THE WEIGHT OF A PIANO by Chris Cander

 Homage to a piano - it is unusual for a novel to have as its centre character an inanimate object well over a century old. Despite what the plot says, this is actually the story of a piano and the stories it contains within its handmade spruce and iron frame, 220 strings, 88 keys, from the Bluthner factory in 1905 - piano number 66,825. Whew, a lot of pianos I hear you say. And over a hundred plus years, more than 1 owner.

The owners this story focuses on are Katya, a wonderfully gifted and instinctive musician who inherits the piano from a blind old German man living next to her and her parents in an apartment building in the city of Zagorsk, north east of Moscow. It is the 1960s, walls have ears, food is scarce, people do not live well. A piano however, can be a tool of magic, transporting players and listeners alike far away from the grimness of daily life. Eventually Katya migrates to the US with her husband and child, but the piano has to be forfeited along the way. For Katya to be separated from her life force almost destroys her.

In alternate chapters, Clara lives in Bakersfield, California. She is an auto mechanic, having been brought up by her aunt and uncle following the tragic death of her parents in a house fire. She also grew up with a piano, that one day mysteriously appeared in their house, and that her father played. By a strange twist of fate this piano was the only item from the family home that didn't burn in the fire as it just happened to be stored elsewhere at the time. Clara is having boyfriend troubles, and moves out to an apartment on her own, taking the piano with her. During the move her arm is injured and in her fury, plus to get some cash, she lists it for sale, and it sells. Her change of mind does not sit well with the purchaser and so begins a rather strange journey connecting Clara to Katya to the piano. 

An intrepid journey to Death Valley, some hours drive away from Bakersfield, takes up much of the second half of the book, where the connections between Clara, the piano, and the purchaser gradually become clear, but not before some weird occurrences take place. I found a lot of this part just a bit too strange really, Clara's obsession with not letting the piano out of her sight, leading her to make some potentially unwise and unsafe decisions. Despite this lapse in plot and story telling, overall I really did enjoy the story. It just reinforces to me, yet again, the power of music to transport us, anywhere, to calm the mind, placate the soul.