Solo Variations

By Cassandra Garbus

Book Overview

Solo Variations takes you backstage into the glamorous, demanding world of the performing arts, and into the very soul of a young, struggling artist. Twenty-six-year-old Gala, a classically trained... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525943803
• ISBN13: 9780525943808
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Dutton
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.9" x 5.9"

Customer Reviews

Speaking as a musician,...

I love to read novels about musicians and they're life as a musician. This book was one of the best I have come across. I loved how emotional I became while reading about her auditions, hopes and question her gift of musician. All musicians go through all the same feelings that Gala did. Garbus is a fantastic writer.

a story of heartbreak and triumph

Most people would not define triumph as quitting. However, the main character of this brilliant first novel finds liberation by leaving behind the struggles and sadness of a musical career. If you're a reader who finds insights into little known or esoteric subjects fascinating, then you will be delighted as you get swept up in the world of a young music student and the dues that she pays along the way.

vivid, realistic, unpretentious look at the performing arts

Solo Variations vividly depicts the struggles of a young woman trying to find confidence in herself while surviving in the very competitive world of classical music. I have never read such evocative descriptions of playing a musical instrument or the audition process. I was right there with the narrator, nervous for her, rooting for her all the way. I kept turning pages worried about what would happen next.

A moving story of a young woman's struggle

I found "Solo Variations" to be a very moving depiction of a young woman's struggles to build for herself a fulfilling life and loving relationships against high odds. The writing was beautiful and lyrical, the characters were well drawn, and the relationships between the characters were complex. I felt really touched by Gala's confrontation of the stage fright that crippled her talent. In particular I found Gala's attempts to separate her own issues from those of her parents to be compelling. I think C. Garbus is a talented new writer and this novel is a beautiful, painful, and ultimately affirming vision of a young woman' struggle to find and travel her own path.

Very insightful depiction of male characters

Solo Variations was recommended to me by a woman friend and I read it in one sitting. As a man, I find the male characters to be depicted in a painfully candid manner. Tom & Stephen both remind me of my own worst, most egocentric moments. Gala, the protagonist, is remarkably touching in her emotional vulnerability and I applauded her for eventually breaking free from the domination of these two and of her equally selfish father. The reader from Boston who describes her as "whiney" is, unfortunately, typical of many of my male acquaintances whose own egos need so much attention that they have to call women names. They are like Tom in the book who keeps saying, "What about my feelings?" The fact that I can't play a note did not detract from my enjoyment of this very honest portrait of a young woman breaking free of a false identity imposed on her by others. The last scene reminds me of the end of Huckleberry Finn, when Huck strikes out for the western territories, free at last of Tom Sawyer's domination and mind games.