Book Review: Cadenza, A Novel

From reading the marketing blurb on the back cover of Justin Courter's latest book "Cadenza, A Novel" (available at Inkberry Books), one might be forgiven for anticipating this tale to be a simple heart-warming story of a prodigy overcoming great physical and emotional odds to become a singular success on the world stage.

The blurb casts the protagonist thusly:

Despite the barriers of her scarred face (from a house fire at an early age that killed her sister) and her tragic childhood, she reaches the pinnacle of achievement as a classical concert pianist, but at a deep psychological cost.

That last phrase, about cost, is the first clue that this might not be the light feel-good tale one might have expected.

First the reader has to wade through the dark descriptions of disfigurement, and painful recovery. Upon being shepherded by her manager into trying another round of plastic surgery, Jennifer responds:

"I'm not going back there." My voice trilled slightly. Just hearing the name of the place made me shudder. When I thought of SBI (Shriner Burns Institute), I thought of my wounds being debrided during dressing changes. I thought of charred bits of my own skin floating around me in the hydrotherapy tub. I thought of screaming so loud it seemed to be coming from someone else. Pain. Pain you would not believe. Imagine long thick ribbons of skin being scraped from your arms, legs and face with a carpenter's plane. That's what the dressing changes felt like. They do this to you twice a day. Their faces can't hide their revulsion as they do it. You disgust them.

The horror of this brutal reporting is difficult to wade through but perhaps the medium is the message - it is supposed to be. It pales compared to living through the horror of the burns themselves.

Despite her proclamation, Jennifer does go back for the new surgery. In doing so, she happens upon a boy in one of the rooms, Felix, who describes the state of burn victims, of what they go through, as similar to those who have leprosy.

When he saw me he flung the book against the far wall and pointed at me with a hand from which the fingers had been mostly burned off. "Unclean! Unclean!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

The subsequent relationship between the two musicians is one of contrasts and common ground. Jennifer has miraculous full use of her hands that allow her to soar to the heights of artistic success through a combination of gift and determination. But it is what is unseen about her that is her greatest challenge. Felix, on the other hand, is stymied to pursue his love and gift of guitar by the damage done to his fingers.

Both of these artists are driven by competing urges - to create or to self-destruct out of disgust for themselves.

In characterizing her artistic gift, Jennifer offers:

Artistic powers are the only ones of any worth. Most people want some other power. They want the power money confers, which is to indulge themselves in puerile pleasures. Or worse, they want to control other people's lives. These petty forms of "power" are not powers at all. They are vulgar weaknesses in disguise. But the ability to make music, to influence another's emotions with sound, is something altogether different. Music changes the atmosphere and the ability to create it is more like having the powers of a magician who can create a thunderstorm and then, with a wave of his hand, part the clouds, summon the sun, or sprinkle the sky with stars.

Courter's "Cadenza" spins interlocking tales of damaged people who represent a range of the human condition that spiral past the reader like a carousel toward what seems like a predictable culmination. Except for the confusing coda which has no culmination.

This is a book to share and discuss and to wrangle with. The intricate themes and stanzas are interwoven into a symphony of pain that reveals the human condition and survival challenges. It is well worth the struggle.