The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt

Whilst the concept of an octogenarian making a come-back at a music festival provides an interesting opening, I found the story hard to get into. This and Helena (Lena) meeting with Maureen (Mo) Patterson took 10% of the book.

the next part which sees Lena through her school days is when I was captivated by the quality of the writing. the period from 1910 to the early 1920s is set in Western Australia.

From here the tale is told in two timeframes. Alternating between Lena's story of her life in the Far East and in Sydney. Then sections about her modern life from the viewpoint of her making the documentary with Mo Patterson.

During her early days in Sydney Lena meets Beatrix Carmichael, an artist. She also learns about the new instrument called a theramin. Both become a significant part of her life.

I like the way the novel accurately incorporates references to real events such as the building and opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Less tangible events such as the depression and 1930s bohemian era are also knitted into the story.

I must avoid spoiling the book. Suffice to say it has moments of tenderness, moments of sadness. A very enjoyable read. I will look forward to future novels by Tracy Farr.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher Gallic books, Aardvark Bureau for a copy to review.

What a thing of beauty this novel is, especially impressive for a debut. Fictional account of a life characterized by music and sadness that's sure to move even a heart of stone. Life long enough, public enough becomes in its own way a part of history and a lens to witness history through. In this particular case it was interesting to read about pre, during and post war Sydney. The narrative, though, is the real star here, and Farr, much like an eponymous expert thereminist herself, does a terrific job of manipulating emotions from a distance of a page. Lovely book. Highly recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

This was really engaging; unusual and original - it made me look up the theremin online and watch videos of it being played! The main character was fascinating and it was great to read about a time in Australian history I knew almost nothing about. The mood overall was elegiac and the writing deft, Farr doesn't do sentimental, but I was left with that satisfying sadness you get at the end of a weepie. Her way with visuals is also really impressive; I would definitely try another by this author.

A quiet gem of a novel, "The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt" follows the story of a celebrated musician who has never mixed her personal life with her public persona. When a documentary filmmaker asks the eighty-something Gaunt to take part in an upcoming project, Gaunt finds herself revisiting long-ago loves and losses. Farr is a vivid, evocative writer, with a gift for creating imagery from words. She brings Lena Gaunt to life.

What an interesting novel. I got thoroughly engrossed in Lena's story and found it very moving.

Lena Gaunt is first a cellist, then is introduced to the theramin on which she becomes an expert player. At an advanced age, now Dame Lena Gaunt, she is asked to play at The Transformer Festivall. Made of wire, wood and glass, the theramin was at the forefront of the electronic music stage sixty years earlier.

Lena looks back over her life, and indeed her loves, with real nostalgia for the past.

There are aspects of her past that have never become public knowledge, and you feel her wish to cherish these memories and keep them to herself.

Well written and enjoyable.

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Beautiful and engaging book about a musician looking back on her life. You can feel, hear and become part of the different countries she describes. Fabulous.

An extremely well written fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt.
A debut novel from Tracy Farr but so well accomplished. It's lyrical style takes us from Lena's childhood in Malacca to Perth and Sydney. It tells of the passionate relationship with Beatrix Carmichael and their love of the sea. There are also many intriguing characters who interweave into Lena's life.
Definitely a must read.

There is something special about the character of Lena Gaunt that I strongly connected to. On the surface she and I have nothing in common. She’s a ninety year old musician living in a small cottage in a suburb of Perth, Australia. Her specialty is playing the theremin or the aetherphone which is a special electronic instrument controlled without physical contact. Even at her elderly age she still performs in concerts and then retires to her quarters to smoke opium. She’s an eccentric character who narrates the story of her colourful life from early days in Singapore to her affair with a famous artist to the peaks and troughs of her musical fame. What’s so entrancing and sympathetic about Lena is her intensely felt dialogue with herself: “I could connect – but with myself, in a closed circuit.” There is an element of unashamedly clear independence about her life which is beautifully admirable. She is defined more by her relationship to the creative process than to other people. This makes Lena an inspiration and a joy to read about.

As the title suggests, this book is also about the people Lena loves. It’s difficult for her to connect with others mainly because she’s more interested in her music. Her childhood is spent mostly in solitude. She feels little connection to her parents, but strikes a stronger bond with her Uncle Valentine who inspires her interest in music. It’s fantastic to read about a character who creates her own family units rather than remaining confined into the one she was born into. She’s drawn more to outsiders than those who tread a safe and conservative path. So there is her uncle who takes her to an opium den, a painter named Trix who takes her to a queer bar called The Buzz Room, a large Russian cellist who recognizes her musical talent and a woman living by the ocean who provides steady company. Her companions are few, but carefully chosen. There is a great love of her life who she forges a strong romantic connection to: “every night, as we held each other, curved into one another, we cared not what the world thought of us. We were entire, within ourselves. Perfect.” Their relationship is sincerely felt and very touching.

Although these relationships are extremely intimate, she has a closer and more long-lasting relationship to her music and, by extension, to the elements of the world around her. For her, the rumblings of life are interpreted as a kind of music to her ears so that the sound of the sea roar is “basso profondo” and the engines of a ship beat “lentissimo.” In a more low-key sense, this sort of “music of the environment” reminds me so strongly of the Anna Smaill’s inventive novel “The Chimes.” However, this is a novel driven more by voice and its Lena’s personality that steers it. Inspired to reflect on her past by an ardent documentary film maker who persistently calls on her, Lena recounts the story of her life moving back and forth in time. For her “Time is all over the place, like a madwoman’s breakfast.” Like all great storytellers, all I wanted to do was pull up a chair and ardently listen for as long as she wanted to talk. This is Tracy Farr’s debut novel and it’s impressive that she’s created such an assured and compellingly voiced narrator who feels fully realized. “The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt” is an absolute pleasure to read.

This book is written in the style of a memoir, although it is completely fictional, and I found myself on many occasion "feeling" as though Lena was a real person and this was a true story. This is the kind of story that gets into your bones and stays with you long after you have finished the book.

I am surprised at how much I really enjoyed this book, as this isn't something that I would normally be drawn to, but Farr drew me right in and I was instantly captivated by Lena's life. Although I could figure out what was going to happen (especially with Trix and Grace), it didn't stop me from devouring the pages and enjoying every second.

I would highly recommend this story, especially if you are looking for something a little bit different.

Tracy Farr’s delightful, fascinating debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt: musician, octogenarian, puffer of exotic substances. It was one of my Top 5 Fiction Reads of 2015.

Lena went from a background of playing traditional instruments to becoming a modern musician, being the first theremin player of the twentieth century, an intriguing instrument played through movement but without the musicians hands actually touching the instrument.

From its opening pages where we experience Lena's daily routine, her strong pull to the sea, The memory of music in her bones, it becomes a book that grows on you until it becomes unputdownable.

"I move my arms in wide arcs in front of me, pushing water out to the sides and back again. I can feel the stretch in my shoulders, the tendons tense and twist. Bubbles form up my arms and, trapped in the tiny pale hairs, tickling like the bead in champagne. Moving my fingers in the water effects tiny changes in the waves that effect bigger movements. Action at a distance; just like playing the theremin."

Lena Gaunt was an only child, born in Singapore, spending a solitary childhood in the tropics before being sent "back Home" her parents called it, alone to Australia where her Uncle deposited her at a private boarding school, at four-years of age. She became closer to her bachelor Uncle Valentine than her parents, who were distant, not just physically, but emotionally and who died before any change in their relationship might manifest.

Lena played the piano, but her first true love was the cello, one of her few regrets, that in taking up the theremin, the instrument she would become most well-known for, she stopped playing the cello.

After an unsuccessful visit to her father in Malacca (Malaysia) at 18, one where he had hoped to groom her into the demure, music playing, after dinner entertainment for his friends, a night walk into the seedier parts of the town, where she stumbles across her Uncle and her father's business partner in an opium den, has her sent back to Australia, willingly and to the beginning of a life she will create anew.

"It had taken little for me to disappoint my father, but in truth, he too had disappointed me. Father, home, family; empty words, without meaning for me."

She is introduced to and practices cello with Madame Vita Petrova, the eccentric, vodka and coffee drinking Russian with a unique ear and skill for the cello, not found in the more conservative establishments. It is her first encounter with the artistic and musical misfits, a bohemian community with whom she is more comfortable and will become part of.

It is through Madame Petrova she hears of the Professor, the man who introduces her to the instrument, the Music's Most Modern Instrument, she will play for the world, the theremin.

"played by the waving of hands, like conducting an orchestra. It is played without the player touching it, not with a bow, nor by blowing. It is neither wind nor string, brass nor percussion."

In Sydney, she meets Beatrix Carmichael, a painter/artist twice her age who becomes her constant companion, a part of who she is, one who really sees her. As Beatrix paints the two sides of the Sydney Harbour Bridge coming together on her canvases, from the verandah of their home, it feels so real, and yet there is a sense of the end of an era, as the subject becomes less intriguing on completion.

"We celebrated it, this joining of the city, the coming together, and yet Trix mourned it too. Since her return from Europe, since her arrival in Sydney, she'd been painting the growing bridge in parts, separate; in fragmented shapes formed of light and colour and sun and music."

The novel follows Lena's long, engaging life, and each turn of events that takes her away from the familiar until finally she returns to the place that most feels like home, where she plays one last performance and will meet the young filmmaker Mo, who provokes her into completing the life story she began to record many years before.

As the filmmaker questions Lena Gaunt about her life before the performance she had just given (in her eighties), the narrative flashes back to her past, her isolated childhood, boarding school, separation from family, visits by Uncle Valentine, the piano, the cello, musical influences, her life with Beatrix, making her remember it all, even the painful memories she had hoped never to re-encounter.

It is a fascinating story, a mix of fact and fiction, one that Tracy Farr succeeds in bringing alive through the places Lena visits and lives in, the people we encounter, the music that is made, the images that are painted and the heartbreaking losses she must sustain.

To be honest, the first few pages didn’t grab me and I began to wonder what I was going to be able to say, especially when I was introduced to the ‘Theramin’, one of the first electric musical instruments, invented by Leon Theramin, a Russian, in 1920. Yes, this instrument actually existed and full details can be found on Google. There is even a link to You Tube and film of Theramin playing the instrument. Once I understood what was being written about I found myself drawn into the story and the beguiling character of Lena.

This book is about the sometimes difficult and always eventful life of Lena Gaunt, who is taken as a baby to Malaya by her parents, and who after a near tragedy in 1914, at the age of four, is sent to Boarding School in Australia under the wing of her Uncle Valentine. Lena has a gift for music and starts at school with the piano, then moving to what will be her first love, the cello.

Lena is indulged by her Uncle whose lifestyle is ‘arty’ and Avant garde. It is a time of smoking (for one’s health!), casual drug taking, homosexuality and life lived in the fast lane. Whilst it is never openly stated, the assumption is that Valentine is a homosexual.

When Lena’s Mother dies, she and Uncle Valentine travel to Malaya where her father expects her to take up the reins and housekeep for him. She is also encouraged to play her cello for guests. But Lena feels trapped and unhappy, and takes to solitary walks at night until she unwittingly enters an exotic men’s club where she encounters Uncle Valentine and her father’s business partner. Lena is sent back to Australia in disgrace for having ruined her father’s reputation, and so begins her adult life.

The story is about relationships, with music, with instruments, with art and with people, mostly in that heady period between the wars. I found myself with full visual images of the characters and the lives they inhabit; I could see Lena, Valentine and the other characters as clearly as I see my friends. Thus the book wormed its way into my affections and I couldn’t put it down.

Farr writes with great confidence and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys something a bit different. It gets under your skin, and even having finished the book and moved on to another, I find myself drawn back to Lena and her life. Pashtpaws

The imaginary autobiography of Lena Gaunt is a wonderful read, and a great first novel from Tracy Farr.

Told as a first person narrative it tells the life of Helena Gaunt, known as Lena Gaunt to everyone, from her early years in Malacca, Malaysia, school in Western Australia, and her return to Malacca upon the death oh her mother. It then follows her burgeoning musical career and personal life through Sydney and onto Dunedin, New Zealand, which ends with the death of one of the few people she truly loves. There are then periods in Western Australia during WWII and onto Europe, ending with a second round of “fame” in the UK and USA.

Lena’s musical career is all based upon an instrument called a Theremin, which I had never heard of, but is an actual electrical instrument developed in the 1920’s and still in use today, in a modified form – loads of information on the internet about it.

The secondary characters in the novel are interesting in their own right and include Trix, Uncle Valentine and Gus, all of who add to the narrative of the story.

Told in parallel with the main story is that of Mo, a filmmaker, who wants to make a documentary about Lena’s life. These two stories inter-wine with each other and are a good mechanism for driving the story.

The writing is gentle, lyrical and beautiful, and I loved it from the start. This is not a book solely for ladies, though I’m sure more ladies than men will read it. Anyone who does not grab a copy and read it, is missing out on a great story and a wonderful read.

This is one of those introspective books, a first person narrative of a woman in her eighties , a passionate pioneer musician, still grieving in old age over the losses of loved ones . It's a sad story in so many ways but yet it celebrates the life of Lena Gaunt. Who is this Lena Gaunt? This is a novel, but what is told here and how it is told, makes you believe you are reading a true memoir .

I couldn't help but think that Lena Gaunt was a real person or at the very least she was based on a real person. In an interview on the publisher's website , the author tells us that she saw a documentary of Clara Rockmore , a renown theremin player and that Rockmore was a "starting point rather than a model " for Lena . Still I felt like she was real , a testament to the writing for sure . Even Beatrix Carmichael , the love of Lena's life is not based on any one particular artist.

The theremin is an instrument I had never hear of and I found it so intriguing that one could play an instrument without touching it . Lena too became intrigued. As a little girl everything is music to Lena and the beautiful descriptive writing has a tone of its own . Lena is a prodigy, obsessed with music from childhood. She is separated from her parents for 12 years when she is sent "home" to Australia from Singapore at 4 years old and to a boarding school . She would have led a lonely childhood but for her Uncle Valentine who fosters her love of music and is the only family she really knows .

From Singapore to Australia to Malacca to New Zealand to Paris and St. Ives and back to Australia , from 4 years old to her eighties , Lena takes us through her joys in life - her music , her Beatrix and her daughter, Grace . She takes us through the grief of loss and the passion of her music . It's a rather slow moving story and you won't find much action if that is what you are looking for , but you will find a beautifully written story of Lena Gaunt's life and loves .

Thanks to Gallic Books and NetGalley.

I had never heard of a theramin so I googled it and was so intrigues by this little known device that I had to read this book after I had listened to the music. It’s like an orchestra conducted by a single person. Lean was sent away to school as a child in Australia. Although her parents were emotionally and physically distant she develops a relationship with her Uncle that introduces her to a seedier side of life. As she develops her musical career she discovers the theramin and it becomes her passion. The story that is told is of a unique woman who made her mark on an obscure part of history and danced to her own music. Great Read. I would like to thank the publisher and Net Galley for the chance to read this ARC.

This is a very different book to any I have read before and I thoroughly enjoyed it. it was hard to believe that Lena gaunt was a fictional character, she seemed so real. It was a fascinating story giving insight into the art and music scene in at the beginning of the 20th century around the world. I loved the ending, I couldn't see her having a long drawn out illness but a lovely slipping away suited her totally.

Octogenarian Lena Gaunt reflects on her life as an experimental musician, wildchild and lover. Her first love was the cello, but then came the theremin – an electronic instrument that would see her rise to almost celebrity status. And then came Beatrix… As Lena starts to recount her life for a documentary, she finds her memories resurfacing and the walls she’s built up around her starting to crumble away.

Good read. Liked the characters and story flow. Couldn't put it down. Had me from start to finish. Recommend reading. Given copy by NetGalley for honest review.

I would have to agree with other reviewers who noted that this title grows on you. I had a tough time getting through the first several chapters but found myself immersed in Lena's story as the book progressed. Lena is a musician who becomes semi-famous for her talent on the theremin. She's also an 80 year old junkie. Filmmaker Mo approaches Lena and encourages her to share her story with the world. Lena is hesitant at first but finally opens up to Mo allowing the reader to feel like they are traveling along with Lena through the the trials of her life as one of the world's foremost theremin artists. Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for the opportunity to review this title. The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt isn't something I would have normally picked up on my own so I am grateful for the opportunity to have enjoyed it.

Thank you for sending me this title. I'm afraid I never had a chance to read it so I won't be reviewing it now sorry. Thanks anyway