This fascinating account of Siberia’s horrific legacy is told with great verve.
There is much to enjoy in this original slice of travel writing. Yet there is one gaping flaw at its core: the central conceit involving the “lost pianos” of the title.
For this book revolves around a quixotic quest to find an instrument for a talented musician she meets in Mongolia, whose family fled Siberia in the 1930s. This leads to many musical meetings and musings. Some fuel her narrative,... See More
This fascinating account of Siberia’s horrific legacy is told with great verve.
There is much to enjoy in this original slice of travel writing. Yet there is one gaping flaw at its core: the central conceit involving the “lost pianos” of the title.
For this book revolves around a quixotic quest to find an instrument for a talented musician she meets in Mongolia, whose family fled Siberia in the 1930s. This leads to many musical meetings and musings. Some fuel her narrative, such as the tale of Vera Lotar-Shevchenko, a pianist of “rare brilliance” thrown into a gulag, where fellow prisoners carved a keyboard into her wooden bunk so she could practise at night.
