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The Ghost Variations
After his wife dies in mysterious circumstances, a famous young pianist tries to rebuild his life.
Declan Byrnie, a child prodigy, started touring the world at eighteen years old: recording, playing in the world’s greatest concert halls, reaching the very summit of his profession. But after the death of his wife he stops performing and his life descends into loneliness and obscurity.
Five years later, Declan decides to re-start his career, and sets out on a tour of America. But his wife’s death – and his role in it – continues to haunt him. And he discovers that even the greatest music cannot save him from his past.
The Ghost Variations is heartbreaking and funny, an exploration of the power and limitations of music, how grief inflects and reforms us, and whether we can ever really start our lives afresh
Declan Byrnie, a child prodigy, started touring the world at eighteen years old: recording, playing in the world’s greatest concert halls, reaching the very summit of his profession. But after the death of his wife he stops performing and his life descends into loneliness and obscurity.
Five years later, Declan decides to re-start his career, and sets out on a tour of America. But his wife’s death – and his role in it – continues to haunt him. And he discovers that even the greatest music cannot save him from his past.
The Ghost Variations is heartbreaking and funny, an exploration of the power and limitations of music, how grief inflects and reforms us, and whether we can ever really start our lives afresh
- GenresFiction
257 pages, Paperback
Published September 29, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 31, 2022
Declan Byrnie is a classical pianist. A child prodigy, he is so talented on the piano that, now an adult, he does a party trick where people play him a tune on their phone and he riffs on it (this includes his Variations On The Nokia Ring Tone).
But Declan Byrnie is also a man haunted by the death of his wife. The title of the book is taken from a Schumann composition (his last) but also is a subtle reference to this theme of haunting and mourning.
I found this to be a very understated book. That’s not a negative comment, it’s just a reflection on how I felt the book developed. It’s introspective, there isn’t any “action”, even the climax you think the book is heading towards doesn’t turn out the way you imagine it.
It’s also a book full of musical references. I’m not a pianist and I’m not even a classical music devotee, but music has always been an important part of my life to the extent that I could at least partly appreciate some of wry, sarcastic comments Declan makes about composers and his life as a musician. And some of the writing about the actual playing of or listening to music is excellent.
Declan is a well-drawn character. Lanigan writes him “warts and all” so we see his foibles (e.g. he’s an obsessive practicer but can’t start a practice at any time except exactly something-o’clock) and some of his less desirable personality traits. I enjoyed the ambiguity around Declan’s character: sometimes I disliked him a lot, other times I was rooting for him and this made him feel all the more real.
I also need to thank this book for making me Google several pieces of classical music which I really enjoyed. I’ve been getting more and more into this over the last year or so since I joined my local choral society and started singing some very beautiful pieces of music (at least, they are beautiful when sung by good singers, less so when I am involved). Declan thinks it’s all been downhill for music since those glory days and I’m not sure I’d go that far, but there is, for me, something powerful and beautiful in a lot of classical music.
But Declan Byrnie is also a man haunted by the death of his wife. The title of the book is taken from a Schumann composition (his last) but also is a subtle reference to this theme of haunting and mourning.
I found this to be a very understated book. That’s not a negative comment, it’s just a reflection on how I felt the book developed. It’s introspective, there isn’t any “action”, even the climax you think the book is heading towards doesn’t turn out the way you imagine it.
It’s also a book full of musical references. I’m not a pianist and I’m not even a classical music devotee, but music has always been an important part of my life to the extent that I could at least partly appreciate some of wry, sarcastic comments Declan makes about composers and his life as a musician. And some of the writing about the actual playing of or listening to music is excellent.
Declan is a well-drawn character. Lanigan writes him “warts and all” so we see his foibles (e.g. he’s an obsessive practicer but can’t start a practice at any time except exactly something-o’clock) and some of his less desirable personality traits. I enjoyed the ambiguity around Declan’s character: sometimes I disliked him a lot, other times I was rooting for him and this made him feel all the more real.
I also need to thank this book for making me Google several pieces of classical music which I really enjoyed. I’ve been getting more and more into this over the last year or so since I joined my local choral society and started singing some very beautiful pieces of music (at least, they are beautiful when sung by good singers, less so when I am involved). Declan thinks it’s all been downhill for music since those glory days and I’m not sure I’d go that far, but there is, for me, something powerful and beautiful in a lot of classical music.
October 28, 2022
So, OK, what about the Adagio? Not yet. Nothing slow today, nothing with silences — silence is the enemy of disappearance, and in any case there's plenty of time, a week or so until the Kozar concert for a piece I could play tonight if I wanted. So there: enough Hammerklavier for one day.
I play through the 4th French Suite as a detox, and then a bit of Schumann I'm learning. I read that in the middle of composing it he tried to kill himself by jumping in the river, and it shows. I am consoled by the fact that I never got to that point, and know I never will. Bit more Bach: God, he's good.
Damian Lanagan’s The Ghost Variations takes its name from the aforementioned Schumann piece.
The novel is narrated by Declan Byrnie. From a working class Mancunian background, he was discovered as a piano prodigy as a teenager, performing in prestigious venues all across the planet (no idea why I decided to alliterate that - perhaps because I met the Penguin from Gotham today).
But 5 years earlier his wife died on a climbing accident in the Peak District, and Declan withdrew from the concert circuit and cut himself off from his friends.
But he carried on practising, obsessively, and as the novel opens, with him in his early 30s, he is tentatively beginning a come back, one which forces him to recognise with the ghosts and variations of his own past.
Declan is still the subject of legal action from his brother in-law and also at his comeback concert, amidst the admirers, one stranger hisses that he is a phony, but these story lines aren’t pursued in favour of a much more personal reckoning, including an honest account of his marriage, with three parties in the relationship, him, his wife Esther and The Schedule of his touring which dictates how often and when they see each other.
Declan is an interesting character, oscillating between the exalted world to which his craft has elevated him (being paid hundreds of thousands just to perform, largely ignored in the background at the wedding reception for Kozar, a Russian billionaire,'s daughter) and his roots (he still has an instinctive abhorrence of all things Liverpudlian).
Admirably Lanagan doesn’t sugarcoat Declan’s personality traits. Our first person narrator is far from likeable: self pitying, unkind to his friends, extremely snobbish about classical music (see below), long his own talent and his attraction to women (who he largely uses his piano playing skills to attempt to seduce).
In one sense, I’m not sure I was really the right person to appreciate this novel. Damian in a blog interview comments:
’Maybe I'm too gloomy, but I genuinely believe the piano repertoire is one of the chief glories of the world, and that it's all under threat. It's better than pop music. It just is. Why should I feel embarrassed to say that there are things superior to entertainment? It's OK to preferentertainment, just admit that it's worse.'
Personally I find it hard to believe that the peak of humanity’s achievements was produced 200-300 years ago by dead white European men (and drawn from a very narrow socio-demographic coterie of even that group).
The novel does make it clear that this opinion is far from universal. Declan calls himself out as sounding like a “Defeatist Elitist” in the very next sentence (although then reiterates that piano music is “the finest expression of some of mankind’s best brains”) and even Declan’s beloved wife had little interest in his musings on and attempts to improve his playing of the slow movement of the “Hammerklavier” (a complex Beethoven piece).
Declan also forgoes, to critical displeasure, one seeming compulsory requirement of the great classical piano player, exaggerated bodily contortions and facial tics (even humming in the case of Glenn Gould), in favour of staying as still as possible.
Which reminded me of the piece of music I've enjoyed listening to most in 2022, this Youtube clip of the 2009 London Nine Inch Nails concert, when they invited Gary Numan on stage to perform his iconic Cars. It's filmed from behind the performers rather than a fan's eye view, and there's a lovely moment at about 24 seconds when he turns to the band and a grin crosses his face, their mutual pleasure at the honour of performing together. Except immediately before and after, while facing the audience, he seems to feel it is required to perform a rock-star gurn.
And most interestingly, if I self-reflect, Declan’s opinions on classical vs popular music aren’t too different to my own on literary fiction vs genre, albeit I do see literary fiction as an evolving area, including in diversity, rather than having reached a peak in the past.
But, and this is wear I couldn't connect, I think the novel does need a certain knowledge of classical music (which I just don’t have) to really appreciate, with much of Declan’s narration in the form of strongly expressed opinions on various pieces and composers whose significance was lost on me, and whose music didn't move me even when I googled some recordings (or when I clicked through the Twitter rundown of favourite performances from the author in advance of publication).
So ultimately hard for me to comment on the success of the novel as I suspect it was intended, although interesting as a study of cultural snobbery. 3- stars for my own appreciation but 4 for its literary merit.
A review from two bloggers more able to appreciate the musical side of the novel:
https://crosseyedpianist.com/2022/08/...
https://artmuselondon.com/2022/10/18/...
I play through the 4th French Suite as a detox, and then a bit of Schumann I'm learning. I read that in the middle of composing it he tried to kill himself by jumping in the river, and it shows. I am consoled by the fact that I never got to that point, and know I never will. Bit more Bach: God, he's good.
Damian Lanagan’s The Ghost Variations takes its name from the aforementioned Schumann piece.
The novel is narrated by Declan Byrnie. From a working class Mancunian background, he was discovered as a piano prodigy as a teenager, performing in prestigious venues all across the planet (no idea why I decided to alliterate that - perhaps because I met the Penguin from Gotham today).
But 5 years earlier his wife died on a climbing accident in the Peak District, and Declan withdrew from the concert circuit and cut himself off from his friends.
But he carried on practising, obsessively, and as the novel opens, with him in his early 30s, he is tentatively beginning a come back, one which forces him to recognise with the ghosts and variations of his own past.
Declan is still the subject of legal action from his brother in-law and also at his comeback concert, amidst the admirers, one stranger hisses that he is a phony, but these story lines aren’t pursued in favour of a much more personal reckoning, including an honest account of his marriage, with three parties in the relationship, him, his wife Esther and The Schedule of his touring which dictates how often and when they see each other.
Declan is an interesting character, oscillating between the exalted world to which his craft has elevated him (being paid hundreds of thousands just to perform, largely ignored in the background at the wedding reception for Kozar, a Russian billionaire,'s daughter) and his roots (he still has an instinctive abhorrence of all things Liverpudlian).
Admirably Lanagan doesn’t sugarcoat Declan’s personality traits. Our first person narrator is far from likeable: self pitying, unkind to his friends, extremely snobbish about classical music (see below), long his own talent and his attraction to women (who he largely uses his piano playing skills to attempt to seduce).
In one sense, I’m not sure I was really the right person to appreciate this novel. Damian in a blog interview comments:
’Maybe I'm too gloomy, but I genuinely believe the piano repertoire is one of the chief glories of the world, and that it's all under threat. It's better than pop music. It just is. Why should I feel embarrassed to say that there are things superior to entertainment? It's OK to preferentertainment, just admit that it's worse.'
Personally I find it hard to believe that the peak of humanity’s achievements was produced 200-300 years ago by dead white European men (and drawn from a very narrow socio-demographic coterie of even that group).
The novel does make it clear that this opinion is far from universal. Declan calls himself out as sounding like a “Defeatist Elitist” in the very next sentence (although then reiterates that piano music is “the finest expression of some of mankind’s best brains”) and even Declan’s beloved wife had little interest in his musings on and attempts to improve his playing of the slow movement of the “Hammerklavier” (a complex Beethoven piece).
Declan also forgoes, to critical displeasure, one seeming compulsory requirement of the great classical piano player, exaggerated bodily contortions and facial tics (even humming in the case of Glenn Gould), in favour of staying as still as possible.
Which reminded me of the piece of music I've enjoyed listening to most in 2022, this Youtube clip of the 2009 London Nine Inch Nails concert, when they invited Gary Numan on stage to perform his iconic Cars. It's filmed from behind the performers rather than a fan's eye view, and there's a lovely moment at about 24 seconds when he turns to the band and a grin crosses his face, their mutual pleasure at the honour of performing together. Except immediately before and after, while facing the audience, he seems to feel it is required to perform a rock-star gurn.
And most interestingly, if I self-reflect, Declan’s opinions on classical vs popular music aren’t too different to my own on literary fiction vs genre, albeit I do see literary fiction as an evolving area, including in diversity, rather than having reached a peak in the past.
But, and this is wear I couldn't connect, I think the novel does need a certain knowledge of classical music (which I just don’t have) to really appreciate, with much of Declan’s narration in the form of strongly expressed opinions on various pieces and composers whose significance was lost on me, and whose music didn't move me even when I googled some recordings (or when I clicked through the Twitter rundown of favourite performances from the author in advance of publication).
So ultimately hard for me to comment on the success of the novel as I suspect it was intended, although interesting as a study of cultural snobbery. 3- stars for my own appreciation but 4 for its literary merit.
A review from two bloggers more able to appreciate the musical side of the novel:
https://crosseyedpianist.com/2022/08/...
https://artmuselondon.com/2022/10/18/...
September 28, 2022
Received a preview copy from Weatherglass Books, and what a treat The Ghost Variations is. Appropriately given the subject matter, you feel like you are in the hands of a consummate artist with Damian Lanigan. He weaves intricate patterns of plot and character with such refinement that you barely notice the phrases and melodies that lead you from one set piece to the next story arc reveal.
Declan is a vividly realised virtuoso and as a reader it feels a real privilege to enter his thoughts while in performance "the quiet intricate network of memories in the lizard brain".
It is a story ostensibly about loss and whether creativity or performance is any more successful a form of self-treatment than throwing yourself into any other temptations, or indeed hiding away from the world. But it is also a finely wrought travelogue, a meditation on friendship and mentorship and most importantly it is frequently laugh out loud funny. I wanted to go to San Felice, to lie on the New England dock, and most of all to listen to Declan play. A book that needs a Spotify sponsorship deal at once!
Declan is a vividly realised virtuoso and as a reader it feels a real privilege to enter his thoughts while in performance "the quiet intricate network of memories in the lizard brain".
It is a story ostensibly about loss and whether creativity or performance is any more successful a form of self-treatment than throwing yourself into any other temptations, or indeed hiding away from the world. But it is also a finely wrought travelogue, a meditation on friendship and mentorship and most importantly it is frequently laugh out loud funny. I wanted to go to San Felice, to lie on the New England dock, and most of all to listen to Declan play. A book that needs a Spotify sponsorship deal at once!
October 2, 2022
3.5 rounded up
September 14, 2022
Received as a subscriber to Weatherglass Books and another great volume. Well written with nice Mancunian touches, the book follows a former child prodigy pianist and keeps the interest in the mystery surrounding his wife. Recommended.
January 5, 2023
An unusual and rewarding read - I raced through it.
This is an incredibly moving book which also manages to be extremely funny, especially in its earlier sections. The love story at its core keeps you wondering till right at the end when the circumstances of the main character's wife's death years earlier are revealed, but before that the writing about musical prodigy Declan's return to classical piano playing is just fantastic. I'm not at all musical but I found the descriptions of Declan's practice rituals, his playing, and the classical pieces he performs to be so compelling and vivid - and often really amusing.
This is an incredibly moving book which also manages to be extremely funny, especially in its earlier sections. The love story at its core keeps you wondering till right at the end when the circumstances of the main character's wife's death years earlier are revealed, but before that the writing about musical prodigy Declan's return to classical piano playing is just fantastic. I'm not at all musical but I found the descriptions of Declan's practice rituals, his playing, and the classical pieces he performs to be so compelling and vivid - and often really amusing.
November 1, 2022
Not since An Equal Music have I enjoyed a book this much, with classical music at its core.
March 11, 2024
The actual copy of the book is a very satisfying book. But the plot did frustrate me. This isn't my normal genre, it's also a very much nothing much actualy happens kind of book. It does make quite a relaxing read for this reason, I like the intertwinment of music and grief as this feels very real atm.
BUT I was drawn to this book after the blurb mentions about how his wife dies a mysterious death. You do not find anything about this until literally the last 20 pages. I was hoping this would be brought up a bit more thought out the book as that is what originally drew me to it. But I did also feel quite intellectual reading this book and also made me feel older so that's a plus I guess.
Maybe I'm just not the right audience, like I say it was a relaxing read just not what I normally reach for.
BUT I was drawn to this book after the blurb mentions about how his wife dies a mysterious death. You do not find anything about this until literally the last 20 pages. I was hoping this would be brought up a bit more thought out the book as that is what originally drew me to it. But I did also feel quite intellectual reading this book and also made me feel older so that's a plus I guess.
Maybe I'm just not the right audience, like I say it was a relaxing read just not what I normally reach for.
January 31, 2023
Not completely my cup of tea. The best bit was the description of the days leading up to the death of his wife. Before that I guess we are seeing his behaviour and only later understanding how it's a reaction to his loss.
February 20, 2023
Gorgeously written, an emotional and modern journey. Lanigan brings a sharp but not heavy appreciation of music to this piece, infusing it with a depth that is counterbalanced by a wry wit. There is an ache throughout this book that gives it beauty and pulls the reader along.
January 1, 2025
A gorgeously written, intoxicating novel about a world-class pianist who embarks, somewhat reluctantly, on a concert tour after a five-year hiatus following the mysterious death of his wife. This book is as atmospheric and emotionally resonant as the music that obsesses the protagonist.
August 3, 2024
A rather uninspiring read with a slow plot and shallow characters. Some nice passages about life as a pianist and musical interpretation.
December 13, 2024
i mean yes the last chapter was beautiful but what was the point ???
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