Product Description

At the turn of the century, Lucy is a talented pianist, studying music in Chicago, returning occasionally to provincial Haverford, the town of her birth. She meets and falls in love with a middle-aged opera singer whose influence will change the course of her life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #270919 in Books
• Published on: 1985-12-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Willa Cather (1873-1947) was born in Virginia where for generations her ancestors farmed land. She became a teacher and journalist and is one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews

As good as Edith Wharton
Beats me why Willa Cather isn't better known to British readers, and although this isn't my favourite one of her novels, everything she writes is memorable.
'In Haverford on the Platte the townspeople still talk of Lucy Gayheart. They do not talk of her a great deal, to be sure; life goes on and we live in the present. But when they do mention her name it is with a gentle glow in the face or the voice, a confidential glance which says:"Yes, you, too, remember?" '
Cather wrote this in the 1930s, but the events of the novel take place in 1901-2 . Lucy is a talented and beautiful young pianist, studying music in Chicago (and how much more independence a young American woman had at this time than her British counterpart). Eager for life and everything it has to offer - affectionately rejecting the limitations of her provincial home town - Lucy falls in love with a middle aged, married opera singer who loves her in return for the freshness and vitality of her youth (but isn't going to change his settled way of life). The ripples from this relationship have tragic repercussions.
The only character that strikes a false note is the Dickensian-ly creepy accompanist (a kind of Uriah Heep of the ivories) ... though impossible to expand on this without spoiling the atory!