The Weight of a Piano
A hulking black piano of Russian origin links the stories of two women: Katya, who must leave behind her beloved instrument when she immigrates to the U.S., and Clara, who is forced to sell her family heirloom when she loses her boyfriend and her home. The obsessive love each woman holds for the piano unfolds as the instrument journeys across continents. Chris Cander has crafted a novel of compelling beauty and characters who are complex, deeply flawed, and magnificently haunting. This will be a five-star beginning to any avid reader’s 2019 book list.
A young girl is gifted a unique piano by a blind virtuoso. Half a century later, that same piano belongs to a troubled young woman who is trying to make sense of her life and understand the piano’s place in it. She is drawn into a quest that takes her to Death Valley and to a quirky photographer who may have the answers she seeks. This beautifully written, witty adventure, featuring a cast of marvelous characters from the past and the present, is highly recommended.
Description
In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Bl thner 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 immigrates with her young family from Russia to America, at her husband's frantic insistence, and her piano is lost in the shuffle.