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Summary
Summary
This "enthralling" debut novel and Wall Street Journal Top Ten Book of the Year circles the life of eccentric composer Erik Satie in La Belle Époque Paris and examines love, family, genius, and the madness of art ( New York Times Book Review ).
Erik Satie begins life with every possible advantage. But after the dual blows of his mother's early death and his father's breakdown upend his childhood, Erik and his younger siblings -- Louise and Conrad -- are scattered. Later, as an ambitious young composer, Erik flings himself into the Parisian art scene, aiming for greatness but achieving only notoriety.
As the years, then decades, pass, he alienates those in his circle as often as he inspires them, lashing out at friends and lovers like Claude Debussy and Suzanne Valadon. Only Louise and Conrad are steadfast allies. Together they strive to maintain their faith in their brother's talent and hold fast the badly frayed threads of family. But in a journey that will take her from Normandy to Paris to Argentina, Louise is rocked by a severe loss that ultimately forces her into a reckoning with how Erik -- obsessed with his art and hungry for fame -- will never be the brother she's wished for.
With her buoyant, vivid reimagination of an iconic artist's eventful life, Caitlin Horrocks has written a captivating and ceaselessly entertaining novel about the tenacious bonds of family and the costs of greatness, both to ourselves and to those we love.
Author Notes
Caitlin Horrocks is the author of the story collection This Is Not Your City and a recipient of the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Plimpton Prize. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker , the Atlantic , the Paris Review, Tin House, One Story , and elsewhere and has been included in The Best American Short Stories . She lives with her family in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Horrocks's vivid, hard-edged debut about French composer Erik Satie focuses on his erratic career, difficult personality, and dysfunctional family. In 1872, widower Alfred Satie leaves his children-six-year-old Eric, youngest brother Conrad, middle sister Louise-to be raised by their grandmother in Normandy. A great-uncle takes Louise to live with him. When the grandmother dies, Alfred brings the boys home to Paris. By his early 20s, Eric, now calling himself Erik "with a k," plays piano at Chat Noir and other Montmartre cafes. Louise, widowed within a year of getting married, resides with her son on her husband's debt-ridden estate, until relatives confiscate both the estate and the son. Often neglectful and hurtful of friends and family, Erik collaborates with modernists like Cocteau and Diaghilev to varying success. Horrocks includes the perspectives of Erik's onetime librettist (fictional Philippe) and sometime lover (real-life Suzanne Valadon) for a portrait of avant-garde turn-of-the-century Paris that proves art isn't easy and neither are artists. Horrocks shines while envisioning Erik scoring a silent film, debuting a masterpiece, or being released from jail (where he was held for defaming a reviewer) so he can complete a commission. Horrocks's description of Satie's music is also apt for her noteworthy novel: slow, spare, and at its best finely filigreed. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Horrocks follows up her well-regarded story collection, This Is Not Your City (2011), with a rueful novel about composer Erik Satie, his family, and friends.The parameters of the Satie siblings' lives are set shortly after their mother dies in 1872. Their overwhelmed father leaves them with relatives and vanishes; when he returns with a new wife, only Erik and younger brother Conrad are reclaimed, while Louise is left with their great-uncle. Her rage and bitterness are mostly justified by subsequent events in her life, chronicled in a first-person narration so vivid it frequently steals focus from the chapters narrated by Erik, Conrad, Erik's friend Philippe, and Suzanne, the only woman emotionally cut-off Erik comes close to loving. The twin traumas of his mother's death and the involuntary separation from Louise have made him pathologically wary of any kind of connection, including those that might smooth the way for his deliberately provocative music. Aspiring poet Philippe collaborates with Erik for a while and admires his friend's disdain for compromise but ultimately opts for a more stable existence. Horrocks paints an atmospheric portrait of bohemian Paris and a poignant one of Satie and his avant-garde circle, who "lived in the yet: not now, but soon" when their art would be recognized. Meanwhile, they drink and scandalize the bourgeoisie with their bad behavior. An episode of unintentional cruelty cements Erik's estrangement from Louise, whose losses mount in a wrenching account made bearable only by the fact that she narrates it as an elderly survivor in 1944. Erik's story takes longer to engage readers, but gradually his austere passion and fierce dedication to his music become as affecting as Louise's catalog of pain and deprivation. A keening finale revisits him at 21, with "the most popular seven minutes he will ever writefading away in the sweaty, soot-dark room."Finely written and deeply empathetic, a powerful portrait of artistic commitment and emotional frustration. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
A beautifully melancholic tone permeates this finely written debut novel from acclaimed short story author Horrocks. More than biographical fiction about French avant-garde composer Erik Satie (1866-1925), it's a multiperspective saga about the Satie siblings and their circle, and how their lives touched and diverged over decades. After their father abandons them in 1872, Eric (the original spelling), Louise, and Conrad live with their grandmother in Normandy, until Louise is later sent to stay with her great-uncle. The three never regain their childhood closeness. Now calling himself Erik, the composer pursues music in Paris, and struggles to rise above the cabaret scene, his erratic behavior giving him a problematic level of fame. Louise marries into a prominent family yet suffers significant losses. Erik's story looks beyond the tortured genius stereotype to something more nuanced and real, while both Louise and painter Suzanne Valadon, Erik's one-time companion, personify different aspects of being a woman alone. The bleakness of the themes of loneliness, family separation, and thwarted expectations sits in counterpoise to several couples' deep love and the creativity that produces innovative art.--Sarah Johnson Copyright 2019 Booklist
Library Journal Review
DEBUT In 1872, Erik, Conrad, and Louise Satie are sent to live with relatives after the death of their mother. When their father returns for them, he takes the boys but leaves Louise with a strict great-uncle. The siblings' divergent lives are woven together, along with those of two of Erik's friends, through chapters focusing on each. Erik revels in the avant-garde art and music of Montmartre but struggles to be taken seriously as a composer. His friend Philippe, a poet, collaborates with Erik but eventually gives it up for a steady paycheck. Erik begins a love affair with artist Suzanne, but the two part when Erik is unable to be what she needs. Louise's life takes a very different path, first toward great happiness, then unfathomable loss. Even Conrad, the most stable sibling, is not spared from difficulty. VERDICT Horrocks turns what could have been a maudlin retelling into a heartbreakingly beautiful novel about the sacrifices people make for what they hold dear. Readers need not be familiar with composer Erik Satie (1866--1925) to appreciate his story, but many will feel compelled to seek out recordings of his music after reading this book. [See Prepub Alert, 12/3/18.]--Portia Kapraun, Delphi P.L., IN