"Music transcends war trauma in this important, aching, artful Holocaust novel." - The Toronto Star

Otto, a young cello student in Vienna, is snatched from his home and sent to the concentration camp at Dachau.

Marched from the camp to the Nazi Adjutant's house, he is forced to play a Stradivarius cello, eyes closed, for the Adjutant's wife.

Move forward many decades, and Otto is world famous but in retreat on the coast of Big Sur. A young woman, Rosa, turns up with questions. And her own troubled story. "Secrets connect the two strangers, ones that will change their lives."

Is it ever too late to step forward from the horrors of the Holocaust, and dare to trust again?

About the Author
Martin Goodman's debut novel On Bended Knees, shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, heralded a major theme of his writing: the aftermath of wars. His nonfiction picked up the theme when his biography of the scientist who worked to counter WW1 gas attacks, Suffer & Survive, won 1st Prize, Basis of Medicine in the BMA Book Awards. In Client Earth, which won the Jury's Choice Business Book of the Year Award 2018, and the Green Book Award from Santa Monica Libraries, he told the story of ecolawyers who battle to rescue the planet from human destruction. He is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Hull.

Reviews

"Extraoridnary. An important, aching, artful Holocaust novel." - The Toronto Star

"Beautifully structured and a distinctive and haunting tone. Altogether a very clever and memorable piece of work."- Simon Mawer, author of The Glass Room

"The parts of the novel set in Dachau, Buchenwald, Terezin and Auschwitz ring with a visceral truth, and real figures such as Herbert Zimmer, who established a secret orchestra at Dachau, and Hans Krasa - composer of the children's opera Brundibar get respectful supporting roles." - The Financial Times

"This is one powerful story that dares to hope, and shows the way to love."- Bonnie Greer

"A subtle novel that treads delicately around identity, values and life purpose."- The Hackney Citizen

"A Masterful novel." - Morning Star, UK

"A wonderful story. A beautiful book about the unimaginable and what can grow from it." - Marina Mahler, granddaughter of Gustav Mahler

"Music is at the heart of this novel and all the contested relationships in it." Ann McElvoy, Free Thinking, BBC

Book Information
ISBN 9781909954885
Author Martin Goodman
Format Paperback
Page Count 330
Imprint Barbican Press
Publisher Barbican Press