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Best Fiction of the Decade: American Music by Jane Mendelsohn (2010)
A series of posts on my most unforgettable, must-read books of the past decade.
I can’t resist a good end-of-decade list, especially when it involves books. This decade was full of great reads and in this series of posts, I thought I would revisit some of my favorites published during the past 10 years.
Books like American Music by Jane Mendelsohn are the very reason why I love recommendations from other bibliophiles. Because I’ll be honest … I’m not quite sure I would have picked this up on my own if it wasn’t for my friend Beth’s suggestion. As she is about so many things, she was right about this one.
American Music is absolutely breathtaking.
Milo is a Iraq War vet in a rehabilitation hospital. His physical therapist, Honor, is a former dancer. Whenever Honor touches Milo’s back, mysterious images from the past appear. This phenomenon is — to say the least — rather unnerving to both of them.
Gradually, the images begin to form a sequence of interconnected stories spanning from 17th century Turkey through the 1930s and into the 60s. A married couple find their relationship tested by a cousin. A woman photographer has her life’s work stolen. A eunuch and a concubine find…
