SLEEPING WITH SCHUBERT

Off-key simulations of classical music, celebrity journalism and human relationships flatten first-time author Marson's high-concept chick-lit novel about a cranky 21st-century Brooklyn lawyer possessed by the titular 19th-century Viennese composer and pianist. Protagonist Liza Durbin is succinctly introduced as a 30-something with worldly and otherworldly concerns. But Marson's reckless use of analogy ("The music followed a wild course, carved through stony walls, bathed in icy waters") and adjectives ("Her deep brown eyes doubled in size, and her pumpkin-bright hair bristled") gets in the way of her storytelling. Liza is first visited by Schubert when she sits down at a department store piano; her family soon persuades her to take her unusual skills public ("I say make a CD today so if it goes away tomorrow, it's not a total loss"). Her meteoric rise to stardom is chronicled in mock newspaper articles and television transcripts, broad parodies that strain for effect. Narrative suspense and emotion emerge as Liza's Carnegie Hall debut approaches and her on-again off-again boyfriend Patrick bridles at sharing Liza with Franz, but a heroine whose life change brings inadvertent weight loss and battles with a shallow, gorgeous kid sister may remind readers of warmer characters by Jennifer Weiner and Jane Green. Marson is at her best in capturing the power of music to transform and (literally) inhabit performers and composers, but this is a brittle, overworked debut. Agent, Richard Pine. (June)

Forecast: Marson's novel is likely to have a hard time finding a readership: chick lit readers may be thrown by the elaborate conceit, and classical music enthusiasts are unlikely to go for the girly stuff. Film rights have been sold to Paramount, though, which gives the book a chance for extra exposure.