The Ballad of Perilous Graves

By: Alex Jennings

Narrated by: Gralen Bryant Banks

Length: 17 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

"Funny, wild, witty, and profound.”―Victor LaValle

"A wild and wonderful debut, teeming with music, family and art."—New York Times

"Magical, lyrical, gritty, otherworldly…hype like Bayou Classic in the 90s."—P. Djèlí Clark

New York Times Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of 2022! Oprah Daily Top 25 Fantasy Book of 2022! Apple Best Audiobook of 2022!

A fun and fantastical love letter to New Orleans unfolds when a battle for the city's soul brews between two young mages, a vengeful wraith, and one powerful song in this wildly imaginative debut.

Nola is a city full of wonders. A place of sky trolleys and dead cabs, where haints dance the night away and Wise Women help keep the order. To those from Away, Nola might seem strange. To Perilous Graves, it’s simply home.

Perry knows Nola’s rhythm as intimately as his own heartbeat. So when the city’s Great Magician starts appearing in odd places and essential songs are forgotten, Perry knows trouble is afoot.

Nine songs of power have escaped from the piano that maintains the city’s beat, and without them, Nola will fail. Unwilling to watch his home be destroyed, Perry will sacrifice everything to save it. But a storm is brewing, and the Haint of All Haints is awake. Nola’s time might be coming to an end.

Audiobook features an Original score written and performed by Andrew McGowan

©2022 Alex Jennings (P)2022 Redhook

Critic reviews

"A hallucinatory wonder of a debut with hints of dark humor and the intellectual challenge of Samuel Delaney. Brimming with language and music, this phantasmagoric novel taps the deep root of multi-cultural, multi-racial life in, and beyond, New Orleans. It’s an electrifying trip with zombie cabbies, sentient blues songs, parading graffiti tags, and the child mages Perilous 'Perry' Graves, his sister Brendy and their best friend Peaches who must outwit, outstomp, and outplay to save NOLA’s, their city’s, our city’s, soul."—Walter Mosley, New York Times bestselling author

“Alex Jennings did not come here to play. He came to swing, stride, and make prose sing. This novel is funny, wild, witty, and profound. The Ballad of Perilous Graves is the debut of a cosmic storm of talent.” —Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling

"A spectacularly original re-imagining of the myths and legends of New Orleans brought vividly to life through Jennings' wondrous prose. The Ballad of Perilous Graves is not only an engrossing adventure but a potent homage to the beating heart of one of the world's most magical cities." —Ladee Hubbard, author of The Talented Ribkins

"Brimming with heart and imagination, The Ballad of Perilous Graves is a wild, dark and joyful love song to New Orleans, the power of stories, and hope in the face of destruction. A spectacular debut."—H. G. Parry, author of A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians

A delicious and rollicking listen

Lovingly dedicated to New Orleans and its inhabitants, an urban fantasy with a highly developed world-building sensibility. Certainly helps if you know some of the New Orleans musicians, singers and celebrities, I personally found it difficult to follow all the ins and outs, but it was a pleasure to just relax and float on the waves of words as it came rolled to its spirited and satisfying conclusion.

A wonderful exploration of people

I can’t imagine what a better performance of the myriad characters could be. A brilliant performance that enhanced beautiful, deft, and familiar handling of the east to get wrong dialects and cultures.

Incredible

Fantastical storytelling that wonderfully honors to the amazing and magical place that is Nola. And perfectly narrated!

Excellent performance, music and story!

Very unique audio experience. Love the jazz score. Give it a try! Super impressive for a new author.

Twin Cities

Oh yeah. This is one of those novels that you need to listen to an audiobook of to really really appreciate. Because, spoilers: there are a lot of songs. Thanks to Banks for their attempt in singing and I'm sure you struggled with it (im joking). The dialect is one thing you'll have to look out for. I've never been to New Orleans. Never met anyone from there so it took me a couple of chapters (and good earphones) to understand the dialect and slang. Representation? Jennings nailed it. Worldbuilding? Jennings made TWO. Conclusion? Buy and read it and you won't regret it, baby (ha see what i did there)

Fantastic!

The Ballad of Perilous Graves was a thoroughly enjoyable listen! When I read the book jacket summary, I hoped the Audible version would feature a narrator who would be able to do the richness of New Orleans's dialects justice. I was not disappointed! The story itself was satisfyingly twisty and detailed.It will surely become an audio that I return to regularly.

Stunningly beautiful

When I was a kid, I used to hug books that I finished that made me happy to have finished them and simultaneously sad I didn't have more of them to read. I just finished one of those, and since hugging my smart phone seems a little silly (since I mostly read audiobooks now) I thought I'd share it with my pocket friends instead.

I won't spoil it for you, but suffice it to say it's a book with kids as major characters, and I wouldn't say a teen or maybe even a very advanced tween could love it, but it's set in New Orleans, written by a man who is from there, and like so many in that area, the f word is a common punctuation. Also, the reader has this honey and whiskey, very authentic NO drawl, and as is fitting for a book with literally magical songs, there is a lot of interstitial music and sing-song. It's perfect for audio.

I highly, highly recommend it for anyone who loves music, loves Nola, and/or loves a good hero myth (think The Odyssey).

Febrile Hallucinations

The author has a wild and vivid imagination. Is the book easier to follow in print? Each disparate section was well imagined but failed to coalesce into a coherent story. Harlem Bryant Banks was superb narrator.

Absolutely Entrancing!

Alex Jennings…. My god, what a beautifully written book this is. Between the vivid writing style, the dynamic personalities of each character, and the breadth of real-world references that allow the reader to engage further with the book as well as real-world history, this book was completely immersive. I loved that although it writes through the lens of children in some parts, it’s absolutely not a children’s book; It loosely reminded me of “To Kill A Mockingbird” in that way. To write a complex, layered story with such heart and warmth is a feat.

I can’t wait to see what else Jennings comes up with. This author killed it. Recommending this book to everyone and their mother.

Hard to follow but I wanted to love it. Would read sequel.

I spend a lot of time in New Orleans and love the city. That’s why I chose this book, and I really wanted to love it. I enjoyed how woven the city was into the story. I learned more about the culture of a New Orleans, that I don’t know, and that was great. The fantastical pieces were all so creative and interesting. However, I had trouble with a lot of the back-and-forth going on between all of the characters and scenes and timelines, especially towards the end. There were times that I wasn’t sure how characters ended up in different places or different times, especially towards the end. The end felt a little rushed too. I would still read a sequel though after having ‘met’ all of these characters, as it seems like,
room was left in the end for another story to follow, and maybe it would be more exciting as the characters grow in their knowledge and power. This may also be easier to follow if it were a movie. #hereshoping :)