From Publishers Weekly
A crotchety German composer's comfortable world is turned upside down by a young woman who may or may not be his daughter in Kruger's lively, intelligent novel. Though he'd like to be known for his serious compositions-several of which are available on CD and have been performed once or twice-the 50-ish narrator's substantial bank balance comes from the music he wrote for TV. He has a commission for an opera, in which he plans to immortalize the doomed Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, but it remains beyond his will even to begin the project. At the behest of an old flame, he agrees to put up her daughter, Judit, a cellist planning to study at the Munich Conservatory; she's "a carbon copy" of her mother 20 years earlier. But it soon becomes clear she's not there to better her technique. Other relatives and guests arrive, and the baffled composer is powerless in the face of the "polyglot family" Judit has assembled. Feeling displaced and irrelevant, he takes refuge in lyrical visions of his idealistic youth, the importance of art in those years, the fleeting fame of Mandelstam and, most importantly, his brief love affair with the girl's mother. He takes Judit to his slightly dilapidated French country house, where solitude should help them work. What happens next is far from what he'd hoped for, but at the same time, no different than what he might have expected. This ironic, subtly crafted story shows how domestic give-and-take can make the simple negotiations of living add up to an "incomprehensible life."
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The life of a middle-aged German composer is completely overturned on the day Judit, a young Hungarian cellist, and the daughter of his former lover, arrives at his door. Judit breathes new life into his crusty, curmudgeonly existence, but as he navigates a relationship with her, he finds himself stifled by her infuriating and dismissive friends. She also stirs up memories of his past glories, and the travels, loves, and loss that accompanied his younger years. His relationship with Judit's mother, Maria, crossed the iron curtain, and was consummated during a series of music festivals in Eastern and Western Europe. His current reputation has waned, along with the cold war, and he makes his living anonymously composing incidental music for lowbrow television dramas--forever talking about an opera that will never be composed. Judit's visit culminates with a trip to southern France, where she and the composer face off, to an uncertain end. This is an acerbic and witty fable, full of postwar and middle-aged angst, bitterness, and a cynical worldview.
Michael SpinellaCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
