The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

In 1981, Lyle, Eddie, and Cluck, three recent college graduates, arrive on Waiheke Island. They’re there on a post-college trip to find Frankie Presto. Twelve years after Frankie’s Woodstock incident, he had disappeared and become a legend. The three young men are in a band, and they’re all fascinated by the Frankie Presto mystery. They followed various clues to the island, hoping to find him there.

When they first get to the island, a man named Kevin gives them a ride. After making small talk, the man invites them to his house to stay the night. The next morning, he takes the three men to a wooded area on the beach. He tells them that they’ll find what they’re looking for. They walk through the woods to see a man playing scales on his guitar. They think it can’t be Frankie because scales would be too simple for him.

This chapter flashes back to a scene between Frankie and El Maestro in 1944. Frankie’s crying because he misses Baffa, and El Maestro says, “Do you think I wanted a life of darkness? […] Things get taken away. You will learn to start over many times—or you will be useless” (329). 

Music thinks about how his “favorite child,” Ludwig van Beethoven, who lost his hearing: “I remained in his soul, steadfast as always, but producing music without hearing it was a burden I could not lighten” (330). Similarly, Music felt helpless after Frankie mutilated his hand that night on the Woodstock stage.

After getting sober and realizing what he had done to himself, he went back to the New York City apartment he had shared with Aurora, but she was gone. Rather than losing himself in drugs and alcohol again, he went to Vietnam with the “United Service Organization, or USO, [which] had been bringing entertainers to American troops for decades, starting with the Second World War” (333). Frankie was part of a tour that included comedians and dancers, and they traveled to different military bases to perform and lift the spirits of the soldiers.

During the last week of touring, Frankie runs into Ellis, a little boy he and Aurora had known in New Orleans. Ellis is a soldier in the war, but he plans on marrying a Vietnamese woman before leaving the country so that he can bring her back to America with him. That night, Frankie sings while Ellis plays the guitar for his fiancée’s family. Afterward, Frankie gets a taxi back to his hotel, and Ellis rides with him so they can have more time to talk. The driver stops to get gas, but once he leaves and starts running, Ellis realizes they’ve been set up. He and Frankie jump out of the car just in time to avoid the bomb. “Frankie threw his guitar case over Ellis as they hit the ground” (338). The case is covered in shrapnel, and it’s clear Ellis would have died had Frankie not saved him. From inside the case, a guitar string turns blue.

Back on the island in 1981, the young men approach Frankie. They start talking, but Frankie is distracted by a little girl who comes running and jumps into his open arms. A woman with blonde hair comes over, and the young men feel awkward as if they’ve interrupted something.

Tony recalls how he had moved to London for a short time in his life to get away from the demands of his music career. While in his hotel, he saw a man outside his window every morning sitting on a park bench and holding a guitar. He talks to him one morning, and Frankie starts singing the lyrics to one of Tony’s songs. After they talk for a bit, Tony realizes it’s Frankie Presto. Frankie says he’s waiting for his wife. The two become friends, but eventually Tony is about to return home. Frankie confides that the all he’s ever had in life is his guitar and Aurora.

Frankie and Aurora finally reunite due to Tony Bennett. Before leaving London, he had told someone at BBC about Frankie’s story, and he told the story on the air. Cecile, Aurora’s sister, heard it, and she called Aurora. Aurora finds Frankie sitting on the park bench, and they stay together from that moment forward. They “pleasantly discovered the barriers between them had melted away” (351). They move to the island of Waiheke to find peace and quiet. 

The three men draw straws to decide who will talk to Frankie, and Lyle is chosen. He asks Frankie questions, and Frankie answers while he practices the guitar. Lyle asks if Frankie was the one playing the guitar solo that night at Woodstock, but Frankie denies it.

A small music festival is taking place on the island, and the young men are invited to play. Their band, the Clever Yells, makes the crowd cheer with their covers of famous songs. Near the end, they play a Frankie Presto song: “In the back stood Frankie, with the little girl on his shoulders. In the middle of the song, he turned and walked away” (359).

Music explains that the little girl on Frankie’s shoulders is he and Aurora’s adopted daughter. They found her abandoned on the beach. They took her to the local church, but they quickly decided to adopt her. The nuns at the church thought the baby was deaf because she never made a sound, but she reacted when Frankie played his guitar, meaning she can hear; she just doesn’t speak.

Frankie and Aurora name the little girl Kai, and she is present for Frankie’s musical recovery.

Frankie agrees to record a song with the Clever Yells as long as they don’t put him in the credits of the album: “Lyle was disappointed, as he had hoped that telling people Frankie Presto was on his record would make it more marketable” (365), but he’s still thrilled to play with him. They record a fast song, but afterwards Frankie asks Lyle why he chose that song since it seems like he didn’t enjoy it. He admits he did it because he thought it was marketable. Frankie says he should play what’s in his heart, not what will sell, because “Money and music are not friends” (370).

Frankie agrees to play a different song with the band, but while he’s waiting, he invites Aurora and Kai into the studio to listen to him play. He lets his fingers run free and plays as if he had never stopped or been injured. The whole session was recorded unbeknownst to Frankie. The recording engineer writes “The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto” on the side of the tape.

Lyle goes on to be successful as Lyle Lovett; meanwhile, Frankie’s secretly recorded tape is pressed onto vinyl and sold throughout the South Pacific. One morning, Kai speaks for the first time in her life. She asks Frankie and Aurora where they came from, and for the first time in a long time, Aurora decides they should leave the island to show her their history. However, when they leave the island, they don’t notice someone following them.