Anyone who has ever created something or pursued a passion knows that sometimes you hit that flow and nothing else in the world exists. What you’re doing is the best thing there is and it fills you with everything you need.
Anyone who has ever created something or pursued a passion also knows that it can be the MOST SOUL CRUSHING THING IN THE WORLD. That you’re never good enough, that you’ll never be good enough, that it’s all just a fleeting sort of thing that you get lucky at doing well once in a while. You struggle with being true and honest to yourself, while you’re putting something out there to be consumed by others in some capacity.
Zarr’s novel The Lucy Variations is about that.
Lucy is a champion pianist and has been her entire life. It runs in her family’s blood. She’s talented, she’s made the rounds of the world performing, and people know who she is. Her grandpa and her mother have given her every single opportunity to pursue this talent and they helped groom her so that she has a world-class reputation.
Up until eight months ago, she went along with the game. She was happy — or at least thought she was. But when she’s in Prague on a big stage and she learns that her family has been keeping her sick grandmother’s condition from her, she leaves. She gets up, doesn’t perform, and walks onto the streets of Prague. Her grandmother, who had given her the kind of unconditional love and confidence she needed, was dying and her family kept this from her because to them, her performance was more important. It’s then that her grandfather, the patriarch of the family and of the performance gene all together, says she’s done. That Lucy can never perform again.
She’d disgraced the entire family by failing to perform, and she could not come back.
Lucy accepts this fate until the long-time piano teacher she and her brother Gus shared dies in their home. Lucy tried to save her, but the teacher was gone before she could. When grandpa and mother come back to their home to a dead teacher, it’s no big deal. They have her body taken away and immediately look for a new teacher for Gus, so that he can continue on his track to be the next big performer himself. The death of the long-time teacher can’t get in the way of him being at his best. Will enters their lives and while he’s a good teacher to Gus, he’s really interested in helping Lucy come back around to playing. He doesn’t pressure her, but he simply asks if she’d ever consider playing again. It’s that simple question of whether or not she’d consider playing again — whether or not LUCY would consider playing again — that sets the entire story into motion.
This is a question Lucy never considers for herself. Because she was told she couldn’t. Her grandfather said it was over for her and there was no going back. But Lucy does consider it, and she decides she does want to play again. Except rather than play for an audience and rather than play for the praise and glory that she did in the past, Lucy wants to play for herself. She wants to relearn what it’s like to love the thing she does and the thing that she has mad talent for. As simple as it sounds to reignite that passion, it is anything but. Will’s question forces Lucy to realize that playing should be something SHE chooses to do, a passion to which she dedicates HER time because it matters to HER.
For her life up until then, she never realized the power of ownership of talent, of skill, and how she can chose the course of the future for herself. Her grandpa and her mother had been owning it for her.
Complicating this are Lucy’s feelings toward other people. Whereas it’s easy to see how much she dislikes and even fears both her mother and her grandfather, what’s less clear is why she’s attached and attracted to Lit teacher and then Will. As the story progresses though, and we start to understand the complicated feelings Lucy has toward performance, we understand her feelings toward these two older men are simply projection of her desire to love and believe her art for herself in the way that these two mentors have done for her. Both have offered her the sort of support and confidence to go in the direction of her own interests and passions and desires in a way that no one else ever has. It’s not that easy to understand though because Will’s belief in Lucy is too much for her to take. He’s pulled strings, and he’s broken her trust when she opens up to him about wanting to play again. Will used his own connections in the industry to make sure that Lucy’s interest in piano again can be accommodated. That she can jump right back in where she left off. This is, she realizes, the last thing in the world she wants. She doesn’t want to be someone’s prodigy or someone else’s creation or prize. She wants to perform and play because she loves to do it. Because it brings her joy. Not because someone else simply believes she has the ability to go far with it.
Zarr excels at making her characters dynamic, and I appreciate how unashamed she is in making it clear that Lucy comes from privilege. Because rather than make it a way for the reader to dislike and resent Lucy, her inability to fully trust and love her own skills and talents at their own level makes her very relatable. No amount of money or resources can change how human the creative struggle is. This balances well with the grandfather, who is unlikable and sees art as nothing but a way to get ahead and make a name for oneself. It’s, of course, how his family came to have their reputation. Zarr furthers this through what seem like much tinier plot points, including Lucy’s regular lateness to class, which causes her Lit teacher to treat her not as a special snowflake, but as a student who is being disruptive and, well, privileged. And when Lucy has to confront this because she’s copied bits and pieces of her own teacher’s scholarship on Alice Munro for her class project, she has a huge awakening and ah ha moment about how MUCH privilege she really has had. No one just gets what they get; they have to work for it. Of course, that working for it is precisely the struggle and the purpose of the story.
The structure of The Lucy Variations is brilliant. It’s not entirely linear, but rather, it’s built like a symphony. It’s layered and complex, building to a high, then drawing back to a scene from the past. It mimics not just the way a song sounds and the way a song plays, but it precisely mimics the creative process and the struggle therein. It’s good when it’s good, and it’s ugly when it is ugly. This book is also written in third person, which removes the reader from the characters. But rather than be distancing, this choice is the right one. It makes the reader better understand Lucy’s struggle because it’s being explored almost objectively. And, of course, since creativity is anything BUT objective, it hits even harder. It’s up and down. It’s good and it’s bad. There is nothing objective about feelings and passions and desires. They’re dynamic.
The hardest thing to learn is to pursue something because you love it and not because someone else tells you that you’re good at it. And even during those times you know you’re good at it and you know you like it, there are periods when you question why and whether or not it’s all simply luck. Zarr nails these ups and downs and these challenges and rewards through Lucy. The Lucy Variations is a book I don’t think I’ll be forgetting any time soon because it spoke to my own heart. I think it’ll speak to the heart of anyone who has ever questioned why they’re doing something. Is it for yourself or is it for an audience? When do you push forward and when do you step back and say it’s time to move on.
Even though nothing particularly sad happens in the story — despite there being some sad moments — I welled up a couple of times because of how raw and tender the emotional and mental honesty is. What Lucy struggles with is something that never goes away, but it’s something you come to accept and honor as part of creating and living. Zarr cuts to the core of what it means to BE.
The Lucy Variations is DAMN good. This book will resonate with fans of strong contemporary novels that explore the arts and family relationships. Sarah Ockler fans and fans of Siobhan Vivian will find much to enjoy in Zarr’s latest, as will Zarr’s already-devoted readership.
Review copy received from the publisher. The Lucy Variations will be available May 7, and we’ll have an interview with Sara Zarr next week.
