The Stone House,
A Blues Legend
A mysterious package on the doorstep of an Iowa radio station turns out to be a book titled The Stone House, A Blues Legend. Intrigued that it may have been left for her by a listener from The Other Side, Mother Hammer proceeds to read it on her show, the Book Nook Hour. The story is that of a 15-year-old girl, Suji, who harbors a dark secret and a deep longing to become a poet. In her attic she discovers a 1920s Okeh record, "Papa Gee's Blues," and listens with such intensity that Papa Gee materializes. He tells her to meet him at the Stone House, a magic place near Klub Ka, where all the blues poets live, if she wants to write her poems.
Shape-shifters both help and hinder Suji on her journey, pursued by her father, as she arrives at the Stone House to find, not Papa Gee, but the Three Fates, who are sewing the quilt of her life. She crosses an ice lake, where she meets René Descartes; descends into the Egyptian underworld, where she meets Osiris, Isis, and Thoth; enters the Driftwood Bar, where she meets Mama Inanna, Daddy Blue, and three lesbians who intuit what she still will not admit, that she herself has been abused by her father. Her journey takes her to the Temple of Apollo and the Tower of Reason and through a desert, challenged and pursued at every turn. Befriended by John Keats, the bluesman of the great odes, she reaches Klub Ka, where Papa Gee and all the poets she has ever loved await.
The Stone House, A Blues Legend by James V. Hatch and Suzanne Noguere (The Hatch-Billops Collection Inc., New York, NY, 2000) is a deluxe art edition of 400 copies measuring 9.25x12.25" and featuring seven full-page full-color illustrations and numerous line drawings by Camille Billops. It was designed by Roméo Enriquez and printed at The Stinehour Press in Lunenberg, Vermont. 160 pages, slipcased. Published at $150, the book is available for $100 + $7 postage (media mail) from the author, new, signed by the authors and artist.
"There is a child-like wonder that infects this book, an ear that hears what is rarely heard. It is a fabulous quest book, in which a young girl makes a pilgrimage through an imaginary magical world in pursuit of the blues and her dream of writing a poem. I think it’s destined to join Alice’s Adventures as an enduring classic. This astonishing little masterpiece is the collaboration of James V. Hatch and Suzanne Noguere. Spectacularly illustrated by Camille Billops."
—Timothy Murphy
"It is a beautiful book in all respects. The story is amazing in its ability to range from laugh-out-loud funny to get-goosebumps eerie. It has an archetypal, fairytale feel: the twelve labors, the quest, the Dante journey, the coming of age story, all are present. And its ability to syncretize cultures is extraordinary: Keats and Emily Dickinson right in there with Osiris and Robert Johnson and Ibn Batuta."
—H. L. Hix
"The scene at the Driftwood Bar somehow reminded me of the tavern episode in Joyce’s Ulysses. Here and elsewhere there are shifting and interpenetrating planes of perception, memory, imagination, dream, and hallucination. As with Joyce, it all works through the magic of words. The Stone House is a mind-expanding experimental masterwork. It can have a commercial success when available in a less expensive printing. It is already an artistic success."
—Alfred Dorn
"The Stone House is a rich folklore fantasy full of striking symbolic events resonating with inner psychic life and meanings. It’s plain mental fun—disturbing, humorous, and vividly entertaining."
—Paul Pierog, nycbigcitylit.com
"For most survivors of childhood sexual abuse, the core of the trauma is memory’s betrayal, it never happened, and with that betrayal comes the collapse of the personality, the sense of self and self-worth. As Suji is told, she must pay her 'father’s tab.' She embarks on a journey with help from spirits, shape shifters, crows, philosophers, and poets from 'The Other Side' to find her own song (her voice), her blues, and a Self she never had. This reader was also transformed by the rich beautifully illustrated art form, portraying Suji’s re-membering."
—Jennifer Leighton