The Weight of a Piano

Two families, separated by decades and thousands of miles, discover the physical—and emotional—weight of a certain rare piano. That piano represents love, freedom, tragedy, grief, and, ultimately, letting go of the past. This lovely third novel by Chris Cander alternates chapters between the past as young Katya discovers the freedom a 60-year-old German-built Bluthner piano brings to her life in the Soviet Union, and years later as 26-year-old Clara moves the piano—a gift from her father for her 12th birthday—that she doesn’t know how to play but can’t part with. As the piano and its owners’ histories are slowly revealed, we learn that a piano can both weigh you down and set you free.