Philip T. Nemec, an author who has been based in Falls Church since 2000, published his novel, The Chicago Syncopator, about the jazz age in Chicago, earlier this year.
The novel began as a short story in 1975 that Nemec wrote while he was in the writers’ program at the University of Illinois.
Nemec’s book features George Nepras, a son of Czech immigrants who grew up living a hard life in blue collar early 20th century Chicago, and spins a tale of his life in jazz and his soul’s redemption through it.
George hangs out in the speakeasies of the Roaring Twenties, studying early jazz greats like King Oliver, and he befriends jazz legend Bix Biederbecke. The journey to his calling forces George to struggle against fate, virulent racial tension, his insular ethnic neighborhood and his own limitations. For more information about the book, visit philiptnemec.com.
