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This is a curious and interesting novel. It's the story of an all-girl band in the swing era just before the tensions in Europe and Asia erupted into World War II. As such, it is of considerable historical interest. There weren't many job opportunities for women in musical groups at the time, except as vocalists. We've heard all the tired clichés. Author Hal Glatzer knows his period. Indeed he is at pains to be sure to touch just about every aspect of the time, from politics to drugs to easy sexuality. But the accuracy of the observations by the members of this traveling band of swingers sometimes makes for arch and awkward dialogue. The year is 1940. Out of work musician, Katy Green, takes time off from looking for a job to visit the Santa Monica amusement pier. There she just happens to encounter an old lover from back east who is touring California with his all-girl band, the Ultra-Belles. One thing leads to another and the bandleader and song writer, Ted Nywatt offers Katy a temporary job. The mystery begins here with the reason there is suddenly an opening in the band. Protagonist Katy Green is a good character. Glatzer has obviously worked hard to invest in her the characteristics of a bright, good-hearted, basically pure individual, worthy of our surrort and attention while she figures out who is preying on this struggling band of musicians as they wander through California by train. She may drink sometimes, but almost never to excess and she's able to resist the occasional offer of drugs, and neither she nor any other member of the cast uses bad language. Ever. This story first saw light as an audio tape production, apparently with a first-class cast. Apart from coincidence, a strange lack of emotion at times, even as horrible murder takes place in the same Pullman sleeping car where the band is located, and a solution that requires serious depletion of our natural tendency to disbelieve, Too Dead To Swing is an enjoyable if placid evocation of some aspects of the period.
Reviewed by Carl Brookins, September 2002
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