“We’re born with a gift,” Anna continued, “and for a while it seems magical and gives us great pleasure, but there comes a time when it no longer satisfies us, except unlike a toy or a dress it’s not something we can just outgrow, because it’s part of us, and when you first begin to understand this, it can feel like a curse, so that you regret having been given the gift in the first place. So even if your voice feels different to you now because of what happened to your parents, that’s the natural order of things, it’s part of the growing up; and though you can never go back, you have the option of really learning how to use it in a way that will still bring you-and countless others-a lot of joy. Because-trust me-most people don’t have it, but it’s through us that they find at least a little piece of it in themselves.”
Juilliard and practice rooms. Opera and Wagner. Tristan and Isolde. Martin and Maria, Leo and Anna, the way that the four of them are inexorably intertwined with each other, and with their music, is what comprises this story.
It is everything I know musicians to be: creative, emotional, unique, insecure and gifted all at the same time.
It is everything I know parenthood to be: divine, despairing, filled with self and filled with sacrifice.
On top of this exists an extraordinary element of surprise; while in some ways I found The Metropolis Case contrived, in others I’m intrigued by the author’s imagination. Surely he understands our human hearts as well as he knows musicians’.
Read an excerpt from The New York Times here. Win a free copy of your own by simply leaving a comment. Name to be pulled on January 27th.
Dolce Bellezza 