Appassionata

O, The Oprah Magazine

“Adagio, accelerando–words that mark the way music moves through time and, in Eva Hoffman’s acute new novel, Appassionata (Other Press), describe the dynamic of human emotion, the subtle “vocabulary of the soul.” Isabel Merton is a brilliant concert pianist, a medium who transmits the passions of Mozart and Chopin, through her fingertips. Unmoored from her marriage, on tour in Europe, she meets Anzor, a charismatic Chechen exile. Their romance is hardly unexpected, but Hoffman’s eloquent insights into “the intimate history of violence” rings startlingly true.”

Times Literary Supplement

“An organic portrait of a thinking, feeling artist coming to terms with her world.”


Booklist (starred review)

“An exquisite and disquieting story of love, terror, and loss, with geopolitical resonance and a profound moral calculus.”

Kirkus Reviews

“Ambitious and elegantly written.”