Music from a Distant Room
by Stephanie Johnson

• Auckland City Libraries, New Zealand

Publisher of Nominated Edition
Vintage RHNZ ISBN 1869416171

"I'll give you his beginning, and then you can tell me his ending. In exchange."

A fortnight after jazz pianist Carl Tyler's funeral, Tamara has one week before she leaves New Zealand to return to her native Chicago. Nola wants to solve the mystery of her son's death, to know everything Tamara knows, so she begins to tell Carl's lover about her son's conception, his childhood and his early love of music, in the hope that Tamara will remember.

Music from a Distant Room is a book about how memory can shape our lives, about story-telling, fate, forgiveness and the search for meaning in loss.

Stephanie Johnson is the author of five other novels, two collections of short stories, two volumes of poetry and five stage plays. She has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Deutz Medal for Fiction in the Montana Book Awards,for The Shag Incident, The Bruce Mason Memorial Playwright's Award, the Auckland University Fellowship and the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship. Stephanie is the co-founder and co-creative director of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.