Music and Freedom

I very much enjoyed Music and Freedom by Zoë Morrison, a debut Australian author.  Born in Australia, Alice Haywood has lived at Oxford from an early age.  A gifted pianist, she travelled there in the 1930s to further her piano studies.  She was due to return home but the War intervened.  Alice is looking back on her life in 2006.  The story is told with "flashbacks" to earlier times.  She has decided what to do next but something intervenes to change everything.  Alice narrates this story so the reader understands what she's dealing with.  This is beautiful writing, confronting at times and also informed.  The author knows the themes she's depicted in this story.  She knows her music so her descriptions are very real.  Very impressive. 41/2/5.