A stunning collection of interconnected stories set in New
England, exploring how the past is often misunderstood and how history, family,
heartache, and desire can echo over centuries
In twelve luminous stories set across three centuries, The History of
Sound examines the unexpected ways the past returns to us and how love and
loss are entwined and transformed over generations. In Ben Shattuck's ingenious
collection, each story has a companion story, which contains a revelation about
the previous, paired story. Mysteries and murders are revealed, history is
refracted, and deep emotional connections are woven through characters and
families.
The haunting title story recalls the journey of two men who meet around a piano
in a smoky, dim bar, only to spend a summer walking the Maine woods collecting
folk songs in the shadow of the First World War, forever marked by the odyssey.
Decades later, in another story, a woman discovers the wax cylinders recorded
that fateful summer while cleaning out her new house in Maine. Shattuck’s
inventive, exquisite stories transport readers from 1700s Nantucket to the
contemporary woods of New Hampshire and beyond—into landscapes both enduring
and unmistakably modern. Memories, artifacts, paintings, and journals resurface
in surprising and poignant ways among evocative beaches, forests, and orchards,
revealing the secrets, misunderstandings, and love that linger across
centuries.
Shattuck, Ben. (2024). The History of Sound. New York: Viking. 
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