The story begins in 1895 with Mike Bernard, a 19-year-old pianist trained in Berlin who is currently teaching piano to Emily and May, the teenaged daughters of wealthy New York banker George Convery. At 17, May Convery is a dreamer, a poet who longs for the life of an artist, and she secretly hopes that life will be with Mike. While she isn't sure if he shares her feelings, she takes a chance one evening with a stolen kiss and their relationship eventually blossoms into much more. However, May is promised to Teddy Livingstone, the son of her father's business partner, so May getting involved with someone much lower in status than she is not something Daddy will tolerate. Naturally, an ugly turn of events occurs and May and Mike are no more, but May is left with far more than memories of Mike, although she has no idea the extent of violence that Mike was threatened with had they stayed a pair.
Meanwhile, although Mike lets his dream of love go with May, he discovers something he loves far more, a new style of music called Ragtime, popularized and invented by Ben Harney, at least according to Harney, a white man, although the music style clearly has its roots in the Negro culture. Mike, now the music director of the prestigious Tony Pastor's Theater, becomes enchanted by ragging when Ben Harney performs at Tony Pastor's and he realizes that his own exceptional piano skills make him that much more capable of perfecting the Ragtime style. Throughout their careers, the pair would be rivals in Ragtime and in life, although they would maintain a friendly, if meager relationship.
Although May and Mike's lives would go in opposite directions, life would inevitably throw them back together over the years, mainly because May would become dear friends with several theater people and those involved in music, such as Abbie Mitchell, her husband and Svengali, Will Marion Cook, Strap Hill, and Rosamond Johnson. Little does Mike know, May holds a devastating secret in her heart, along with all of the anger and resentment of the past. While she has been working over the years to become the strong women she always wanted to be, will she be strong enough to finally confront her past with Mike, or will she leave the secret buried to preserve her family's future?
In Temptation Rag, Bernard has woven a tale based on many of the prominent figures of the Ragtime music era, an interesting and daunting feat, especially considering her family's connection to Mike Bernard. In truth, the character of Mike Bernard is not one that I liked, mostly due to his selfish and cowardly behavior, but clearly the man had his eye on the prize of success and that trait comes through loud and clear. May Convery is based on an actual woman involved with Mike Bernard, but most of the character development is fiction, and while women of today might enjoy her staunch work in the women's suffrage movement and her eagerness to embrace those looked down upon for their skin color in her era, I feel like her liberal attitudes would have been completely quashed at the time, regardless of her wealth and privilege.
If you have an interest in Ragtime music or the New York music scene of the early 1900's, you'll enjoy Temptation Rag. It's a novel of love, loss, defiance, and ambition wrapped in musical flair.
