The Piano Player's Son

by Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn (Contributor)

Family is all-important to Isabel. Her parents have an idyllic marriage, and she has tried hard to create one for herself. However, all pretense is shattered when her husband leaves her. On top of this her father dies, leaving Isabel devastated.

Then her mother confides in her: behind her parents’ apparently happy marriage was a secret kept for more than three decades. Isabel is staggered by the revelation. She is desperate to tell her sister, Grace, and her brothers, Rick and George. But her mother makes her promise to stay silent and the siblings have their own fractured lives to contend with. Against a back-drop of events that will devastate all their lives and amongst a maelstrom of emotion, breakdown, loss and competing claims, Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn weaves a careful and detailed story of how fragile people negotiate or fail to negotiate challenges and crises; keep secrets, fall apart or try to recover a sense of integrity in the midst of human mess. With meticulous attention to detail, portraits of people who are deeply flawed, but eminently understandable and superb use of objects as subtle metaphors for shared story, culture and expectation, this is an accomplished and compelling story.

Genres: Fiction

302 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2013

About the author

Lindsay is a novelist and short story writer. Her novel Unravelling was published in 2010. It has since won two awards, The Wishing Shelf Independent Book Award and Chapter One Promotions Book Award, and come second in the 2011 International Rubery Book Award. Lindsay’s second novel The Piano Player’s Son was published by Cinnamon Press in 2013.
A number of her short stories have also been published or been successful in competitions, including the title story and two others in the Cinnamon anthology Feeding the Cat.
After a career teaching English in further and higher education, Lindsay gave up full-time teaching in 2005 and studied for an MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University. She now combines writing with her work as a creative writing tutor, running courses and workshops mainly on the novel and short story. She is involved with the Worcestershire Literary Festival, judging a flash fiction competition for the 2012 festival and editing an anthology A Flash of Fiction.
Lindsay is working on her third novel.

Reviews

[Debbie Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn is a hugely accomplished writer. I also read and enjoyed her first novel, Unravelling. She draws, controls and manipulates her large cast of complex characters masterfully, and also her settings, hopping effortlessly across different locations and creating a clear sense of place across Italy, London, Northumberland and Penzance. She addresses many timeless issues, particularly focusing on the power of bereavement to devastate families by unlocking secrets and hidden resentments. When someone dies, the loss often goes so much further than the departure of the individual - I've seen this in my own family (though not with such devastation as in this book) and in some respects this book serves as a cautionary tale. Her subtle prose is flawless, expressive and often deeply moving, as much when dealing with tiny observations of insignificant things, as much as with the big issues. The opening scene of Isabel kissing her dead father goodbye is the perfect example of the author's power.

Why, then, am I only giving this book four stars, when I clearly admire the author's work so much? It's because it's SO dark. I found it terribly sad, with less redemption for the damaged, damaging characters than I had anticipated, and I think it is darker than it needs to be. Of course, that's just my personal opinion. I'm one of life's Pollyannas, constantly seeking happy endings, restoration and resolution.

This doesn't mean I think any the less of the writer or of her talent - I'd say the same about Thomas Hardy, one of my all-time favourites, whose books I'd always intersperse between more cheerful books, as reading them in succession was just too gloomy for me. But I'd always return to them and strongly recommend them to others, and that goes too for Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn's books too. I'll defintely be looking out for her next novel.

[Liesbeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic read!
I thoroughly enjoyed this and found it hard to put down.
Page by page this family comes apart.
Secrets are revealed,and everyone's perception of the family circle changes for good.
It's rather dark, but oh so beautifully written.
Best book I've read for ages, will definitely look out for the author from now on.

[Marina Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very readable style and a good cast of characters, this is family drama which starts out relatively wholesome and then turns progressively darker.

[Naomi Scupham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read with a black coffee! I really enjoyed it and I think it was really well written and has an interesting ending. It was lovely to read a book by a family member, it is a shame there won't be more by the same author.

[Francis Guenette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stanberry-Flynn describes a dynamic of loss, high-tension, and family secrets kept for decades. No doubt the narrative will cut close to the bone of most people’s experience. The author takes the death of a father and husband as an opening verse in a composition that leaves no stone unturned when it comes to revealing the unique number of family relationships that fracture in the face of loss – husband and wife, brother to brother, sister to sister, father to daughter, father to son, mother to daughter, mother to son – they’re all explored.

I admit to turning the pages with breath held to find out what antic, Rick, the older bully brother would get up to, what poor choice Isabel might make next, what younger sister Grace would do about her marriage, how darling younger brother George would react to the disposition of his father’s piano, what secrets the mother of these four held and kept.

The only thing that held me off from the five-star review was a dramatic happening near the end of the novel that didn’t, for me, ring quite true and the fact that the character I was hoping to see come to her senses did and didn’t. Too much like real life, perhaps?

All in all a great read. Well done, I highly recommend it.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this book and really enjoyed it, kept picking it up every second I got (even waiting at McDs drive thru!) Fantastic story and character development. I wanted to know more about these people their family and what their secrets were. It wasnt perfect I am sure if you ever rework it you will add a little more in but I really hope that you write a follow on novel.
Every family has problems, some large and some small, disagreements etc but where they lead in this story is an enjoyable journey.

[Polly Stretton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Talk about PTQ! I couldn't put this book down and read it in one sitting. I was quickly involved with the characters, loved the various settings so beautifully described, and was utterly absorbed by the story. This is a book I'll return to, a must read and for me a must re-read.

[Ellie Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Piano Player’s son is a marvellous novel, evoking the complexities of family relationships and internal conflict. From quiet beginnings the story grows in intensity and action to a compelling finale that shocked and surprised me.

Looking forward to her next novel.

[Marie (UK) · Rating 3 out of 5]

this has been on my TBR for ages. A well written tale of family machinations in the aftermath of the father's death. Secrets and lies abound as things go from bad to worse. Read in a day

[Skye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story, but felt too divided in the telling. I wanted more depth on fewer characters. It was pretty good though.

I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.