UB Libraries Book Group discussion
This topic is about
Every Note Played
January 2019
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Every Note Played
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From Carol Fitzgerald's Bookreporter.com newsletter on Feb. 22, 2019:Lisa Genova’s EVERY NOTE PLAYED, which recently released in paperback, is the February pick for Simon & Schuster’s Book Club Favorites program. S&S will host a Facebook Live Book Club chat about the book this Wednesday, February 27th at 5pm ET. Lisa will be participating via the comments section on Facebook and taking your questions. And I am excited to be joining the conversation as well! I am a huge fan of Lisa’s work (in fact, every book of hers has been a Bets On pick), so I really am looking forward to this. She has brought clear insight into a number of neuroscience topics that I now understand better, including ALS, which she tackles here. Her characters are ones I think of often.
We will share the link to the discussion in its entirety in next week’s newsletter.
I just wanted to thank all those who were able to meet in person last week to discuss Every Note Played and thanks to Marlies for leading our discussion! For anyone who could not attend, I took a few notes about our discussion. Feel free to chime in!
Marlies went to see Lisa Genova speak at UB in December and had some interesting info to share:
In discussing her previous work, Genova mentioned that her research for Still Alice began with her desire to relate to her grandmother who had Alzheimers.
The main character in Every Note Played, Richard, was based on the author’s producer of the film Still Alice who developed ALS.
Marlies says that Genova spoke a lot about empathy and how essential that is when considering someone coping with an illness. We had a lot of discussion about the characters in this book (particularly Karina and Richard) and if/when we had empathy for them. I can’t remember who in the group said this but it stuck with me (in paraphrase): that in the beginning of Genova’s stories, we see her characters like we are meeting them in a coffee shop (shallow exposure to them, external) but later in the stories we are hearing their thoughts and understanding them by being within the character’s mind.
Other things we discussed: banking your voice, estrangement and reconciliation, the difficulties in being aware of your failing body (ALS) as opposed to the failing mind (Alzheimers).
Genova’s next book will be non-fiction about eidetic memory (photographic memory).
Thanks!