The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt (häftad, eng)

Longlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Literary Award

Tracy Farr’s acclaimed debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt: musician, octogenarian, junkie.

''Compelling reading'' The Listener 

I hold one regret from that day: that I put my first love, my cello, aside.

But it was to take up a bigger love, a greater thing; it was to step into the future. Music''s Most Modern Instrument. And I was to become Music''s Most Modern Musician.

Tracy Farr''s debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt: musician, octogenarian, junkie.

Documentary filmmaker Mo Patterson approaches veteran musician Lena Gaunt after watching her play at a festival in Perth: her first performance in 20 years.

While initially suspicious of Mo''s intentions and reluctant to have her privacy invaded, Lena finds herself sharing stories from her past.

From a solitary childhood in Malacca and a Perth boarding school, to a glittering career in Jazz-age Sydney, to quiet domesticity in a New-Zealand backwater, Lena''s is a life characterized by the pull of the sea, the ebb and flow of passion and loss, and her enduring relationship with that extraordinary instrument, the theremin.