The Song Beneath the Ice

by Joe Fiorito

A year after concert pianist Dominic Amoruso’s mysterious disappearance during a private recital in Toronto, his friend, the journalist Joe Serafina, receives a package of Dom’s tapes and notebooks from a place called Wolf Cove on Baffin Island. By transcribing the tapes and matching them with entries in the notebooks, Joe slowly pieces together the story of what happened to his friend.

Dom has grown up in the deep shadow of Glenn Gould – and in the shadow of expectations that he carry on Gould’s heritage. It is a heavy load, one he struggles and argues with constantly, challenging Gould’s decisions even as his own identity as a musician disintegrates. Freely popping a variety of pills to ward off migraines and other, more existential pains, Dom confides only in his tape recorder. When Joe starts nosing around, he finds that Dom’s friends, such as the music store owner Buddy Keane, the photographer Carol Paterson, and his lover, Claire Weller, are either as perplexed as he is by Dom’s sudden disappearance or annoyed by the journalist’s interest.

Fiorito has woven his novel from the separate strands of Dom’s tapes and notebooks and from Joe’s investigation into the pianist’s story. Brilliantly conceived and expressed, and with an exquisite sense of place, the story takes us from downtown Toronto’s Vietnamese restaurants and homeless shelters to seal-skinning contests on Baffin Island. The Song Beneath the Ice is a dazzling novel of extraordinary ambition and accomplishment.

347 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Geraldine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled a little to read this book, then suddenly I was in love with the language and character

[Susie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this book up in a secondhand store, interested by the local aspect of the plotline (I'm a sucker for anything that takes place in my home city of Toronto). I felt that the build-up in the plot was a bit drawn out, and although the passages were lovely (Fiorito is a master of lyricism), I was beginning to get a bit antsy. The plot finally picked up in the second half of the book, in a surprising direction that I had not anticipated. It's a slow burn, one that meticulously captures the life of a troubled musician and the expanse of the vast, lonely North. Poetic language notwithstanding, this book is more of a winter read.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this with my book club several years ago. I thought it was an good with an interesting approach to the narration. This book always gets referenced in my book club because the member who suggested it never finished it, while the other members all did and enjoyed it.

[Larissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved reading this book. Joe Fiorito is an incredible author and has beautiful writing. I would realize I had just read an entire page on on certain sounds in a restaurant but I wouldn't mind because Fiorito always had me hooked into the story. I found it a little funny that the main character was named Joe and worked as a journalist and I recognized other names from reading The closer We Are to Dying, but don't get me wrong, it was just something I noticed and kind of laughed at but took absolutely nothing away form the story if not added to it. This book is a wonderful and flawless beauty.

[Sepehr · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the idea of author intentions of progressing the novel with tape recordings of the main character, yet it did not keep me interested