Enchanting | Shadow Song: Shadow Song

Loving and beautiful story about love | Shadow Song: Shadow Song | Terry Kay

books:


	• Shadow Song: Shadow Song Terry Kay Washington Square Press, 1995 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Makes you hear the voice of the music

Terry Kay has the ability to make you hear the music of an old dreamer, and make it your own. He can also make you believe in ghosts, and makes you want to welcome them home. Though briefly told, this story encompasses most of our century: from an opera house in 1918, to young love in 1955, and then on to matured love in 1993. I first heard of this book at a Terry Kay book-signing last fall, where I had him sign The Runaway, his latest, and To Dance with the White Dog, his best known. In the long line of waiting admirers (it took me three hours), some of them kept saying that Shadow Song was their favorite book by Kay. Strangely, they would close their eyes, as though they were listening to something. Now that I've finished the book, I understand. I also recommend to anyone planning to read this book that they acquire a recording of the "Ombra leggiera" (Shadow Song) from Giacomo Meyerbeer's "Dinorah" and listen to it before they begin reading. And then listen to it again WHILE reading the final scene. It is a remarkable experience. My CD version features the great Maria Callas. However, to make the experience authentic, I may look for a recording by Amelita Galli-Curci. I know that that old Jew, Avrum Feldman, would have it no other way. Come to think of it, I might even pick up a couple of candlesticks and pull out an old picture of a long-lost love. That would really make him happy. I can hear him now, urging from his bench, "Go, Go."

for more information click here

Enchanting

This was my 6th book by Kay and I have loved every one of them. The 7th which I tried to read and couldn't get into was The Day The Lights were Turned on or some such. It got 5 stars and Shadow only got 4. Very disappointing as it was a precious love story. Taking current characters back to their youth is a favorite technique of mine. Some of the scenes and action here were somewhat far fetched but I can overlook that and concentrate on the characters who made the book live. I hope the most negative reviewer has now read more of Mr. Kay. She should try Taking Lottie Home. I hope Kay is not through with his stories. After Eli is soo good, too.

for more information click here

Loving and beautiful story about love

I really enjoyed the book, at first it was a little confusing and hard to understand, but as the pages started turning I fell in love with the book. The whole idea that Bobo and Amy Lourie met and fell in love in the Catskills with so many things against them intrigues me. His friendship with Avrum was weird but made the story more interesting. My favorite part of the book was when Amy and Bobo meet each other 40 years later and still are in love. This is my 1st Terry Kay book and I loved it, I hope to read another one of his books soon.

for more information click here

Beautifully told story

I started reading this book in small chunks but the pace accelerated as I went on. Towards the middle, I could not let go of the book. The storytelling is superb. I especially liked the dual tracks separated 38 years apart. Dealing with the subject of true love and adultery is mature and quite intriguing.

for more information click here

Romantic novel rises above nostalgia

I was initially drawn to this book because it takes place in a region close to my own, the Catskills of upstate New York. Indeed, location plays a large role in this compelling story of love lost and possibly found many years later. Terry Kay's atmospheric novel evokes the lush scenery of this area and also the bygone days of thriving Jewish resorts. Shadow Song is about the very long (in time as well as space) journey of Bobo Murphy from the deep South to an upstate New York resort, where he falls in love with a beautiful but inaccessible Jewish girl named Amy Lourie. He also befriends an eccentric but wise older man named Avrum. These elements would probably not make a good film --the subtlety of the prose would be lost and all that would remain would be mushy sentimentality. This is, to be sure, a nostalgic and sentimental love story. Yet the novel manages to work anyway, most likely because the author really believes in his characters and their emotions. Nostalgia, after all, can be a part of real life. Shadow Song dives directly into this theme without flinching and makes us believe in it and care about the characters.

for more information click here

In the summer of 1955, Madison Lee "Bobo" Murphy was a waiter at the Catskills' Pine Hill Inn. A rural Southerner, he had never heard the word meshugge until Avrum Feldman -- a retired New York City furrier -- became his unlikely friend. For Bobo, nothing about that special time and place ever lost its glow: Avrum's obsession with the haunting voice of a famous opera diva, music that no one else could hear; the exotic mingling of Yiddish and German in the dining room; and the girl he met and loved.

In everyone's life, Avrum claimed, there is one grand, undeniable moment that never stops mattering. For Bobo, it was his first glimpse of beautiful Amy Lourie. But, for a wealthy Jewish girl and a Georgia farm boy, the summer had to end, leaving Bobo with the pain of lost love. Nearly forty years later, his children grown and marriage comfortably routine, Bobo comes north once more; there, amidst the haunting hints of Amy's presence, she unexpectedly appears. Nothing has dimmed the passion of their youth, yet two lifetimes and a thousand Catskills sunsets stand between who they were and who they have become. The barriers between them are different now. But mysteriously, miraculously, Bobo reawakens the dream of a love larger than himself....

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

hot