Book Review: The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
There were a number of bad things about getting Covid last week - spending several days unconscious, then cancelling everything to keep the germs at home. For example, I missed the Primrose competition and viola festival at the Colburn School - I'd been looking forward to that!
But there was a silver lining: once I felt a bit better, I had time to read a book.
Reading a book is wholly more soul-satisfying than scrolling around on the Internet. The Internet, even with the volume off, is noisy and intrusive. On social media, you can't look at one thing without having a dozen other things try to pull away your attention. Voices, images, flashing screens - constant attempts on your attention. Not to mention the other distractions like calls, messaging, checking the weather, shopping, or the document you're supposed to be working on.
But a book - it's a solitary and peaceful endeavor. You are protected from the clamorous call of the Internet. A body can heal while a brain reads a book.
I seldom get to read these days, so the books have piled up on my desk and nightstand, waiting for my attention. I turned to one that I have been wanting to read ever since it came out in 2022: The Violin Conspiracy, by Brendan Slocumb.
To be honest, sometimes I avoid books about violins and violinists because I'm already immersed in the subject - sometimes I want to get away from the fiddle. But as I discovered early on, this book has a profound undercurrent that addresses more than life as a violinist and also makes it feel like more than just a crime novel. To be sure, it's a page-turner about a violin heist - a good one. It paints a vivid and true picture of what it is like to be a violinist (I've read ones that did not!), and the horror of having one's violin stolen. But equally important is this book's illustration of another aspect of its main character's identity: as a Black man in America. This book adeptly puts the reader right in the middle of that experience: living it as a fact of life.
And when I say that, I mean that Slocumb's writing makes you feel it, simply as a human. I have not experienced what the main character Ray McMillian does - but reading this book, I certainly felt his confusion, frustration, fear, and as the book went on, increased wariness in these situations. Whom do you trust? And when you can't trust, is the problem racism, or something else? There are a lot of people Ray can't trust - but also a lot that he can. It's not always easy to tell. There are certainly angels, monsters, and everything in between along the way.
Many things about Ray's life felt a lot like my own - I started violin at age nine, at my public school - and played for many years on a violin that came from my grandmother's attic.
But the moment I realized I was reading a different kind of book was when Ray, as a high school student, is invited to play for a wedding in his friend's quartet. This is certainly exciting - and I can remember that feeling too - the first time you actually make some good money, playing the violin. And at a fancy event, too! But for Ray, there is another layer. When arrives at the wedding venue, a gated mansion, the father of bride stops Ray at the door, looking him over twice. Ray is all dressed up, holding his violin case, and he can't quite figure out what's wrong. The father refuses to believe that Ray is there to play music, and he nearly derails Ray from even walking into the house. Ray finally does get in and makes his way to his quartet-mates, who wonder what held him up for so long. He arrives just in time to start playing, and he plays well, despite the pressure. The bride's mother is effusive in her praise after the ceremony. But the father corners Ray before the reception, "You almost ruined my daughter's wedding!" he says, pushing Ray out the door early, leaving him to wait on a street corner while the rest of the quartet enjoys dinner.
After reading this incident, I had to stop and just feel a lot of sorrow.
This is just one of several racist incidents that happen all-too-organically to Ray throughout this book - because they happen all-too-organically in the lives of Black people. As in the book, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. You never quite know when to trust the situation. And at the end of the book, in the author's note, Slocumb - a violinist and educator himself - writes that this incident and others came from his own life experience. I'm grateful he shared it so vividly, so that people who have not directly experienced this can understand it not just at an intellectual level, but an emotional one.
Ray does get an extraordinary break when his family-heirloom instrument is a very good one - and he pushes for the soloist's life: the years-long monastic devotion to practice, along with the ambition to participate in international competitions. Ray's journey goes through some rarefied moments that are out-of-reach for most violinists - playing on a Strad, competing in the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow. Few violinists ever get this far, and that necessarily makes this story a stretch of the imagination. But Slocum fills in the details adeptly. He includes the physical and psychological pain that go along with the triumph of doing something very hard, very well. He also provides some wonderfully written description along the way: the tug-of-war of playing as a soloist with an orchestra, colorful depictions of what it is like to play beloved violin repertoire, detailed descriptions of places like Carnegie Hall and the various halls where the Tchaikovsky competition take place.
I was rooting for Ray the whole way. And there is plenty of vivid plot that I have not mentioned here that is fascinating, frustrating and well worth the journey.
So yes, I totally recommend this book. If you have also read it, please feel free to add your thoughts and observations in the comments.
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Replies
Laurie,
I read this book a few months ago and, like you, I was captivated. A whodunit in the world of classical music, violins, and the remnants of Jim-Crow racisms.
The author made it a credible story with reasonable details that didn't stretchy my imagination the breaking point.
Like all good crime novels it kept me guessing who was responsible. It also made me think about all the young musicians and potential musicians, who often get dismissed before they have a chance to prove themselves. Not many humans have the grit and determination to push through the boundaries and barriers that life throws in their way.
I read this book several months ago and highly recommend it. It is a definite page-turner from a musical perspective as well as from a social/racial issue perspective of today. I'm now reading Slocumb's second book, Symphony of Secrets, and it too is a good read!
I found this book a couple of years ago in, of all places, the Las Vegas airport. It is a wonderful book, very much about our lives as string players. I share Laurie's avoidance of books about musicians because they usually don't get it right at all ("rise to a crescendo" !!). But Mr. Slocumb knows of what he speaks, and it is refreshing. Seeing the classical world from the point of view of a person of color is also very sobering, if not disheartening to hear that racism does not always stop at the stage door. If you are interested in another book about music that is quite accurate, try "And After the Fire" by Lauren Belfer. It is a fascinating historical novel about a newly re-discovered controversial Cantata by J.S. Bach.
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June 25, 2024 at 08:48 PM · Wishing you a swift and complete recovery Laurie. The novel sounds great ...I'm going to order a copy tomorrow morning.