![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The sole bright spot in his life is Amalia, a young woman seduced by his singing and eager to escape the clutches of her controlling aunt. ![]() Moses’ singing ability keeps him from being sent to an orphanage, but the abbey is full of its own humiliations: He’s ostracized by his fellow choirboys, the sons of wealthy men who are financing a massive church construction Nicolai and Remus are expelled under accusations of homosexuality and as Moses nears puberty he’s castrated in the hopes of making him a musico. Cast out by the priest, Moses is soon discovered by two monks, Nicolai and Remus, who exchange Abbott and Costello–style banter as they take the boy under their wing. She takes her revenge by aggressively pounding the church’s massive bells loudly enough to blast the eardrums of all who approach-except Moses, who has a preternatural musical talent. His mother is a deaf-mute who is taken advantage of by a local priest, banishing both mother and child to the church belfry in the name of secrecy. When we first meet Moses, the hero and narrator of Harvell’s debut, he’s growing up in degraded circumstances in the Swiss Alps. A young man endures hardship, abuse and mutilation on the path to musical glory in 18th- century Vienna. ![]()
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