Here is another book available at WHC Library for you to discover & enjoy.
Synopsis
In this tragic drama, Senstad explores from a human perspective the psychological fallout in the aftermath of a racist war. The novel opens in Norway as Hans Olav and his wife await the arrival of Zheljka and Mesud, refugees from the Bosnian war to whom they are offering accommodation. But it is not to be as Mette had wanted.
From the Publisher
Press and other reactions to a truly remarkable first novel
Everyone in our company who read this novel in manuscript before we acquired it for publication commented on its sheer, raw, emotional power. 'The most powerful and engaging novel I've read for ages' was the comment of one our publicists. One of my editorial colleagues put it this way: 'When you've started reading this novel it's impossible to tear your eyes away from the page. When you've finished you know that you've read a chillingly important novel of our time'. 'Powerful, enthralling, heartbreaking'was another reaction, while yet another staff reader said: 'It's moral and emotional conundrum is incredibly powerful . . .the psychological authenticity of the book takes the reader by surprise'.
My own reaction was equally visceral. As a relatively new father I was moved literally to tears by the account of the moment when Zero, the unwanted child of war rape, is handed over by his mother to foster parents. Described with a complete absence of sentimentality, this is a scene of heartwrenching poignancy, which made me want to return home as fast as possible to hug my own small son.
But MUSIC FOR THE THIRD EAR is a novel with much more to it than that. Susan Schwartz Senstad enables us to enter and share the inner worlds of just three of the countless refugees from wars all over the world who populate our television screens on an almost daily basis. She shows not how different their pain is from our own, but how similar.We may feel we have nothing in common with the victims of war, but by bringing three of those victims into the familiar world of a western european home, we are shown just how much humanity they share with the Norwegian couple who take them in, and so by extension with those of us whose lives are similarly prosperous and peaceful.
A gripping human drama, the novel succeeds as an outstanding feat of empathy and compassion and is a truly remarkable achievement.
Press Reviews:
'Susan Schwartz Senstad has taken as the subject of her fine and powerful first novel not so much the Holocaust as its consequences across the generations and their repetition in the Balkan war . . . highly ambitious and risk-taking . . . Senstad offers a remarkable and highly subtle exploration of the aftermath of brutality and Europeans' successive experience of exile. And to think this is only her first novel' ANNE KARPF, THE GUARDIAN
'Artful and compassionate, taking on difficult subjects without crassness or predictability. Senstad pits two wars and two generations against each other in a way that manages to be understanding and unjudgmental' MAGGIE O'FARRELL, THE OBSERVER
'That particular scene with Zero kicking and screaming, forever clutching his battered toy gun, is devastating yet unsentimental. All this 'history' is woven into the text with astonishing skill, using many different perspectives, including the child's, as layer upon layer of narrative builds up. Each character is fully realised in terms of speech and thought and you feel the weight of each one's past. The tensions and prejudices, theway these people feel, interact and justify themselves, are totally convincing . . . The results are riveting and harrowing.' SAM PHIPPS, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
'The most powerful capturing of the human pain of the refugee that I've ever read . . . as I was reading I found myself gulping and I found myself crying because it, in a way, captures that sense of despair and pain and loss that none of us can really understand.'
MAGGIE O'KANE, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT FOR THE GUARDIAN
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