Coming Through the Slaughter

Michael Ondaatje's incredible debut novel of Jazz and strife, published for the first time in Vintage Classics alongside his memoir, Running in the Family

Based on the life of cornet player Buddy Bolden, one of the legendary jazz pioneers of turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans, Coming Through Slaughter is an extraordinary recreation of a remarkable musical life and a tragic conclusion.

Through a collage of memoirs, interviews, imaginary conversations and monologues, Ondaatje builds a picture of a man who would work by day at a barber shop and by night unleash his talent to wild audiences who had never experienced such playing.

But Buddy was also playing the field with two women, and inside his head was a ticking time-bomb which he was unable to stop.

'A beautifully detailed story, perhaps the finest jazz novel ever written' — Sunday Times