Late Arcade

Nathaniel Mackeys Late Arcade opens in Los Angeles. A musician known only as N. writes the first of a series of letters to the enigmatic Angel of Dust. N.s jazz sextet, Molimo mAtet, has just rehearsed a new tune: the horn players read from The Egyptian Book of the Dead with lips clothespinned shut, while the rest of the band struts and saunters in a cosmic hymn to the sun god Ra. N. ends this breathless session by sending the Angel of Dust a cassette tape of their rehearsal.

Over the next nine months, N.s epistolary narration follows the musical goings-on of the ensemble. N. suffers from what he calls cowrie shell at- tacksoil spills, N.s memory of his mothers melancholy musical Sundays which all becomes the source of fresh artistic invention.

Here is the newest installment of the National Book Award-winner Nathaniel Mackeys From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate, the great American jazz novel of exquisite rhythmic lyricism (Bookforum).