Fresh Air - Bluegrass virtuoso Billy Strings

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

The Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and guitarist has one foot in traditional bluegrass and another in improvisational jam music. He has a new album, So Much for Goodbyes, inspired by his late mother. He spoke with producer Sam Briger about healing himself through songwriting, performing the day his mom died, and how being a father has changed him as a musician. "I sing now from a place of freedom and joy in my belly," Strings says. He brought his guitar to the interview. Originally broadcast Sept. 8, 2025.Ccritic at large John Powers reviews the new novel The Disappearers by Marlon James, which has been described as a masterpiece.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. in Cooley. Today, singer, songwriter, and guitarist Billy's Strings. He's one of the younger generation of musicians carrying the torch for traditional acoustic bluegrass. Even as his music incorporates exploratory improvisational jams and the occasional heavy metal guitar riff. He's been celebrated by both audiences and the music industry. His concerts fill huge arenas, and he's won three Grammys. Highway Prayers, released in 2024, is the first bluegrass album in over 20 years to reach number one on Billboard's all-genre top 100 album sales chart. That album showcases the songwriting of Billy Strings and his terrific band.

He has a new album inspired by the death of his mother last year from an overdose. It's titled So Much for Goodbyes. Here's the song Still I Crash, which he wrote about her. Mother is supposed to go on without you. Have you come home so I can hold? Walk on. I'm still. Last year, Billy Strings released a live album with another Ace Bluegrass guitarist, Brian Sutton, called Live at the Legion.

The duo performed in a more intimate setting than the arenas at which Strings usually plays. The American Legion post-82 in East Nashville, playing a lot of music associated with Doc Watson. Billy Strings spoke with fresh air's Sam Brigger last year after that album was released. Let's hear the lead-off track from Live at the Legion, Nashville Blues, originally by the Delmore Brothers. Those Nashville Blues, I've got the Blues. Those Nashville Blues, I ain't got a lot. That's got no hat. Ain't got no shoes. These people here, they treat me fine.

These people here, they treat me fine. Well, they feed me beer. And I've got the blues. I've got the blues. I've got the blues. Those Nashville blues. I ain't got no hat. Ain't got no shoes.

That's Billy Strings and Brian Sutton on the new album live at the Legion. Billy Strings, welcome to fresh air. Hey, thank you so much. Good to be here. So how did the idea for this show and album come about? Well, we did a live record. I don't know how long ago it was now, but we did one of our shows, you know,

of our big jam grass stuff in the arenas. And it's just a different kind of energy, big psychedelic jams and big screaming audiences. And a lot of my favorite live recording are tiny little small crowds where you can hear somebody knock over a beer bottle or, you know, you can hear the crowd what they're saying. Yeah, we just kind of pulled up into the Legion Hall, and they were really cool to let us do that, and we had a small crowd there, and we played a bunch of music that we love. And Brian Sutton, he's been one of my good friends for quite a few years now,

and mentors and heroes, and he is one of the greatest guitar players ever. Yeah, he's like a generation older than you, but he's, I think he's perhaps like the go-to bluegrass session guitar player in Nashville these days. So there's a long tradition of bluegrass guitar duos. There's, of course, Doc Watson and his son Merle, there's Norman Blake and Tony Rice and his brother Wyatt. like kind of like a no-brainer, just two people playing guitar together, but it's actually like a little tricky. Your instruments are right in the same range, obviously. You're playing a lot of open strings.

There's a lot of fast notes. It can get a little muddy. Like, what do you do so you're making sure you're not stepping on the other person? You just try to listen. You know, if he's down low, I'll go high or, you know, there's things like that you can do. A lot of these tunes, too, a beautiful thing about Doc and Merle and T. Michael Coleman, with those three instruments, they could make a big, fat chord, you know?

Like when they ended a song and they played a chord, it was just this huge chord because it's almost like hitting a piano in a couple different spots. You get these guitars to open up and sound big. A lot of this material comes from Doc Watson, like some of these songs

that are part of his repertoire. And you say, that most everything you do comes from Doc Watson. Can you talk about his influence on you? Yeah, he's like the ground upon which I stand. My dad played his music all around the house growing up, and by the time I could play guitar five, six years old, I was learning those tunes too. I might have been able to play some of them before I knew how to tie my shoes or something. It was like I was learning how to speak and talk and walk, and I was learning all these Doc Watson. tunes at the same time and it was just like a religion in my house, you know, his music is just

it's the best. I can hear some of his guitar playing in your playing, but what about his singing? Was that also influential? Like, he didn't have a big range, but he was expressive and he is singing. I always think it was very crisp. I mean, I think his range was really kind of something to behold when you think about it. He had this great low, low. baritone and he could also yodel and get up into that really high falsetto and you know but but with doc it was always just spoken it was always the information of the song came through and the conversation of it you know people like him people like willie nelson people like dolly parton these really great storytellers when they're singing you know if you if you see dolly parton on tv singing and you

press mute, it just looks like she's talking to you because she is. She's telling the story. You know, that's one big thing that one of my vocal coaches that I've been working with, one of the big things that I took from some of those lessons was just give me the information, you know. I get on stage and I sing and I'm so worried about the pitch. Is it, am I singing good? Is the tone good? Am I singing right? How's my timing? This and that. It's like taking the kids to the park and you're scared to let them go down the slide because you don't. want them to get hurt. It's like, geez, let them play. You know? And so if you focus on the story and telling the words, you know, it's just like, I know where the pitch is. I just need to tell the

story. So you're doing that more? Trying to. It's easier said than done, all this stuff, you know, all the music, kind of Zen, kind of mindful stuff that I've been getting into. It's kind of the inner game, inner game stuff. You know, I mean, I'm high strong. I got a lot of anxiety and stress, and I'm moving around a lot.

I've been really busy the last several years, and I got a lot of my own personal stuff that just haunts me on a daily basis, and I try to do everything I can to just be cool and get my nervous system to chill, but it just seems like I don't know. what I can do to calm it. I do the best I can, and I'm doing okay,

but it's a daily kind of struggle to just stay on the ground. Does playing guitar help, or is playing guitar caught up in all of that stuff because that's what you do for a living? It depends on what kind of playing guitar. If I'm on stage, that's where the joy is, you know. That's where the fun is. I kind of ride myself pretty hard about practice,

offstage. Well, let's talk about that. I noticed on social media like a year ago or so, you were you were popping up endorsing this online guitar program and talking about how you felt like you'd reached a plateau and you wanted to get better and get out of that. So what was going on? The more I play shows, the more shows I play in a row, the more you can drive yourself back into these old default kind of almost like a rut of playing licks you always play or playing you know you almost get sick of hearing yourself play the same thing and you're just going oh this is you know I'm not impressed I'm not impressed with myself you know I think it's I don't there's something really honest about you talking about that because here you are you're playing for

tens of thousands of people like you're an incredible guitar player and yet you still want to improve and you care about your craft and you know you're willing to talk about like i imagine there's people who are famous guitar players too who take lessons but they probably wouldn't talk about it i don't know i mean what do you want me to say i've kind of i've kind of always thought i sort of sucked you know because i'm me i'm going to be my own worst critic always but i'm just um yeah of course I'm going to talk about it. I mean, it's kind of interesting. It's like I never really took lessons. I just learned how to play from hanging out with my dad and listening to him play with my old Brad Laskill, my uncle Brad, and I kind of just was seeped in this Monroe and Stanley

brothers and Flat and Scruggs and Larry Sparks and Jimmy Martin and Osborne brothers and, you know, of course, mainly Doc Watson. And I was kind of just soaked in that and marinated in that since I was a little kid. And that's how I just heard everything. It's kind of how I hear music. But I never took any lesson. I still don't know what a harmonic minor is. I don't know what the word like diatonic means.

I don't, you know, I have no freaking idea. Bella Fleck says, hey, come play on my record. And I'm sitting in a room with Beala Fleck and Edgar Meyer and Chris Thiele and they're saying, oh yeah, it's just, you know, this is in, they're counting with all these numbers and letters and hieroglyphs and all sorts of stuff and I'm just like, man, I don't even know what any of this means. I just know the song goes duca, doca doca duca d'a d'a bha. Doca d'a-dac-d-d-d-dun. That's how the song goes to me. I couldn't tell you it in a math equation.

Well, Bill, if you wouldn't mind doing another song for us that's one of your favorites. I could do, uh, told you on the way over here, I was looking. listen to that Bears Sonic journals, Doc and Merle, T. Michael. And, man, they were sounding good, and they were doing this number here. It's called the Browns Ferry Blues. Getting back his walking cane, your door, I got them browns fit. Well, they throw it away and he went to town to see a little too tight, you don't think drinking you high, loves hand, nose, smell of this free bread.

So, Billy, last year you came out with your album, Highway Prayers. I wanted to play the second song from the album, In the Clear. This song is in the long tradition of happy sounding up-tempo, bluegrass songs with really depressing lyrics. Can you talk about writing it? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think this one was one that I wrote with my buddy Aaron Allen. He's a frequent collaborator.

Me and him and John Weisberger get together a lot of times, and we've written quite a few songs together now. But as soon as I started reading some of the words I could hear it in my head that it happens like that a lot of times even if I write something down I'm thinking of the music as I'm writing it

you know and it's it's like I write with the melody you know this is the second song from the album in The Clear so why don't we hear this? my moral compass but it's spinning like a wind you could take that many different ways i've had days as black as night time and nights that lasted years i spent a thousand hours on my knees broke down and started praying but i was bleeding with the wind just to never feel a difference in the breeze they say heaven knows the road is slow heaven no just where am i supposed to go from game. How much longer now before I'm in the clear?

That's the song in The Clear from our guest, Billy Strings, 2024 album Highway Prayers. And this is with the band that you've been with for a while now. It's Billy Failing on banjo, Jared Walker on mandolin, Royal Masat on bass, and a newer member, Alex Hargraves on Fiddle. Well, Billy, some of your songs deal with some pretty heavy subjects that you've dealt with in your life, including, you know, losing friends to suicide,

family and friends who are dealing with addiction, you know, feeling neglect when you were a kid. When you write songs about that stuff, is it helping you process those experiences? Is it easy to sing about that stuff once you've written the songs? Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it is definitely a... That's how I felt when I sang on stage the night my mom died. It was cathartic. It's cathartic.

I've had songs that I've written, you know, about something totally different that I didn't realize I wrote for myself until a month later. I write these words thinking that I'm giving some information to some people that might, could hear it, really I'm the one that needs to hear it. And I wrote that for myself so that I could heal. And now I go sing it on stage. And there's also been songs, Stratosphere Blues, and I believe in you, you know, the other night I was singing that on stage. And, you know, like I said, I wrote that before my mom had died and now singing it after is just different. It's like I knew something or something, you know.

I'm sorry about your mom. passing away. She died this last June. Would you mind singing a verse of that? I could try. Let's see. I wonder why you threw yourself away. Come on out from under and just take it day by day. It's true. I believe. Took a walk to wonder and I wandered on a thought. It's kind of hard to get through. All the things we ain't been taught. It's true. But I believe...

After all the years of medication, feels good to get your life on track. If I'm sorry to tell... You never get that monkey off your... Yeah, something like that anyways, you know? Yeah, that's a beautiful song. Thank you for playing that. No problem, man.

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Billy Strings speaking with fresh air Sam Brigger last year. Strings has a new album, So Much for Goodbyes, inspired by the death of his mother last year. We'll hear more after a break, and Critic at Large John Powers reviews the new novel The Disappearers, which has been described as a masterpiece. I'm David B. and Cooley, and this is Fresh Air. The ice over river still brayed in its chain. The heart will break open. This is Fresh Air. I'm TV critic David Beand Cooley. Let's get back to fresh air Sam Brigger's interview

with Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Billy Strings. He's both an innovator in the world of Bluegrass and someone with a great knowledge and respect for that music's history. That mix of innovation and tradition in his music is one of the reasons he's got such a large fan base, from Bluegrass traditionalists to heavy metal fans and folks you see at a Grateful Dead show. He has a new album titled Soom,

much for goodbyes, inspired by the death of his mother last year from an overdose. Well, Billy, when your mom died this last June, I think you heard in the morning, and you had a gig that night, you decided to play it. You got on stage and you made, you know, obviously an emotional announcement about it, and you said that your mom would have wanted you to go on. She wouldn't have wanted you to cancel the show. Why is that? the only reason she died is so she could you know space travel and be there she was at all the shows you know she was always in the mix

right up front she'd show up in New Orleans or Seattle or somewhere and I wouldn't even know she was coming she freaking hitchhiked there you know I was like what she walks in my green room what the hell you didn't even tell me you're coming you know she was just a wild one and she was really living her best life in this last little bit she had become quite involved with a lot of my friends and fans, you know, that go to every show

and go out in the lot and stuff. And she became really close to a lot of these people. And I was, always had mixed feelings about that. What do you mean? Well, I wanted her to go have fun and be doing, you know, whatever she wanted to be doing. But I worried about her running into the wrong people or, you know, She's been an addict my whole life and had short stints where she was doing pretty good, you know. And I love to see her out there hanging with all the fans, but at the same time, I was leery of them. You know, I would go over to visit my parents' house, and there would be, like, the fans there that I see in the front row of my concerts all the time. People you knew or did it, or just knew as fans? Mostly I just recognize them from the crowd, you know, and then I get to know them because they're hanging out with my parents or something.

but, you know, and what am I supposed to say? Like, don't do that. I don't know. They're grown people, but I don't know. She was getting older, and I kind of just had this vision of her in my head that I wanted, which is stupid. It's not realistic to try to come up with somebody else's life in your brain, but, like, I just wanted her to have a garden,

and my dad, 70 years old, she was 64. I was like, man, you guys should, like, be settling down, you know, don't you think? instead of raring and tearing and going and eating all these shrooms and going to all these concerts. And then she did get wrapped up in the wrong stuff. And that's why she's not here anymore. I'm sorry, this might be too personal. Did she overdose?

Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's messed with me in my whole life and now it's going to mess with me for the rest of it. You know, I have complex post-traumatic stress and I have, anxiety and depression and I have for years tried to deal with this stuff just that happened to me when I was a kid you know it wasn't just being neglected and they're not being food in the house and you know my parents being strung out and I miss them even though they're sitting right in front of me

while they were partying and you know stuff like that I was around the corner being molested you know before I was 10 years old and all that stuff you know and I've had to deal with that, you know, and it's a really hard thing because there's such beautiful people and they taught me so much about music. But yeah, their addiction has been really hard on me for my whole life and it still is and really triggering to lose her in this manner, you know. Well, I'm sorry. I hope talking about it is not triggering any hard feelings for you right now. I got to talk about it because it's like my whole life I've had to keep a secret in order to try to not make them look bad, you know? Like, even when I was in high school, I spoke to a counselor

one time. I mean, I was, I was in 10th grade, but I was couch surfing. I didn't live with them, you know, I moved out when I was like 13 because the house was no longer a home. They were strung out, and it's a wonder I was even going to school. And one time I got pulled into a counselor instead of the principal's office, you know, and they said, what's going on, you know? and I finally just, they told me anything I say is between them, and it won't leave the room. And I said, yeah, my parents are on meth, and I don't even live there. And my house got raided right after that. You know, that same day, five state cops came up, raided the house.

I almost sent my mom to prison because I opened my mouth. And from then on, I never said to anybody about anything. I've just, it hurts me, but what hurts me is I've always just been worried about them, you know. And I've always wanted them to be good. And when I say be good, I mean to be well and happy and have some sunshine in their life. A few years ago, I was able to buy them at home, my parents. And stuff was good for a while. But, you know, it just, yeah, it really breaks my heart that it went back to this and now she's gone.

So I think my duty here is to continue doing what I'm doing for one thing. thing, use all that beautiful energy that I get from her, that crazy wild streak. I got to use that and, you know, honor her in that way. And I feel a great kind of duty as far as just writing down these words, making these songs for people to heal from. And also, you know, who knows, maybe someday I'll actually be able to help kids that are in the situation that I was in. Maybe I'll be able to help their parents, you know, like open a rehab or something or something

like that to just to help combat this because it's it's really hard you know um yeah are you taking some time for yourself it right now like are you are you able to take some time off the road and you have a young family now that's also that's at home yeah they're with me on the road oh they're they go with you on the road heck yeah man so so so yeah i got the whole the whole gang and and we're out there traveling and it's really cool. It's awesome. And so yeah, I've just been leaning into that, leaning on my family, you know, my band. Let's hear one of your songs from Highway Prayers, which is all about being on the road, leaning on a traveling song. And this starts out with some great bluegrass harmonies and also some really terrific fiddles playing together. So let's hear that.

voices have been made, I'll keep rolling on a traveling song. That's Leaning on a Travelin' Song from Billy Strings from his album Highway Prayers. We'll hear more of his interview with Fresh Air Sam Brigger after a break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to Fresh Air's Sam Brigger and his interview from last year with singer, songwriter, and guitar. Billy Strings. He has a new album titled So Much for Goodbyes. Earlier we talked about Doc Watson, and I wanted to ask if you'd play a tune that maybe

was one of the earlier songs that you learned as a kid. Yeah. When I was a kid, I mostly just played rhythm. So I'll give an example of that. My dad, he would play this. You know. That's the fiddle tune, Beaumont, Rack. Yeah, and so I would play, you know, and so that's how I started, and that's kind of what I did for the first few years of playing. I was my dad's rhythm player, and that gave me a chance to just listen to how the songs worked, to just kind of stay there in the bass kind of notes and listen to the melodies, and listen to the harmonies, how the vocals work together. And that kind of bluegrass harmony just seeped in my ears, I guess. And later on, I got an electric guitar, a little mini Squire strat and a pig nose amp for Christmas one year.

I think I was probably 9 or 10 or so. And that was my first time really trying to play solos and stuff like that. But it was more, I was getting into Hendricks and I was playing more. You know, guitar center stuff. When I got into middle school, I wanted to play with people that were. my age, you know, I'd always played with my dad and his friends and some of them were much older. And I just wanted to play music with people that were into the same stuff as I was, like skateboarding and video games, whatever, you know.

And so the only thing that was really going on in my middle school at the time was heavy metal. And I went to a couple of shows and I just, I hated it at first. It was like, this is not music, you know. I don't know what this is, but it ain't music. But I just, I fell into that friend group and then, Next thing you know, I acquired a taste for this music, and then I fell in love with it. But after my bands kept breaking up and falling apart,

I kind of got back into Doc Watson at this time, and just bluegrass in general. This would have been around the time that stuff was really rough around the house. I remember specifically stealing my mom's old Chevelle one day. How old were you? 14, 15. You know, because I'd go over to my parents' house and hang out with them and stay there and party, and it's not like I just totally left and disowned them.

I just, once I realized stuff wasn't going to change, I mean, I didn't end up really moving back there, but I'd go there for a weekend and hung out there a bunch, but I didn't, it wasn't like my home. And so, yeah, I stole my mom's car one day when I was just sitting around getting drunk by myself, and that's how bored I was, and that's how kind of there was nothing to do in this town. I mean, there's 600 people that live here. there's nothing to do. So I was just getting drunk during the day, and I stole Mom's car, and I went down Hayes Road,

this old country road with cornfields on either side. And, man, I put the pedal to the floor, and I was going, and that corn was just a blur on either side. And there was a tape sticking halfway out of the deck, and I pushed it in, and I'm like, I wonder what my mom's listening to, right? And then this is what came on. I was in those heavy metal bands and all this stuff, and I hadn't really been listening to Bluegrass very much.

But I was kind of heartbroken at the way my life was at the time. And when I heard, I wandered to get my home in the mountain, you know, Ranked Stranger came on. That's what my mom had in her tape deck. And I just started slowing that old car down until I came to a complete stop, and I just pulled over on the side of the road,

and I started crying. And I was drunk, you know. But this, song hit me right in my heart. In that moment, I was like, what am I even doing in these heavy metal bands? Bluegrass is where my heart is. This is the music I should be playing. And at that time, I just started hunting for an acoustic guitar, you know, and my friend Zach had one. And one of the first tunes I learned how to actually pick. How to play the lead on and stuff is a thing called nothing to it. It goes like this. Is that one of those licks that you're now tired of? Or are you still

like it. Oh, I love it. I mean, yeah, it's still the best. I mean, any of that Doc Watson stuff. You decided at some point that, like, playing guitar was your way out, was kind of like your salvation and a way to get out of the kind of life that your mom and dad were leading. But at what point, though, did you sort of realize, like, this could, I could make a living doing this, I could really get somewhere or hopefully get somewhere. That wasn't until I was about 18 years old or so. Well, when I graduated high school, I was kind of in this situation where it was like, okay, I need to get out of Ionia because nothing's happening here and I'm just going to end up going down a bad road if I stay here. I'm going to end up OD or in prison or, you know, it's just

it did not look good. The way I felt is in Ionia it was it was black and white, gray. And I moved up to Traverse City, Michigan, a friend of mine, Brendan Lauer, bless his beautiful little heart, he had a room and he said, hey man, you want to come stay up in Traverse City? We need a roommate. Hell yeah, so I went up to Traverse City, man, and all of a sudden it was like Technicolor. It was like beaches and there was like microbreweries and art galleries and people, like singer-songwriters, and there was like coffee shops and people were into like art and stuff. And so I started doing a couple open mic nights up there just messing around because this is when I was studying Doc Watson kind of heavy again. I got acoustic guitar and I was just sitting at

home posting myself with no shirt on freaking YouTube or whatever, you know, I'm trying to show off my new tattoo. But I went and did some open mic nights up there and, man, I played Black Mountain rag or something and I got a standing ovation. And I go, whoa, holy crap. It's like, these folks either love Doc Watson or they've never heard anything like this. before. Your dad taught you how to play guitar. Have you picked out a guitar for your son yet? Do you plan to teach him the way your dad taught you? Well, he's already got one that he just bangs on the floor. I gave him this Martin Dreadnought Jr. used to be my guitar. I just practiced on the bus and stuff. And I took tape and I covered up all the pokey parts where the strings are on top.

And I wrapped him real good so he can't poke himself on that. Yeah. He's just banging on it. But I sing for him all the time. It's always the best. I remember that first night when we got home, the night of my 32nd birthday, the first time I was able to be at home with my son, and I held him and I sing this little song. I'll sing a bit of it for you.

He went to sleep in my arms when I was singing this to him, and it's probably the best moment of my entire life, besides maybe just the moment he was born. but there's this little lullaby I sang that to him and he fell asleep that was like the best well Billy Strings I want to thank you so much for coming on Fresh Air today

I thank you for having me the new Billy Strings album is called So Much for Goodbyes and was inspired by the death of his mother last year he spoke with Fresh Air Sam Brigger in 2025 special thanks to Brian McGlynn at all audio productions in Nashville. Coming up, critic at large John Powers reviews The Disappeurers, which has been described as a masterpiece.

This is fresh air. This is fresh air. In his new novel The Disappurors, the Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James chronicles the events surrounding a vicious anti-gay attack in Jamaica in the late 1980s. The New York Times book critic Dwight Garner declared the book a masterpiece, calling it the novel of the decade and possibly the century thus far. Our critic at large, John Powers, says that the Disappurers shows James to be one of those writers you just have to read.

The fantasy of Jamaica is of an outpost of pleasure, with shimmering white beaches, James Bond's seducing sexy women in mountain resorts, and Bob Marley singing his gorgeous songs of unity and love. But if you're gay, you know that Jamaica's a lot. has long been known as probably the most dangerously homophobic country on earth. That reality forms the backdrop to the disappearers. The blazing new novel by Marlon James, the gay Jamaican writer who won the 2015 Booker Prize

for a brief history of seven killings, and we'll probably win again for this one. Giving us, as one character says, the Jamaica underneath the Jamaica we know, this fiercely personal book doesn't merely tell a story. It carries you off like a tidal wave. Churning with passion and ideas, history and wit, graphic sex and graphic violence,

the book howled with so much pain and anger that it's as if James wrote it with his own bodily fluids. Spanning the age-shadowed years from 1988 to 2005, the disappears is tricky to describe, because it's divided into five parts, each with a different tone and central figure. It begins in high spirits with the diary of Eddie Porteus, a white-skinned biracial student who lands a role in the production of an openly queer play. There he meets the three other key characters.

Handsome Matt Chin, a mysterious soul whom Eddie fancies. The velvet-jacketed havelock Titus, the worldly older man who's directing the play. And above all, Jordan Brown, a cynical, would-be sexual outlaw who's been thrown out of his home and lives by hustling. All their lives change when a rehearsal is set upon by a gay hating mob that's led by a famous reggae singer and includes guys trying to exorcise their own homosexual feelings. These louts batter the cast and crew with billy clubs and tire irons, gouging out one victim's eyes and murdering another, sexually desecrating his body. When the survivors get taken to the hospital, they're treated cold.

by medical personnel, who believe they deserve their wounds for being batty boys, as gay men are insultingly called there. While this vicious assault is only a tiny part of the book, James makes it indelible, and far from gratuitous. Like such towering modern novelists as Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Tony Morrison, Roberto Bolano, and Elena Ferranti, James uses physical violence to explore social violence, the structures of oppression that its victims must fight to survive. Indeed, the majority of the disappearers follows the main characters as they try to cope with what's befallen them, often tying themselves into emotional knots. Some, like Matt, simply vanish, with

Eddie and Jordan trying to find him. But the others disappear in different ways, lying low, going into exile, getting AIDS, making a protective heterosexual marriage, sinking a into madness, or setting out on a secret path of dragon tattoo-style vengeance. Jordan, who says he wants to kill the bleeping world, has a searing encounter with one of the men who brutalized him. The disappearers makes you feel in your gut how scary and isolating it was to be gay in 80s Jamaica, a land so homophobic that parents demonize their own children, and crowds cheered on the cops who beat them.

Yet if James's main achievement was to simply show this bigotry, or to suggest that it's wrong, his novel would be no greater than an article in the Atlantic, or an earnest Sundance movie. In fact, what makes the book unforgettable is the raw energy of James' storytelling, his ability to conjure up all the many textures of lived experience, including hope. He takes readers deep inside his characters and deep into their world, from the local nuances of skin color and class to the way that fear can actually heighten sexual pleasure. James evokes the precise atmosphere of a Kingston gay bar,

the luxuriously debauched lair of a pedophile gay diplomat, and the post-apocalyptic vibe of the gully, the underground drainage ditches where queer youth in demotic madmax garb take refuge after being thrown out of their homes. Now, at times, James feels his story so intensely that some sections go on a bit too long. But I don't mind that in a book whose epic ambition carries us from Kingston

to 60s London to 21st century Miami and back again to Jamaica. The disappearers plunges us into darkness and makes us feel how it is to live and to love within it. At one point the director Havelock addresses himself to an imaginary audience of First World gaze. Your biggest fear, he says, is that you will be rejected. My biggest fear is that I will be burned to death. John Powers reviewed The Disappearers, the new novel by Marlon James. On Monday show, actor Kyle McLaughlin, he launched his career with the starring role in David Lynch's Dune and a multi-picture deal. Dune flopped, the deal was canceled, but McLaughlin became a star

with his leading roles in Lynch's blue velvet and Twin Peaks, and they became lifelong friends. He has a new memoir. Join us. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David B. Inc.