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The Gentle Care for Broken Things
An imaginative novel blending real events and historical figures with fiction as it follows the story of a unique violin, the people it touches, and the strange and magical history of Tasmanian folk music as played from Cape Barren Island to the Huon Valley.
In the year 1700 in Milan, a violin is rejected by master luthier Carlo Giuseppe Testore and begins its journey through time and place, absorbing the music of centuries along the way.
Three hundred years later, Haley is new to Tasmania and finding her feet as a music teacher and as a violinist in the local folk music scene. She asks Aaron, a Hobart craftsman, to restore the battered Testore violin in a desperate bid to help Jesse, a young girl devastated by grief.
Original, heartfelt, and immersed in place and history, The Gentle Care for Broken Things is a testament to the deep importance of musical expression and the redeeming power of simple kindness and connection.
In the year 1700 in Milan, a violin is rejected by master luthier Carlo Giuseppe Testore and begins its journey through time and place, absorbing the music of centuries along the way.
Three hundred years later, Haley is new to Tasmania and finding her feet as a music teacher and as a violinist in the local folk music scene. She asks Aaron, a Hobart craftsman, to restore the battered Testore violin in a desperate bid to help Jesse, a young girl devastated by grief.
Original, heartfelt, and immersed in place and history, The Gentle Care for Broken Things is a testament to the deep importance of musical expression and the redeeming power of simple kindness and connection.
326 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 30, 2023
Could not have asked for a better novel to end my 2023 reading year.
Steve Gadd is a Tasmanian author who writes about his passion for music. He and his wife Marjorie (also an author) are well-known for their efforts to bring original Tasmanian folk music to the fore a their community engagement.
It is clear Steve wished to collate his thoughts, experiences and aspirations and be a torch bearer for what he loves about local music in his writing, the musicians who have influenced and play/played with him, the ensembles he and Marjorie have created. It often reads like an artistic memoir.
Using a 300-year-old Italian violin as the common thread in the storyline, a story that rolls and weaves through the centuries, continents and people up to the present day, is an achievement. Gadd introduces real and invented characters. Not an easy task, I would say.
Unsure if this will resonate as deeply with ‘non-muso’ readers, but who am I to say?
Disclaimer: I had the pleasure of attending a book launch. Steve and Marjorie plus friends, including on harp and banjo, took us down the road of various genres mentioned in the novel, genres played on this well-travelled violin . Delightful.
Did such an experience affect my top rating? You bet!
Steve Gadd is a Tasmanian author who writes about his passion for music. He and his wife Marjorie (also an author) are well-known for their efforts to bring original Tasmanian folk music to the fore a their community engagement.
It is clear Steve wished to collate his thoughts, experiences and aspirations and be a torch bearer for what he loves about local music in his writing, the musicians who have influenced and play/played with him, the ensembles he and Marjorie have created. It often reads like an artistic memoir.
Using a 300-year-old Italian violin as the common thread in the storyline, a story that rolls and weaves through the centuries, continents and people up to the present day, is an achievement. Gadd introduces real and invented characters. Not an easy task, I would say.
Unsure if this will resonate as deeply with ‘non-muso’ readers, but who am I to say?
Disclaimer: I had the pleasure of attending a book launch. Steve and Marjorie plus friends, including on harp and banjo, took us down the road of various genres mentioned in the novel, genres played on this well-travelled violin . Delightful.
Did such an experience affect my top rating? You bet!
February 22, 2024
I loved this book. There is a flow of the life of a violin from creation a few centuries ago to today. The violin's varying fortunes are followed from one owner to another across continents. This history becomes built into the violin. We shift back and forth through time while a modern day story builds around the violin today. I declare I love the Tasmanian lifestyle and the music scene. Maybe this enhances my joy of the book as I recognise some of my world.
November 21, 2023
☆4.5 stars☆
A well-spun, masterful story about the life of a particular 'beast' of a violin, and the lives of the people that meet, and join it. It was a joy to read Gadd's book, and the intricate layers of knowledge he draws upon. This a dedication of love to music and the cultures that spring from the playing of it, particularly those early folk cultures built in settler communities across Trouwunna/lutruwita (tasmania).
Part of the story is drawn from a poem Gadd had previously written, The Girl with the Blue Violin; the book is an expansion upon what comes after, and how music will continually find a person throughout their life, in so many different forms.
the gentle care for broken things is well-paced, continually propelling the reader through the the stories of the people the violin meets. In the end, I stayed up to finish the novel, unable to put it down until I had learned where it would take me. A very enjoyable, poetic read.
A well-spun, masterful story about the life of a particular 'beast' of a violin, and the lives of the people that meet, and join it. It was a joy to read Gadd's book, and the intricate layers of knowledge he draws upon. This a dedication of love to music and the cultures that spring from the playing of it, particularly those early folk cultures built in settler communities across Trouwunna/lutruwita (tasmania).
Part of the story is drawn from a poem Gadd had previously written, The Girl with the Blue Violin; the book is an expansion upon what comes after, and how music will continually find a person throughout their life, in so many different forms.
the gentle care for broken things is well-paced, continually propelling the reader through the the stories of the people the violin meets. In the end, I stayed up to finish the novel, unable to put it down until I had learned where it would take me. A very enjoyable, poetic read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews