The Spoon Asylum

It is the summer of 1933 and young Haven Cattrell, seeking work, finds himself abandoned in the small northern Ontario town of Davisville. At an exclusive summer camp for girls he befriends Wetherby Moss and his son Jude who introduce him to the joys and heartaches of jazz. Jazz had taken a hard blow, during the first-half of the 1930s. Although there was still work to be had for some in places like New York, musicians in other parts of the country were barely existing on what venues remained. Wetherby and Jude had come from that reality and, as Haven mastered the jazz trumpet, he learns the horrifying truth about why Wetherby, his mentor, had to flee his home in Detroit and find sanctuary with his son among the unique subculture of rural Northern Ontario. But Haven's story is bigger than his love of jazz. It is the story of the racism that haunted black jazz musicians in the 30s, and how that racism found its way to Davisville. It is the story of how love can blind young men and save them from themselves, and it is the story of how important it is to dream when the chaos and hard times around you want to drag you down. The Spoon Asylum draws its title from a group of 1930s exiles who found refuge in a small northern Ontario resort and bonded while playing jazz and polishing the resort's cutlery together on Sunday afternoons. In the story, the Great Depression is at its peak in Davisville when a train delivering salt cod to the impoverished prairies comes chugging into town and expels its cargo of disillusioned young men who have taken to riding the rails in search of work. Haven Cattrell is determined to leave Davisville just as soon as he has a little money. But work is scarce in the small community and only a chance meeting between Haven and Wetherby Moss, an American jazz musician from Detroit, keeps Haven from striking out again. It is Wetherby who puts Haven in touch with Eleanor Nokomis, an eccentric woman who runs an all-girls camp on Lake Manito. Here Haven is hired as a cook's assistant and the cook happens to be Wetherby's son, Jude Moss. It is here at Camp Nokomis that Haven's life-changing adventure begins. Listening to Wetherby play the reveille on his trumpet in the mornings and his jazz licks at night conjures a desire in Haven that he didn't know was there. Jazz catches him quite by surprise and after insistently begging Wetherby to teach him to play, Haven begins his apprenticeship, first with a harmonica and then with the trumpet itself. During the course of his work and musical education, Haven befriends Wetherby, Jude, Charlotte Handler, a camp girl, and Marcus -- a young man who had been riding the train. Together they form a raffish group of misfits, rebels, and outsiders coaxing jazz out of whatever instruments they can scrounge. What follows is a series of adventures that unfold around Wetherby Moss and his son, and the forces of racism that drove them out of Detroit to this asylum in the northern woods. That racism finds its way to Davisville, spurring on a small band of troublemakers from a nearby boys' camp who disapprove of the two black men and a Jewish girl in the camp. The harassment and bigotry culminates in their prank of a cross burning. Unsettling to all, but especially to Charlotte, Haven and his friends are caught in both personal and public events that threaten the well-being of Camp Nokomis and have grave consequences for some. Haven and Charlotte, who have begun a budding romance, are witness to the destruction and death that follow, all the while holding tight to their dream of playing jazz. "At the height of the Great Depression, Haven Cattrell discovers the joys and heartaches of jazz at an exclusive summer camp for girls."--Publisher's description "At the height of the Great Depression, Haven Cattrell discovers the joys and heartaches of jazz at an exclusive summer camp for girls."-- Provided by publisher