The Piano Man's Daughter

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Spanning the late 19th century to World War II, this tender and powerful
novel chronicles four generations of a Southern Ontario family.

The novel opens in 1939 as a young piano tuner, Charlie Kilworth, takes
tea with his mother Lily in the garden of Whitby’s Asylum for the
Insane. Twenty-four hours later Lily has died by fire, leaving Charlie
with a wicker suitcase full of old photographs and notebooks, and a
burning desire to understand the secrets they hold. The novel moves
slowly and inexorably through intricate layers as we begin to understand
what drives these characters.

Findley’s prose has perfect pitch and timing, as those who have heard
him reading it aloud can attest. The Piano Man’s Daughter affords a
piercing look into the human heart.