The critically acclaimed author of Russian Winter turns her "sure and suspenseful artistry" (Boston Globe) to the lives of three colleagues and lovers in the world of classical music.
On a Boston street one warm spring day, Hazel and Remy spot each other for the first time in years. Although their brief meeting may seem insignificant, behind them lie two decades in which their life paths have crisscrossed, diverged, and ultimately interlaced. Remy, a gifted violinist, is married to the composer Nicholas Elko—once the love of Hazel's life.
It has been twenty years since Remy, an ambitious conservatory student; Nicholas, a wunderkind launching an international career; and his wife, the beautiful and fragile Hazel, first came together, tipping their collective world on its axis. As their story unfolds from 1987 to 2007, from Europe to America, from conservatory life to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, each discovers the surprising ways in which the quest to create something real and true—be it a work of art or one's own life—can lead to the most personal of revelations.
Lyrical and evocative, Sight Reading explores the role of art and beauty in everyday life, while unspooling a transporting story of marriage, family, and the secrets we keep, even from ourselves.
Daphne Kalotay is the author of the award-winning novel Russian Winter, which has been published in twenty languages, and the fiction collection Calamity and Other Stories. She has received fellowships from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo, and has taught at Boston University, Skidmore College, Grub Street, and Middlebury College. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.
What People are Saying About This
Nancy Richler
“SIGHT READING is at once a compelling story about love, loss and music in four interwoven lives, and an insightful exploration of the sources and expression of creativity. The results are compulsively readable, memorable and wise.”
Tom Perrotta
“Set in the hothouse world of classical music, this wise, elegant novel maps the fallout from a passionate affair over the course of two decades. . . . Daphne Kalotay writes with grace and authority, paying equal attention to the artistic and emotional lives of her characters.”
Edith Pearlman
This entertaining novel follows a group of musicians through twenty years of disappointments and betrayals; lusts, regrets, afflictions, and delusions; rehearsals, recombinations, and revelations... and performances. Your ears will be ringing. - Edith Pearlman, award-winning author of Binocular Vision
