Strum

by Nancy Young

There are many ties that bind, and as many walls that divide. Music and deafness. Race and war. Love and unending time. Strum weaves together each element into a larger human tapestry of light and shadow, where a combination of fate and decision can define a family's legacy. Bernard, a deaf young woodworker, is drawn into an old growth forest in rural Québec. Summoned there by the spirits of his Iroquois and European great-grandparents, he witnesses a colossal 800-year-old cedar fall literally at his feet, and nearly loses his life salvaging a portion of the great tree to craft two guitars worthy of the music he hears. Across two centuries and four continents, this tale of family, spirits, and music, paints upon the world's large canvas an intimate story of enduring love and how the mysterious forces that divide us can also bring us together.

2015 Library Journal Self-e Collections (Featured Selection); 2014 USA Best Book Award ( 2014 Independent Publishers Book Award - Silver Medal (Best Reg'l Fiction, Canada-east); 2014 New York, Hollywood, San Francisco and Great Northwest Book Festivals (Hon. Men. Fiction)

"A beautifully written, engrossing family epic." Kirkus
"Young's intense focus on the natural world provides imagery of glistening beauty." PW
"A sweeping debut of enduring but tragic love..." Pasadena Now
"Young's debut novel delights the reader in a mesmerizing story you can't stop reading... highly recommend it." American Library Assocation

380 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2013

About the author

Nancy Young is a seven-time Book Award Winner. Strum was Library Journal's #2 Most Request Self-e book (Fantasy) in 2017. It received the USA Best Book Award Finalist-Fiction:Literary Award, IPPY Silver Medal for Best Regional Fiction (Canada-East), and Hon Mention in the Hollywood, New York, San Francisco and Great Northwest Book Festivals, all in 2014. The Strum Audiobook with Music was launched in January 2018.

Young's writing brings to life her global travel and multicultural perspective. Born in Taipei and raised in Pasadena, California, she has traveled to over 30 countries and was an arts and cultural development consultant to state and federal governments in Australia for 13 years.

She has authored numerous cultural development plans and policies, arts marketing books, and a short fiction story in the anthology Sweet Sisters and Other Secrets, published by Zonta International. She studied English, French and Chinese literature at UC Berkeley, and International Affairs, Asian History and Film-making, respectively at Columbia, Hawaii and Melbourne Universities.

Nancy supports literacy and medical research through her work in fundraising in Southern California where she lives and writes. This is her debut novel.

For more information on Strum: A Novel, visit the official website: www.nmcyoung.com

Www.InkwaterBooks.com/strum

FaceBook: www.facebook.com/pages/Strum-A-Novel/...
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Strum-Nancy-You...

Reviews

[Luis Vargas fandiño · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tale is pretty amazing, the craft which Young uses to tell the stories and blend them into one touching story is amazing. I enjoyed the jumping back and forth from countries and generations, it makes for a great summer book to enjoy in a long flight or at the beach, because once you start it you can put it down.

[Jeannie Lin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous. A beautiful book, weaving and interlacing stories through time and music, through what is tangible and what is perhaps in another dimension. Through a masterfully created instrument, Strum is the deeply rich story of the characters behind it, the worlds they lived in, and how the music strung them all together.
If you've ever picked up an instrument, would you know the history it could tell? Whose hands held it? What wars it passed through, whose songs it held, whose lives it touched? From the old forest where it was born, to the loves, the tragedies, the joys, the hardships...This is an intricately developed novel, finely tuned and crafted as it's main character.

[Theo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Nous sommes tout le monde...partout dans le monde. Rien de plus, pasmoins. We are everyone...everywhere. No more, no less. Life is not a straightforward plain...no linear pattern, simply A to B, and on to C and inevitably ending us up at Z, where we are the inevitably tossed by angels into heaven or hell. Progression is immaterial, time relative." For Jacob, life ebbed and flowed into complex woven conundrums of interrelatedness, of stops and starts and intervening presents transforming over and into elaborate and repeating futures. He believed that at all times man existed with one foot in heaven, another in hell, and everywhere in between and within lay his soul. --Strum

Jacob Sebastiani's above reflections might be thought of as the guiding principle which characterizes Nancy Young's premier novel, Strum, a non-chronological, spiritual exploration of self-discovery, desire, and unconquerable love. Love between individuals, and love for the unplanned life. In an intricate cross-cultural tale about a multi-generational, partly accidental family, Young creates warm, compassionate, believable, and ultimately human characters that seek self-understanding and love by transcending their usual personal and geographical boundaries in hopes of finding something fulfilling and true in themselves. Each fascinating character discovers along the path the inevitable hardships of passionate love, cultural boundaries, surprise, slighted expectations, and heartbreak, before experiencing some sort of eventual redemption. Imbued with the spirituality of the greatest international language, music, Young demonstrates her deep awareness of the challenges and beauty of international living. Strum gives us a glimpse into a very personal American-European-Asian universe that reads like biography, historical fiction, romance, fairy tale, ghost-story, travel-guide, music appreciation text, and prayer all at once. It acclaims the inter-connectivity of everything, living and material, that weaves the tapestry of a life well-lived. It is an audacious and marvelous first novel and I look forward to Ms. Young's future work.

Theo J. van Joolen [The Fairy Poet of New York]

[Edward Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

For people who are book lovers, there are books that one feels relief when one reaches the last page, and books which make you feel disappointed when you finish them. Nancy Young’s Strum is one of the latter category.

Strum weaves together two twisted family trees set in two and a half centuries of interracial conflict, forbidden loves, and its consequences. Its theme of cultures colliding in the age of colonialism and globalization that are ultimately reconciled by the universal human desire for love has been visited before by such authors as Louis de Bernieres in Correlli’s Mandolin and Birds Without Wings. Nancy Young has taken this theme and set it in some of the 30 countries she has lived in

The author has lived in 30 countries and paints her narrative with her experiences in Quebec, France, Nepal, and Vietnam. The chapters skip through time and space and are bound together by the magical realism narrative of two magical handcrafted guitars that are passed down through the generations.

The story begins with a deaf woodcutter in 1950s Canada finding a magic tree which beckons him with a melody. He fashions a guitar out of the wood harvested from this magic tree using a notebook of his grandmother’s guitar construction techniques she learned as a young nun in a 1850s French convent. This begins the parallel stories of two families whose lives intersect across four continents, several forbidden loves, and the clash of races and cultures mixing in a globalized world.

The novel was thoroughly engrossing, satisfying. Ms. Young’s erudition in history, politics, music, and geography comes out loud and clear in this masterpiece that will leave the reader, upon completion, thirsting for more.

[J. Allan Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strum is a tale told in romantic style, spanning multiple generations over an approximately 120 year period extending from the 1880's to 2000. It tells the story of people linked in a variety of ways, both formally and metaphorically, the latter through three beautifully crafted and somewhat magical guitars. At the story's heart are two individuals, Bernard and Lorraine, the people around them, and some who came before as well as after. The story unfolds in nonlinear fashion, jumping between time periods and focus, a time-spanning and geographically widespread saga that, somewhere around two thirds of the way into the novel, begins to reveal how many seemingly disparate elements tie together. To disclose more would be to give away too much, so let me simply conclude by emphasizing the romantic tone of the story both in terms of its overall concept and its style. It makes for an enjoyable read, and I would recommend it to anyone seeking escape from the mundane into a multilayered tale of love with all of its intense resonances.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Young captured my attention from the very first pages in this novel.

Following the haunting melody he can feel in his soul, Bernard is driven on a journey into the woods that begins a beautiful tale of loves lost and found over a century of time. A fabulous storyteller, Young brings the characters and settings to life with vivid descriptions; she really draws you in, inviting you to journey along with each character.

Excellent novel, a wonderful story that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who fancies a realistic escape with just a touch of mystery and magic; highly recommended.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A saga that covers a family a guitar and an 700 year old tree

[Nancy Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what readers and book reviewers are saying:
-- "Away from the Now... In Strum we are led into different places, times and connected personal circumstances. The rich detail in the story helped me to visualize places not yet visited and and remember those that I had. I liked the complex tale of people dealing with events, others and their own desires set in a historical background. It took me away from the Now for a while. Looking forward to more." ( Richard Ulyate, November 1, 2014)
-- "Beautifully written story with fascinating characters and exotic locales. If you like music, history, world travel and romance, you will enjoy this book. Written in a poetic, ethereal style, "Strum" is a beautifully crafted tale of multicultural family, passion, love and loss across generations and continents. The settings are described in eloquent detail and the characters are so well developed you can almost feel their passion and pain. This book would make a great movie! I'm looking forward to a sequel or more novels from this author." (syleclair, September 28, 2014)
-- "Travel the world and fall in love with the characters of this book! I love this book! The descriptive writing style is reminiscent of Allende and Marquez. This story keeps the reader engaged, with an interesting flow that doesn't reveal the complete picture until the very end. This is one of my favorite books--and I've read a lot! I look forward to giving this book to family and friends and gifts. (Heather B, September 27, 2014)
-- "An excellent read!!! Take on this book, only if you feel the desire to be transported away in search of a new favorite novel as your final destination. Well done Ms Young!" (YaYaMama, July 26, 2014)
-- "Wonderful musical journey = A blend of magical realism and domestic drama spanning several generations and continents. A visual feast. Sent a copy to my mother... no higher praise." (J.M., June 2, 2014)
-- "Magic Realism - What a lovely treat to have read Strum, to travel to new places and times or old places but with a different cultural iewpoint...Chartreuse Notre-Dame to French Indochina and Nepal. There is the almost magic realism of two beautifully crafted guitars...a glimpse into the art of such a craft, and some wonderful descriptive passages. I love a tale where I might learn and Strum is all of that amidst love and loss..." (S.Lauw, Mar)
--"Wonderfully Relaxing - This is a book that I truly savor little by little. I normally read fast paced mystery/thriller, would often stay up late, and be tired the next day, I brought Strum after I met Nancy and so glad I did. Strum “is a journey, not a destination.” I did not feel rushed to get to the end, to find out what will happen next because it’s beautifully written and well paced for leisure reading. (M. Liev, Jan. 17, 2014)
--"I would recommend it to anyone seeking escape from the mundane into a multi-layered tale of love with all of its intense resonances." (J. Allan W., Jan. 15, 2014)
--"Awesome, passionate, moving saga. So well written that you feel you are right there!" By Elizabeth D. (Amazon, Nov. 15, 2013)
"Thanks for taking me along on your journey through hundreds of years, to Quebec, Paris, Chang Rai and Kathmandu... Two thumbs up!" By Kevin K. (Facebook, Nov. 4, 2013)
--"A beautifully written, engrossing family epic..." Kirkus Reviews (2013)
--"Young's intense focus on the natural world provides imagery of glistening beauty..." Publisher's Weekly Review
--"A mesmerizing story you can't stop reading." The New York Review of Books (2013)
--"... full of mystical marvels. A bit of fantasy I do always appreciate and your novel has a good amount of that.... full of glamour, fascinating locations and the pepper of a bit of sex always good addition..." Charles A. (Sept.16, 2013)
--"A sweeping debut of enduring but tragic love..." Pasadena Now (October, 2013)
--"A rich, human, spiritual, and magical tale... an audacious and marvelous first novel." The Fairy Poet of New York (2013)
--"The language, the small details create a scene that is rich with images... highly recommend it." American Library Association (2013)
--"Whenever I come to the end of a good book, I find myself feeling sad that this pleasure is almost over. This is one of these books... I know I shall read it again in the very near future." A. Mokhtarzadeh (Sept, 2013)
-- "Strum has a very interesting story and good details throughout. Be prepared to travel around the world and get a lesson in history. This is a relaxing book to read at the end of the day." By Les (Sept. 17, 2013)
--"I was enchanted. I am not a critic in any way but I must say that your research on the various regions you did was quite remarkable. I am a romantic and your novel was full of mystical marvels. A bit of fantasy I do always appreciate and your novel has a good amount of that... full of glamour, fascinating locations and the pepper of a bit of sex always good addition. Yes, I certainly believe it would make a great film." Charles A. (Sept.16, 2013)
-- "... a very talented writer with an extraordinary command of the English language... the descriptions of nature, emotions, and events are remarkable. At times, parts of the book took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes." By Joseph P. (Aug. 12, 2013)
-- "Nancy Young is a born storyteller. Her fine writing reflects the gifts of compelling characterization and descriptive clarity enhanced by her graceful literary style. From the beginning, the book echoes her deep respect for this hypnotic tale. It is a must-read!" By Ellen S. (July 7, 2013)
-- "Good book, great characters. The book lives up to its promise of love, war, family, spirits, music... and surprisingly steamy love scenes! You feel like you're there in the moment... in the forest, mountains, jungle. Very descriptive and good dialogue. Great memorable characters. Read it!!" By Mona L. (July 3, 2013)
-- "Young captured my attention from the very first pages in this novel. A fabulous storyteller, Young really draws you in, inviting you to journey along with each character.A wonderful story that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who fancies a realistic escape with just a touch of mystery and magic; highly recommended!" By Leah D. (July 25, 2013)
-- "All I can say is WOW!" By Laura B. (August 5, 2013)

[Colleen Mertens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story follows a family through a guitar. A young nun leaves that calling after she becomes pregnant. Her daughter travels to Canada in the 1800s and the story flows from there with all the love and loss that comes from life and colonial attitudes all the way through today. It was an interesting story but it got a little slow at times and predictable at others.

[TheCosyDragon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review has been crossposted from my blog at The Cosy Dragon . Please head there for more in-depth reviews by me, which appear on a timely schedule.

Following the sounds of a music only he can hear (and the only thing he can hear), a talented woodcarver finds, and crafts, two beautiful guitars that play by themselves. This isn't fantasy though - it's a realistic novel for someone who has played older violins - they gain a life of their own over time.

Something on the blurb on this novel suggests that it unfolds on a backdrop of war and religious differences, but those were the minor things compared to the people. It is the interactions of the people across the generations, and the failures of all humans in one way or another, that makes the bulk of the text.

The author fails to allow the reader to use their imagination. The author doesn't trust her audience to come up with the right details, and instead lapses into long descriptions of things happening and feelings that could have been shown. There were also so many analogies that I could easily lose track of where I was! For example:

"All heads and eyes turned to the main attraction next to the man, a vision in white luminescence like the first blanketing of snow on a virgin landscape, whose demurely downcast eyes lead all eyes below to the voloptuous, precipitacy draped bust-line where a thin line of moss green velvet ribbon delineated the fashionably cinched Empire waist while majestically lifting two wipe winter melon-like breasts, forcing them skyward."

In addition, the narrative is disjointed and confusing. I couldn't find a plot line, only the discontinuous chapters told from various perspectives and times. My unfamiliarity with the geographical locations only compounded my confusion. I didn't feel the changes between continents because I was too preoccupied with trying to remember which character was related to the others.

What this novel was good for was re-broadening the variety of words that I have in my vocabulary, Sometimes it feels like the author has eaten a thesaurus. Instead I believe this novel is perfect for literature studies - the motif of the guitar, the differences in religion.

I think the author tried to do too much, and cram too much into this novel. I would prefer a chronologcial order, with clearer deliniations between the times and people than just a family tree. But I did like that there was that plan there. The only problem was that I couldn't remember all the characters' names...

This is not an uplifting novel, as much as the epilogue likes to suggest it. I found myself regretting getting involved with the characters, because it seemed like there was nothing to be gained from my interactions with the novel.

A disappointment as a fiction novel, but a key text that would benefit from literature studies on its worth. It's a good addition to any literature buff's library, and it would make a great text as a university study (if they ever stop promoting the old favourites).

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise and good writing, but the book wanders a bit too much with no real plot.