Body & Soul: A Novel

Body & Soul follows Claude Rawlings, a working-class boy who becomes a piano prodigy. Growing up poor in a basement apartment with his taxi-driver mother, whose behavior becomes increasingly erratic, Claude watches the world from behind a grated window. He feels destined to remain on the margins of life, a spectator to a world beyond his reach. An out-of-tune piano in his small apartment becomes his gateway to transformation. Through mastering its keys, Claude discovers he is a musical prodigy. His gift demands relentless work and exacting teachers, but it opens doors to the drawing rooms of the wealthy and powerful, private schools, an advantageous marriage, and ultimately Carnegie Hall. As Claude navigates this new life, he moves through it as though playing a complex musical composition, experiencing its drama, tension, and unexpected moments of grace. Music functions as a character itself in the narrative. The novel spans Claude's journey with the emotional weight and moral depth of a bildungsroman, combining Dickensian range and richness with a contemporary tone.