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.