Why did I write The Nightingale’s Sonata? In the opening pages of the book, I give one answer.  My mother had entrusted to me a beautiful silver podstakannik or tea-glass holder with an enameled portrait of my two uncles as children.  My family had smuggled it out of Russia and eventually my mother passed it on to me along with boxes of family material. She had said, “You must tell the family story.” I promised I would.

But I had another reason for writing the book. . . .

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