Wracked with guilt, Sid explains what he did to Hiero, who hints at forgiveness. A flight and a long bus ride later, they arrive at Hiero’s home and find him alive, though blind. Sid walks out, but Chip apologizes and invites him to visit Hiero in Poland Sid refuses to believe that Hiero is alive, since no one has seen him since the war, but he goes with Chip. In the film Chip accuses Sid of betraying Hiero out of jealousy. Chip and Sid attend the premiere of a documentary about Hiero.

Parts 2, 4, and 6 are set five decades later, in 1992, and detail the reunion of Sid with Charles “Chip” Jones, another one of his bandmates, who was with him in Paris and Berlin. Suspecting the truth, Delilah leaves Sid. Hiero is then captured, not knowing that Sid concealed his papers. Just as they are about to produce a promising record, Hiero’s transit papers arrive, but Sid hides them, wanting more time to record. In Paris, plans to record with Armstrong are not fully realized before the German army takes over the city, but Sid, Chip, and Hiero choose to keep recording in secret. Sid and Delilah become romantically involved, but he remains jealous of the attention she lavishes on Hiero, who is the more talented musician. Fortunately, a singer named Delilah Brown invites them to Paris to record with Louis Armstrong, and they accept, though it takes a while for them to get there, with several members of the group getting separated along the way.

Sid backtracks to narrate the events leading up to Hiero’s arrest, starting with a violent scuffle with Nazi soldiers in Berlin a year earlier, which causes the band to go into hiding. Hiero is then sent to, and presumably dies in, a concentration camp. Sid opens by describing a crucial episode-the capture of his friend and bandmate Hieronymus “Hiero” Falk, who is denigrated by the Nazis for his mixed German and African ancestry, in occupied Paris.

Parts 1, 3, and 5 are set in Europe at the onset of World War II. The entire novel is narrated by Sidney “Sid” Griffiths, an African American bass player whose witty, colloquial narration frames his need to make sense of the past. The second follows several of the same characters some 50 years later, as they reconnect in unexpected ways. The first involves the struggles of a group of jazz musicians who are compelled to flee Nazi Germany in 1939. Half-Blood Blues follows two distinct storylines, set 50 years apart.

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan