Mozart's Ghost: A Novel [Hardcover]

Julia Cameron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2008

Meet Anna, a thirtysomething Midwesterner living alone in New York City. A schoolteacher by day, she is a medium by night, covertly helping people reunite with their lost loved ones. Anna leads a double life, guarding her secret as much as she guards her heart—until Edward, a gangly yet quietly handsome concert pianist, moves into her building.
            Edward’s music fills Anna’s apartment with beautiful sounds that disturb her concentration and her lines of communication with ghosts. She and Edward fall for each other fast, but Anna is conflicted: By exposing her true identity, does she risk losing what may be her true love? And is music really his true love?
            Then a ghost begins to interfere—Mozart’s ghost—and while making a pest of himself to Anna, he begins to play matchmaker with unpredictable results....
            An enchanting and irresistible love story in the tradition of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Mermaid Chair, Mozart’s Ghost will win Julia Cameron a whole new galaxy of fiction readers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Cameron, the author of more than 25 books and probably best-known for The Artist's Way, brings her fans a twist on a stereotypical romance that strikes a chord with those willing to immerse themselves in a world of ghosts. Anna Chester is a New York transplant from the Midwest trying to overcome loneliness and support herself by substitute teaching while pursuing a sideline career as a medium. When Edward Appleton, a talented pianist who is practicing for a competition, moves in downstairs, Anna is frustrated that the piano music interrupts her communication with the other world. Her anger is amplified even more by frequent visits from the ghost of Mozart, who adores Edward's playing and encourages Anna to pursue a romantic relationship with the musician. The romance blossoms in fits and starts, and Anna is reluctant to tell Edward about her speaking-with-the-dead abilities out of fear he will no longer want a relationship. While this delightful novel has a heavy supernatural presence, it's also about loneliness and fear, two things that many readers will understand—even if they don't believe in ghosts. (Feb.)
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Review

“Heartbreakingly funny.”
- Erica Jong

“Wonderfully sly . . . beautifully realized . . . a delicious love story.”
- Tim Farrington, author of The Monk Upstairs and The Monk Downstairs

“Captivating . . . musically evocative, tenderly funny, and hauntingly erotic. Moving and delicious . . . a spellbinding novel.”
- Judy Collins

“Enchanting. Charming. Anyone who goes to a psychic or has ever been tempted to try a medium will love reading about Julia Cameron’s spirit talker and Mozart’s ghost.”
- Sophy Burnham, author of A Book of Angels

“Authentic and entrancing . . . Mozart’s Ghost has successfully captured the challenge and humor of living a spirit-filled life in the secular world. I loved her ending.”
- Sonia Choquette, bestselling author of The Psychic Pathway

“A grand little tale, worthy of Mozart’s love and joy . . . a great symphonette.”
- Don Campbell, author of The Mozart Effect

“A charming, festive novel that has kick. Well-written and awake, we now have a fine tale from the author of The Artist’s Way.”
- Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition edition (February 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312369115
• ISBN-13: 978-0312369118
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,286,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Julia Cameron has been an active artist for more than thirty years. She is the author of twenty-eight books, fiction and nonfiction, including her bestselling works on the creative process: The Artist's Way, Walking in This World, Finding Water, and The Writing Diet. A novelist, playwright, songwriter, and poet, she has multiple credits in theater, film, and television.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Predictable, and not in a good way, April 17, 2008

By 

Carl LaFong (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mozart's Ghost: A Novel (Hardcover)

We don't ask much from our romantic novels and movies. We know how they're going to end; we just want to be entertained with a few clever twists along the way. But aside from the very nice inclusion of a celebrity ghost, this by-the-numbers romance is infuriatingly predictable. And it's almost fatally hampered by the fact that Anna, a spirit medium and the main character, is insufferably, unrelentingly cranky and none too bright. She's her own worst enemy so often that it becomes hard to root for her, and even harder to see why the other characters seem to like her. The devices and complications that keep the lovers apart are uninspired, the supporting characters are nice but lightly sketched, and there's no sparkling dialogue or emotional energy to make us think that the two would-be lovers are brought together by anything except mutual loneliness. Add to that an unavoidable suspicion that the author is cynically outlining the film adaptation as she goes along, and a last page resolution that feels rushed and unsatisfying. There's nice writing here, breezy and humorous at times, but it doesn't make up for a dull ride.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars More Ghastly Than Ghostly, March 15, 2008

By 

L. Young "palmtree2000" (West Orange, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mozart's Ghost: A Novel (Hardcover)

Anna is thirty-something, solitary and a bit waspish. She has left Kalamazoo, Michigan and this novels finds her living in The Big Apple. By day she is a teacher. By night she is a medium who helps her clients connect to 'the other side' and converse with their dearly departed.

One day,late for work she leaves her apartment only to find the lobby blocked by the arrival of a giant grand piano, its owner a giant red headed pianist who is moving into her building. Later she discovers his name is Edward. Suddenly Anna finds her concentration broken by the red head's constant practicing. He has arrived in New York to intensively practice for an important piano competition. The noise interferes with her contact with 'the other side'. In addition she finds herself intruded upon by the ghost of Mozart who gloats over the brilliant performance of Edward and urges her 'to be nice to him'. Even worse the pianist seems to be everywhere, taking up her regular booth at her favorite Greek diner, impringing upon her use of the laundry room, even befriending her annoying brother who has temporarily moved in with her.

Will Anna and Edward find true love? Will Edward win the competition? You can easily guess the answers. The novel is endlessly repetitive. Anna can't sleep, she can't share her Edward plight with her drop-dead gorgeous best friend Stacy. She makes repeated trip to the basement to do her laundary, tabloid papers in hand, or makes trips to the Greek diner as the plot moves forward at a snail's pace. She endlessly ruminates about whether she should reveal her night-time profession to Edward. Should she tell him? If she does will he still love her? Not hard to figure out the end.

Along the tedious way we are treated to an assortment of cliched characters -a jolly gay principal, his mean spirted gay friend who is a clairvoyant, an exotic bi-sexual man named Tommy who is constantly flirting with Anna and trying to get her into bed, the friendly waiter at the diner, and of course the gorgeous best friend. Interspersed with these are juvenile letters that Edwards sends home to a childless couple who are financing his stay in New York while he works towards winning the competition. One cliche is piled upon another.

It takes half the novel for Edward and Anna to get together: another quarter of the novel for Anna to obsess over calling Edward after their first liasion, and the final quarter of the book to finally tell Edward her secret profession.

The fact that this dreadful mess was written by a woman who is considered a master at leading others to fulfill their creative potential makes matters even worse. Save your money and your eyesight. Don't buy this book. I wish Amazon made it possible to give this zero stars.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable, light read, April 6, 2008

By 

Mel2024 "Melissa Udy" (Niagara Falls, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mozart's Ghost: A Novel (Hardcover)

I have never read anything by Julia Cameron, but I saw a rather positive review of this book in a magazine and decided to purchase it. Being a music teacher, I was interested to see how Mozart was portrayed. I have to say the book was a nice, quick read - and it was enjoyable. I have to disagree with a review I read that stated that a whole bunch of the book was dedicated to her agonizing over whether to tell Edward about being a medium or not. Yes it is a major point toward the end of the book (not a majority of the book), but it is a question that is true to the story, and is true to the character and her history. The characters are enjoyable as is the overall story. I found Mozart to be rather funny, though certainly nothing new is presented about him (which wasn't the point of the book anyway!) I recommend this book as light reading for those who just enjoy spending time with a good book.