Editor-in-Chief Harold Jaffe’s book Othello Blues has been revised and republished and is now available for purchase. You can find Othello Blues on Amazon.
Dedicated to legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, Othello Blues is as edgily brilliant as a Robert Johnson solo. Like Johnson’s blues, Jaffe’s futurist blues novel surprises and impresses with its harshness and lyricism, its uncanny twists and turns.
Set in New York City and delta Mississippi in the mid-21st century, Othello Blues features Othello (called Otis) on guitar, Cassio on bass and Iago on harmonica and jew’s harp. Desdemona is the guileless, white wife of Otis and advocate of Cassio. All three are fatally victimized by the treacherous Iago, who has to be one of the most captivating villains in recent literature.
Though rooted in Shakespeare’s tragedy and subtly adhering to fundamental aspects of that drama, Othello Blues is at the same time a parable of lust, racism, delta blues and lean, syncopated prose.