The Soloist

Salzman's ( Iron and Silk ) new novel is a quirky and enjoyable tale of finding Nirvana in the legal system. Renne Sundheimer is a 34-year-old failure. As a cello prodigy he toured Europe and was lavished with ardent praise. But something went horribly wrong with Renne's hearing, distorting every note he played. Driven from the stage by his handicap, Renne fell to teaching cello at UCLA. Sixteen years later, two events lift him out of his rut: he accepts a nine-year-old Korean prodigy as his student, and is selected for jury duty. The case he is assigned to is the murder of a Buddhist Zen master by a troubled acolyte. At a week-long retreat, the young monk had been assigned a koan (a spiritual riddle) that he ``solved'' by murdering his teacher. Both the acolyte's trial and his new pupil recall aspects of Renne's own unfinished relationship with his childhood music teacher and with his own incomplete maturation. Just as you begin to suspect that the novel will end inconclusively, Salzman winds the story down subtly. Looking back on the trial and his life, Renne manages to solve the riddle that the young monk had so brutally misconstrued. Author tour. (Jan.)