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A Memoir of Many Careers in Music
Knopf
December 2010
On Sale: November 30, 2010
Featuring: Leon Fleisher
336 pages
ISBN: 038552918X
EAN: 9780385529181
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
The stirring memoir of one of the greatest pianists of
the postwar era—an inspiring tale of triumph over crippling
incapacity that rivals Shine. The pianist
Leon Fleisher—whose student–teacher lineage linked him
to Beethoven by way of his instructor, Artur
Schnabel—displayed an exceptional gift from his earliest
years. And then, like the hero of a Greek tragedy, he was
struck down in his prime: at thirty-six years old, he
suddenly and mysteriously became unable to use two fingers
of his right hand. It is not just Fleisher’s
thirty-year search for a cure that drives this remarkable
memoir. With his coauthor, celebrated music critic Anne
Midgette, the pianist explores the depression that engulfed
him as his condition worsened and, perhaps most powerfully
of all, the sheer love of music that rescued him from
complete self-destruction. Miraculously, at the age
of sixty-six, Fleisher was diagnosed with focal dystonia,
and cured by experimental Botox injections. In 2003, he
returned to Carnegie Hall to give his first two-handed
recital in over three decades, bringing down the house.
Sad, reflective, but ultimately triumphant, My
Nine Lives combines the glamour, pathos, and courage of
Fleisher’s life with real musical and intellectual
substance. Fleisher embodies the resilience of the human
spirit, and his memoir proves that true passion always finds
a way.
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