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Hungry Generations
Hungry Generations imagines the amazing world of émigré artists who fled from Nazi Europe and settled in Los Angeles.
In 1972, the legendary classical pianist Alexander Petrov befriends a young composer Jack Weinstein, who works in the Hollywood studios. Their delving, passionate discussions of music deepen their friendship. Yet Jack finds himself disrupting the balances in Petrov's turbulent family. Each generation here struggles with its hunger for meaning and love in a disastrous time.
During their talks, Petrov tells fascinating stories about his émigré friends from the 1940s, including Schoenberg and Stravinsky; Jack's love of their music-and Beethoven's-infuses a piano sonata he composes during the year. Soon these composers enter his Chagall-like dreams, criticizing and blessing his music. The imaginary conversations among historical artists throughout Hungry Generations connect it to a rich tradition, including novels by Roland, Hesse, Lawrence, and Mann.
In 1972, the legendary classical pianist Alexander Petrov befriends a young composer Jack Weinstein, who works in the Hollywood studios. Their delving, passionate discussions of music deepen their friendship. Yet Jack finds himself disrupting the balances in Petrov's turbulent family. Each generation here struggles with its hunger for meaning and love in a disastrous time.
During their talks, Petrov tells fascinating stories about his émigré friends from the 1940s, including Schoenberg and Stravinsky; Jack's love of their music-and Beethoven's-infuses a piano sonata he composes during the year. Soon these composers enter his Chagall-like dreams, criticizing and blessing his music. The imaginary conversations among historical artists throughout Hungry Generations connect it to a rich tradition, including novels by Roland, Hesse, Lawrence, and Mann.
202 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 9, 2004
About the author
Daniel C. Melnick
7 books5 followersDaniel Melnick has written – in addition to The Ash Tree, about the aftermath for a California family of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in Turkey:
An earlier novel about the community of émigré musicians who fled Europe in the late 1930s and raised their families in Los Angeles, Hungry Generations - revised in 2024 as The Weinstein Sonata.
A study of music and modern literature, Fullness of Dissonance. A novella A Burnt Offering from 2022 about Israel in a possible nuclear confrontation with Iran, previous edition 2011 titled Terror and Contrition.
The author was born in California, attended UC Berkeley, and has taught at UC Berkeley, California State University at Fresno, Cleveland State University where he retired in 2000 as an Emeritus Professor of English, and Case Western Reserve University. He is married to the artist Jeanette Melnick, whose painting is on the cover of The Ash Tree and another of her paintings on Hungry Generations.
An earlier novel about the community of émigré musicians who fled Europe in the late 1930s and raised their families in Los Angeles, Hungry Generations - revised in 2024 as The Weinstein Sonata.
A study of music and modern literature, Fullness of Dissonance. A novella A Burnt Offering from 2022 about Israel in a possible nuclear confrontation with Iran, previous edition 2011 titled Terror and Contrition.
The author was born in California, attended UC Berkeley, and has taught at UC Berkeley, California State University at Fresno, Cleveland State University where he retired in 2000 as an Emeritus Professor of English, and Case Western Reserve University. He is married to the artist Jeanette Melnick, whose painting is on the cover of The Ash Tree and another of her paintings on Hungry Generations.
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