joe while he's playing jazz -- writing about music is hard, I think, and these scenes are just wonderful -- they get the emotions of both playing and listening spot on. I wanted to be there! 

This is a first rate novel, and it succeeds in multiple ways -- as a mystery, as a political thriller, as alternate history, and as a love story. It's involving throughout. It's both optimistic and pessimistic -- a tragedy perhaps, but with elements of triumph, a hopeful story that we know might resolve years in the future either happily or darkly -- but most likely a mixture, just like the real world. Highly recommended.