Music, Late and Soon

(Paperback)

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Description

Will appeal to general readers of memoir, especially those interested in narratives of womens lives, artistic practice, and mentorship, as well as musicians, amateur and not.

Universal theme of returning to a lost interest/passion: a book for people who think its too late to begin again, or who want to recapture a passion they think theyve lost or outgrown.

For readers of Oliver Sacks Musicophilia, Glen Kurtzs Practicing: A Musicians Return to Music, Alan Rusbridgers Play It Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible

Contemporary resonance with #MeToo: in part, this is the story of challenges faced by women who aspire to careers in the arts

Robyn Sarah is a dual US-Canadian citizen, with ties to New York and Vermont. A portion of the memoir takes place at a Vermont artists retreat.

Excerpts have appeared in Ploughshares and The Hudson Review, and additional US excerpts are anticipated. Early interest expressed by NYTBR editor.

A poet, Sarah has won the the Governor Generals Award and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, and her work has been widely anthologized, including in the Norton Anthology of Poetry

Reviews

Praise for Music, Late and Soon

"A deeply intimate exploration of the artistic process by a writer of remarkable maturity and poise. Unfailingly, her prose remains centred, rooted in humility, never drawing attention to itself. Her every word feels thoughtful, honest, and true. With this book, Sarah demonstrates that a life pursued artistically, when done so with sincerity and integrity, is a life lived spiritually, no matter what the discipline. Concert halls might be poorer for her career choice, but the literary world can count itself richly blessed."
Juror Statement for The Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction

"Her book is a gift to anyone who has left behind a pursuit and second-guessed that decision, though few of us could hope to have a teacher as inspirational as [hers] to coax us back into following our early passions. Describing their reunion, she writes: 'Momentarily, Im flooded with that remembered sense of being in touch with something age-old, precious, mysterious, and profound (...).' Its this profundity, the deep meaning of music, that Sarah captures so well in her beautiful and uplifting story."
Montreal Review of Books

"[Y]ou dont need to be a musician, nor do you need to have aspired to be a musician, to appreciate Music, Late and Soon. Anyone who has ever felt a vocation for something, pursued it, misplaced it, then tried to summon it again is apt to identify with Sarahs story."
Montreal Gazette

"Deeply interdisciplinary and challenging, it bears intimate witness as the internationally acclaimed Montral poet reckons with the parallel strands of music and writing interwoven through her creative and inner lives."
Montreal Serai

"Part sonata, part symphony, far more than a memoir, Music, Late and Soon introduces a number of memorable characters worthy of a novel, and an array of orchestral instruments that modulate the prose, melodies, and personalities surrounding the author's life"
Miramichi Reader

"It is a luxury to read a memoir about music written by an excellent writer who happens to have spent the greater part of her life as a musician."
Musical Assumptions

"A heart-storming memoir ... [Music, Late and Soon] is an immeasurably rich book, and a complicated human story, in which Robyn Sarah's writing is in full flight. It deserves a standing applause ... I've no doubt it will be gratefully received and recognized as an original illumination of the struggle to claim one's own."
William Aide (concert pianist, teacher, writer)

In this historic moment, a book about the courage required to reclaim and salvage creative desire through discipline is about as necessary as clean water and air.
Michael Lithgow, author of Who We Thought We Were as We Fell

Praise for Robyn Sarah

Visual clarity, no-nonsense voice, compressed language, rhythmic prowess, and metaphoric agility. These qualities speak from a long-cultivated focus and bespeak a writer who pays fierce attention to the basic fact of being in the world.
The Walrus As in her poetry, spare colloquial surfaces carry hidden depths ... subtle and suggestive, working on several levels at once.
Globe and Mail Her distinctively digressive style allows Sarah to accommodate tremendous complexity in her stories drawing us further and further down into the moment and at the same time showing us how the moment is textured by memory and experience.
The Malahat Review [Her stories] lead us towards, and finally right into the middle of awarenesses that we hadnt had before. They leave you feeling like this: suspicious that youve missed something, teeth slightly on edge ... there is a faint sound of excellently played music somewhere ... one may be failing in what one wants to do. What did that little piece mean Will I read it again The reader reads it again and experiences this network of feelings again, just like the first time. It is very powerful art.
Hugh Hood

Author Bio

Robyn Sarah is the author of eleven collections of poems, two collections of short stories, a book of essays on poetry, and a memoir, Music, Late and Soon. Her tenth poetry collection, My Shoes Are Killing Me, won the Governor Generals Award in 2015. From 2011 until 2020 she served as poetry editor for Cormorant Books. She has lived for most of her life in Montral.