Review: A Wonderful, Gentle, Moving Book
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 5, 2013
Well done.This book was just a plain, old-fashioned wonderful read.A former opera star and his student's father fall in love. Mike's daughter is a prodigy, a 14-year-old with a huge, polished voice and a great grasp of the nuance and emotional underpinnings of the arias she sings. The men come from two different worlds, one cultured and wealthy, the other, working class and real. Despite these differences, they find commonality in their hearts, if not their families, history and careers.I commend Ms. McMurray for her knowledge of the music world. As a young opera singer in New York, decades ago, I lived the experiences she so accurately portrayed, including losing my voice, as the MC in this book does, so I can vouch that she has gotten everything, even the slightest details, absolutely right.My only niggle is a small one, and did not really limit my enjoyment of this book, in any way. The vast majority of M/M fiction is written by women. It never fails to amaze me how often they get it exactly right, portraying the men as men who love each other, not as surrogates for women, or as a pale substitute for the more socially-acceptable heterosexual version of love.But there's one very subtle thing that I have run across in three books in the last week that I would like these authors to be aware of. Men who love men do not talk about each others' "figures". Women have "figures", men have "builds" or "bodies". It's just a little chink in the wall that keeps us from thinking about the author being a feminine voice writing about a man's experience.As I said, not a big deal. And this book had some moments of romance so powerful that they left me in tears, like the two men dancing in the plaza of Lincoln Center to the music of a solo cello in the midst of a dark New York night. Just lovely imagery.I recommend this book most highly.