The Music
About this book
James Hamilton-Paterson is surely one of the most eclectic and versatile writers working today. The Briton has written two superb books of non-fiction, Playing with Water (about his experiences living on a remote Philippine isle in the 1970s) and The Great Deep (a collection of ruminations and historical asides on the sea), several volumes of poetry, and the novels Gerontius and Ghosts of Manila . In this, his second collection of short stories, his locales and characters are scattered all over the an American pianist giving a recital in China, a clandestine political meeting in Libya, a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, a music censor in Eastern Europe, a young Filipina musician forced into prostitution. Music, particularly the high classical forms of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, provides the central themes for each story. Mozart even shows up, reincarnated as a Nigerian cardiac surgeon attending a conference in Malta. It's a daring, idiosyncratic collection, pulled off with great aplomb by a distinctive composer of prose.