Daughters of Song

By: Paula Huston

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Synopsis: This skillful first novel engages the reader from the beginning chapter. The coming of age story of a female pianist, it dramatizes the familiar issues of loyalty and love (typical of any novel with a 20-year-old protagonist) and brings into consideration the interesting additional complexities paramount in the lives of unusually talented creative artists in 20th-century America. The heroine, Sylvia, is studying piano far from home at a conservatory in Baltimore. The focus of her artistic struggle is a particularly difficult piece from Beethoven's late period, opus 111. The author does an admirable job of revealing Sylvia's development through her increasing understanding of this musical piece and the composer behind it. This charming work will find a ready audience within the college community because it deals with problems students themselves are confronting and, more importantly, because it offers realistic and yet optimistic possibilities for solutions to those problems.