He holds the key and the foot pedal down, listening to the singular sound, bold and three-dimensional at first, then drifting, dispersing, fragile, decaying. He inhales. The smell of coffee lingers. He listens. The note is gone. Every note played is a life and a death.
I guess that not loving Still Alice makes me an outlier, and I wouldn’t have picked up another Lisa Genova if this hadn’t been a book club pick, but reading Every Note Played reminded me of what I liked and didn’t like about Genova’s debut release: I think that the information she (as a neuroscientist) shares about relentlessly progressive neurological disorders is valuable and well done, but when it comes to the specifics of plot and character, Genova just doesn’t do it for me. I’d give this two and a half stars and am rounding down because I found it “just okay”.
His motor neurons are being poisoned by a cocktail of toxins, the recipe unknown to his doctor and every scientist on the planet, and his entire motor neuron system is in a death spiral. His neurons are dying, and the muscles they feed are literally starving for input. Every twitch is a muscle stammering, gasping, begging to be saved. They can’t be saved.
Richard is a world famous classical pianist who, at the height of his career, is diagnosed with ALS and must face the fact that not only will he lose the ability to make music, but as someone whose narcissistic, globe-trotting lifestyle alienated him from his wife, child, and birth family, he must also face the fact that he will have no one to help him as his functions deteriorate. Karina is Richard’s ex-wife, and although she holds a lot of resentment about his manipulations and affairs (it will be revealed that she is not blameless in the ending of their marriage), Karina understands Richard’s predicament and allows him to move back into the family home. POV rotates between these two characters and the story explores the experience of ALS through both the eyes of the afflicted and his caregiver. Just short of halfway through Every Note Played, Richard has the following thoughts and it perfectly signals what is to come:
Maybe ALS is their chance to make amends. If they admit where they’d been wrong and apologize for all the hurt they caused each other and are forgiven, if they settle their bad karmic debt in this other way, maybe he’d be cured. Or, if not cured, maybe healed in some way. For both of them. He realizes that this kind of mystical wondering is akin to wishing on a star, praying to God, or believing in the prophecies of a Magic 8 Ball. But why not try?
Again, everything Genova writes about Richard’s slow loss of motor control and related agency, as well as Karina’s mounting exhaustion and resentment, is well done and conveys information that the reader may not be aware of. But the specifics of this story simply didn’t work for me. I could see no reason for Karina to be a Polish immigrant or for Richard to be from a redneck New Hampshire family — even when Richard’s past gets some resolution (Karina’s never does), the emotional payoff was lacking and doesn’t add to the rest of the story. The classical vs jazz piano was a moot debate and Karina’s “secret” betrayal was melodramatic and telegraphed from the beginning. Everything other than the progression of the disease was a distraction for me and I ended most chapters with a sigh. I was also often distracted by Genova’s Writerly metaphors:
• Karina walks up the stairs to the front door of his brownstone, and her mouth goes sour. At the top step, her stomach matches the taste in her mouth, and the word sicken grabs the microphone of her inner monologue.
• The letters he writes communicate what he could never say, every typed word carrying an ancient scar on its back, every typed sentence fracking a bevy of silenced wounds stored in his deepest, darkest core, releasing a lifetime of outrage and resentment.
• Karina doesn’t answer because she doesn’t know. Or maybe she’s beginning to but can’t yet articulate it. She senses something like a program running in the background, an awareness creeping up the basement stairs of her subconscious.
That microphone, the fracking, the basement stairs — each of them took me right out of the story. Maybe it’s because I’m in Canada — where people with ALS began the push for the right to Medically Assisted Death — but I found it odd that this was never mentioned (and I 100% support everyone’s right to a natural death — I am not suggesting everyone with ALS should take the Swiss Option and get it over with for the convenience of others— but I still found its total absence odd). And maybe it’s because this book is set in Boston that I found the saddest part to be the cost of healthcare playing such a large role in end of life decisions (would a relatively well-off forty-five-year-old with a kid in college really have no health or life insurance?), but I guess that’s life for many, too. As a novel, this really didn’t work for me but I can certainly see some value in it. I have no desire to pick up another Genova.
