"One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character. A once-popular singer, desperate to make a comeback, turning from the one certainty in his life . . . a man whose unerring taste in music is the only thing his closest friends value in him . . . a struggling singer-songwriter unwittingly involved in the failing marriage of a couple he s only just met . . . a gifted, underappreciated jazz musician who lets himself believe that plastic surgery will help his career . . . a young cellist whose tutor promises to unwrap