Pentatonic

Pentatonic

A Story of Music

Summary

Pentatonic, written and read by Jonathan Coe, is a daring and original story about family and memory, originally inspired by the accompanying music from Danny Manners.

When a family celebrates the prize-giving day at their daughter's secondary school, thoughts turn to their own childhoods. The father remembers his living room piano recital, recorded on a well-worn cassette tape. The mother remembers her own father's war tragedy. As the father searches for the physical reminder of his past and the mother longs to forget her own, they confront the breakdown of their marriage in the present.

In Pentatonic, Jonathan Coe movingly explores the memories that unite us and the experiences that drive us apart.

This story is also available as a Penguin ebook.

Text by Jonathan Coe
Music by Danny Manners
Produced by Ken Brake at Regal Lane Studios

Reviews

  • Coe has huge powers of observation and enormous literary panache
    Sunday Times

About the author

Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Coe was born a few miles from Bournville in 1961. The author of political satires such as Bournville, What a Carve Up! and Number 11, and family sagas such as The Rotters' Club and The Rain Before It Falls, his novels have won prizes at home and abroad, including Costa Novel of the Year and the Prix du Livre Européen (both for Middle England).
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