Kirjahaku

The night before brilliant but erratic composer Charles Jessold's opera - about a betrayed husband who murders his wife and her lover - is due to open, Jessold is found dead, having apparently murdered his wife and her lover. Leslie Shepherd, music critic and Jessold's collaborator on the opera, reflects on the scandalous affair in a dazzling, passionate and witty novel about the dangerous relationship between artist and critic.

One of The Wall Street Journal's Best fiction books of 2011 England, 1923. A gentleman critic named Leslie Shepherd tells the macabre story of a gifted young composer, Charles Jessold. On the eve of his revolutionary new opera's premiere, Jessold murders his wife and her lover, and then commits suicide in a scenario that strangely echoes the plot of his opera---which Shepherd has helped to write. The opera will never be performed. Shepherd first shares his police testimony, then recalls his relationship with Jessold in his role as critic, biographer, and friend. And with each retelling of the story, significant new details cast light on the identity of the real victim in Jessold's tragedy. This ambitiously intricate novel is set against a turbulent moment in music history, when atonal sounds first reverberated through the concert halls of Europe, just as the continent readied itself for war. What if Jessold's opera was not only a betrayal of Shepherd, but of England as well? Wesley Stace has crafted a dazzling story of counter-melodies and counter-narratives that will keep you guessing to the end.

In the illustrious history of the theatrical Fishers, there are two Georges. One is a peculiar but endearing 11-year-old, raised in the seedy world of 70s boarding houses and backstages, now packed off to school for the first time; the other, a garrulous ventriloquist's dummy who belonged to George's grandfather, a favorite traveling act of the British troops in World War II. The two Georges know nothing of each other -- until events conspire to unite them in a search to uncover the family's deepest secrets. Weaving the boy's tale and the puppet's "memoirs," By George unveils the fascinating Fisher family -- its weak men, its dominant women, its disgruntled boys, and its shocking and dramatic secrets. At once bitingly funny and exquisitely tender, Stace's novel is the unforgettable journey of two young boys separated by years but driven by the same desires: to find a voice, and to be loved. "By George is one of those rare works of fiction with an essential triple helix -- it's funny, it's clever and it's perfectly woven together with story. If writing is how we imagine not being lonely, as Wesley Stace suggests, then his conjuring trick as a writer is that he brings a large crowd along with him. This is a wonderful follow-up to his debut novel, Misfortune." -- Colum McCann, author of Zoli and Dancer

You know who I am. But perhaps you don't know my name: Rose Old. I was unwanted at birth and thrown away, evidence best disposed of. If you consider that, bloodily new to the world, I was bound for a dusty grave and that I was saved only by a distracted boy and a stray dog, it's a miracle that I lived an hour, let alone as long as I have. Who'd have imagined I'd live to tell the tale, as it were? Fortune patted me on the head at an early age, but it wasn't all walks and treats. We had a complicated relationship. What else do you know? Well, you know I'm alive now, unless I'm telling this story from beyond the grave. I'm Old but I'm not that old and I am not going to die in my story (unless I do it with the last full stop -- that would be acceptable; after all, I haven't finished yet and I can't see the future any more clearly than you can). Rose Old, alive.

Lord Loveall, heretofore heirless lord of the sprawling Love Hall, is the richest man in England. He arrives home one morning with a most unusual package - a baby that he presents as the inheritor to the family name and fortune. In honor of his beloved sister, who died young, Loveall names the baby Rose. The household, relieved at the continuation of the Loveall line, ignores the fact that this Rose has a thorn...that she is, in fact, a boy. Rose grows up with the two servant children who are her only friends, blissfully unaware of her own gender, casually hitting boundaries at Love Hall's yearly cricket game and learning to shave even as she continues to wear more and more elaborate dresses. Until, of course, the fateful day when Rose's world comes crashing down around her, and she is banished from Love Hall as an impostor by those who would claim her place as heir.

'The absorbing story of an uncompromising genius of the dance.' Salman Rushdie'Candid, compelling. . . I loved every word of insight into the mind of a master.' Sunday TimesMark Morris was nineteen when he moved to New York to become a professional dancer. Flat broke, he found a group of like-minded artists that danced together, travelled together, slept together - a collective which became the Mark Morris Group.Suddenly, Morris was on a fast ascent, and with success also came controversy: from the circus of his tenure at La Monnaie in Belgium to his work on the biggest flop on Broadway history. But through the Reagan-Bush era and the worst of the AIDS epidemic, Morris emerged as one of the great visionaries of modern dance, an artist as joyful as he is provocative.

From the most brilliant and audacious choreographer of our time, the exuberant tale of a young dancer's rise to the pinnacle of the performing arts world, and the triumphs and perils of creating work on his own terms--and staying true to himself Before Mark Morris became "the most successful and influential choreographer alive" (The New York Times), he was a six year-old in Seattle cramming his feet into Tupperware glasses so that he could practice walking on pointe. Often the only boy in the dance studio, he was called a sissy, a term he wore like a badge of honor. He was unlike anyone else, deeply gifted and spirited. Moving to New York at nineteen, he arrived to one of the great booms of dance in America. Audiences in 1976 had the luxury of Merce Cunningham's finest experiments with time and space, of Twyla Tharp's virtuosity, and Lucinda Childs's genius. Morris was flat broke but found a group of likeminded artists that danced together, travelled together, slept together. No one wanted to break the spell or miss a thing, because "if you missed anything, you missed everything." This collective, led by Morris's fiercely original vision, became the famed Mark Morris Dance Group. Suddenly, Morris was making a fast ascent. Celebrated by The New Yorker's critic as one of the great young talents, an androgynous beauty in the vein of Michelangelo's David, he and his company had arrived. Collaborations with the likes of Mikhail Baryshnikov, Yo-Yo Ma, Lou Harrison, and Howard Hodgkin followed. And so did controversy: from the circus of his tenure at La Monnaie in Belgium to his work on the biggest flop in Broadway history. But through the Reagan-Bush era, the worst of the AIDS epidemic, through rehearsal squabbles and backstage intrigues, Morris emerged as one of the great visionaries of modern dance, a force of nature with a dedication to beauty and a love of the body, an artist as joyful as he is provocative. Out Loud is the bighearted and outspoken story of a man as formidable on the page as he is on the boards. With unusual candor and disarming wit, Morris's memoir captures the life of a performer who broke the mold, a brilliant maverick who found his home in the collective and liberating world of music and dance.