Clara

Janice Galloway’s new novel is based on the life of Clara Schumann: celebrated nineteenth-century concert pianist and composer, editor and teacher, friend of Brahms – who was also the wife of Robert Schumann, the mother of his eight children, and the woman who cared for him through a series of crippling mental illnesses. Clara is a lyrical and vibrant account of two remarkable and highly dramatic musical careers, but primarily it is a novel about timeless, common things: about the inescapable influences of childhood, about creativity and marital life, about communication and silence, about how art is made and how art, in turn, may erode or save the life that nourishes it.

Reviews of Clara

"Some of the greatest words ever written on thwarted love since Romeo and Juliet" The Times "A powerful novel which brings two troubled and brilliant people back to life" Sunday Telegraph "A razor-sharp blade of light… This is fiction's raising of Lazarus, miraculous, touched with wonder, grace and utter, steadfast belief in the life being resurrected… A work of intense, unflinching passion and conviction, written with Galloway's heart's blood" The Times "Janice Galloway's exciting, vibrant third novel proves a virtuoso piece of storytelling…this obvious Booker contender is as compelling as the tormented players and music that inspired it" — Eileen Battersby Irish Times "You read Clara and you catch the music of another mind, and wherever it comes from Janice Galloway plays the notes to what sounds very much like perfection. This is a virtuoso performance" Scotsman