How Music Helped Develop Me As a Writer: An Exclusive Guest Post From Michelle Hoffman, Author of The Second Ending, Our June Fiction Pick

By Michelle Hoffman / June 1, 2023 at 2:08 am

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The perfect summer read, this debut follows two talented musicians on a dueling piano show as they reclaim their love of music. Prudence is a former child star, known for her prodigious piano talent, who stepped away from the spotlight when she was old enough to be independent. Alexei is an exhausted young Internet sensation with helicopter parents who care only about his playing. Their stories harmonize with one another as they change the composition and their ending, and The Second Ending is certain to strike a chord with music lovers. Keep reading to hear how being a musician has impacted Michelle Hoffman as a writer.

Music was a big part of my life early on. I started formal piano lessons at the age of five. I could read music before I could read books. And maybe for that reason, music helped develop me as a writer. How the ticking of the metronome when I practiced scales lent a rhythm to my prose. How I grasped the shapes of stories through playing three-movement sonatas. How I learned to play without inhibition in order to give whatever piece I was playing emotional texture.

The house I grew up in was wired with speakers. Through a hi-fi in the living room, you could hear music from anywhere in the house. It was very avant-garde in the 1960’s. My parents would stack several albums on the turntable at once — Frank Sinatra, Herb Alpert, Tom Jones. Music could play for hours. Once a record finished, I’d run to watch the automatic arm drop the next one. We had two pianos — a baby grand in the living room and an old upright in the TV room that looked and sounded as if it had a former life in a saloon. I’d climb up to the keyboards to try and create the music my parents were always playing.

Now, when I listen to those songs, I’m gripped by nostalgia. I see the pale green living room where I’d read on empty Sunday afternoons. I see the courtyard where my mother planted colorful geraniums every spring. These indelible images made their way into The Second Ending. Through those songs, memories rose to the surface and settled onto the page and formed a scene: Stewart listens to Prudence playing Rachmaninoff’s “Eighteenth Variation on a Theme from Paganini.” He is instantly transported back to his childhood. There were lilac bushes fat with purple blooms and rows of bright geraniums that dotted flowerbeds like gumballs.

Or when Prudence plays “Claire de Lune” in the foyer of her home: She closed her eyes and saw images of pale green rooms on empty Sunday afternoons.

Rodrigo Garcia writes in his memoir how his famous father, Gabriel García Márquez, listened to Latin pop songs about lost and unrequited love while writing Love in the Time of Cholera. The songs not only lent an air of melodrama to his scenes, but he also studied the technique with how the songs evoked feelings.

Whether it’s Beethoven, Mozart, or Rachmaninoff, the composer is telling a story through his music. By tapping into my emotions when I play these magnificent pieces, I become part of the story. It’s how I want my readers to feel, I want to tap into their emotions so they feel as if they are part of the story. This novel is my love letter to music, how my lifelong relationship with it shaped me as a writer.

My favorite books that involve music: Miles: The Autobiography by Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe; Bel Canto by Anne Patchett; Jazz by Toni Morrison; The Commitments by Roddy Doyle; Every Good Boy Does Fine by Jeremy Denke.

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