Music of the Ghosts, Vaddey Ratner
Music of the Ghosts, Vaddey Ratner
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

Music of the Ghosts

Author: Vaddey Ratner

Narrator: Jennifer Ikeda

Unabridged: 12 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/11/2017


Synopsis

This “affecting novel filled with sorrow and a tender, poignant optimism” (USA TODAY) from New York Times bestselling author Vaddey Ratner reveals “the endless ways that families can be forged and broken hearts held” (Chicago Tribune) as a young woman begins an odyssey to discover the truth about her missing father.

Leaving the safety of America, Teera returns to Cambodia for the first time since her harrowing escape as a child refugee. She carries a letter from a man who mysteriously signs himself as “the Old Musician” and claims to have known her father in the Khmer Rouge prison where he disappeared twenty-five years ago.

In Phnom Penh, Teera finds a society still in turmoil, where perpetrators and survivors of unfathomable violence live side by side, striving to mend their still beloved country. She meets a young doctor who begins to open her heart, confronts her long-buried memories, and prepares to learn her father’s fate.

Meanwhile, the Old Musician, who earns his modest keep playing ceremonial music at a temple, awaits Teera’s visit. He will have to confess the bonds he shared with her parents, the passion with which they all embraced the Khmer Rouge’s illusory promise of a democratic society, and the truth about her father’s end.

A love story for things lost and restored, a lyrical hymn to the power of forgiveness, Music of the Ghosts is a “sensitive portrait of the inheritance of survival” (USA TODAY) and a journey through the embattled geography of the heart where love can be reborn.

About Vaddey Ratner

Vaddey Ratner is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Her critically acclaimed bestselling debut novel, In the Shadow of the Banyan, was a Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and has been translated into seventeen languages. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Cornell University, where she specialized in Southeast Asian history and literature. Her most recent novel is Music of the Ghosts.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sam on February 07, 2017

Love....hope... humanity. Intangible, yes, but also the building blocks of self-preservation, renewal : These are the most durable possesions I have. If Vaddey Ratner's debut In the Shadow of the Banyan was an emotional and beautifully written read (if sometimes structurally weak), Ratner's fol......more

Goodreads review by Stephanie on February 05, 2019

"The past, surely he knows, is tricky terrain riddled with potholes and pitfalls and unmarked graves. No matter how vigilant you are, you can find yourself in a head-on collision and amidst the shock and reverberation, catch in the periphery of your vision a phantom of your deepest longing." Teera wa......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer (Insert Lit Pun) on July 14, 2017

Thank you to Touchstone and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. I read Ratner’s debut, In the Shadow of the Banyan, earlier this year and was mesmerized by her lyrical language and her convincing child narrator. In many respects, Music of the Ghosts is a spiritual sequel to that debu......more

Goodreads review by Tammy on March 25, 2017

Haunting and gorgeous despite the sorrow, loss and longing.......more

Goodreads review by Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship on March 05, 2019

2.5 stars This is an emotional, contemplative novel about two survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime, who struggle to come to terms with their memories decades after the genocide. Unfortunately, its characters are half-baked: one of the protagonists is a blank slate despite nearing middle age, while the......more