The Violin Lover
Winner of the 2006 Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award for Fiction
“Like Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Don Coles, Anne Michaels, Michael Redhill … Susan Glickman has taken a turn from verse to fiction. An accomplished poet and non-fiction author, she manages the transition to her first novel, The Violin Lover, with assurance … As a first novel, The Violin Lover neither misses a beat nor strikes a false note.”
—Michael Greenstein in The National Post
Unfolding like a melody, The Violin Lover is infused with music and told in three voices. It is a powerful novel about the love one feels for family, friends, culture, faith and music, and the passion that comes with it, regardless of the outcome.
From the reviews
“Poet Susan Glickman uses music as both metaphor and plot device in her first novel, a moving, sparely written story of family, passionate love and strife set in London of the mid-1930s … like the final note at the end of a fugue, it resonates long after it’s done.”
—Lisa Fitterman in The Gazette
“In … The Violin Lover, Canadian poet Susan Glickman trains her clear eye upon the nature of, and conflicts between, art, domesticity and identity … Glickman’s mastery and maturity are evident in The Violin Lover. Its final moments are as moving and inevitable as the flow of music toward its conclusion. Readers will be richly rewarded by the beauty and power of her artistry.”
—Dvoira Yanakovsy in The Globe and Mail
“Glickman is an elegant, vivid and imaginative writer. She is able to convincingly portray intelligent people talking about things that matter to them, even when their behaviour is not so intelligent. Her depictions of relationships between mothers and sons are especially resonant. Best of all, she gets the music right, both in the technical details and the way it infuses the spiritual lives of her characters.”
—Pamela Margles in Whole Note
“Poet Susan Glickman fashions this engaging tale around the true story of a black sheep great- great- uncle … Not only does Glickman meet the challenge of making this not entirely likable man come to complex life, her language expertly mirrors the rhythms of life and music. … Glickman’s backdrop shows us the texture of Jewish life in London: the music, the politics, the growing Blackshirt menace, the realities of children and home. These endure after the love affair has faded to silence.”
—Nancy Wigston, Books in Canada
“Unfolding over a period of three years, while Hitler drives the world ever closer to war, The Violin Lover is impacted by the atmosphere, never overpowering but definitely underlining the actions of the characters. It resonates in the background, the tension of this gathering storm adding much to the tale. Interestingly, it’s a story that ultimately reflects Ned’s feelings about that perfect musical performance. When you read a good book, don’t you also want to close that cover and be silent? To think about and savor it for a time, not even tempted to read another until the possibility of literary perfection again rears its head? Clever Glickman.”
—Cherie Thiessen in January Magazine
“Pure magic describes this debut novel by poet and literary critic Susan Glickman. I savoured every page, wanting to prolong my journey to 1930s London before the Second World War. Weaving the metaphors of music with her highly polished poetic prose, Glickman places the reader in a totally believable fictional space.”
—Sharon Abron Drache in the Glebe Report
“Lyrical, original thoughts and visionary descriptions of instruments, the ‘secret honey’ of sounds and the power of music, lift the novel into a different dimension: these poetic insights raise the workings of the plot to unexpected heights of mysterious beauty.”
—Marge Clouts, “Music into Words,” Jewish Renaissance (UK)
“Susan Glickman is primarily a poet and a literary critic. However, in this novel she has revealed the keen eye of a painter, the discriminating ear of a musician and that most precious of talents: the ability to write prose like a poet. In Ned’s own words, ‘music is what you hear when you really listen.’ The Violin Lover will pluck your heartstrings.”
—Maya Khankhoje in Herizons
“The Violin Lover is a beautifully written novel, one that fans of violin music, as well as readers of serious literary fiction, will particularly appreciate.”
—Mayra Calvani, Violin and Books blog
