ABOUT
THE BOOK

In a radical departure from her previous work, Janice Galloway’s new novel is based on the life of Clara Schumann: celebrated nineteenth century concert pianist and composer, editor and teacher, friend of Brahms – who was also the wife of Robert Schumann, the mother of his eight children, and the woman who cared for him through a series of crippling mental illnesses until his terrible death in Bonn-Endenich mental asylum.
Whilst also being a meticulously researched account of two remarkable and highly dramatic musical careers – from the beginnings with her ruthlessly ambitious father to her triumphant tours of Europe, their much-postponed marriage to the Schumann’s escape during the Dresden uprisings – this is a novel primarily about timeless, common things: about the inescapable influences of childhood, about creativity and marital life, about communication and silence, about how art is made and how art, in turn, may erode or save the life that nourishes it. Dismissing the clichés of Great Art and scathing in its rejection of the romantic conflation of Madness and Creativity, Clara takes as its heart an examination of the place of love in a life of increasing isolation and alienation.