Ghost Music - by An Yu

Book Synopsis

From the author of the "original and electric" Braised Pork (Time), An Yu's enchanting and contemplative novel of music and mushrooms follows a former concert pianist searching for the truth about a vanished musician

For three years, Song Yan has filled the emptiness of her Beijing apartment with the tentative notes of her young piano students. She gave up on her own career as a concert pianist many years ago, but her husband Bowen, an executive at a car company, has long rebuffed her pleas to have a child. He resists even when his mother arrives from the southwestern Chinese region of Yunnan and begins her own campaign for a grandchild. As tension in the household rises, it becomes harder for Song Yan to keep her usual placid demeanor, especially since she is troubled by dreams of a doorless room she can't escape, populated only by a strange orange mushroom.

When a parcel of mushrooms native to her mother-in-law's province is delivered seemingly by mistake, Song Yan sees an opportunity to bond with her, and as the packages continue to arrive every week, the women stir-fry and grill the mushrooms, adding them to soups and noodles. When a letter arrives in the mail from the sender of the mushrooms, Song Yan's world begins to tilt further into the surreal. Summoned to an uncanny, seemingly ageless house hidden in a hutong that sits in the middle of the congested city, she finds Bai Yu, a once world-famous pianist who disappeared ten years ago.

A gorgeous and atmospheric novel of art and expression, grief and survival, memory and self-discovery, Ghost Music animates contemporary Beijing through the eyes of a lonely yet hopeful young woman and gives vivid color and texture to the promise of new beginnings.

Review Quotes

Praise for Ghost Music:

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Named a Best Book of the Year by TIME and Washington Independent Review of Books
A New York Times Book Review Paperback Row Selection

"Spellbinding and atmospheric . . . With its quiet, dreamy bending of reality and its precise depiction of many different strains of alienation, Ghost Music is an evocative exploration of what it means to live fully-and the potential consequences of failing to do so. Yu braids the mundane and the magical together with a gentle hand . . . There's something here of early Murakami's graceful, open-ended approach to the uncanny, as well as the vivid yet muted emotionality of Patrick Modiano or Katie Kitamura. Like these skillful portraitists of alienation, Yu conjures a visceral inbetweenness where the worlds of matter and spirit meet in a shared, suspended space."--Alexandra Kleeman, New York Times Book Review

"The story at the centre of Ghost Music revolves around the struggles of living with an elderly in-law, the collapse of a marriage, and more generally the pressures on women to be doting wives in Chinese society. However, these themes are explored in such an unusual way that it doesn't read like a domestic novel; throughout there is the uncanny sense of something odd, verging on supernatural, going on in the background . . . An intriguing book that knits together music and life to touch on something profound."--Claire Kohda, Guardian

"An Yu's Ghost Music is a novel haunted in every way--psychologically, philosophically, and literally. This intricate, eerie book leaves the reader with more questions than answers, the kind of uncanny questions that reverberate in your mind with a tinny echo of reality . . . Ghost Music shows us how we might find the trigger that wakes us up, forces us to confront our demons, and helps us heal."--Washington Independent Review of Books

"Juxtaposing unreal imagery and distinctive prose with very human characters, Ghost Music is a novel about learning to cope with lost dreams and missed opportunities."--Foreword Reviews

"Talking mushrooms, classical music, and the complexities of identity infuse a semisurreal novel that contrasts the immediacy of daily life in Beijing with a mesmerizing dreamscape . . . A mood of yearning and a search for emotional freedom drive this simply told yet enigmatic story that includes bursts of imaginative flare, often lit by an orange glow. Intimate, melancholic, unresolved--perhaps frustratingly so for some readers--yet hopeful, Yu's story offers a restless female perspective working toward clarity. Dreamy and questioning, an unsettling novel composed of wistful notes."--Kirkus Reviews

"Replete with dreamlike sequences, enclosed walls, and talking mushroom . . . Those who enjoyed Yu's previous work or surrealistic fiction like Hiroko Oyamada's The Hole will likely welcome her latest offering."--Library Journal

"Ethereal . . . Beautifully metaphoric and insightful . . . Yu's lyrical language and atmospheric descriptions bring out the contrast between Song Yan's oppressive, superficial reality and the hypnotic world where she converses with fungi. Fans of literary novels with a supernatural edge, such as Jamie Ford's The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, take note."--BookPage

"This novel of grief, survival, and artistic ambitions captures the uncanny despair of loneliness and the liberating effort of beginning a new life."--Isle McElroy,

About the Author