Close this alert
What Could Be Saved: Bookmatched Novellas & Stories
Current price:
$20.64
This product is not returnable.
Publication Date: June 1st, 2019
Publisher:
Tupelo Press
ISBN:
9781946482174
Pages:
234
Description
Fiction. Short Stories. Going where most readers have never been--past the workshop door, behind the curtain to the hidden rehearsal space, and into the back room of a pawn shop or dealer's office, Gregory Spatz's new book delves deeply into the world of those who build, play, and sell (or steal) violins. This is a realm of obsession, of high-stakes sales and thefts, and of rapturous but also desperate performance escapades. Dense with detail, and peopled with a fabulously particular (yes, eccentric) ensemble cast, the linked pieces in WHAT COULD BE SAVED--two of novella length, and two stories--have the intense force and beauty of chamber music.
"WHAT COULD BE SAVED initiates the reader into the mysteries of a secret society of artists and artisans, thieves and treasure hunters, forgers and true believers, all of whom idolize the nearly supernatural powers and traditions of the violin. Those old, priceless instruments are like keys that unlock the quintessence of music and beauty, but they are also 'the devil's box, ' just as often counterfeits that sow delusion and disenchantment as they pass from acolyte to acolyte--player to player, luthier to luthier--through the centuries. Gregory Spatz has conjoined these stories into a masterly quartet that casts the same spell on the reader as on its characters. This collection is magical, hypnotic, brilliant."--Paul Harding.
Praise for What Could Be Saved: Bookmatched Novellas & Stories
“What Could Be Saved initiates the reader into the mysteries of a secret society of artists and artisans, thieves and treasure hunters, forgers and true believers, all of whom idolize the nearly supernatural powers and traditions of the violin. Those old, priceless instruments are like keys that unlock the quintessence of music and beauty, but they are also ‘the devil’s box,’ just as often counterfeits that sow delusion and disenchantment as they pass from acolyte to acolyte – player to player, luthier to luthier – through the centuries. Gregory Spatz has conjoined these stories into a masterly quartet that casts the same spell on the reader as on its characters. This collection is magical, hypnotic, brilliant.” — Paul Harding, musician and author of Pulitzer Prize winning Tinkers
“What Could Be Saved is a vivid, engrossing portrait of luthiers and musicians, of fathers and sons, and of family lore fueling life-long obsessions. Gregory Spatz has written a love letter to both violins and to the artists and craftsmen whose lives, however briefly, intersect with them. Above all, these perfectly tuned stories convey the pathos of inheritance: the difference between what we think we’re leaving behind, and what’s actually left.” —Alexis Smith, author of Glaciers and Marrow Island
“Gregory Spatz’s new book is entrancing, a truly original work unlike anything else I can think of. It succeeds on so many different levels: as fiction, as musicology, as a primer on the art of violin-building. The prose in these pages simply dazzles. What a special writer Spatz has become.” —Steve Yarbrough, author of eleven books, most recently the novel The Unmade World.
“Gregory Spatz has an extraordinary ability to get at what lies beneath the surface and put words to the ineffable—music, yes (even his violins speak!), but also the undercurrents of emotions, unconscious urges and inchoate longings that form and deform our lives. What Could Be Saved is as fiercely seeing as it is ultimately generous in its gentle vision of human frailty and the desire to connect.” —Elizabeth Graver, author of The End of the Point.
