The Violin Lover.

Susan Merskey is freelance writer in London, Ontario.

From the early 1930s onward, the Jews in London, England recognized the dangers of Hitler’s escalating hatred abroad and suffered attacks from the Blackshirts at home. Against this backdrop, The Violin Lover tells the story of a secret love affair and its disastrous effects.

Ned Abrahams is “the violin lover.” A successful doctor and accomplished musician, he meets Clara Weiss and her son, Jacob, who is already a gifted pianist at the age of 11, at a Christmas concert at the Guildhall. He is persuaded to play a Mozart sonata with the boy, and gains both his confidence and his admiration. At the same time, he begins a clandestine love affair with Clara, a widow with two other children besides Jacob. When Clara realizes that she and her lover have become rivals for her son’s affection, the consequences are harrowing.

The plot may seem slight, but to dismiss this book as such would be in the same league as misinterpreting the apparent simplicity of a Mozart sonata. Many different emotions are interwoven with a good deal of social, musical, and political history. We observe the contrasts between Jacob’s childish questions and the adult responses, and we see the interactions of traditional Jews with the less observant Ned.

The backdrop of the Europe of the mid-1930s is vividly drawn, with the hints of suffering that was already occurring and worse that was yet to come. I wonder just who the Herr Rosé, who advises Ned not to come to Vienna in the summer of 1935, is—Arnold Rosé, leader of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, who died in London England in 1946, or his son, Alfred, who died in London, Ontario, in 1975.

The author’s descriptive gifts and the musicality of her language lend intensity to her story. Recommended.