The long descriptions of violence, hatred, and inhumanity feel overwhelming. But it is also an amazing story of persistence, grace, and a will to live.
Extraordinary ... de Bastion, herself an accomplished singer-songwriter, has Stephen de Bastion’s voice, recorded on numerous cassette tapes, gravelly, rumbling, and occasionally playing his original music. So powerful is this voice that she sometimes finds herself having conversations with her unseen grandfather, as though he were in the room. And her skill is allowing the reader to have such conversations, too.
Like all family historians, Roxanne de Bastion wishes she had paid more attention, asked more and remembered better. But The Piano Player of Budapest tells us that the handing down of stories is complex. Through her grandfather’s terrible ordeals she sees her father more fully.
A most moving, memorable memoir that expertly incorporates sensory details. Readers will be able to easily envision de Bastion’s grandfather, his love of music and great talent for it, his strength and resilience during the war, and the power of his music to keep him alive.
In an atmospheric touch, de Bastion utilizes the family’s piano, which miraculously survived the Holocaust, as a vector for Stephen’s emotional experience ... This strikes a moving and melancholy note.
