All That Sang

by Lydia Perović

A visceral tale of obsession and creativity, unrequited passions and the power of music. A love story in which art is a foil to companionship, and the intellect an interlocutor of the heart. In the utterly unique All that Sang , the second fiction by Lambda Literary Award-finalist Lydia Perovic, a Toronto opera critic on assignment in Paris falls in love with the subject she’s been sent to interview, France’s leading female conductor. But is the attention evenly matched, is genuine connection even possible? Perovic guides us through the panorama that orbits contemporary courtship. The jilted lover, the housekeeper, the chiropractor, the manager, all take part in a chorus of voices that illustrate the unknowable creative spirit whose inaccessibility fires the writer’s obsession. Reminiscent of the bold and inventive fictions of Ali Smith and Siri Hustvedt, postmodern refractions play with the reader’s sense of perspective to build the persona of affection, a figure of reality and imagination that we all recognize but can never truly access.

Genres: Novella, Music

138 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2016

Reviews

[Irinka · Rating 5 out of 5]

picked up this little book at the glad day bookshop in the village and i’m glad i did. beautiful.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A recent trip to Type on Queen West yielded this little jewel. I felt like I absorbed it more than reading it. Though there were one or two chapters I had to think twice about regarding the voice. All in all it was beautiful.

[Julian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this at the library, just walking around. It is a somehow simple love story between an opera critic and a female conductor. In an effort to share the world of the conductor, the writer adds the view of people in her circle in one capacity or the other. This felt too random to me. It's an easy, short read and worth exploring if you're curious.