Singing Into the Piano

While I usually don't buy the books I read, Ted Mooney's - Singing into the Piano makes me feel obligated to directly support the author's work. Give me more Ted! This erotic tale is both dark and luminous. It captures the essence of desperate, unshakable romance and explores the theme of borders >. The story begins in a New York ballroom where Santiago Diaz, candidate for the Mexican Presidency is scheduled to speak. At a table near the front a pair of educated and aroused gringo yuppies engage in digital love-making - a great distraction to the speaker. The narrator follows this pair who descend into a bachanal of public display, their mutually destructive and soul-binding fetish. Slowly their lives become intertwined with those of the presidential candidate and his fair wife. These are normal people with an unusual and, to me, evocative preoccupation with public sex. As a student of the Spanish language I could not help but be impressed by the seamless way in which Mr. Mooney interweaves these two languages. The author's frequent use of Spanish terminology serves to enrich and enliven the already vibrant text. (Some ideas are better expressed in a foreign language where the breadth of their meaning and depth of nuance is greater.) Never does he descend to the level of definition. To me his usages of Spanish words was intelligent and should be contextually understandable to even non-Spanish speaking readers. Mooney's style deserves emulation. Bravo! Ted Mooney drew me in. The story; its crisp pace and elegant imagery held my attention. But I found the conclusion somewhat less coherent and gripping than the novel in general. The characterization, from the outset excellent, seemed to diminish in quality toward the end. The plot takes a bizarre turn to Mexico (where Mooney's knowlege and references made me long to return) and towards the end of the novel... peters out. In the book's conclusion I believe Mooney's exploration of the 'borders' theme, the physical , the perceived, the imagined is a bit overt. But if I had to recommend one book to my friends, 20-something, educated, adventuresome all, I wouldn't hesitate to write 'Singing into the Piano' at the top of my list.

This book is best read as a thriller that links sexual psychology and politics with a contemplation of the ethics of friendship and capitalism. But it's not as dry as all that---in fact, it's pretty hot stuff in places. Though the dialogue can be more than somewhat contrived (the author has a bad habit of speaking his prose style through his characters mouths in an implausible way), the complexity of the plot and its implications, plus the unusual and charged relationships among four (!) protagonists, make it well worthwhile.