The Gustav Sonata Audiobook By Rose Tremain cover art

The Gustav Sonata

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Gustav Sonata

By: Rose Tremain
Narrated by: Mark Meadows
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $20.52

Buy for $20.52

Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland where the horrors of the Second World War seem distant. He adores his mother, but she treats him with bitter severity, disapproving especially of his intense friendship with Anton, the Jewish boy at school. A gifted pianist, Anton is tortured by stage fright; only in secret games with Gustav does his imagination thrive.

But Gustav is taught that he must develop a hard shell, 'like a coconut', to protect the softness inside - just like the hard shell perfected by his country to protect its neutrality. But despite this hard shell, nothing in Gustav's life can be called neutral. Older and increasingly curious about his absent father, Gustav discovers the traces of an erotic love affair - traces which still glow white-hot even now.

Fierce, astringent, profoundly tender and spanning the 20th century, Rose Tremain's beautifully orchestrated novel explores the big themes of betrayal and the struggle for happiness and, above all, the passionate love of a childhood friendship as it is tested over a lifetime.

©2016 Rose Tremain (P)2016 Audible, Ltd Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
All stars
Most relevant
The reader was too slow for me I had to fasten the record. But I loved the book.

slow reader, nice book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.