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Random House Inc
September 2010
On Sale: September 14, 2010
384 pages
ISBN: 0307590526
EAN: 9780307590527
Hardcover
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Fiction
I grew up as the son of a man who could not possibly have
been my father. Though there was never any doubt that my
seed had come from another man, Moses Froben, Lo Svizzero,
called me “son.” And I called him “father.” On the rare
occasions when someone dared to ask for clarification, he
simply laughed as though the questioner were obtuse. “Of
course he’s not my son!” he would say. “Don’t be ridiculous.” But whenever I myself gained the courage to ask him further
of our past, he just looked sadly at me. “Please, Nicolai,”
he would say after a moment, as though we had made a pact I
had forgotten. With time, I came to understand I would never
know the secrets of my birth, for my father was the only one
who knew these secrets, and he would take them to his grave.
The celebrated opera singer Lo Svizzero was born in a belfry
high in the Swiss Alps where his mother served as the keeper
of the loudest and most beautiful bells in the land. Shaped
by the bells’ glorious music, as a boy he possessed an
extraordinary gift for sound. But when his preternatural
hearing was discovered—along with its power to expose the
sins of the church—young Moses Froben was cast out of his
village with only his ears to guide him in a world fraught
with danger.
Rescued from certain death by two traveling monks, he finds
refuge at the vast and powerful Abbey of St. Gall. There,
his ears lead him through the ancient stone hallways and
past the monks’ cells into the choir, where he aches to join
the singers in their strange and enchanting song. Suddenly
Moses knows his true gift, his purpose. Like his mother’s
bells, he rings with sound and soon, he becomes the protégé
of the Abbey’s brilliant yet repulsive choirmaster, Ulrich.
But it is this gift that will cause Moses’ greatest
misfortune: determined to preserve his brilliant pupil’s
voice, Ulrich has Moses castrated. Now a young man, he will
forever sing with the exquisite voice of an angel—a
musico—yet castration is an abomination in the Swiss
Confederation, and so he must hide his shameful condition
from his friends and even from the girl he has come to love.
When his saviors are exiled and his beloved leaves St. Gall
for an arranged marriage in Vienna, he decides he can deny
the truth no longer and he follows her—to sumptuous Vienna,
to the former monks who saved his life, to an apprenticeship
at one of Europe’s greatest theaters, and to the premiere of
one of history’s most beloved operas.
In this confessional letter to his son, Moses recounts how
his gift for sound led him on an astonishing journey to
Europe’s celebrated opera houses and reveals the secret that
has long shadowed his fame: How did Moses Froben, world
renowned musico, come to raise a son who by all rights he
never could have sired?
Like the voice of Lo Svizzero, The Bells is a sublime debut
novel that rings with passion, courage, and beauty.
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