Review: An Unfinished Score by Elise Blackwell

Title: An Unfin­ished Score

Author: Elise Black­well

Pub­lisher: Unbri­dled Books

Date (to be) Pub­lished: April 2010

Syn­op­sis: (from publisher)

As she pre­pares din­ner for her hus­band and their extended fam­ily, Suzanne hears on the radio that a jet­liner has crashed and her lover is dead.  Alex Elling was a renowned orches­tra con­duc­tor.  Suzanne is a con­cert vio­list, long unsat­is­fied with her mar­riage to a com­poser whose music turns emo­tion into thought. Now, more alone than she’s ever been, she must grieve secretly. But as com­plex as that effort is, it pales with the arrival of Alex’s widow, who black­mails her into com­plet­ing the score for Alex’s unfin­ished viola con­certo.  As Suzanne strug­gles to keep her dou­ble life a secret from her hus­band, from her best friend, and from the other mem­bers of her quar­tet, she is con­sumed by mem­o­ries of a rich love affair sat­u­rated with music. Increas­ingly manip­u­lated by her lover’s widow and tor­mented by the concerto’s many lay­ers, Suzanne real­izes she may lose every­thing she’s spent her life work­ing for.  A story of love, loss, sex, class, and betrayal, this psy­cho­log­i­cally com­pelling novel explores the ways that artists’ lives and work inter­act, the nature of rela­tion­ships among women as friends and com­peti­tors, and what it means to make a life of art.

Where Did It Come From?

This was one that I par­tic­u­larly was inter­ested in and sought out Unbri­dled Books at the BEA to request a copy.

Why Did I Choose It?

Being a very musi­cal per­son, this story sounded like some­thing I could really get into.

Bonus: Click HERE to read an excerpt from this book.

My Review:

While I was read­ing this book, I was try­ing to think how I would describe it.  And yet now that I’ve fin­ished read­ing it and sat on this review for a few days try­ing to flesh it out in my head, I find that my first thought still remains the best way to describe this book.

Beau­ti­ful.

There is such depth to this tale, and it is filled with such emo­tion that it reminds me of a great piece of music that could almost bring you to tears.  It’s heart wrench­ing and yet, peace­ful, bring­ing you from start to fin­ish while expos­ing you to numer­ous thoughts and emo­tions you may not have expected from such a book.  Black­well clearly did her research into the world of music to cre­ate such a pro­found piece of literature.

Because I could con­tinue to lav­ish praise upon this book, I wanted to instead share a mem­ory that came to mind while read­ing this book.  I have been a pianist for many years and by and far my favorite piece is Rachmaninoff’s Third Con­certo.  Unfor­tu­nately, I am only able to play a few pages of it, and being such a dif­fi­cult piece, it is a rare occa­sion to hear it per­formed live.  The first year I moved to NYC, I had the oppor­tu­nity to hear it played with the NY Phil­har­monic.  I am not an overly emo­tional per­son as any­one who knows me per­son­ally will attest to, but when that piece was played, I had tears of such joy stream­ing down my face for most of the performance.

For a piece of music to touch me in that way is a rar­ity and for a book, it is even more so, and so I would rec­om­mend this book to any­one, but most espe­cially to those with a deep appre­ci­a­tion for music.