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Title: Us Conductors
Author: Sean Michaels
Narrator: Steve Coulter
Format: Unabridged
Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
Language: English
Release date: 07-07-15
Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Publisher's Summary:
Us Conductors is the story of the man who created the most magical musical instrument in the world, the theremin. It's a tale of electricity and espionage, jazz and kung-fu, Harlem and Siberia, and the way even doomed love can keep you alive. Locked in a cabin aboard a ship bearing him back to Russia and away from the love of his life, Lev Sergeyvich Termen begins to type his story: a tale of electricity, romance, and the invention of the world's strangest instrument, the theremin. He recollects his early years as a scientist forging breakthroughs during the Bolshevik Revolution and his decade as a Manhattan celebrity and reluctant Soviet spy. Against the backdrop of Prohibition and the 1929 crash, Termen spends his days in his workshop, devising inventions, and his nights in Harlem clubs, jostling with famous bandleaders and falling in love with the young violinist Clara Reisenberg. When the boat reaches his homeland, Termen finds it is not the Russia he remembers. He is imprisoned in the gulag system, sent first to a Siberian work camp and then to a secret laboratory. In the face of all this, his love for Clara remains constant, passing through the ether like the theremin's song. Steeped in beauty, wonder, and looping heartbreak, Sean Michaels' debut novel explores the lies we tell, the truths we imagine, and the lengths we go to to survive.
Members Reviews:
Worthy Winner of the Giller Prize
There are those among us who create. There are musicians and poets, performers and conductors, and scientists and engineers. Now one could ask, what is the best way to motivate these people to create? Is it money, love, or sex? Is it patriotic fervour? Or is it fear? Or does it depend on the world around us? These are some of the questions at the heart of this gripping novel that takes the reader from America in the Roaring '20s to much darker days in the Soviet Union as it follows the fictionalized life of a brilliant scientist who always manages to create under all circumstances and for all motivations. A fascinating read, although there are some surprising loose ends I could not understand, such as the (lack of) consequences following what happens to Danny Finch. Overall an excellent read, a well-crafted story and a worthy recipient of the Giller Prize.
Align your expectations
This novel, while based on the author's notes about being loosely based on Leon's actual life, reads like an enhanced biography. I think if you approach it more as a biography and not a pure fictional novel then you might have a more aligned expectation of the book. I enjoyed it very much but felt the end left something to be desired.
An unsettling fiction of the life of Lev Thermen. ...
An unsettling fiction of the life of Lev Thermen. The story is well written. But I was left with questions as to what parts of this story were possible true occurrences. The story is more of an account of this time in history.
Four Stars
Great combination of suspense, love story, and historical fiction. Very pleasurable to read.
Brilliant and original prose - Highly recommended.
This novel just won the prestigious Giller Prize and I can see why. The novel is about a real life Russian scientist who in the invented, among many other things, the Theremin, an early electronic musical instrument - a very cool device named after its inventor.
