The Pursuer is a short sketch about a musician on the verge between genius and insanity. It’s only thinly disguised that it’s about Charlie Parker and his drug-fueled decline and death. In Germany, it was published as a stand-alone book while the novella is usually part of the collection Blow-Up and Other stories.
It’s a well-written character study of the madness that results from heroin abuse. It’s trying to give us insights into the mind of a genius that fails to cope with reality. Johnny Carter, the alter ego of Charlie Parker, is on a constant search to express what moves him. Coincidentally, works of genius result which nonetheless don’t satisfy him as they fail short from what he’s trying to achieve. He uses and abuses substances as well as the people around him. Being around him is like walking on a thin rope without a happy end.
I liked this novella but ultimately it’s a literary improvisation about jazz which itself is an improvisation and nothing I have any special bond to. Nice enough but nothing I could relate to personally.