For Book Lovers

[+ purplekow]

I still haven't been able to start my book on aversion therapy.

I am going to finish my book on procrastination later.

 

My new book on Glue....haven't been able to put it down.

[uwsman2]

out-of-the-way gay-theme book

 

There was a brilliant Australian pianist named Noel Mewton-Wood, who made a sensational debut in England during World War II and recorded actively until his untimely death (a suicide). Mewton-Wood was gay, and hung around with the gay musical crowd in Britain - like Tippett and Pears and Britten... His suicide was not over the gay issue, as such. Reportedly it was from guilt after his lover died of a preventable medical condition.

 

Anyway, there is this new Australian novel in which he is a central character, "The Virtuoso." The story is told in first person by a star-struck 17-year-old piano student (male) in London who develops a terrible crush on Mewton-Woods -- who was reportedly a charming, handsome man -- and by chance gets to meet him at a party, leading to an affair between the two of them. (At the time, M-W was in his early 20s, so this isn't exactly a story of pedophilia.)

 

The novel has made a big splash in Australia. The author is Sonia Orchard. It is available in paperback and you can find it on Australian websites. The exchange rate for Australian dollars isn't too steep and it's worth ordering to the U.S. I'm enjoying reading it very much.