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The Celestial Jukebox, Cynthia Shearer’s second novel, is a journey into the fictitious town of Madagascar, Mississippi.   The words Shearer chooses to tell this story are as heavy and slow to the tongue as the weight of the townspeople’s daily rituals and the memory of their many disappointments. Shearer, of course, does this to bring about an authenticity that might not otherwise be so well conveyed.  Like its people, Madagascar falls short of the glory of independence, and relies on the vices of others for survival—with one bright exception.  In the corner of a grey, little store called the Celestial Grocery sits the Celestial Jukebox—a place where people have brought their sorrows, heartaches as well as their joys and triumphs since 1938.

Boubacar, an unlikely resident of Madagascar, is a 15 year old boy from Mauritania who visits the Celestial Grocery, and meets the grocery store’s owner, Angus Chien, a cantankerous old man with a southern accent that seems mismatched with his oriental skintone and slanted eyes. He is the second generation of his Chinese family and the South is all he knows.  Angus offers Boubacar a job and Boubacar quickly discovers the Celestial Jukebox.  Never updated and never repaired, the Jukebox plays the heavenly classics from Sam Cooke, Slim Harpo and Bob Dylan to name a few and if you want to hear them, well, Mr. Chien keeps coins on top of the Jukebox so you can.  It’s one of those kind, little gestures he makes that lets us know he isn’t always so crabby.

Shearer takes her time introducing us to the characters that make up Madagascar. Dean Fondren a man who knows where he is going to die, and his wife Alexis who doesn’t think she wants to know such things. Raine is a middle-aged woman who can’t help but reminisce when she hears Bob Dylan.  She struggles to find that beautiful woman she used to was before she was a mother and wife—when she was somebody.

The tone throughout is thick with rich desperation, slow climbs to celestial moments and superb description.  At times I wanted it to move along a bit faster, but looking back, I’m glad Shearer stayed true to the pace that matches the pace of rural Mississippi.  She brilliantly puts you smack dab in the heart of Mississippi on typical summer’s evening. You might even want a cool wet rag around your neck to stave off the humidity as you read, and you share what the townspeople of Madagascar share—life in the South and The Celestial Jukebox.

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Read our bio for Cynthia Shearer and peruse her other books.