Clara is the narrator’s lifelong love, though not one of the two women he married. “Sometimes I am writing you a letter, Clara, and other times I am just writing, pushing type into paper, making something of my years,” he explains. While he's supposed to be keeping a log, he recounts a life that extends from the high society of pre-Depression America to imprisonment under Stalin. It has an epic scope that spans decades and countries but retains a tight focus through the writing of Termen, who's confined to a ship. Lev Sergeyvich Termen is a real historical figure, a Russian scientist and inventor, but his voice here is all the author’s in a novel that somehow manages to feel both classically Russian (with echoes of Dostoyevsky and Solzhenitsyn) and very contemporary. A Canadian music critic shows exceptional poise and command in his debut novel, a first-person tale narrated by the Russian inventor of the theremin.
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