Wanderer

(Paperback)

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Description

An exceptional debut novel that explores the stifled, unspoken feelings of a music teacher and his former student, and the damage done by their years of silence Named a Best Book of the Year by The Advocate An exceptional debut novel that explores the stifled, unspoken feelings of a music teacher and his former student, and the damage done by their years of silence Hermin, a composer and instructor, leads a secluded life near the Bourbonnais Mountains in France, composing an homage to Schubert. On a bitter January night, this studious peace is broken when his former pupil, Lenny, a piano prodigy, mysteriously knocks at his door. The two men must confront the ghosts of their past, somewhere between musical harmony, erotic tension, and revelation. Wanderer, echoing Schubert's recurring theme, is a novel of rare delicacy, a twilight adagio, a Winterreise, and a subtle ode to German Romanticism.

Reviews

[A] staggering debutLons innovative blending of events across time and her delicate emotional precision make for a bewitching, immersive experience. Publishers Weekly(starred review)

An intriguing, poetic workthe pathos of the French countryside is depicted vividlyit is a landscape of a Brueghel painting, Ms. Lon using a palette of various shades of grey and blinding, frightening white. Descriptions of the changing effects of light, perhaps a nod to Gustave Flaubert, are particularly striking. The Economist

An elegant and finely focused winters tale. It starts out quietly dramatic and atmospheric but gradually builds and burnsnimbly donegripping. Minneapolis Star Tribune

The friendship of two men bound together by their all-consuming dedication to music is at the center of this novel. The New Yorker

[A] poetic tale of music, love, lust, and dark secrets. The Advocate, The Best LGBTQ Novels We Discovered This Year

Splendidly translatedan atmospheric, delicately wrought study of misunderstood emotion, heartbreaking yet incisive. Library Journal

A short, intense novelLons writing is gorgeousa beautiful account of friendship, love, and artistic devotion. BookRiot

Lon perfectly measures out past and present to reach a satisfying and intimate crescendo. Booklist

[Wanderer] treats the relationship between the two men with a delicacy that is unexpectedly moving. Kirkus Reviews

Lon has interesting things to say about friendship and loveand about the way that those two registers of feeling vex each other. World Literature Today

The German word Wanderer means traveler. This romantic figure of the vagabond infuses this delicate and poetic story, which favors harsh winter nights. LExpress Styles

This is a first novel as visual as it is musical, which reads in one go and leaves behind another beautiful melody: that of a new talent blossoming. Luxemburger Wort

A story of reunion between musicians. A story of friendship between two men. A tribute to the great German Romanticism. All in a light, refined prose imbued with winter tones.La Montagne

Author Bio

Sarah Leon was born in 1995 and studied literature and musicology at the cole normale superieure in Paris. She won the 2012 Prix Clara for her novella, Mon Alban. John Cullen was the translator of many books from Spanish, French, German, and Italian, including Siegfried Lenz's The Turncoat, Juli Zeh's Empty Hearts, Patrick Modiano's Villa Triste, Kamel Daoud's The Meursault Investigation, and Philippe Claudel's Brodeck.