"(Zabor's) hero is a saxophone-playing bear: literate, talkative, shy, emotional. Arrested for gigging in New York, the Bear is sprung from stir by a comical pastiche posse of jazzmen. In shock, the Bear cuts an album and heads off on a Midwestern tour, returning to form only when he comes back to Manhattan to rebuild the relationship with his girlfriend…An intense odyssey…Zabor writes in a purely jazz style, often taking a basic image and elaborating it free-form, echoing and bouncing motifs around the text. The subversive history of jazz and the threat of creative power are compressed into a metaphor of ursinity unleashed." - INDEPENDENT

"The Bear Comes Home is a great book, probably the bets I've ever read about what it feels like to be a musician - poignant, humorous and right on. The spiritual odyssey of Rafi Zabor's deeply human sax-playing bear provides an exhilarating read""- ANDY SUMMERS

This book is Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award.

Fafi Zabor is a recovering jazz critic and occasional jazz drummer.

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