The Big Music

Presented as a bundle of found papers, notes and appendices arranged by an editor, the novel follows the Sutherland family of the Grey House, generations of pipers and composers of piobaireachd, the classical music of the Highland bagpipe. John Sutherland left home young to get away from his father and made his money in banking, but later came back and took up composing again. Now he is dying, and in a hut up in the hills he works on a tune that will sum up his life. Around him are his estranged son Callum in London, the housekeeper Margaret, and Helen, the daughter he had with her and never acknowledged. The book is built like a piobaireachd, and its footnotes explain the music, the land and the house.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

United Kingdom

First published

2012

Author's age

52 when first published

ISBN

9780571282333 (Faber & Faber, United Kingdom)

9780571282340 (Faber & Faber, United Kingdom)