SIMON SILBER: Works for Solo Piano

A cranky, curmudgeonly composer is the ostensible protagonist of this hilarious debut novel, a sendup of classical music conventions that begins when the obscure Simon Silber convinces his new biographer, first-person narrator Norman Fayreweather Jr. to elevate Silber's musical status by chronicling his career as if he were already famous. Fayreweather quickly discovers that his subject comes with a veritable armada of artistic personality quirks but, unfortunately, Silber's talent is basically a mirage. First-time novelist Miller plows through a wonderfully silly discography of Silber's output with Silber "composing" works based on transcribed notes from a neighbor's wind chimes, the notation pattern formed by crows perched on power lines and the tones generated by a Touch-Tone phone. The compulsive composer is also obsessed with what kind of musician gets to play his work, having restricted all his writing to the keyboard so that no one can misinterpret such unusual titles as "Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects," "Digressions" and a work he "steals" from his equally squirrelly biographer called "Aphorisms." The catty give-and-take between biographer and subject offers plenty of over-the-top passages as Miller fires off one classical potshot after another, particularly when he delves into Silber's troubled relationship with his evil twin, Scooter. Miller pulls off the tricky conceit of having the discography double as the narrative line, although the construct gets pretty messy when he enters the chapters describing Silber's decline. There are also some clunkers in the barrage of humor, but given the high hit rate, classical music aficionados will find much to smile about in this diabolical parody-cum-satire. Author tour.(May 15)

Forecast:The droll cover is a clever indication of this novel's iconoclastic humor, but it remains to be seen whether its audience will spread beyond the Bach and Beethoven crowd.