author: Vikram Seth asin: 037570924X binding: Paperback list price: $14.95 USD amazon price: $10.17 USD

The violinist hero of Vikram Seth’s third novel would very much like to be hearing secret harmonies. Instead, living in London 10 years after a key disaster, Michael Holme is easily irritated by his beautiful young (and even French!) girlfriend and by his colleagues in the Maggiore Quartet. In short, he’s fed up with playing second fiddle in life and art. Yet a chance encounter with Julia, the pianist he had loved and lost in Vienna, brings Michael sudden bliss. Her situation, however—and the secret that may end her career—threatens to undo the lovers.

An Equal Music is a fraction of the size of Seth’s A Suitable Boy, but is still deliciously expansive. In under 400 pages, the author offers up exquisite complexities, personal and lyrical, while deftly fielding any fears that he’s composed a Harlequin for highbrows.

Very well written and not what you're expecting. Here's an excerpt:

My name is Frank and I'm one of the more successful real estate brokers in the Tri-State area. I'm good-looking and work out twice a week. I was recently engaged to this blonde chick named Trina, until I caught her sleeping with some hippie rock climber when I came home early one day, and I dumped her ass. The bitch. I'd been feeling pretty shitty about that lately, and then my friend Jerry told me about this Asian Massage Parlor he goes to sometimes to relax. $100 for a massage from a hot Asian girl, and for an extra $50 you can get yourself a "happy ending," he told me with a nudge. I thought it sounded pretty interesting, and the place was right off the interstate on the way back to the condo, so I figured What the Hey, I might as well check it out.