bookbox; second book with the same title - and that one featured a cello too. In this one, Renee is a child prodigy of the cello, home schooled and moved to Germany to pursue his studies. He doesn't know how to do anything except practice and do concerts, until his gift abruptly leaves him. Struggling as a college music teacher and privately teaching cello lessons, he's just marking time until two things redirect his life. First he is chosen as a jurist for a murder trial and he gives in to become the teacher/mentor to a Korean boy, who has the potential, like him in his early years, to be an extraordinary cellist. During the novel, Renne has some growth himself, no longer torturing himself for not being concert material any more. and strangely, tutoring the Korean boy who was not as limited as him, helps him move forward with his life. ( )

A book written with four different story lines (the musicians past, his teaching of a your Korean, his relationship with a woman, and a trial of a Zen Buddhist, which the author pulls together at the end with partial success ( )

This is a novel (not to be confused withh the true story that has been made into a movie starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr).
It is an incandescent work about personal growth. Renne is a former musical child prodigy now teaching music at a university - too young to be a retired concert soloist, too old to still be a virgin. ( )

A fascinating book about a year in the life of a cellist in Los Angeles who takes on a very young student and becomes a juror on a murder trial with an insanity defense. Renne (Reinhart) Sundheimer was a cello wunderkind who suddenly and inexplicably lost his ability to concertize at 21. Thereafter he taught students at the university. As the book opens he is 34 and has been asked to teach a new very young and talented Korean boy. He's also received a summons for jury trial. These two stories, although very different, are interwoven and show you the artist and the man in all his complexities. As someone who has worked for trial attorneys for over 40 years, I loved the courtroom scenes and Renne's thoughtful remarks on the witnesses and the process. As a music lover, I enjoyed and was educated by his explanations of the musical pieces they played or heard. ( )

I don't know what Salzman set out to do but whatever it was, I think he failed. The main character is unsympathetic in the way a person might be when he's always been told he's brilliant and special and he turns out not to be. In that way, Salzman succeeds in creating him. Then again, it's hard to care about his feelings and experiences because he's so self-centered. Not an easy book to like and, with a slapped-on ending, an unsatisfying read.

Petrea Burchard
Camelot & Vine ( )