Sleeping with Schubert.(Book Review)

Sleeping with Schubert by Bonnie Marson Random House, 378pp. $21.95 CD: Sony Classics SK92596 $11.98

Would you be embarrassed to be seen with a book entitled Sleeping with Schubert? If you can get past that hurdle, certain pleasures await you between the covers of this novel, though you should know from the start that a sex scene with the composer is not one of them. The book's concept is catchy: narrator-heroine Liza Durbin, a New York City attorney, becomes possessed by the spirit of Franz Schubert while shopping in the shoe department at Nordstrom. A veteran of nothing more than childhood piano lessons, she suddenly elbows aside the pianist providing background music at the department store and plays with authority and even genius.

In both style and structure, Sleeping with Schubert is pretty good, despite substantial drawbacks. The characterization is flabby; even our narrator never rises beyond spunky warm-hearted gal with uncontrollable hair. Her spoiled younger sister, fiber-artist mother and hot-blooded boyfriend are all stock characters. Schubert himself, who is permitted a few first-person lines in German at the end of occasional chapters, is a cipher with some strange nervous tics that he transmits to Liza. There is, however, plenty of plot to keep those pages turning. Suffice it to say that Liza becomes a concert pianist complete with Carnegie Hall debut and European tour. She also begins to take dictation from Franz and produces several new works. Author Bonnie Marson adroitly manages to create more suspense ...