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Music in the Dark

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( 759 ratings, 121 reviews)
Brief Description
'Wonderful and moving' Clare Chambers 'Utterly absorbing' Sunday Post SHORTLISTED FOR THE WINSTON GRAHAM HISTORICAL PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE Jamesina Ross is long finished with men. But one night a stranger seeking lodgings knocks on the door of her tenement flat. He doesn't... Read More
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1884. A tenement room-and-kitchen flat in Rutherglen, near Glasgow. A woman with stark injuries to her face and her mind and a man recently arrived from America spend the night together. Through facing their shared past and the brutal events of 30 years ago, they can finally glimpse a future of new possibilities.

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'Wonderful and moving' Clare Chambers

'Utterly absorbing' Sunday Post

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WINSTON GRAHAM HISTORICAL PRIZE

LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE

Jamesina Ross is long finished with men. But one night a stranger seeking lodgings knocks on the door of her tenement flat. He doesn't recognise her, but she remembers him at once. Not that she plans to mention it. She has no intention of trusting anyone enough to let herself be vulnerable again.

A lifetime ago, growing up in a Highland glen, Jamesina Ross wrote songs about the land and the kin who had worked it for generations. But her music was no match for the violence her community faced in the Highland Clearances. Jamesina has borne the disfigurements of that day ever since, on her face and inside her head. Her lodger thinks that if she would only dare to open the past, she might have the chance of a future.

This is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away.

A beautiful exploration of unlooked-for love in later life, its contrariness and its awkward, surprising joys, Music in the Dark is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529345957

Publisher: John Murray Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 25 April 2024

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: John Murray Publishers Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 26.0mm

Width: 128.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 236g

Pages: 336

About the Author

Sally Magnusson's third novel delves again into the experience of women on which the historical record is largely silent - this time placing a Victorian washer-woman of low class, despised race, advancing age and brilliant but injured mind into exhilarating light, and exploring the effect of brutal community displacement. Her debut novel, The Sealwoman's Gift (2018), about the experience of a seventeenth century Icelandic woman abducted into slavery, was shortlisted for 6 literary prizes. The Ninth Child (2020) was acclaimed for its blend of historical realism and chilling folklore. She is also the author of the Sunday Times bestselling memoir, Where Memories Go: Why Dementia changes Everything (2016).

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