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PRAISE FOR DON'T START ME TALKIN'
“Tom Williams’ Don’t Start Me Talking reminds me of why I started reading in the first place—to be enchanted, to be carried away from my world and dropped into a world more vivid and incandescent. Here is a heartfelt and irresistible novel about the Last True Delta Bluesman, Brother Ben, and his steadfast harp player, Silent Sam. Williams handles this ironic tale of the Blues, race, pretense, and life on the road, with intelligence, grace, and abiding tenderness. Read this remarkable and exhilarating novel, friend, and I promise you’ll start reading it slowly so it won’t ever end.”
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Ben’s foot touches mine, a signal the negotiation’s started with him on top. He’s warned me to pay attention to how he haggles in a way that doesn’t seem like haggling. He says I’ll need to do this when I’m performing on my own someday, though neither of us is ever specific on when that day might come. Right now, I don’t even own a car. As poor a light as that shines on a native Michigander, it’s true. One of the reasons I picked the Garden District of New Orleans to live in was its streetcars and buses. I can get most places by my own two feet (and Pelican cabs aren’t too difficult to get when you call the dispatcher). Only time I’m ever behind the wheel is when we’re touring, and usually then on the interstate where I can do the least harm.
Absently, my hand touches the copy of Blues Today. I wonder what Habib would say if I showed him the polls. Among his celebrity photos on the wall, Ben’s is prominent, above Harvey Korman and just below the good son on Dallas. That favorite customer business sure can seem real. The man cuts at least a couple hundred off every purchase I’ve seen Ben make. Because he loves Ben’s music? Or because Ben’s driven so many cars off this lot, always paid Habib in cash? (“Mississippi John Hurt carry Diner’s Club?” Ben once asked me.) I can’t be certain of anyone’s motives anymore. When you spend so much time being someone you’re not, you suspect everyone’s got a con. And you lie waiting for the tipoff that tells what the hustle is.
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