Piano: A Novel - Hardcover

Echenoz, Jean; Polizzotti, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1565848713 ISBN 13: 9781565848719

Publisher: The New Press, 2004

Synopsis

Max Delmarc, age fifty, is a famous concert pianist with two problems: the first is a paralyzing stage fright for which the second, alcohol, is the only treatment. In this unparalleled comedy from the Prix Goncourt–winning French novelist Jean Echenoz, we journey with Max, from the trials of his everyday life, through his untimely death, and on into the afterlife.

After a brief stay in purgatory—part luxury hotel, part minimum security prison, under the supervision of deceased celebrities—Max is cast into an alarmingly familiar partition of hell, “the urban zone,” a dark and cloudy city much like his native Paris on an eternally bad day. Unable to play his beloved piano or stomach his needed drink, Max engages in a hapless struggle to piece his former life back together while searching in vain for the woman he once loved.

An acclaimed bestseller with 50,000 copies sold in France, Piano is a sly, sardonic evocation of Dante and Sartre for the present day, the playful, daring masterpiece of a novelist at the top of his form.

About this title

Review:

"Piano is not only Echenoz’s best book, it’s also his most personal and most daring." — Le Journal Du Dimanche

"Piano is a euphoric and meticulous book." —Le Monde

"Rarely has the difficult craft of storytelling been as well mastered." —The Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher:

'Cool, sly, both amused and amusing. The reader is left entranced' Times Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: The New Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1565848713
• ISBN 13: 9781565848719
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 128