After the Death of Shostakovich Père

by Maya Sonenberg

Not all ghosts exact revenge or induce terror. Some emerge from a miasma of grief; sad themselves, they spread sorrow. Or perhaps those left behind—daughters and sons—create the ghost of a father, trying to find what’s surely been lost. Following the four-movement structure of Shostakovich’s Suite for Two Pianos and using a mosaic of story, memoir, photographs, literary analysis, and her own father’s journals, Maya Sonenberg’s After the Death of Shostakovich Père is an extended lyric meditation on the death of fathers, both biological and artistic, and the ways in which haunting can produce art.

35 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2018

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe it was too esoteric for me, or too lyrical. Maybe it helps to be more familiar with Borges. Maybe I find the subject more interesting than the execution. Maybe instead of having a dead father, you should have a living one. Whatever the case may be, this just left me feeling empty and sad. The writing is good but this made me think about death with a depth I can't quite handle right now. 2.75 stars rounded up to 3.