Brown Bag Book Club

Henry Cage seems to have it all: a successful career, money, a beautiful home, and a reputation for being a just and principled man. But public virtues can conceal private failings, and as Henry faces retirement, his well-ordered life begins to unravel. His ex-wife is ill, his relationship with his son is strained to the point of estrangement, and on the eve of the new millennium he is the victim of a random violent act which soon escalates into a prolonged and mysterious harassment. Who is doing this? And why?

Full of exceptional grace and emotional power, The Upright Piano Player is a wise and acutely observed novel about the myriad ways in which life tests us—no matter how carefully we have constructed our own little fortresses.

“[A] gripping novel, a reminder of how little control we have over our lives.” —Los Angeles Times

“Wise and moving. . . . An accomplished novel of quiet depths and resonant shadows.” —John Burnham Schwartz, author of The Commoner