The Weight of a Piano
Chris Cander, 2019
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525654674
Summary
A tour-de-force about two women and the piano that inexorably ties their lives together through time and across continents, for better and for worse.
In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Bluthner piano, built at the turn of the century in Germany, on which she discovers everything that she herself can do with music and what music, in turn, does for her.
Yet after marrying, she emigrates with her young family from Russia to America, at her husband's frantic insistence, and her piano is lost in the shuffle.
In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, twenty-six-year-old Clara Lundy loses another boyfriend and again has to find a new apartment, which is complicated by the gift her father had given her for her twelfth birthday, shortly before he and her mother died in a fire that burned their house down: a Bluthner upright she has never learned to play.
Orphaned, she was raised by her aunt and uncle, who in his car-repair shop trained her to become a first-rate mechanic, much to the surprise of her subsequent customers.
But this work, her true mainstay in a scattered life, is put on hold when her hand gets broken while the piano's being moved—and in sudden frustration she chooses to sell it. And what becomes crucial is who the most interested party turns out to be… (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1968?
• Where—Houston, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Houston
• Currently—lives in Houston, Texas
Chris Cander is a novelist, children’s book author, screenplay writer, and writer-in-residence for Houston-based Writers in the Schools. Born in Houston, Cander attended the Honors College of the University of Houston and continues to live in Houston with her husband and two children.
In 1994, she attended the Ploughshares International Fiction Writer’s Seminar at Kasteel Well, Netherlands. The following year, she attended the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference in Vermont, where she was able to work alongside some of her favorite authors.
Cander is the author most recently of the novel, The Weight of a Piano (2019). Whisper Hollow (2015) was selected as an Indie Next pick and nominated for the Kirkus Prize in fiction, while her award-winning novel 11 Stories (2013) was included in Kirkus’s best indie general fiction.
Her children’s book The Word Burglar (2014) received the silver Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards for Reading Skills & Literacy.
Cander well knows that the pen is mightier than the sword, but she’s willing to wield one of those, too. A former fitness competitor and model, she currently holds a 3rd dan in taekwondo and is a certified women’s defensive tactics instructor.
She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Author’s Guild, the Writers’ League of Texas, PEN, and MENSA. (Adapted from Amazon.)
Book Reviews
The Weight of a Piano is about memory and identity. A young Californian named Clara wonders if "every single thing" ever played on her Bluthner had "left an afterimage, a shadow of emotion deposited somewhere inside the case." … There’s a lot to process here, but Cander is a smart, deft storyteller who holds her Scriabin-worthy tale together. She understands how something as beloved as a piano can actually be a burden.
James Barron - New York Times Book Review
In The Weight of a Piano, two women are linked by one instrument.… Chris Cander masterfully reveals how these women’s lives connect (and how the piano came to be made) and, in the process, meditates on grief and living in the past.
Elizabeth Sile - Real Simple
(Starred review) [E]legiac and evocative.… Cander’s novel delves into… artistic inspiration and how family legacy… can both ignite imagination and limit its scope. Cander brilliantly and convincingly expresses music and visual art in her writing, capturing both within a near-alien but surprisingly stunning landscape.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) [T]his beautiful tale of the intersecting stories of Katya and Clara, two strong women working hard to rebuild their shattered lives, is impossible to put down and impossible to forget. —Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Library Journal
Strong characterization and attention to detail, whether in the manufacture of a piano or in the desolate beauty of Death Valley, elevate Cander's tale about learning to let go of the past.
Booklist
(Starred review) Deftly plotted and well written, a gentle meditation on the healing power of art—and its limitations.… Cander grabs the reader in her bravura, thickly detailed opening pages [and] expertly parcels out her revelations [as] she builds parallel narratives [toward] an odd but beautiful finale.
Kirkus Reviews
A charming, puzzling plot that gets more exciting and addictive the deeper you sink into it.… Cander’s unadorned prose composes some truly beautiful descriptions of the joy of music. —Leslie Hinson
BookPage
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the author decided to open the story with a description of the origins of the Bluthner piano? Did anything surprise you about the piano’s history? What major themes of the novel does this first chapter foretell?
2. How would you describe Clara Lundy? What has she "always prided herself on" (page 13), and why does she refuse romantic advances and offers of help from Peter? What leads to the failure of Clara’s relationships with Ryan and Bobby? What does this reveal about her ideas of love and connection? What values ultimately seem to be the most important to Clara?
3. How does Katya come to own the Bluthner piano? Who owned the piano before her, and what did people imagine about the piano’s former owner? Were they correct in their assumptions about this person? How did Katya feel about the former owner? What did Katya’s father believe about this person’s character, and what made him think this?
4. Explore the theme of memory. What does Clara remember about her parents, their relationship, and their home life together? What were "the moments Clara recalled most vividly" (page 21)? Would you say that her memory is reliable? How are the other characters impacted by their own memories? What might the novel reveal or suggest about the nature of memory?
5. Analyze the treatment of loss and grief in the novel. How does Clara cope with the loss of her parents and their home? How do her new caretakers try "to soothe her" (page 22)? What method seems to be most helpful to her? Where does she learn "how to live with her losses" (page 22)? What losses do the other characters suffer, and how do they cope with these losses and the grief that accompanies them? Are any of the characters able to overcome their grief or reach catharsis? If so, how?
6. Consider the important role that art plays in the lives of the characters. Which of the characters create art, and why do they do this? What was Katya’s first love? Why does Greg enjoy photography? What does Boris believe can be accomplished via dance and performance? How are these characters affected by their proximity to the arts? Likewise, how are the characters in the novel affected by their experience of art created by others?
7. Why does Mikhail insist that the family leave their home in Leningrad and go to America? How does Katya feel about this? What does the novel reveal about the experience of immigration and the American Dream? What does the process of immigration entail? What hardships does the family endure as they make this transition? What must they leave behind? What risks do they take? Is the family ultimately better off in America? Discuss.
8. Why does Boris visit Katya after three and a half years? What does he tell Katya is his "wish" (page 67)? What does he believe is their duty? How does Katya respond to his proposal? What makes her believe that the visit may be a test?
9. Why does Clara decide to sell the Bluthner piano, and who buys it? What does the purchaser say that he wants with the piano? What does he tell Clara he is "trying to depict" (page 74) with the piano? What does he want the piano to symbolize?
10. Who does Katya believe is talking to her once she is in America? What does she hear? Why does she ask her husband if they can visit Death Valley? How does she feel when she looks at the photographs her husband took of her there? What does she believe they reveal?
11. What fable does Katya share with her son Grisha and what is the message at the heart of this fable? What does the story reveal about its storyteller? What does Grisha not realize about the story until he is an adult?
12. What surprises Greg about Clara’s piano when he finally gets to see it in person, and why does it make him emotional? What didn’t he notice in the photographs of the piano at the time of its purchase? Why does Clara decide to follow Greg from this point on?
13. Who does Katya receive a letter from, and what message does it contain? What does the sender tell Katya will change the world? Why is Katya overjoyed after receiving the letter, and how does she offer to repay the messenger who delivers the letter? How does this decision affect her life and the life of her son?
14. What does the novel suggest about how well we can know other people—and ourselves? How well would you say the characters know themselves? How do they come to know themselves better? What causes them to misunderstand others, and what helps them to correct these misunderstandings and come to a better knowledge of one another?
15. What is remarkable about the sailing stones that Greg and Clara see in Death Valley? What does Greg think they look like they are doing? To what or to whom does he compare them?
16. Why was Greg determined to take the piano to Death Valley? What did he plan to do with the piano there? Why does he later change his mind and what does he decide to do with it instead?
17. How are Clara and Greg connected, and how does each respond to this connection? How did Clara come to own the Bluthner piano? What effect does the revelation of the piano’s provenance have on Clara, and how does it influence or alter her understanding of her own past?
18. Why do you think the author chose to include a passage told from the point of view of the piano itself? What effect did this anthropomorphism have on you as a reader? What "weight" (308) does the piano carry?
19. What choices does Clara make at the conclusion of the story? Were you surprised by her decisions? Why or why not? What becomes of the piano? What does Clara mean when she says that she doesn’t "want to be Sisyphus anymore" (311)?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)