Vendor
	Liepman Literary Agency Marc Koralnik
Original language
English
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Fiction & Related items

THE SILVER SWAN

Elena Delbanco

A lyrical and melodic debut novel about a family simultaneously enriched and wrenched apart by artistic genius.

This musical and psychological drama explores both the bonds of family and the destructive nature of narcissistic genius. Alexander Feldmann is a cellist of international renown and celebrity, and a man whose prodigious talent, striking good looks, and charm prove irresistible to anyone who comes close. After years of hunting, Alexander acquires a glorious cello, the Silver Swan. One of the few remaining cellos crafted by Antonio Stradivari, the Silver Swan's clarity and tone are unmatched and suited perfectly for a maestro of his skill level. Alexander has one child, Mariana, who by the age of nineteen emerges as a star concert cellist in her own right and viewed by many as the inheritor of her father's genius. There are whispers that her career might well outpace his. Mariana believes that one day her father's cello, the Silver Swan, will be hers - until a stunning secret from her father's past (which coincides with her own unexpected love affair) ensures that her fate and that of the Swan will be inextricably bound, though not in a way she'd ever imagined. The Silver Swan is a rich psychological drama about family relationships and the destructive nature of narcissistic genius at its core. ELENA DELBANCO's father was the world-renowned classical cellist Bernard Greenhouse, a founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio whose Stradivarius cello was known as the Countess of Stainlein, ex-Paganini of 1707, one of seventeen such Stradivarius cellos in existence today. She inherited the cello after his death in 2011 and sold it to a patroness of the arts from Montreal. Delbanco has worked as a journalist and editor, was associate director of the Bennington Writing Workshop in Vermont, and has recently stepped down as a lecturer at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. This is her first novel.

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Book Published by Other Press

Comments

"(...) readers with an enthusiasm for classical music will be swept away by this detailed, enthralling tale."

"[Elena] Delbanco's lively tale alternates between the points of view of Mariana and Claude, as the two are forced to confront their desires while dealing with the expectations forced upon them and secrets from the past and present that inevitably collide."

I've just finished reading an advance copy of The Silver Swan by Elena Delbanco and while still burning from the white heat of the final sequences I wanted to tell you, and anyone else who will listen, just how magnificent a first novel this happens to be. It's a tortured and passionate love story about a father and daughter and the musical heritage they share, centered on a treasured object, a Stradivarius cello that gives the novel its' title--and it's a family story with an astonishing secret at its center. The prose flows beautifully from beginning to end, as though this were Delbanco's tenth novel rather than her first. The musical lore her story allows us access to will charm all lovers of classical concertizing. The love storiesthere are several of them, each inextricably entwined with the otherwill thrill all readers for whom the deepest human passions make the best melodies. I may be the first person to tell you this. I'm sure I won't be the last. A gorgeous debut that anyone who loves life and art will be thrilledI'll say it againthrilled to read.

How artfully Elena Delbanco writes about love and music and how deftly she explores the alliances and conflicts between the two. Best of all are her characters: vivid, complicated, passionate, and flawed. I couldn't stop turning the pages of this beautifully written and irresistible novel.

The Silver Swan offers a shrewdly plotted story of the passions of musicians for their instruments as well as for each other. A striking first novel by an author who knows her subject intimately, and relishes it.

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