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Ghost Music by An Yu

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Ghost Music

Author
An Yu
Narrator
Vera Chok
Publisher
Random House
Publish Date
3 November 2022
Run Time
5 hours 59 minutes
Format
Audiobook

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

A gorgeous novel of music, secrets and self-discovery from the brilliant young author of Braised Pork


For three years, Song Yan has filled the emptiness of her Beijing apartment with the tentative notes of her young piano students. With her marriage, she gave up on her own career as a concert pianist, but her husband Bowen has long rebuffed her desire to have a child.

Instead, she must accommodate her mother-in-law, newly arrived from the province of Yunnan and bringing with her long-buried family secrets. Soon strange parcels start to show up on the doorstep and Song Yan's dreams become troubling and claustrophobic. Striking out alone through the winter city, she finds herself pulled into the ancient hutongs to confront the source of her unease. In a still, silent room in a timeless house, can she find the notes she needs to make sense of all the pain and beauty in her life?

Evocative, magical and endlessly surprising, Ghost Music is a captivating journey through memory, expression and self-discovery towards the shimmer of new beginnings.

Praise for Braised Pork:

'Startlingly original' Guardian
'Intensely atmospheric' LA Review of Books
'Otherworldly and deeply moving' BuzzFeed
'Real magic' LitHub
'Shimmering' Wall Street Journal
'Rich and wild' Observer
'Enchanting' Shelf Awareness
'Electric' TIME

©2022 An Yu (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • An intriguing book that knits together music and life to touch on something profound

    Guardian

  • Vivid descriptions of contemporary Beijing ... Yu writes in clear, unadorned prose and deftly threads the magic-realist elements through the main narrative

    Financial Times

  • Transporting, searching and poetic

    List

  • This playful, often surreal novel packs in plenty ... an elusive tale, steeped in atmosphere

    Mail on Sunday

See more reviews
  • Ghost Music has beautiful prose and claustrophobic imagery that intensely evokes its protagonist's alienation

    New Statesman

  • Spellbinding and atmospheric . . . With its quiet, dreamy bending of reality and its precise depiction of many different strains of alienation, Ghost Music is an evocative exploration of what it means to live fully-and the potential consequences of failing to do so. Yu braids the mundane and the magical together with a gentle hand . . . There's something here of early Murakami's graceful, open-ended approach to the uncanny, as well as the vivid yet muted emotionality of Patrick Modiano or Katie Kitamura. Like these skillful portraitists of alienation, Yu conjures a visceral inbetweenness where the worlds of matter and spirit meet in a shared, suspended space

    New York Times Book Review

  • Startlingly original

    Guardian on BRAISED PORK

  • Intensely atmospheric

    LA Review of Books on BRAISED PORK

  • Otherwordly and deeply moving

    BuzzFeed on BRAISED PORK

  • Real magic

    LitHub on BRAISED PORK

User Reviews

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Details

Author
An Yu
Narrator
Vera Chok
Duration
5 hours 59 minutes
Release Date
3 November 2022
ISBN
9781529909609
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
Random House
Genre
Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Narrative theme: interior life / psychological fiction, Narrative theme: love / relationships, Narrative theme: death, grief, loss, Family life fiction / Stories about family

Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.A gorgeous novel of music, secrets and self-discovery from the brilliant young author of Braised PorkFor three years, Song Yan has filled the emptiness of her Beijing apartment with the tentative notes of her young piano students. With her marriage, she gave up on her own career as a concert pianist, but her husband Bowen has long rebuffed her desire to have a child.Instead, she must accommodate her mother-in-law, newly arrived from the province of Yunnan and bringing with her long-buried family secrets. Soon strange parcels start to show up on the doorstep and Song Yan's dreams become troubling and claustrophobic. Striking out alone through the winter city, she finds herself pulled into the ancient hutongs to confront the source of her unease. In a still, silent room in a timeless house, can she find the notes she needs to make sense of all the pain and beauty in her life?Evocative, magical and endlessly surprising, Ghost Music is a captivating journey through memory, expression and self-discovery towards the shimmer of new beginnings.Praise for Braised Pork:'Startlingly original' Guardian'Intensely atmospheric' LA Review of Books'Otherworldly and deeply moving' BuzzFeed 'Real magic' LitHub'Shimmering' Wall Street Journal'Rich and wild' Observer'Enchanting' Shelf Awareness'Electric' TIME©2022 An Yu (P)2022 Penguin Audio

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