Damaged man admits his guilt

‘AS I FEARED, I eventually succumbed to the photograph of Dinu Lipatti above my workbench. In black and white and shades of grey, it does me no good to look at it, no good at all.’  

A wounded soul speaks. A damaged man admits his guilt. How did he cause a suicide?

Not long after he types the words above, the narrator of my debut novel The Hands of Pianists, out on 4 March, begins a quest to prove that pianos kill elite pianists. His journey takes him from Melbourne to Sydney, the south of France, London, Sussex and the Czech Republic.

The result is 80,000 words of high literary fiction, a ‘rich and remarkable book, full of wisdom, doubt, intense curiosity [and] myriad detail’, says the great Liszt pianist Leslie Howard (six Grands Prix du Disque). Sebald scholar Deane Blackler calls Hands an ‘intriguing narrative’ that is ‘destabilising’ and ‘disruptive’. It offers ‘much to reflect on, a great deal to admire, and perhaps a little to fear’. Former ABC Classic presenter Colin Fox calls it a ‘splendid read’, ‘absorbing’ and ‘wide-ranging’.

Available from online booksellers in print ($A25.95) and ebook ($8.95) format.

@closemdownes stephendownes.com.au Instagram: HandsofPianists #pianists #kapell