A Fair Trade Book
Title: The Piano Shop on the Left Bank
Title: The Piano Shop on the Left Bank
Date: 2000
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0-375-75862-3
Length: 268 pages
Quote: “You can never have too many dream pianos.”
If you like reality-based stories, not “cozy” but not sensationalized with artificial drama, The Piano Shop on the Left Bank is for you. It’s a sober, straightforward memoir, fictionalized just enough to preserve people’s privacy, of a slow-growing, sex-free friendship between an American who enjoys playing the piano and a Frenchman whose vocation is building and restoring pianos.
Reality-sized bits of drama are scattered through this book. The scene where the deliveryman, working around the insanity of a socialist government, carries a grand piano upstairs on his back for cash, is not to be missed although I’m not sure I believe it really happened. There’s an alcoholic character, likable when sober, and no attempt to sugar-coat what happens to him. There are brilliant, inspiring teachers and mean, killjoy teachers. However, Carhart steadfastly refuses to turn a plausible memoir into a novel. Carhart-as-narrator has a wife and children, Luc has a girlfriend, and that’s about all we learn about them. “What happens” in this story is that two adults have a good time learning from each other.
As bonuses, readers get some obscure French vocabulary words, descriptions of modern Paris, and, if they know anything about classical music, an ear-seducing, finger-tantalizing sound track that may make them want to rush out to a music shop and buy the pieces not already in their collection. Carhart doesn’t linger on the descriptions of food, gardens, buildings, and artwork that appeal to most visitors to Paris. He fascinates those of us who can be so fascinated with thoughts of how different the classic piano pieces can be made to sound.
So, The Piano Shop on the Left Bank is a book with a niche market if
you’ve ever seen one. I’m surprised that a big publisher like Random House
would touch it, in this age and time, and since I happened to be in the niche
for it I’m glad Random House did touch
it. If this material appeals to you, you’ll probably enjoy the book.
I’d even suggest that this one might be a good choice as an e-book. The ideal reader would sit down at a piano and play his or her own way through The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, but people who were altogether deprived of piano lessons might enjoy reading the story on a computer, with links to recordings of the Chopin polonaise and the Verdi aria and so on, so they can hear what’s happening in the musical anecdotes.
Although it sounds radically different from what publishers expect U.S. readers to like, this book has been a bestseller. Most of those who appreciate it may already own it but, if you can and you don't, you may buy copies here for the usual $5 per book, $5 per package, and $1 per online payment. (That is, to buy just this book, you would send a U.S. postal money order for $10 to Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, as shown at the bottom of the screen, or send a Paypal payment for $11 to the address salolianigodagewi @ yahoo will send you after confirming that you're a serious buyer. At least four and probably six books of this size will fit in one $5 package.) It's still possible to buy new copies directly from the publisher at Carhart's site, which would be an even better way of showing him due respect, but since secondhand copies are so easy to buy, why not support this web site too? When you buy any living author's book from this site, we send $1 to the author or a charity of his or her choice. Click on the label "A FAIR TRADE BOOK," below, to see other vintage books by living authors that have already been discussed at this web site...and feel free to recommend your own choices!
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