Monday, January 11, 2010

Two Musicians and the Wife Who Isn't - a new novel by Taipei resident Syd Goldsmith

Two Musicians and the Wife Who Isn't

a new novel by Taipei resident Syd Goldsmith

COMING SOON TO A BOOKSTORE OR INTERNET ORDER SITE NEAR YOU!

About the author

Syd Goldsmith’s writing flows from multiple careers. Musician, diplomat, management consultant, and entrepreneur, his zest to have a go at everything has led him to taste life in some thirty countries. Much of this international adventure has been as the flutist of “Five Hundred Years of Romances for Flute and Guitar,” which performed on every continent except Antarctica and recorded for Klavier Records.

As a diplomat, Syd served mostly in South America and Asia. Early on, he survived the Cultural Revolution in communist China by convincing Red Guards he was not a spy. Later, as the unofficial U.S. Consul General in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, he played a bit part in Taiwan’s transformation from a marshall law dictatorship to the first ever democracy in an ethnically-Chinese nation -- TAIWAN!.

Syd returned to Asia after the USA Foreign Service, as a management consultant to Chinese state-owned and private companies as well as American multi-nationals. The most exciting assignment was a temporary stint running a Chinese footwear manufacturing conglomerate with 8,000 employees and factories in China, Thailand, and Taiwan. Then he was heavily involved in an internet startup as the dotcom bubble blew up in his face.


Syd sees his life as a series of survivals. As with any life, wonderful stories can emerge from the magic mix of experience and imagination. In his first novel, Jade Phoenix, the severed head of a chicken dooms a hero, a stroke of the pen shatters dreams of nationhood, and love blooms in a wilderness of misunderstanding. You can have it all by clicking here and taking it from there.


A native of New Jersey in the USA, Syd still lives in Taipei with his Taiwanese wife Hsiu-chen and their two children. "Two Musicians and the Wife Who Isn't" is his second novel.

3 comments:

DANIELBLOOM said...

This blog cannot reveal too much about the book until it is officially published by chapter one begins somewhat like this, just to whet your appetite:
-------------------

Sally Pendergast


''No Man Carries My Baggage ''



No man carries my baggage, so I travel real light. My guitar goes everywhere. It’s a Juan Carlos Marin, his best instrument. He put it in my hands when I was studying with Segovia in Spain. I never let it go. He loved me too. He said that Sally Pendergast is the best guitar talent of this generation. That’s me.

My soon to be ex-husband Michel....you know, the violinist Sevigny who was the first American to win a medal in the Tchaikovsky competition and hates the fact that his real name is Michael Schwartz. He used to carry the guitar for me sometimes, but he bitched just getting it from the house to the car. I still can’t figure out why it took more than a year before I told him to fuck off and stop telling me that classical guitar isn’t a legitimate instrument.

I save my right hand for the guitar. The left hand hauls pretty much everything else I own since I walked out on Michel. It’s all stuffed into a duffel bag; purple concert dress, high heels for on stage, dungarees and a sweatshirt, a decent skirt and blouse. Don’t forget the underwear, especially the bras. The size I need for my petite figure is impossible to find. The way I’m built makes men drool whenever I lean over or take a deep breath.

There’s also the pair of sneakers I grabbed from the closet on the way out because the heel was coming off my flats. Had to take the makeup kit I hate, but I’ll need it if I ever get a TV gig. I also have a framed picture of me and Segovia playing duos in Seville. That goes everywhere too, like the guitar.

I really should have left the lace undies hanging on the doorknob for Michel to stick his nose into when he gets home. Outside of slave labor that’s all he ever wanted off of me. I was always generous about that, but can’t afford a new pair now. Charlotte Moorman can play Nam June Paik’s Opera Sextronique in the nude, get arrested for it and make a career as the topless cellist, but I have to perform in a concert dress for a pittance, and wear panties too. So those lace undies that Michel loved so much are also in my duffel bag, and he will have to make do without...

MORE IN THE BOOK. DO READ IT.

Anonymous said...

synopsis OF THE BOOK:

In “Two Musicians and the Wife Who Isn’t” a character named Vera
Prudhomme discovers herself while her husband and Sally Pendergast
romp towards stardom. Inspired by “The Poisonwood Bible” and
appealing to its readers, both musicians and wife voice their passions, their fears and their threatened relationships.

Lex Kennan is one of hundreds of conservatory-trained flutists
who did not get that coveted orchestra chair. He suffocates in both
government job security and marriage security, until he meets Sally at
the door of a musical soiree whose pain he wants to escape.

Sally has just left her abusive husband, a Tchaikovsky
Competition medalist who calls the guitar an illegitimate instrument
and drowns her out whenever they perform together. “Entr’Acte” binds
Lex and Sally together as a duo who want nothing less than shared
musical ecstasy on the concert stage.

Sally asks Lex to be her flutist on a European concert tour.
Vera knows that saying "no" means her husband and her new-found best
friend will detest her forever. The duo is wildly successful, but
Lex’s irate boss threatens his job. and Vera’s employer asks how Lex
can tour the world performing with Sally and not have an intimate
relationship. How much, or little, must they all sacrifice for their
dreams?

The duo basks in audience adulation and adventure in far-flung
locations such as the Salzburg Mozarteum, Suriname’s bush country and
Taiwan’s National Concert Hall. Yet Lex and Sally must face each
other -- and Vera -- as they contemplate Mozart’s bones and a
catastrophic accident which promises to destroy their music.

Vera is tempted by Dr. Cooper, Sally by a Venezuelan doctor who
tries to stitch together her severed nerves, and Lex by Graciela and
Lotus Blossom. Passion for music breaks and binds Lex, Vera and Sally
as they grapple with who they are when the performance stops.

DANIELBLOOM said...

reading the published book now, 250 pages, 70 chapters, each chapter told from the POV of the three main characters, SALLY, LEX and VERA - a real tour de force

BRAVO