“It does not matter that Claire in real life, though a remarkably talented singer, is not a songwriter. This Claire is not that Claire, even though they are inextricably linked by more than their names and the name of their current partners.”
“For two years I’ve liked to think that my Bolivian ID is more than just a conversation starter, that it grounds my daily life in my relationship to a country I for a time called my home.”
“But both in spite and because of this ubiquity, “Stairway to Heaven” gets a little slept on, relegated to the status of “rock classic” and thought of as a song more to be heard than to be enjoyed.”
“In my moments of dogged hope, I would play “Moon in the Water,” an acoustic ballad where Goldsmith proclaims that ‘Love is for the fighter / Born to lose but never quit / Swinging for the moon in the water.’”
“This novel-in-stories traces the lives of multiple generations of characters from the early days of the Soviet Union up into the near-future, all interconnected by an obscure nineteenth-century painting.”
