A mesmerizing debut novel about a concert pianist who fears he is losing his mind
Mr. Field wants a new life, a life cleansed of the old one’s disappointments. A concert pianist on the London scene, his career is upended when the train he is travelling on crashes into the wall at the end of a tunnel. The accident splinters his left wrist, jeopardizing his musical ambitions.
On a whim, he uses his compensation pay-out to buy a house he has seen only once in a newspaper photograph, a replica of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye on a stretch of coast outside Cape Town. Together with his wife, Mim, Mr. Field sets out in the hope that the house will make him happier, or at least less unhappy.
OK, Mr. Field is a strange and beguiling novel that dwells in the silences between words, in the gaps in conversation, and in the unbridgeable distance between any two people.
Through her restless intelligence and precise, musical prose, Katharine Kilalea confidently guides us into new fictional territory.
EVENT DETAILS
Date: Wednesday 20 March (5:30 PM for 6 PM)
Venue: The Book Lounge, 71 Roeland Street, Cape Town
Guest speaker: Hedley Twidle
RSVP: booklounge@gmail.com