DUET FOR ONE

The death of a classical pianist prompts reflections from those closest to her.

Toll’s latest novel opens with news of a death in Philadelphia. Adele Pearl is survived by her husband, Victor, who was also her creative partner, and their 37-year-old son, Adam. As word spreads through the classical music community, including the music school where she taught, we learn more and more about how her death has affected the people in her orbit. In addition to her grieving husband and son, these include Dara Kingsley, an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose marriage has just imploded. Years earlier, she’d been in a relationship with Adam that ended because she couldn’t keep up with him musically. In reflecting on his mother’s exacting standards, Adam begins rethinking his connection with Dara—and whether he’s happy in his current relationship with Patti Lee, a talented musician who studied with his mother. In reviewing his mother’s papers, Adam discovers evidence that his parents’ marriage was more complicated than he believed—or, as Toll writes, “Adele had a private life that she kept from Victor.” The novel gradually broadens its temporal scope, encompassing Adam and Dara’s early days as a couple and exploring how the time Adele and Victor spent traveling for concerts affected their connection to their son. This expansion echoes an observation Victor makes about his chosen vocation: “Time was everything to a musician, the driving structure behind music, even more than melody or harmony.” This is a measured novel, which seems in keeping with its characters’ affability, and in the end it comes together like a seamlessly programmed night at the symphony.

A thoughtful consideration of legacies artistic and familial.