Pentatonic cover art

Pentatonic

A Story of Music

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Pentatonic

By: Jonathan Coe
Narrated by: Jonathan Coe
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About this listen

Pentatonic, written and read by Jonathan Coe, is a daring and original story about family and memory, originally inspired by the accompanying music from Danny Manners.

When a family celebrates the prize-giving day at their daughter's secondary school, thoughts turn to their own childhoods. The father remembers his living room piano recital, recorded on a well-worn cassette tape. The mother remembers her own father's war tragedy. As the father searches for the physical reminder of his past and the mother longs to forget her own, they confront the breakdown of their marriage in the present.

In Pentatonic, Jonathan Coe movingly explores the memories that unite us and the experiences that drive us apart.

This story is also available as a Penguin ebook.

Text by Jonathan Coe
Music by Danny Manners
Produced by Ken Brake at Regal Lane Studios

Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

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Critic reviews

Coe has huge powers of observation and enormous literary panache
Jonathan Coe's a fine writer who seems to try something new with every book (David Nicholls)
There are bits that make you laugh out loud and others which make your heart ache
No reviews yet