NocturnesFive Stories of Music and Nightfall

Ishiguro turns his finely tuned ear to the theme of music — sweet harmony ensues Known for his indelible and finely drawn characters — a British butler (The Remains of the Day), a cloned organ donor (Never Let Me Go), an aging painter (An Artist of the Floating World) — Kazou Ishiguro makes his first published stab at short fiction with Nocturnes, and like much of his past work, Nocturnes is narrated in the first person — or, in this case, first persons. Here we have a withered American singer; an expatriate E.F.L. professor; a disillusioned young guitarist; a saxophonist recovering from plastic surgery; and a mesmerizing imposter of a cellist. These narrators are all at once nostalgic and alarmingly candid; Ishiguro's talent for pitch-perfect vernacular becomes especially harmonious when applied to the theme of music.

Each of the five thematically-linked stories, as the subtitle suggests, focuses on "music and nightfall." Appropriately, the stories are arranged to allow for an especially euphonic reading: characters reappear, locations are revisited, motifs are cyclical. Every story has a cadence and rhythm that exposes the inevitable disappointment so often stoked by musical aspiration and idealism. Though the short story is a divergence in form for Ishiguro, each thematic iteration feels decidedly his own.