The Time of Our Singing

Description

"Tout commence en 1939, lorsque Delia Daley et David Strom se rencontrent à un concert de Marian Anderson. Peut-on alors imaginer qu'une jeune femme noire épouse un juif allemand fuyant le nazisme? Et pourtant ... Leur passion pour la musique l'emporte sur les conventions et offre à leur amour un sanctuaire de paix où, loin des hurlements du monde et de ses vicissitudes, ils élèvent leurs trois enfants. Chacun d'eux cherche sa voix dans la grande cacophonie américaine, inventant son destin en marge des lieux communs : Jonah embrasse une prometteuse carrière de ténor, Ruth, la cadette, lutte aux côtés des Black Panthers, tandis que Joseph essaye, coûte que coûte, de préserver l'harmonie familiale. Peuplé de personnages d'une humanité rare, 'Le temps où nous chantions' couvre un demi-siècle d'histoire américaine, nous offrant, au passage, des pages inoubliables sur la musique." [Source : 4e de couv.]

First Sentence

In some empty hall, my brother is still singing.

Description

"On Easter Day, 1939, at Marian Anderson's epochal concert on the Washington Mall, David Strom, a German Jewish emigre scientist, meets Delia Daley, a young Philadelphia Negro studying to be a concert singer. Their mutual love of music draws them together, and - against all odds, advice, and better judgment - they marry. They vow to raise their offspring beyond time, beyond race, beyond belonging, steeped in song. But their three children, the unwitting subjects of this experiment, must survive America's brutal here and now." "Jonah, Joseph and Ruth grow up during the early Civil Rights era, come of age in the riot-torn 1960s, and live out their adulthoods through the racially retrenched late century. Jonah, the eldest, "whose voice could make heads of state repent," pursues a life devoted to his parents' beloved classical music. Ruth, the youngest, chooses a path of militant activism and repudiates the white culture her brother represents. Joseph, the middle child and the narrator of this far-ranging, multigenerational tale, struggles to remain loyal to both siblings. As a polarized America threatens to tear the family apart, only their deep, shared love of song stands any hope of preserving them."--Jacket.

Subjects

Genres

• Fiction.

Other Editions

• The Time of Our SingingFarrar, Straus, and Giroux2003-01-01
• The time of our singingFarrar, Straus and Giroux2002-01-01
• Time of Our SingingHeinemann2003-01-01
• The Time of Our SingingFarrar, Straus and Giroux2003-01-01
• The Time of Our SingingPaperbackPicador2004-01-01
• Der Klang der ZeitTaschenbuchFischer Taschenbuch Verlag2007-10-01