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Unraveling Musical Myths is proud to introduce to the reader Lauren Rico's debut novel, Reverie:
You will never hear the Cello Suites in quite the same way again:
"Here, in the darkness, it’s almost as if the cello and I are a single entity. I supplement the instrument’s delicate panels of wood, and tough lengths of gut string with my own flesh, blood, and breath. I inhale every phrase, and my entire body moves in a circular pattern, cello lovingly embraced between my knees. It takes me to places I don’t usually allow myself to go, places buried deep in the back of my mind. My mother lives here, in this place where the music brings me. She’s a young woman, not much older than I am now. I can see her pretty, fair face. She has freckles like me, and a head full of coppery curls. I imagine her leaning over me and tucking me in. She brushes the hair from my forehead and tells me to have sweet dreams. But they are not sweet at all. As my bow slices across the strings, I hear her and my father yelling through the night. I dig into the Bach harder, recalling the crash of objects hurled and the smack of a hand on someone’s face. Whose? I don’t know. My fingers move frantically now, recklessly. The music could break apart and shatter in an instant. But it doesn’t. It slows and begins the lament. The crying. Her tears. There it is. He slapped her, this time. The cello is a wordless voice, heaving and sighing with the weight of her sorrow. The bow carries my fear with it as it swings to each string in turn. They are so volatile. They cannot hold our fragile life together. It just spirals out of control, picking up speed again, until it reaches a fever pitch.
Without warning, my hand slips across the D string, lurching forward and sending my bow flying across the room. It hits the floor with a sickening ‘thwack,’ returning me instantly to the tiny, pitch - black room in which I have lost myself once again.”
-Reverie, Lauren E. Rico, pp. 10-11
Bach’s famously haunting Prelude, much akin to it’s namesake, foretells of the cornucopia of raw emotions to come in author and SiriusXM radio host Lauren Rico’s debut novel “Reverie:” a soul-wrenching blend of hope, despair, passion, vitriol, tragedy and ultimately triumph over seemingly unshakable obstacles that sees our heroine Julia James free herself from the harrowing and confining shackles of abuse.
Reverie’s is a dialogue all too common in modern society – James’ tragic story reads like a discourse on the mental and physical ramifications of years of generational abuse and shines a bright spotlight onto the torturous practice of “gas lighting:” a many-tiered form of emotional exploitation that sees it’s victim subjected to a systematic and lengthy process of forced memory distortion by a trusted and loved assailant, ultimately leading to the ‘patient’ (or in this instance, the ‘case subject’) questioning his or her own memory – and, in the ultimate coup de grâce for the abuser – leaving the victim questioning his or her own perception of abuse.
Told in present time (with allusions to the protagonist’s past), Reverie takes us painstakingly through the private lives of budding master musicians, revealing the grit behind the "pomp," and the reality behind the "circumstance" of the perceived perfectionism commonly associated with classical music and with that of it’s practitioners, blending seamlessly the steadfast dedication and passion of rising within elite musical ranks and within social and intimately personal ones – revealing most expertly the fragility of man at his most vulnerable, and the unshakeable ability for the human soul to continue to seek love and triumph over any obstacle.
James' story is a story for the mind, an exultation for the soul, and a powerful testament to mental health. A remarkable debut from an equally musically inclined author: Reverie is officially Rico’s first opus, and this review is simply raving!
-review by Rose.
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| Learn more about Lauren at LaurenRico.com |
Bach's beautiful Prelude from Six Cello Suites, BWV 1007-1012:
-Rose.
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