To all who are sailing along with me on this tour, THANK YOU!! Today, I am visiting with author Audrey Driscoll.
Audrey is a fairly new member of the Story Empire group and she has already provided us with some wonderful posts!
This book is beautifully written by Audrey and I loved it!
MY REVIEW:
This is a story that portrays a woman’s life and the journey she embarked upon taking her into the depths of crippling mental illness.
The story opens with Ilona rushing to get back to work on time from her lunch break. She knows she’s been doing a good job. She’s followed the rules, been a good worker and kept to herself. But it’s not enough and by the end of the day she’s unemployed.
Then, the author takes the reader back in time to when Ilona was a young college student, just months away from graduating from the university, her entire life ahead. That is until she veered away from academics and took a German Romanticism class, which led to her unraveling. Perhaps she’d always teetered on the edge of madness, that part isn’t clear. What is clear though, is how through an obsession with Franz Schubert’s composition of Wilhelm Müller’s poems to comprise the 24 songs of Winterreise, assigned as a major project in the romanticism class, she slowly lost touch with all reality. Yet, for Ilona, it wasn’t just the lyrics and music, but also the voice of the singer, Julian Northridge that consumed her. She stopped attending classes, sequestered in her room, headphones on, immersed in the story that unfolds through the poetic lyrics. The significance of this song cycle is the story it tells. A man, a lonely traveler, ventures out into the snow to rid himself of a lost love. Along the way, he experiences a myriad of emotions and experiences, ranging from despair to even darker and more dire despair.
The parallel between Ilona’s journey and the lyrics to this German classic is brilliantly written. This author must have done a ton of research in order to create this work of literary fiction. She delves deeply into the human psyche, portraying the character’s deepest and darkest inner thoughts, struggles and desires. Written in a dual timeline (1987-1988) and (2007-2008), the story unfolds at a pace that kept me engaged and wanting to know how it would all end for Ilona. No, I won’t tell you how it all culminated. You’ll have to read it to find out. I will tell you the story captivated me. The journey, the music, the side characters and Ilona’s struggle is one I won’t likely ever forget. If you are a fan of literary fiction that dives deep into what makes a person tick, or stop ticking, you will enjoy this story. It gets an easy five-stars from me!
Check out this and other books by Audrey HERE!
Then head on over to her blog and let’s chat!
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