A wounded veteran's body becomes a Ouija board at the hands of his massage therapist: Her touch calls spirits across generations. The dreamy landscape of their interwoven stories has the feel of jazz, and it's fun to follow simply for its show of creativity. Ultimately the ghosts reveal themselves as her own. However, the unfolding magical-realist mystery obscure another connecting thread. The therapist and her Scheherazade cast of characters are all damaged, as tightly wound as the traumatized soldier. We know the therapy is working when all of them learn to swing. Mendelsohn maintains an easy pace throughout. She calls the tune for an intricate dance that suspends time like a daydream.

Really beautifully written--I found myself marking a lot of lines and passages. Having said that, the problem I had with this book is that I didn't find the central conceit compelling or believable (even in a fantasy way) and so the book sort of fell apart for me. I couldn't suspend disbelief, I suppose. ( )

Really beautifully written--I found myself marking a lot of lines and passages. Having said that, the problem I had with this book is that I didn't find the central conceit compelling or believable (even in a fantasy way) and so the book sort of fell apart for me. I couldn't suspend disbelief, I suppose. ( )

A beautiful little book about love, and loss, and impermanence, and the way in which all decisions bring pain, and sometimes beauty. Imperfect, but still affecting, and insightful, and the prose is gorgeous. ( )

I absolutely loved these characters (theirs are the stories you want to read forever) and I loved the writing. Jane Mendelsohn writes in short, spare sentences, almost a perfunctory style. Normally this wouldn't be that appealing to me, but in this novel it works so very well. Because woven throughout are phrases and passages of pure grandeur, and that makes for an incredible literary experience that only the best of authors can do well.

It is so hard to describe the wonder that is contained in these pages, but it is magical and sad and supernatural and oh-so-real and filled with love and history and so very much more.

It is the story of the rhythm of our lives through time, how our stories and our songs echo and reverberate from one generation to another and another. We think we are the only ones experiencing what we are going through, but in reality, the song has been sung before, perhaps in a different way and by different people. Still, it is the same song.

"He had seemed ordinary. But then the way he had looked at her in the kitchen had moved something inside her and she had felt seen although she had hidden that from him. She was still very young. Younger than either Pearl or Joe and they had struck her at first as old and sad and only later as experienced. She had traveled. She had been educated. But they had experience. They had sorrow. Maybe it was his sorrow that was looking at her in the kitchen and found hers. A sorrow that lifted when it felt his and soared like a note of music soars." (pg. 107)

American Music soars like very few other books have the power to do.

"A note of music soars, she thought, because it is trying to find its way back." (pg. 107)

You should find your way toward this incredible novel. ( )