The National Book Award winner chats with us about writing what she knows.
By
Chris Vognar
4/19/2021 at 12:39pm
Susan Choi wants you to know that CAPA, the performing arts high school at the center of her National Book Award-winning novel
Trust Exercise, is not supposed to be Houstonâs Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
She understands why you might think it is. Choi attended Kinder (then known as HSPVA) from 1983 to 1986âbut she liked it. âI didnât know until I got there that there were places like that where kids who are interested in creativity could all be together,â she says by phone from her home in New York. âIt was extremely nonconformist and supportive. It really did feel like a beacon for kids from all over the city who loved the arts, and that was kind of amazing. That was definitely not something that I had been exposed to before that, a place where you could go and people would play music in the halls.â
Andre Hayward at the Skylark Lounge with the late Margaret Wright’s piano (Photo by David Brendan Hall)
Standing onstage with saxophonist Elias Haslanger s local quintet, Andre Hayward preps for his moment. As the two men finish a harmonized riff on the bandleader s Smiley s Stairs, Hayward lifts his bell to the microphone to take the first solo. The trombonist sticks close to the melody at first, adding slight variations, before scattering flurries of notes that belie their creator s relaxed state.
At the point it all threatens to veer too far outside, Hayward brings it back home, gracefully recasting the melody and setting up Haslanger s own break. Though there s no live audience, Hayward earns enthusiastic applause from his bandmates.