Five Night Stand: A Novel

What a beautiful book! It's a love letter to jazz music, first and foremost, but also to Memphis, New Orleans, and New York. Alley's evocative descriptions and unusual metaphors are as virtuousic as the main character's piano playing. The unlikely intersection of the three main characters is fascinating and believable. This may be a debut novel, but it doesn't feel that way at all. Poignant and unforgettable.

Thanks to NetGalley, I was able to enjoy Five Night Stand's unedited version.

I was immediately drawn into the novel, knowing from the first paragraph that what I was reading was a piece of literature that I would read again and again.

Without giving away any spoilers, I can say that the characters are all easy to relate to, the excellent prose are intoxicating, and the battle between laughter and tears come together to create a memorable story that I will be pondering for the next few days.

If you are interested in a good read about music, love, heartache, pain, loss, hope, and potential, Five Night Stand is for you!

You'll want to hop a train to New Orleans and download all the jazz you can get your hands on. This talented Memphis artist has a true passion for writing, music and history. All three shine through in Five Night Stand. You'll fall in love with the characters- genuine, tragic and inspiring.

Tell Ollie and the gang hello for me.

Every year I reread certain books for the integrity of the stories and the authors’ voices. Richard Alley’s Five Night Stand will join that group. I love this book.

For five nights, in the basement bar of the Capasso Hotel in New York City, Jazz great Oliver Pleasant and the rest of Alley’s characters face the risk of falling in or out of love, healing the past, the uncertainty of a career crisis, and for the youngest and oldest of the group, the eventuality of their passing.

Alley’s smoothly rolling prose, his spot-on ear for dialogue, deft handling of point of view, and general storytelling chops give his characters the authenticity to tell their stories with honesty and grace.

As the journalist/novelist character, Frank Severs, ruminates: “More than anything though, he loves a good story and an interesting character, and his experience and novelist heart tell him when he finds them.”

Looks like you found them, Mr. Alley. Congratulations.

I chose this book for my book club based on a recommendation . In the three years my club has been meeting, there have only been three book that everyone unamiously agreed on. This was one of those books. That's quite a recommendation because these ladies are well read and have high expectations. Everyone thought it was very well written and the characters were recognizable and relatable. We all wanted to be in that Jazz Club for those last five days. Even those that did not relate to the music loved it because they were able to relate to the individuals. We all felt there should be a sequel. We'd like to here more about the bartender/tatoo artist. ..... That's a story in the making!

As a keen reader new to the joys of listening to jazz, I loved this book. The tight but colourful writing style floats off the page as elegantly as might the music notes from the lead character's baby grand. A delicious mix of very real, flawed but beautiful people; a shameful period in America's past and the unique music genre which grew out of it.

We're lucky if a novel leaves us with one memorable character, a personality who engages enough to last beyond the final page. This book has three. Oliver Pleasant, Agnes Cassady, and Frank Severs all leave impressions, their own and via the other two principals in this fine story. Ultimately a love story (like every great novel), the tale brings a tear at the right time, and hits the notes (gently) in sharing the madness we call life. Live fully, it reminds us . . . and live memorably.

FIVE NIGHT STAND. Wonderful book! Beautiful story about life, marriage, aging, illness, family, race and the search for meaning in music. Hard to believe that all of these themes could be so beautifully considered in one great novel.

A beautifully written tale of three disparate yet kindred souls – all at a crossroads in their lives.

Oliver Pleasant, an octogenarian jazz pianist of some renown is finally retiring from the music business. He is wrapping up his long career with a final five night stand on the stage of a New York hotel owned by an old friend. Sadly, his lifestyle of travel, music, and women have left him estranged from his grown children. The table he has reserved for his family remains accusingly vacant throughout his last shows. His wife, Francesca, the love of his life, has been dead for two decades. Oliver has lived through the racism of the South, traveled to Europe in the heyday of jazz, fathered children, bedded myriad women, and enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow musicians. Through it all he had a deep and abiding love and respect for the ‘music’. Now he feels little other than the loneliness, regret and fear that comes with old age.

Agnes Cassady, also a pianist, is in her early twenties and suffering from what she believes to be a fatal neurological disorder. She hails from Memphis, Tennessee but has lived in New Orleans for the past few years plying her trade. Recently the pain and tremors that result from her condition have hampered her musical ability. The reason for Agnes’ trip to New York is yet another hospital with yet more tests. This time it is the famous Mount Sinai with its expert physicians. Since learning of her probable early demise, Agnes has packed a lot into her short life. She loves music and men in that order. When she learns that Oliver Pleasant is playing while she is in town, she knows that she must attend his final performances. He has long been her idol.

Frank Severs, a former journalist, also from Memphis – is in town to write about Oliver Pleasant’s life and last performances. He greatly admires the man and his music and feels he could do justice to a story about him. Frank’s personal life is in flux. He is distant from his wife whom he still loves. Their many years of trying to conceive a child has left a rift in their marriage. It is a rift that Frank doesn’t know how to bridge – or if he should even try to bother.

The meeting of these three lost souls and their brief time spent together was nothing short of magical.
The characters are fully developed and are so ‘human’ that it is a joy and a privilege to share time with them. The early winter New York setting is described clearly with an affection for the place.

Filled with the joy, sadness, regret and confusion that is life, “Five night stand” was a novel for music lovers and non-music lovers alike. I actually read part of it whilst listening to the infamous Thelonious Monk via YouTube. His music was a wonderful background for the novel.
In my humble opinion this novel should be on the bestseller lists!
Highly recommended!

As a fan of jazz I enjoyed the story, and am pleased the author chose to tell it. I had some issues with how the story was unfolded and the use of metaphor in places, but other than that it was a an enjoyable read. For that reason, I wavered between a 3 and 4 rating, but the quality of the story pulls a 4.