The Weight of a Piano by Chris Cander - 2019

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019. CC4 - A 2nd printing hardcover book SIGNED by author on the title page in very good condition in very good dust jacket. Dust jacket and book have some bumped corners, light discoloration and shelf wear. 8.75"x6.25", 323 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Blüthner piano, built at the turn of the century in Germany, on which she discovers everything that she herself can do with music and what music, in turn, does for her. Yet after marrying, she emigrates -at her husband's frantic insistence - with her young family to America, and her piano is lost in the shuffle. In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, twenty-six-year-old Clara Lundy loses both her boyfriend and apartment, leading to an exasperating move that is complicated by the gift her father had given her for her twelfth birthday, shortly before he and her mother died in a house fire: a Blüthner upright she has never learned to play. Orphaned, she was raised by her aunt and uncle, who in his car repair shop trained her to become a first-rate mechanic, much to the surprise of some subsequent customers. But this work, her true mainstay in a scattered life, is put on hold when her hand gets broken while the piano is being moved - and in sudden frustration she chooses to sell it. She has no problem finding a buyer, but what becomes crucial is who that most interested party turns out to be. The mysterious - and tragic - connections among Katya, Clara, and this Blüthner unravel gradually yet thrillingly in Chris Cander's stunning portrait of modern womanhood and powerful ode to music's ability to sustain us or, in its absence, destroy us. A novel about attraction, obsession, creative passion, love, and loss, The Weight of a Piano is a dazzling exploration of how the human heart can both break and be restored. . Signed by Author. 2nd Printing. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.