What do Nina Simone, Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Notorious B.I.G. have in common?
In May of 2013, Notre Dame alum Mark Binelli (’88) reads from his previous book “Detroit City Is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis” (2012) at the Harper Woods Public Library.
Hawkins, whose real name was Jalacy Hawkins, died in 2000, but not before setting his mark as one of R&B’s most wildly operatic and powerful singers. He had only one bonafide hit, “I Put a Spell on You,” which along with his own unique recording of it, was covered by a number of others, including Simone, CCR and Notorious B.I.G.
The new book has been garnering very favorable reviews and feedback from the literati as well as the worlds of art and music. Binelli, who now lives in New York City, said today that while no Detroit-area visits on a book tour schedule have been finalized yet, he will notify the Notre Dame alumni office if and when one is planned.
Binelli was featured in the spring 2013 edition of IRISH magazine, which is published by the Notre Dame Alumni Association.
“Unexpectedly strange, haunting, funny and magical . . . A spectacular exploration into the ways one black musician negotiated racial and gender expectations onstage.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“A stylish new novel [that] continues a formidable and distinctive career. . . . Binelli’s magpie approach is deeply rewarding. By the end, this series of brief fictionalized impressions feels as true to life, or more so, than a conventional biography might.”
—The New York Times
“Binelli's book is half-biography, half-fiction, and its best parts combine both into impressionistic imaginings of Hawkins’ bizarre life, adding emotional complexity to the shock-rock cult-fave . . .”
—Rolling Stone
“The real-life ‘I Put a Spell on You’ singer created an outrageous biography for himself . . . Binelli mines it all for a rollicking romp of a tale.”
—New York Post
“Mark Binelli is the only contemporary writer with enough courage, imagination, and sheer brilliance to wrestle the story of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins out of myth and legend and into a novel. The portrait of Hawkins that emerges is subtle, profound, and heroic, and, like all great fiction, utterly indelible.”
—Dinaw Mengestu, author of All Our Names
“Mark Binelli makes this novel play like a jukebox loaded up with the B-sides of American history. Brilliantly mixing up the facts and the myths into an audaciously original, bleakly comic tale, he turns one old blues song into a casket big enough to contain all the country’s most bizarre nightmares.”
—Rob Sheffield, author of Love is a Mix Tape
“Mark Binelli, like Screamin’ Jay himself, shouts, shimmies, and self-reinvents on the fly, with no concern for any genre besides ‘classic.’ Few books about music have had so much prose-music.”
—Joshua Cohen, author of Book of Numbers
“Mark Binelli conjures the theatrical props and mortal remains of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and brings the master out of the coffin alive and screaming.”
—Gary Panter, artist
From the publisher of Mark Binelli's new book:
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, whose real name was Jalacy Hawkins, died in 2000, but not before setting his mark as one of pop music’s most wildly operatic and powerful singers.
"The R&B wildman Screamin' Jay Hawkins only had one hit single, the classic "I Put a Spell On You," and was often written off as a clownish novelty act — or worse, an offense to his race — but his myth-making was legendary. In his second novel, Mark Binelli embraces the man and the legend to create a hilarious, tragic, fantastical portrait of this unlikeliest of protagonists. Hawkins saw his life story as a wild picaresque, and Binelli's novel follows suit, tackling the subject in a dazzling collage-like style.
"At Rolling Stone, Binelli has profiled some of the greatest musicians of our time, and this novel deftly plays with the inordinate focus on "authenticity" in so much music writing about African-Americans. An entire novel built around a musician as deliberately inauthentic as Screamin' Jay Hawkins thus becomes a sort of subversive act, as well as an extremely funny and surprisingly moving one."
Binelli’s last book was “Detroit City Is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis,” published in 2012.
He is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone magazine and The New York Times, which recently in its weekly magazine published a powerful article by Binelli on trouble at the U.S.-Mexican border, “10 Shots Across the Border.” One of his most recent articles in Rolling Stone was about Oscar-winning film director Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
Read an article on Binelli that was featured in the spring 2013 issue of Notre Dame’s alumni magazine, “IRISH.” In it he recalls his high school years and one very eccentric English teacher.
Comments or questions? mkelly@ndpma.org.
Follow us on Twitter @NDPMA
About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. The school's upper division enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower divisions enroll students in jr. kindergarten through grade eight. All three divisions are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." The Marist Fathers and Brothers sponsor NDPMA's Catholic identity and manages its educational program. Notre Dame is accredited by the National Association of Independent Schools, the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at www.ndpma.org.