Sonata in Wax

As the Great War rages, a French pianist sits down to play a breathtakingly original sonata--a piece so strange and inspired that it could change the course of classical music. The moment is captured on wax cylinders, the recording medium of the day. But in the tumult of war the fragile cylinders vanish, and with them the identity of the brilliant composer and the virtuoso pianist.

A century later, five timeworn wax cylinders land on the desk of Ben Weil, a revered classical music producer. From the moment he first plays them in his Chicago studio, Ben knows he’s in the presence of genius. The dazzling piece is years ahead of its time, more Coltrane than Debussy--how could it be?

Brought low by a painful divorce, Ben throws himself into unlocking the sonata’s mysteries. But when a renowned pianist stumbles upon the work and takes credit for unearthing it, he’s swept into a lie that could shatter his reputation and his private life at a stroke. Somehow Ben must find a way to tell the truth--a dangerous quest that will lead him not only to the sonata’s surprising origins, but to his own.

Edward Hamlin’s story collection Night in Erg Chebbi and Other Stories was selected by Pulitzer Prize finalist Karen Russell as winner of the 2015 Iowa Short Fiction Award and went on to win the Colorado Book Award. Over the past few years Edward’s work has won the Nelson Algren Award, the Nelligan Prize, the NCW Short Story Prize and a Top of the Mountain Novel Prize.