The Song of Hartgrove Hall

 

The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons

Fiction

2015

Finished on April 23, 2025

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

A captivating novel that evokes the author’s New York Times bestseller The House at Tyneford.

Fox, as the celebrated composer Harry Fox-Talbot is known, wants to be left in peace. His beloved wife has died, he's unable to write a note of music, and no, he does not want to take up some blasted hobby. Then one day he discovers that his troublesome four-year-old grandson is a piano prodigy. The music returns and Fox is compelled to re-engage with life - and, ultimately, to confront an old family rift. Decades earlier, Fox and his brothers return to Hartgrove Hall after the war, determined to save their once grand home from ruin. But on the last night of 1946, the arrival of beautiful wartime singer Edie Rose tangles the threads of love and duty, which leads to a shattering betrayal. With poignancy, lyricism and humour, Natasha Solomons tells a captivating tale of passion and music, of roots, ancient songs and nostalgia for the old ways, of the ties that bind us to family and home and the ones we are prepared to sever. Here is the story of a man who discovers joy and creative renewal in the aftermath of grief and learns that it is never too late to seek forgiveness.

The Song of Hartgrove is a lovely story set in post-war England, spanning over sixty years. I enjoyed both timelines equally well, but especially liked the current day chapters that center around Harry's relationship with his young grandson, Robin. Solomons' detailed descriptions of home and countryside bring to mind those of Rosamunde Pilcher, of whom I'm quite fond. Solomon touches also on the tenderness of a long-lived marriage, and the grief that follows the loss of a spouse:

I lay awake all night before our first lesson, wishing that I could talk it through with Edie. When she was alive, I would store up the trivial details of my day to tell her. They hadn't needed to be interesting. After a lifetime together, it's not one's great passions that create intimacy; it's not the mutual love of Beethoven or Italian wine, but ordinary things. Without her, when I heard the first cuckoo of spring I had no one to tell. I found that sapphire earring she lost in '93 and that we claimed for the insurance. It was wedged inside the lining of a cufflink box. No one else would be interested, nor should they be, but Edie would have been tickled. I didn't mention these things to anyone but the truth is that it's these bric-a-brac moments that make up a shared life. The grand events: the births of one's children, their first day at school or singing my first recording contract with Decca--these shine a little brighter, but they are only a tiny proportion of one's life together; a handful of stars in the night sky. It was the mundane, frankly the dull things I missed the most. I missed not talking to her over breakfast. We'd ignored one another over toast and morning coffee with great pleasure for nearly fifty years.

It's been several years since I read The House at Tyneford, which I loved despite my disappointing encounter with her previous novel, Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English. In my current endeavor to read more backlist titles by some of my favorite authors, I can now add more books by Natasha Solomons to my TBR list.

Recommend.