What do you think?
Rate this book
Underground Fugue
A New York Times Editors' Choice
Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature Finalist
“A pleasure to read from beginning to end.” —Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March
Esther, an American art conservator, has fled New York for London—partly to escape her failing marriage, partly to tend to her dying mother. On her first night there, she spots a young man returning home very late, wet and muddy, to the house next door. Their eyes connect and he disappears inside.
This first encounter sparks Esther’s curiosity about her new Amir, the moody college student she caught sneaking in, and, more intruiguing still, Amir’s father, Javad—a neuroscientist from Iran.
Throughout the spring, a tentative friendship blossoms, but when terrorists attack London’s tube and bus lines in July, Esther finds her relationship with Javad strained by her gnawing suspicions about Amir . . . suspicions that will ultimately upend the possibilities for the future, and reveal the deep stamp of the past.
Sweeping, suspenseful, and exquisitely written, Underground Fugue is a powerful testament to how human connection can survive history’s most fearsome echoes.
Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature Finalist
“A pleasure to read from beginning to end.” —Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March
Esther, an American art conservator, has fled New York for London—partly to escape her failing marriage, partly to tend to her dying mother. On her first night there, she spots a young man returning home very late, wet and muddy, to the house next door. Their eyes connect and he disappears inside.
This first encounter sparks Esther’s curiosity about her new Amir, the moody college student she caught sneaking in, and, more intruiguing still, Amir’s father, Javad—a neuroscientist from Iran.
Throughout the spring, a tentative friendship blossoms, but when terrorists attack London’s tube and bus lines in July, Esther finds her relationship with Javad strained by her gnawing suspicions about Amir . . . suspicions that will ultimately upend the possibilities for the future, and reveal the deep stamp of the past.
Sweeping, suspenseful, and exquisitely written, Underground Fugue is a powerful testament to how human connection can survive history’s most fearsome echoes.
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 18, 2017
32 people are currently reading
622 people want to read
About the author
Margot Singer
8 books33 followersMargot Singer is a graduate of the University of Utah (Ph.D. 2005), Oxford University (M.Phil.1986) and Harvard University (B.A. 1984). From 1986 until 1997 she worked for the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where she was a Principal in the New York Office. She currently teaches at Denison University, where she holds the Bosler Endowed Faculty Fellowship, and in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She lives with her husband and two children in Granville, Ohio
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
December 12, 2017
The human brain, we are told in the midst of this beautifully written book, is hard-wired to do two things: to believe in the power of coincidence and to distrust the stranger.
In London, during the height of the immigrant paranoia, these realities play out in two parallel lives. Esther, who has fled from New York and the sadness of losing her teenage son, arrives in London to minister to her dying mother. At the end of her life, her mother recalls her own trauma and perceived betrayal from days past, when she fled Central Europe right before the arrival of the Nazis.
Another story plays out next door: an Iranian neuroscientist Javad, who has lived and worked in London for years, is concerned about his teenage son Amir, an undergraduate who studies Middle Eastern history and politics.
Esther and Javad need each other and it’s no surprise they gravitate together. Each is living his or her own form of exile with “moorings that have been cut free” – in Esther casethrough his necessary exile from his homeland. But will deep-seated suspicions condemn this relationship before it’s even given a chance?
Margot Singer introduces another thread that reveals where she’s leading. Javad, who is intrigued by the phenomenon of neurological symptoms that lack brain pathology, is working with a patient who may be held sway by a dissociative fugue. Those in a fugue state forget themselves, jump tracks, run away from some kind of trauma. It is hard to tell if they are authentic or malingering. Ms. Singer suggests that during these times, we may all be living in a sort of fugue state.
There is some real lyrical power in the writing style and the addition of the neurological theme is intriguing. The story seems pre-ordained and, perhaps because the characters are hostage to their brain’s functioning, there is a kind of stasis precisely when the novel demands a plunge into what the characters are feeling. Despite that lack, this is a haunting book that captures an atmosphere and reveals important truths.
In London, during the height of the immigrant paranoia, these realities play out in two parallel lives. Esther, who has fled from New York and the sadness of losing her teenage son, arrives in London to minister to her dying mother. At the end of her life, her mother recalls her own trauma and perceived betrayal from days past, when she fled Central Europe right before the arrival of the Nazis.
Another story plays out next door: an Iranian neuroscientist Javad, who has lived and worked in London for years, is concerned about his teenage son Amir, an undergraduate who studies Middle Eastern history and politics.
Esther and Javad need each other and it’s no surprise they gravitate together. Each is living his or her own form of exile with “moorings that have been cut free” – in Esther casethrough his necessary exile from his homeland. But will deep-seated suspicions condemn this relationship before it’s even given a chance?
Margot Singer introduces another thread that reveals where she’s leading. Javad, who is intrigued by the phenomenon of neurological symptoms that lack brain pathology, is working with a patient who may be held sway by a dissociative fugue. Those in a fugue state forget themselves, jump tracks, run away from some kind of trauma. It is hard to tell if they are authentic or malingering. Ms. Singer suggests that during these times, we may all be living in a sort of fugue state.
There is some real lyrical power in the writing style and the addition of the neurological theme is intriguing. The story seems pre-ordained and, perhaps because the characters are hostage to their brain’s functioning, there is a kind of stasis precisely when the novel demands a plunge into what the characters are feeling. Despite that lack, this is a haunting book that captures an atmosphere and reveals important truths.
September 10, 2017
Singer’s novel travels up and down the scale of sorrow, reflecting the musical and psychological connotations of her title. The epigraph is a quotation from Glenn Gould describing Bach’s “The Art of Fugue”: “For me, these pieces contain an endless range of gray tints.” That subtle palette perfectly reflects this haunting story, too, which feels suspended in a murky state between memory and presence, happiness and despair.
At the opening, an American woman named Esther arrives in London to care for her dying mother, Lonia. Despite her best intentions to be strong, the hospice setting disturbs Esther, who is still in shock over the death of her teenage son — one fresh loss bleeding into the next. “She wants to give up, go home,” Singer writes in a voice infused with Esther’s thoughts, but still coolly distant. “She has come here to help, but she’s not being helpful. She isn’t up to it — the worry, the tedium, the pain.”
That plot wouldn’t seem to promise much movement, but next door, life persists: A British Iranian brain scientist lives with his son, a college student fond of “urban exploration.” Unbeknown to his father, he and his buddies go spelunking in “storm drains, utility tunnels, conduits, construction cranes” — the neural networks of London.
The chapters rotate through these four characters, though Esther remains primary. It’s her plight that dominates the. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
At the opening, an American woman named Esther arrives in London to care for her dying mother, Lonia. Despite her best intentions to be strong, the hospice setting disturbs Esther, who is still in shock over the death of her teenage son — one fresh loss bleeding into the next. “She wants to give up, go home,” Singer writes in a voice infused with Esther’s thoughts, but still coolly distant. “She has come here to help, but she’s not being helpful. She isn’t up to it — the worry, the tedium, the pain.”
That plot wouldn’t seem to promise much movement, but next door, life persists: A British Iranian brain scientist lives with his son, a college student fond of “urban exploration.” Unbeknown to his father, he and his buddies go spelunking in “storm drains, utility tunnels, conduits, construction cranes” — the neural networks of London.
The chapters rotate through these four characters, though Esther remains primary. It’s her plight that dominates the. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
April 19, 2017
This book is a literary phenomenon. Fresh writing, emotionally rich, complex, and stirring.
You will FEEL as the characters feel. You will learn. and experience. With the London 2005 bombings as the backdrop to this work, Singer webs a story that is intriguing, full of depth and realities that we have all come to know and bare, regarding death, terrorism, and other worldly themes that are personal and recognizable.
"Here there are no illusions, no pretense. This is as close as you get to reality, hard and dear as ice. Here time caught fast and stopped. You came and witnessed. You touched but left no trace."
Be sure to pick this up in April!
You will FEEL as the characters feel. You will learn. and experience. With the London 2005 bombings as the backdrop to this work, Singer webs a story that is intriguing, full of depth and realities that we have all come to know and bare, regarding death, terrorism, and other worldly themes that are personal and recognizable.
"Here there are no illusions, no pretense. This is as close as you get to reality, hard and dear as ice. Here time caught fast and stopped. You came and witnessed. You touched but left no trace."
Be sure to pick this up in April!
May 23, 2022
A beautiful story about family relationships, racism and terrorism that everyone should read. A few similar life events in the story that resonated with my Mother recently passing away. Beautifully written! Thank you Michaela at The Kings English bookshop for recommending this book to me❤️
March 6, 2018
This is a marvelous debut novel. I liked the story/ies and their interweaving, and I liked the characters.
Must say I very much liked the note enclosed with my ARC Copy, and I'm sorry it didn't surface at the top of my pile sooner ;)
Must say I very much liked the note enclosed with my ARC Copy, and I'm sorry it didn't surface at the top of my pile sooner ;)
June 4, 2017
I loved Margot Singer's earlier The Pale of Settlement: Stories. This is also an outstanding work. I'm grateful for the advance copy I received in order to conduct this Q&A with the author: http://www.erikadreifus.com/resources....
June 9, 2017
In Margot Singer’s novel, UNDERGROUND FUGUE (MelvilleHouse), the background is the 2005 tube bombings in London. For those reading who are unfamiliar with the term “tube,” it is the British subway system. Four characters are dislocated by personal loss, political violence and betrayal.
It’s April and Esther has left New York for London, partly to escape her dissolving marriage, and partly to care for her dying mother; Lonia, Esther’s mother, is haunted by memories of fleeing Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II; Javad, their next-door neighbor and an Iranian neuroscientist, struggles to connect with his college-aged son; and Amir, Javad’s son, is seeking both identity and escape in his illicit exploration of the city’s forbidden spaces.
As Esther settles into life in London, a friendship develops among them. But when terrorists attack the London transit system in July, someone goes missing, and the chaos that follows both fractures the possibilities for the future, and reveals the deep divides of the past.
Margot is the author of a collection of short stories, The Pale of Settlement (University of Georgia Press, 2007), winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction; and co-editor, with Nicole Walker, of Bending Genre (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), a collection of essays on creative nonfiction.
It’s April and Esther has left New York for London, partly to escape her dissolving marriage, and partly to care for her dying mother; Lonia, Esther’s mother, is haunted by memories of fleeing Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II; Javad, their next-door neighbor and an Iranian neuroscientist, struggles to connect with his college-aged son; and Amir, Javad’s son, is seeking both identity and escape in his illicit exploration of the city’s forbidden spaces.
As Esther settles into life in London, a friendship develops among them. But when terrorists attack the London transit system in July, someone goes missing, and the chaos that follows both fractures the possibilities for the future, and reveals the deep divides of the past.
Margot is the author of a collection of short stories, The Pale of Settlement (University of Georgia Press, 2007), winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction; and co-editor, with Nicole Walker, of Bending Genre (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), a collection of essays on creative nonfiction.
May 29, 2022
Underground Fugue is an incredible book and has some of the most beautiful writing and descriptions I’ve come across. The story was equally as special as the writing which is sometimes hard to find and I found myself not wanting to put the book down and was instantly enveloped in the story. I absolutely loved Esther, Javad, Amir, and Lonia, each bringing their own unique backgrounds and experiences to the story. You don’t expect this book to have so many storylines but it makes it a highly multi-faceted story that you can’t get enough of. The influence of the piano throughout was lovely and special to me as a pianist and music teacher. I loved the musical descriptions and hearing which pieces Esther was playing on a given day. Javad and Amir brought a wonderful reminder of not judging somebody based on race; never forget 9/11 is a double edged sword for those who are Muslim and suffer racism and hatred by those who stereotype them as terrorists. The London tube bombing was a part of this story and it was heartbreaking to learn more about this tragedy and horror. I was a little sad as I read the last sentence as I knew I could no longer live in this beautiful book and story!
April 6, 2017
It was a privilege to read underground fugue . The pace was quick and engaging. The characters came to life instantly and kept me turning pages.
The subject matter timely and the conclusion was totally realistic. Though sometimes all I want is a happy ending this time the ending brought the book full circle. It is only too rarely that I experience a book of such quality and lasting enjoyment!!
The subject matter timely and the conclusion was totally realistic. Though sometimes all I want is a happy ending this time the ending brought the book full circle. It is only too rarely that I experience a book of such quality and lasting enjoyment!!
Want to read
August 7, 2017Can a Novel Be a Fugue?
By Margot Singer July 31, 2017
in: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...
By Margot Singer July 31, 2017
in: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...
May 30, 2017
I normally read non-fiction but a friend recommended this wonderful book to me. Margot Singer's writing immediately transported me not just into the minds, but also the hearts of the main characters. Underground Fugue felt like poetry and historical fiction combined. Then the ending left me thinking in an enlightening way. Masterful!
July 29, 2024
I LOVE this novel. It is touching and beautiful. Singer weaves together the stories of multiple characters (as well as historic and current events) with care for the complexity of each person’s past and emotional life. I enjoy Singer’s ability to write about fine art restoration, neuroscience, music, cooking, and urban exploring. Her mastery, however, is in her brilliant skill of helping us to feel each character’s pain and peace.
March 27, 2017
I love when I read a book and not only do I get lost in it but I learn something new. A Jewish woman moves to London to care for her dying mother and discovers herself. Her neighbor has a college age son who comes and goes at weird hours. They are Muslim. So many similarities to what has happened to the Jewish race for centuries. Very thought provoking, timely and intelligently written.
Very very good!
Very very good!
May 12, 2017
This is a beautifully written book, the intersection of people's lives happen every day, but Margot has woven a tapestry that brings together so many facets of these particular people. Their history, their hopes and dreams set against the backdrop of a time of turmoil in our society really beings the characters to life in a way that made them so real and human, at times almost achingly so. The best book I've read in 2017 by far.
May 11, 2017
There is so much to admire about this novel. The characters really grabbed me, and I was invested in their intertwined stories.
Singer did a good job with plot, though the plot doesn't dominate. The characters are central to this novel, and I appreciate how they each have their separate stories, but the stories still intertwine in interesting ways.
The novel is very timely, and has a lot to say about our current political and social situation. I really admire how the novel takes all that on.
The writing in this novel is gorgeous as well.
Quite an accomplishment!
Singer did a good job with plot, though the plot doesn't dominate. The characters are central to this novel, and I appreciate how they each have their separate stories, but the stories still intertwine in interesting ways.
The novel is very timely, and has a lot to say about our current political and social situation. I really admire how the novel takes all that on.
The writing in this novel is gorgeous as well.
Quite an accomplishment!
July 3, 2017
great prose, characters, narrative. was afraid I wouldn't like it, but then really loved it!
February 18, 2018
I found this novel just sitting on the shelf (see my recent Anne Tyler re-reading problem). How had I not heard of it before? My library got its copy April 2017. Well it is excellent. I found all of the story lines believable and compelling, with each character realistic but never obvious. I found all of the characters very compelling and appreciated the time spent getting to know them - there was plenty of narrative tension in just the every day of their lives in this summer of 2005. A very engrossing, rewarding novel. Impressive!
October 17, 2017
Though Underground Fugue is built on a musical framework, it struck me as a series of fully imagined images instead, a collection of breathing photographs that could be assembled into a collage love letter to London. Singer imagines each instant of this novel vividly, and introduces her characters by letting the reader inside their skin. The four protagonists watch the city from different perspectives, though the reader comes to know the middle-aged Esther most closely and see the story’s pacing unfold in her frame of reference. The other narratives bring depth to the novel, particularly the story of Esther’s mother Lonia. The distance in their relationship makes their similarities more touching, and Lonia’s history is so beautifully and carefully rendered that her sections were the most luminous to me.
Amir is also a more peripheral character in the book, as his father Javad lives next to Esther and Lonia, and Amir’s college studies and explorations take him away from home the majority of the time. To delve into his narrative more deeply would have been fascinating, especially considering his role in the climax of the story, but it also would have changed the story’s shape drastically, and perhaps would have unbalanced it.
The story’s threads are never tangled, though they are frequently woven together, and do create a cohesive yet vast visual portrait of London, at least for the reader who has never visited.
Amir is also a more peripheral character in the book, as his father Javad lives next to Esther and Lonia, and Amir’s college studies and explorations take him away from home the majority of the time. To delve into his narrative more deeply would have been fascinating, especially considering his role in the climax of the story, but it also would have changed the story’s shape drastically, and perhaps would have unbalanced it.
The story’s threads are never tangled, though they are frequently woven together, and do create a cohesive yet vast visual portrait of London, at least for the reader who has never visited.
November 2, 2017
This story centers on Esther, a New Yorker whose marriage is crumbling after the death of the couple's only son. She leaves the city --possibly temporarily-- for London to usher her ill and elderly mother towards death. Most of the story is Esther's, but there is also Lonia, her mother, who is trying very privately to make peace with her own past. Next door is Javad, an Iranian neuroscientist, and his 19 year-old son Amir. Esther and Javad are drawn to each other, but the weight of experience and the 2005 terrorist attack in London seem to overtake their could-be romance.
I felt the characters were well drawn and sympathetic, especially Esther. I've been a bit story-starved and this was a good one that I looked forward to each time I picked it up.
On the downside, I felt the 'fugue' bit was a bit overdone, and in isolated places the prose seemed overwritten. All in all a good read, nevertheless.
I felt the characters were well drawn and sympathetic, especially Esther. I've been a bit story-starved and this was a good one that I looked forward to each time I picked it up.
On the downside, I felt the 'fugue' bit was a bit overdone, and in isolated places the prose seemed overwritten. All in all a good read, nevertheless.
November 19, 2017
Reading Underground Fugue by Margot Singer was a treat! I deeply appreciated Singer’s beautiful, tangible imagery that she created through artful metaphors and descriptions. The interwoven four-perspective point of view was artful, and I loved the way that she composed the plot and narrative like a musical fugue. Although the novel was not literally music, the melodies, counterpoints, and harmonies of the plot itself resembled music. The different voices overlap and hand off to each other like the counterpoints and melodies of a Bach fugue, offering new insights on shared “melodies”/occurrences, exploring elements of parent-child, husband-wife, caretaker-infirmed relationships.
This novel also explores the different meanings of refugees and the refuge they seek. The Latin word “fuga” means flight, and this word is the root for English words like “refugee” and “fugitive.” The fugue structure of the novel is mirrored by the literal “fuga” applications. Many of the characters in the novel were fugitives in some sense—Esther fleeing the sorrows of New York, Javad an Iranian refugee, the piano man a mysterious refugee, Lonia a refugee from anti-Semitic Poland, and Amir a fugitive exploring forbidden areas. Awareness of Singer’s Jewish heritage added extra dimension to the fictional novel. Singer’s own ancestors were refugees who fled a tumultuous Europe in the mid 1900s. Although not all readers may be able to relate to the Jewish refugee theme of the novel, the extended definition of a refugee as someone escaping conditions or places in their lives is applicable to most people. I really enjoyed reading this novel, and I would recommend it to any friend!
This novel also explores the different meanings of refugees and the refuge they seek. The Latin word “fuga” means flight, and this word is the root for English words like “refugee” and “fugitive.” The fugue structure of the novel is mirrored by the literal “fuga” applications. Many of the characters in the novel were fugitives in some sense—Esther fleeing the sorrows of New York, Javad an Iranian refugee, the piano man a mysterious refugee, Lonia a refugee from anti-Semitic Poland, and Amir a fugitive exploring forbidden areas. Awareness of Singer’s Jewish heritage added extra dimension to the fictional novel. Singer’s own ancestors were refugees who fled a tumultuous Europe in the mid 1900s. Although not all readers may be able to relate to the Jewish refugee theme of the novel, the extended definition of a refugee as someone escaping conditions or places in their lives is applicable to most people. I really enjoyed reading this novel, and I would recommend it to any friend!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 2, 2018
For a story in which not much happens, this book was pretty interesting. But I mean it when I say nothing much happens. It's a lot of narrative about what has happened, but very few big physical things happen in this book's present. But, obviously, this book wasn't going for action or really even plot. I'm not sure exactly how to describe what it was going for, but I'm going to do my best.
We have this theme of a fugue throughout. Using musical themes in book description isn't anything new, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it taken to quite this level. It's like Ms. Singer took the word "fugue" and squeezed every last drop of it into this book. We have Esther, the pianist and talks of literal, musical fugues. We have another pianist, who is in the midst of a psychological fugue state. And then the book itself seems to be somewhat in the style of a fugue.
Like a fugue has different instrumental lines, this book was multi-perspective and seemed to be all about connecting what was similar about these characters who had all come to London, but with some heritage that kept them from really belonging. And right from the prologue (which I think was a daring way to start the book. It's about a minor character that we don't meet for a long time, and I certainly didn't retain any of the prologue for that long. I had to go back and read it to make sense of it.) we get that there's some narrative about identity, given that the 'Piano Man' has lost his.
I had to read this book for class, and we have not yet discussed it. So those are my most basic thoughts before we've gone in depth and I will continue with what has been gleaned below here.
We have this theme of a fugue throughout. Using musical themes in book description isn't anything new, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it taken to quite this level. It's like Ms. Singer took the word "fugue" and squeezed every last drop of it into this book. We have Esther, the pianist and talks of literal, musical fugues. We have another pianist, who is in the midst of a psychological fugue state. And then the book itself seems to be somewhat in the style of a fugue.
Like a fugue has different instrumental lines, this book was multi-perspective and seemed to be all about connecting what was similar about these characters who had all come to London, but with some heritage that kept them from really belonging. And right from the prologue (which I think was a daring way to start the book. It's about a minor character that we don't meet for a long time, and I certainly didn't retain any of the prologue for that long. I had to go back and read it to make sense of it.) we get that there's some narrative about identity, given that the 'Piano Man' has lost his.
I had to read this book for class, and we have not yet discussed it. So those are my most basic thoughts before we've gone in depth and I will continue with what has been gleaned below here.
November 4, 2017
Margot Singer’s novel is a masterpiece. It is a composition, not of notes, but of words. Underground Fugue interweaves the lives of four different people, whose stories collide in surprising ways, only to drift back apart. This combination of “voices” in her novel is modeled after a fugue, which is a musical composition that consists of repeating themes, or voices. In the novel, one of the main characters discovers what a fugue is as she reads the description: “Its variations make connections between seemingly unlike things and reveals the ways in which the new is re-created out of the material of the old”. This parallels the structure of the novel. Singer mimics a fugue and its connections as she creates each character’s story.
There is beauty not only in the composition of Singer’s novel, but in her compelling descriptions. She manages to convey not only images through her words, but feelings. One phrase that stood out to me in particular was the “hush and soar” of churches. Singer sets the imagination free with her skillful manipulation of language. I especially enjoyed her descriptions of music. “The voices rise and turn, repeat. They fracture, multiply, and split, a kaleidoscope of sound. They gather and release in a cascade of scales.” Margot Singer also gives her characters true life by bringing out their backgrounds, beliefs, and struggles, all without seeming longwinded. Her skillful writing is a joy to discover, not only at the beginning of the book, but with each successive chapter.
There is beauty not only in the composition of Singer’s novel, but in her compelling descriptions. She manages to convey not only images through her words, but feelings. One phrase that stood out to me in particular was the “hush and soar” of churches. Singer sets the imagination free with her skillful manipulation of language. I especially enjoyed her descriptions of music. “The voices rise and turn, repeat. They fracture, multiply, and split, a kaleidoscope of sound. They gather and release in a cascade of scales.” Margot Singer also gives her characters true life by bringing out their backgrounds, beliefs, and struggles, all without seeming longwinded. Her skillful writing is a joy to discover, not only at the beginning of the book, but with each successive chapter.
April 4, 2018
Margot Singer's Underground Fugue is a clean and very 'balanced' piece of work. It has a clear beginning middle and end, it has been broken up into the character sections making it conveniently easy to read. Then, the build up towards the ending, the intertwining of the character stories and a conclusion. I tend to be drawn to more experimental novels and those that are extremely character-driven. I found that the characters in this novel were drawn out just enough to move the story forward but you dont really get much more depth than that but it was sufficient because the author got the point she wanted to across to you.
The plot was slightly on the predictable side for me, which is why i was reading it more for the way things played out rather than what was going to happen. Knowing that there was an 18yr old british/iranian boy holed up in his room reading the Quran you then know where the author is likely to take his character. So, certain cliches were played out. But ok...
The character of the mother was explored nicely. In fact, for myself, without this undercurrent i think i would not have made it through the book. Lonia was very interesting, and it was great that she was not relegated to just dying elderly lady in the background! The insight into her childhood/adolescence and the relationship between her and her brother Hugo as well as the way Isaac entered her life, it was beautifully conveyed. Hauntingly so. Overall, a pleasant debut novel. Very safely played. However not for the experimental reader that wants more depth.
The plot was slightly on the predictable side for me, which is why i was reading it more for the way things played out rather than what was going to happen. Knowing that there was an 18yr old british/iranian boy holed up in his room reading the Quran you then know where the author is likely to take his character. So, certain cliches were played out. But ok...
The character of the mother was explored nicely. In fact, for myself, without this undercurrent i think i would not have made it through the book. Lonia was very interesting, and it was great that she was not relegated to just dying elderly lady in the background! The insight into her childhood/adolescence and the relationship between her and her brother Hugo as well as the way Isaac entered her life, it was beautifully conveyed. Hauntingly so. Overall, a pleasant debut novel. Very safely played. However not for the experimental reader that wants more depth.
March 3, 2019
This is a very good book. The story moves quickly, the characters, Esther, Javad and Amir, were interesting and believable. There is nothing I did not like, even the ending, which is both happy and sad.
June 1, 2017
Set against the tube bombings in London in 2005, Underground Fugue interweaves the stories of four people – Lonia fled to England shortly before Hitler invaded Poland. She is dying. Esther, Lonia’s daughter, has come from a broken marriage in New York to care for her mother. Javad left Iran before the overthrow of the Shah and is the brain researcher living next door to Lonia. Amir is Javad’s 19 year old son who is a mystery to his father. All have been in some way dislocated. They have experienced deep personal losses.
The chapters rotate through these four characters
The chapters rotate through these four characters
November 21, 2017
This is a satisfying story of a woman experiencing loss--the death of her son and now her mother. Arriving in London from the US to help her dying mother, she comes to know her neighbor, a doctor from Iran, and his son. When London is struck by a terror attack, she fears the son may be involved. The story of grief and longing is beautifully told.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 3, 2018
What a fantastic story with beautifully drawn characters. Hard to believe this is Margot Singer's first novel. She is a writing professor at my girls' college; an incredible professor, advisor, mentor. So happy for her :)
April 10, 2019
Read this book for the Hadassah Brandeis Institute and the author came to speak to us. I thought it strange that the book had a word in it that I didn't know beforehand. The story is nice but not amazing.
February 12, 2025
3⭐️ the blurb is somewhat misleading considering it spoils something that doesn’t happen until 240 pages in, making it a very different story. it’s not a bad plot but did feel like a lot of build up and maybe not what I was in the mood to read. the writing was excellent though.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews