Absolute Music

by Jonathan Geltner

On an eerily warm October evening in a suburb of Detroit, a new father and struggling fantasy novelist named McPhail gazes at a honey locust tree. The sight triggers a memory of the sudden, inexplicable death of Hannah, whom he loved when they were both fourteen. So begins a year-long odyssey, in which McPhail becomes obsessed with recollections of Hannah, puts his job and his marriage in jeopardy, and fears that his "obsolete consciousness" is spiraling into apocalyptic religious and ecological despair. Unable to complete the fantasy he is contracted to write, McPhail instead composes this "book behind the book" in his effort to re-enchant the world for himself and his growing family and to lay to rest old griefs along with more recent regrets. Metaphysical, lyrical, elegiac, Absolute Music is a novel of consciousness that is at the same time grounded in memorable characters and shaped by a variety of landscapes from Cincinnati and Pittsburgh to County Clare and Japan. In the character of McPhail you might detect a distant cousin of Walker Percy's Binx Bolling or Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe, but he remains very much a man of our own time.

Genres: Fiction

294 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2022

Reviews

[Frederick Heimbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

A literary novel. I might not have found or read it had I not met the author. I was slowly won over as I went, the slow accumulation of scenes and characters taking their time to assemble, by deep intuition, into a coherent whole. It was only in the last 3rd of the novel I knew I was holding a 5-star in my hands.

In that sense it's like the otherwise very different Rules for Saying Goodbye. In my review there I wrote: "A rambling, semi-plotless novel needs to be veeeery well written to interest me. This novel is very well written[....]" I could say the same thing here.

Any description of this book (successful author struggles to write a follow-up novel, turns to D&D and adultery for inspiration) is bound to be deceptive and a turn-off, so please, ignore all that stuff. Go for the philosophical and theological insights and expect to fall in love slowly with the meandering plot, as I did.

[Paula Huston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishingly beautiful debut novel

Not only is the writing magnificent but the theme itself of ultimate importance. I will be thinking about this book for a long time to come