Flowers for Sarajevo by John McCutcheon (review)

When war comes to Sarajevo and his father goes off to fight, narrator Drasko moves into the role of family breadwinner, taking over as flower seller in the city’s outdoor market. There he enjoys the opportunity to hear musicians practice; sadly, however, he is also at the market to witness a bomb explosion that kills twenty-two people. The morning after the tragedy, a cellist emerges from the practice rooms, settles onto a chair in the bomb crater, and “plays the most beautiful and heartbreaking music anyone could ever imagine.” Repeating this ritual every day for twenty-two days, the cellist seems to affect a subtle change among his ethnically and religiously mixed audience. Drasko notes a will to return to calm and normalcy among citizens, and he resolves to use his flower business to do “his own small part to make Sarajevo beautiful once again.” McCutcheon’s tale is based on a 1992 episode in the Balkan War, in which cellist Vedran Smailovic played Albinoni’s “Adagio in G Minor” in daily vigils. Although Smailovic and the broader context of the war are discussed in closing notes, listeners sharing the experience through the fictional Drasko’s point of view (his ethnic identity is never disclosed) are freed from the context of this particular war and able to make their own inferences as to the meaning and effect of Smailovic’s performance. Caldwell’s mixed-media artwork comprises street scenes almost exclusively, bringing individual players into sharp relief and allowing backdrops to retreat in faded tones, and deftly positioning readers outside amid the everyday bustle of the marketplace, its destruction, and its reclamation. A score and lyrics for McCutcheon’s own composition “Streets of Sarajevo” are appended, and the final copy will include a CD of that piece and Albinoni’s “Adagio.”