Synopses & Reviews
For fans of Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, and Amanda Coplin’s The Orchardist
A tour de force about two women and the piano that inexorably ties their lives together through time and across continents, for better and for worse.
In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Blüthner piano, built at the turn of the century in Germany, on which she discovers everything that she herself can do with music and what music, in turn, does for her. Yet after marrying, she emigrates with her young family from Russia to America, at her husband’s frantic insistence, and her piano is lost in the shuffle.
In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, 26-year-old Clara Lundy loses another boyfriend and again has to find a new apartment, which is complicated by the gift her father had given her for her 12th birthday, shortly before he and her mother died in a fire that burned their house down: a Blüthner upright she has never learned to play. Orphaned, she was raised by her aunt and uncle, who in his car repair shop trained her to become a first-rate mechanic, much to the surprise of her subsequent customers. But this work, her true mainstay in a scattered life, is put on hold when her hand gets broken while the piano’s being moved — and in sudden frustration she chooses to sell it. And what becomes crucial is who the most interested party turns out to be. . .
Review
“A charming, puzzling plot that gets more exciting and addictive the deeper you sink into it....Cander’s unadorned prose composes some truly beautiful descriptions of the joy of music.” Leslie Hinson, BookPage (Starred)
Review
“The Weight of a Piano showcases [Cander’s] development as a powerful storyteller, reminding me of Accordion Crimes by the great Annie Proulx....[This is] an original, creative tackling of the essentially solitary human condition; the effort required of women to claim full personhood; and the frightening vulnerability necessary to connect with another, defiant in the face of the transitory nature of all things.” Michelle Newby, Lone Star Literary
Review
“Deftly plotted and well written, a gentle meditation on the healing power of art–and its limitations....Cander grabs the reader in her bravura, thickly detailed opening pages [and] expertly parcels out her revelations [as] she builds parallel narratives [toward] an odd but beautiful finale.” Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Synopsis
In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Bl thner piano, on which she discovers an enrichening passion for music. Yet after she marries, her husband insists the family emigrate to America--and loses her piano in the process.
In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, twenty-six-year-old Clara Lundy is burdened by the last gift her father gave her before he and her mother died in a terrible house fire: a Bl thner upright she has never learned to play. Now a talented and independent auto mechanic, Clara's career is put on hold when she breaks her hand trying to move the piano, and in sudden frustration she decides to sell it. Only in discovering the identity of the buyer--and the secret history of her piano--will Clara be set free to live the life of her choosing.
About the Author
Chris Cander graduated from the Honors College at the University of Houston, in the city where she was raised and still lives, with her husband, daughter, and son. For seven years she has been a writer-in-residence for Writers in the Schools there. She serves on the Inprint advisory board and stewards several Little Free Libraries in her community. Her first novel,11 Stories, won the Independent Publisher Gold Medal for Popular Fiction, and her most recent, Whisper Hollow, was longlisted for the Great Santini Fiction Prize by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. She is also the author of The Word Burglar, which won the 2014 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award (silver).
Chris Cander on PowellsBooks.Blog
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