Sarah Landenwich is the author of the new novel The Fire Concerto. She is also a classically trained pianist, and she lives in Louisville, Kentucky.
Q: What inspired you to write The Fire Concerto, and how did you create your character Clara?
A: Many years ago, I decided I wanted to write a novel about three female pianists—one in the 19th century, one in the early 20th, and one in modern times—connected by their musical lineage. In other words, they’re not related by blood, they’ve come down the same line of music teachers.
Back in the 19th century where my story begins, this musical line would have certainly begun with a man. And of course, since they were women at a time when women were expected to stay in the domestic sphere, the women in the earlier time periods of this novel would have faced daunting obstacles.
Some of those obstacles would have been the very men who were supposed to champion them. The conflict baked into that scenario is enough to spark a thousand novels.
I found my historical characters first. Then I was looking for my modern-day protagonist, Clara, trying to decide who she would be. I knew I wanted her to have stopped playing music because of an injury, so I was searching for an injury that would have ended her career.
Many people carry around injuries or ailments invisible to the outside world—chronic illness, back pain, migraines, etc., and I considered giving Clara an injury no one could see.
Then I thought how much more complicated her life might be if her injuries—and therefore her trauma—were visible to everyone she met. Eventually I settled on scars from a fire. Her character, and her story, grew from there.
Q: How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: I read widely to research this book. Midway through, I had so many sources that I had to begin an annotated bibliography to keep track of them (Thank you, English teachers of past!).
The sources in my annotated bib run the gamut from 19th-century travel guides of Warsaw to WWII memoirs to academic papers. One chapter set on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Poland required about eight research books to write.
Of all of this, the research sources that astounded me most were the studies I read about female “insanity” in the 19th century. I was aware of bias in the treatment of women’s mental illness during this time, but the firsthand accounts I read of women who were incarcerated in asylums simply because they weren’t compliant or conforming were outrageous to me.
Q: How did your background as a pianist factor into your writing of the novel?
A: It was hugely significant. I was very serious about music as a young person—serious enough that I got burnt out on it by the time I was 19 and abandoned my whole career path.
I was never as talented as my protagonist, Clara (not anywhere close), but like Clara, music was a central part of who I was. I tried for a while to make music my hobby, but pretty quickly, I realized I couldn’t perform the pieces I really loved as a hobby-level musician because I couldn’t maintain my skills.
I had devoted so much of my life to music, but I couldn’t find a way to have a relationship with it that wasn’t painful. So I quit. I barely touched a piano for 15 years. That’s how long it took me to miss it enough to reincorporate music into my life without needing to be good at it anymore.
My knowledge of musical pieces and composers certainly factored into the writing of this book, but more than that, it was this feeling of loss about music and the loss of identity without it that was central to the writing.
Q: The writer TaraShea Nesbit said of the book, “The Fire Concerto by Sarah Landenwich is a thrilling mystery, full of history, musicology, humor, and suspense. But what emerges in these pages is so much more, with so many layers beneath.” What do you think of that description?
A: First, I think TaraShea Nesbit is a very generous reader. What I like most about her description is how it encapsulates the different facets of this book.
Many people think of classical music as being exclusively high culture—black ties, rich people, galas, that sort of thing. It certainly is those things, but not exclusively. I regularly listen to Beethoven and Beyoncé on the same day, and I’m not the only person whose cultural interests roam like this.
My husband and I lived in Denver for many years, and one of our favorite date nights was to go see the Colorado Symphony and afterward go to a diner and eat burgers and drink cheap whiskeys. If I could pick an experience that reflects the high culture/pop culture blend of this book, it would be that date.
My protagonist, while a former piano prodigy, is a bartender who wears Chuck Taylors and likes to eat donuts. I wanted the book to encompass so much—so much culture, so much history, so much music. (By the way, there’s a lot of music in this book aside from classical: Ray Charles, Janis Joplin, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sonic Youth, just to name a few. I made a playlist!).
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m underway on a dual-timeline novel set in rural Indiana in 1881 and 2022. That’s all I’ll say!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Most of the early champions of this book, including my agent and editor, have limited experience with classical music, and, to my knowledge, no great passion for it, either. They still loved this book. I don’t want people to think this is a novel for music lovers. This is a novel for readers.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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