Skip to content

CONTRARY MOTION

Andy Mozina

Andy Mozina's debut CONTRARY MOTION, which follows a concert harpist as he attempts to navigate his father's unexpected death (from a heart attack, while listening to a meditation CD), his ex-wife's recent engagement, and his 6-year-old daughter's budding anxiety issues, all while preparing for a life-changing orchestra audition.
Matthew Grzbc is just your average newly divorced dad. He shares custody of his six-year-old daughter. He may still be in love with his ex-wife. He believes he probably doesn't deserve his sexy, successful, driven girlfriend. And he plays the harp---that's his job. When his father dies unexpectedly (he has a heart attack while listening to a meditation CD), Matt is forced to confront his own mortality and the fleeting nature of life---he questions everything, from his romantic attachments to his professional aspirations. When he earns an audition for the principle harp chair in a first-rate orchestra--just the kind of life-changing development he could use right now--he is poised to seize the opportunity...but then his ex-wife gets engaged, his girlfriend grows distant, his daughter seems to be having the 6-year-old version of an emotional breakdown, he learns things about his father's life that make him question everything he thought he knew about the man, and then...even his harp starts to betray him. Immensely appealing, funny, bright, and true, Andy Mozina's first novel hits all the right emotional and comic notes. ANDY MOZINA is a professor of English at Kalamazoo College and the author of the short story collection The Women Were Leaving the Men, the title story of which was noted for distinction by the Pushcart Prize and included in the Best American Short Story collection of 2006. He lives in Michigan with his wife and daughter. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
Available products
Book

Published 2016-03-01 by Spiegel & Grau

Comments

Andy Mozina is able to transport us from hilarity to pathos in a breathtaking, heartbreaking moment.

Mozina’s finely detailed, painfully funny novel is a rollicking performance that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Mozina (author of the story collection Quality Snacks) stays faithful to the notion that art rings truest at its most tense and least resolved. Readers will appreciate this wry take on a richly dysfunctional life.

A new and deeply original voice.

Mozina’s finely detailed, painfully funny novel is a rollicking performance that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

No portrait of an artist brings alive vulnerability, hilarity, desperation, hipness, absurdity, and painful steadfastness as splendidly as Andy Mozina's Contrary Motion. Must-read fiction for anyone pursuing an improbable dream while trying to do right by lovers and family. A dazzling, unforgettable novel.

Standing between world-class harpist Matt Grzbc and his dream, a permanent position in a top orchestra, is just about everybody in his life. This brilliant debut novel zigzags across Chicago’s neighborhoods exploring the obsession a striving artist must have for his craft, as he also makes a living and nourishes those near him, especially his eccentric and precocious six-year-old daughter. Contrary Motion is a wonderful story—beautifully written, hilarious, tortured, and filled with heavenly music.

Charming … The painfully self-aware Matt has a great sense of humor, but his comic insights don’t help him much as he faces a confounding array of personal problems. . . . The pleasures of Mozina’s writing never flag.