Synopses & Reviews
The narrator of this wonderfully perceptive, highly entertaining tale of love and loss is a middle-aged German composer who writes serious avant-garde music, but makes a living writing theme music for television. When Judit, an ambitious young cello player from Budapest (whose mother was once the composer's lover and who may or may not be his daughter), shows up on his doorstep, he agrees to take her in while she studies at the conservatory in Munich.
Judit's presence evokes memories of a far different time for the composer, when life was about art and his biggest concern was finding a room for an afternoon tryst. When our protagonists set out for the composer's house in southern France, where he will finish his opera and she will master her instrument, it gradually becomes clear that this young woman is playing more than the cello. Funny, ironic, and oddly illuminating.
Review
"[A] lively, intelligent novel....This ironic, subtly crafted story shows how domestic give-and-take can make the simple negotiations of living add up to an 'incomprehensible life.'" Publishers Weekly
Review
"This is an acerbic and witty fable, full of postwar and middle-aged angst, bitterness, and a cynical worldview." Booklist
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"This witty, skillfully written book is recommended for all literary fiction collections." Library Journal
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"[T]here's comedy here aplenty amid the colorful and the eccentric, great learning worn lightly, the whole delivered by a fine and intelligent tumble of words. Wonderful. Alert all who hunger for the stimulus of real intellectual entertainment." Kirkus Reviews
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"[A] slim, elegant novel....Packed into this small, powerful novel is a dazzling array of well-chiseled, colorful characters, extracted from the grand tableau of history and from the author's imagination." Noah Isenberg, The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Born in Wittgendorf, Germany in 1943, Michael Krüger is a distinguished writer, critic, and publisher. He has been publisher at Carl Hanser Verlag since 1986, and is the editor of the literary magazine Akzente. His books have been awarded numerous prizes over the years, including the prestigious Peter-Huchel-Preis and the Prix Médicis Etranger. He lives in Munich.