2019 Readers’ Favorite Awards Gold Medal Winner in Fiction (Literary)2019 Best Book Awards Finalist in Fiction (Literary)2019 International Book Awards, Finalist, Fiction (Multicultural)2020 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award Fiction Silver Medal Winner in Multicultural2019 Foreword Indie Finalist in Adult Fiction: Multicultural2019 Nautilus Book Awards Silver Winner in Fiction“Infused with beauty, … Multicultural
2019 Nautilus Book Awards Silver Winner in Fiction
“Infused with beauty, humor, and pain, The Alchemy of Noise is a modern American love story that asks if love can bridge the distance between two Americas.”
—Laura Nicole Diamond, author of Shelter Us and Deliver Me
In a world so full of lonely people and broken hearts, Chris Hawkins, a black sound engineer from Chicago’s south side, and Sidonie Frame—white, suburban-raised, the head manager of one of the city’s most elite venues—meet by work-related happenstance and fall quickly in love, convinced that by that act alone they can inspire peace, joy, and happiness in the world around them. The world, however, has other ideas.
Their meeting is serendipitous. Chris, who owns and runs his company, largely spends his time surrounded by members of his own community; Sidonie, conversely, is rarely outside the environs of work and its predominantly white staff and clientele. But when the club’s sound manager goes AWOL on the night of a big event and Chris is hired to come in as a last-minute replacement, their destinies collide.
Immediately drawn to each other, they fall quickly into an unexpected and thrilling relationship, inspiring myriad reactions amongst family and friends on both sides of the racial divide. But even as their love story evolves, day-to-day tensions, police disruptions, and the microaggressions Chris constantly encounters as a black man in the gritty environs of Chicago become a cultural flashpoint, challenging Sidonie’s privileged worldview and Chris’s ability to translate the unfolding events. After a random and gut-wrenching series of police encounters shakes their resilience, it’s the shattering circumstance of a violent arrest—one in which Chris is identified as a serial vandal and potential rapist—that sends their world into free fall.
He claims his innocence; she believes him. But the forces pushing against them are many and oppressive. With a looming trial, the dissipating loyalties of key allies, and unforeseen twists triggering doubt and suspicion, Sidonie and Chris are driven to question what they really know of each other and just whom to trust, leading to a powerful and emotional conclusion.
Lorraine Devon Wilke’s third novel, The Alchemy of Noise, ventures beyond the humor and pathos of family drama explored so cleverly in her first two novels to dig deep into the politics of contemporary culture. At its heart a love story, it explores the complexity of race in a suspenseful drama driven by issues of privilege, prejudice, police profiling and legal entanglements, and the disparities in how those provocative themes impact the various and diverse characters involved.
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This story is so achingly real, so beautifully written, the characters so rich and complete, the circumstances so compelling, I had to take my time reading it cover to cover. Several times I had to put it down, needing time to absorb what I just read till I was ready to find out what happens next. But lI was never able to guess – everything made sense and nothing was predictable. This author uses words like paint on a brush to create vivid pictures of places, emotions, relationships. I loved her other novels; this one is outstanding, the best yet.
“Move your hands away from your pocket.! Now! Now!!”
Two guns are pointed within inches of Chris’s head as another officer swoops in to grab the hand reaching into his pocket.
The video pauses—
The Alchemy of Noise: A Novel by Lorraine Devon Wilke is a readable romance/drama where the brutalities of life come into focus early on. The topic of racism is clearly drawn at the forefront.
This author writes with sophistication and her heart on her sleeve. Told with a deep sense of emotion that makes me certain this storyline hits close to home. Less fiction and more true life. A sad truth, but life can be harsh and there are moments in this book that don’t spare us from that. Not that we need to hide from what is right in front of our faces. It’s an uncomfortable reality that feels wrong especially in the twenty-first century. Haven’t we learned anything from the past?
There were unsettling scenes in the story that scream (tick, tick tick) off the pages that left me feeling shame that there is still so much racism in this world. This is a topic that needs to be explored and not swept under the rug. I give the Miss Wilke credit for going there! And with great passion, bravery and humanity.
The Alchemy of Noise is an honest, empathetic, and powerful look at racial tensions in modern America, explored through one interracial couple’s burgeoning relationship―and how it plays on the concerns and assumptions of their friends and families. The writing is excellent, the characters full and real and conflicted―just like life.
This is not a run-of-the-mill love story. But Lorraine Devon Wilke is not a run-of-the-mill writer. The Alchemy of Noise, a powerful interracial romance with rich, cinematic quality, is gritty, clever, and superbly crafted, sustaining a gut-wrenching level of tension until the final page.
The Alchemy of Noise is a beautifully written novel that follows the relationship of an interracial couple and allows the reader to be part of their turbulent love story. Sidonie Frame, a dynamic white woman, and Chris Hawkins, a thoughtful black man, live in contemporary Chicago and meet when Chris works as a sound engineer at the upscale nightclub that Sidonie manages.
Their attraction grows and even before they completely fall in love, Sidonie—alongside Chris—experiences just a bit of the racism that people of color live with every single day. The first episode, when Chris is driving and gets pulled over and “questioned” by police officers, made my heart rate soar. At that point, I was genuinely invested in the novel. The beginning was interesting and well written, but it was this scene that drew me in.
The novel uses exceptional tone and language throughout. Ms. Devon Wilke is an astute writer, and she captures the micro-aggressions and implicit biases of her characters in a very authentic manner. A few conversations that Sidonie has with her sister, Karen, and her closest friend, Patsy, seemed a bit didactic at times. On the other hand, Sidonie’s conversations with Vanessa (Chris’s sister) were raw, real, and thought-provoking (for example when they discuss “privilege”).
And that is what I think is the greatest gift of this novel. If one if not in an interracial relationship or not immersed in academia where discourses and conferences deal with these important issues constantly, it’s a story that engages and also teaches the reader many lessons. I have already recommended this book and will continue to do so. A compelling story and well-written novel.
Sidonie Frame and Chris Hawkins. These are names I will not soon forget. In “The Alchemy of Noise,” author Lorraine Devon Wilke skillfully, astutely—and often painfully—explores love and racism through the eyes and experiences of this interracial couple. What should be easy, isn’t. What should be light, far too often turns dark. What should be simple, becomes ridiculously and distressingly complex. Devon Wilke has captured the realities of what it means to be a black man in our country and those of the white woman who loves him. The story is timely. Unfortunately, still timely. The author brings us deep into the middle of this couple’s truth and reality, making it impossible to look away. And it is essential for us to look and, hopefully, learn. Highly recommended.
The Alchemy of Noise is a novel in which boy meets girl and essentially it has a love story at its heart. But it is so much more than that.
Sidonie manages a successful and popular music and events bar. Chris has his own business but steps in to help out the club when the usual sound guy lets them down. Both characters are likeable, honest, reliable and drawn to each other. But they come from very different worlds, because Sidonie is white and Chris is black. It shouldn’t matter, in fact it doesn’t to them, but in the world in which they live thinking that it isn’t going to matter is not that simple.
‘… we can’t know what we don’t experience.’
This, for me, was the crux of the tale. However open minded and empathetic you might think you are, however much you think you understand the world lived from another’s perspective, simply falling in love with someone who is good and kind is not enough. Because when something goes wrong for Chris, and it goes very wrong indeed, Sidonie is brutally awakened to the reality of their life together.
Families either close ranks, or crack, fissures starting to appear in previously strong relationships, as Sidonie finds, to her surprise, and shock, it’s not a given that everyone around her shares the same values she has about race, or the police.
The exploration of all the relationships in this novel is excellent. The characters rich and rounded, the way they react and interact absorbing.
It is very well written. It’s intelligent, educational and eye-opening, though still easy to read, the prose flowing and drawing you in. The Alchemy of Noise is an excellent novel I thoroughly enjoyed and don’t hesitate for a moment to recommend.
Infused with beauty, humor, and pain, The Alchemy of Noise is a modern American love story that asks if love can bridge the distance between two Americas. Author Lorraine Devon Wilke writes with authenticity, insight, sensitivity. Her characters Sidonie and Chris (and the loved ones in their orbit) stay with me like old friends whose success I am rooting for but is in no way guaranteed in a world where skin color may be destiny.
Beautifully written, perfectly balanced, and evenly paced, The Alchemy of Noise, Devon Wilke’s story of love, redemption, and racial conflict in the shadow of contemporary urban America, is a tour-de-force from an author at the top of her game.
Set in Chicago, this beautifully written, highly suspenseful novel about an interracial romance succeeds on many levels. The reactions of family members, friends, and co-workers provide a vivid and believable tableau, depicting the varied facets of racism and its consequences. There is drama, there is humor (including a wisecracking judge in a tense courtroom scene). Can love possibly win out here? Trust me, you’ll keep reading to the very end.
A contemporary romance that is particularly poignant in the current climate of unrest due to the murder of George Floyd, this novel captures the time in which we live.
The advice to writers is always to write what you know. Lorraine Devon Wilke writes from the perspective of a white woman who has experienced an extended interracial relationship. The things she experienced and witnessed firsthand provided the impetus for The Alchemy of Noise.
At first, it’s a sweet boy meets girl, attraction happens, a love affair begins kind of story. But as the relationship deepens, Sidonie Frame is thrown into a world where the color of one’s skin determines the treatment that person gets. Things she’s only heard about or seen on the news – things foreign to an attractive, successful white woman – come to ugly life when Chris, an attractive, successful black man, is targeted for no other reason than his color. First, it’s a traffic stop, then it’s Sidonie’s troublesome neighbor calling the police on Chris for bringing home a new television. Then the worst happens. Chris is brutally beaten by police and faces charges for crimes he didn’t commit.
This story kind of creeps up on you. You’re going along, reading it, enjoying it, and then suddenly, you’re afraid to turn the page for fear of what comes next because as a reader, you don’t see color, you see the people involved. You know who they are, and you like them. You’re invested in them and you’re rooting for them.
This is a story for our time. It examines the issue of race in this country and the difficulties faced by interracial couples who dare to fall in love. It’s heart-rending, it’s gritty, and it’s all too painfully true. I won’t tell you how it ends. You’ll have to read it to find out. And when you get to the end of this tale, I hope that you will come away, as I did, with a new appreciation for the work we all must do to combat racism wherever we find it and remember that we are all human beings worthy of love and respect, regardless of the color of our skin.