Music of the Ghosts

This “affecting novel filled with sorrow and a tender poignant optimism” (USA TODAY) from New York Times bestselling author Vaddey Ratner reveals “the endless ways that families can be forged and broken hearts held” (Chicago Tribune) as a young woman begins an odyssey to discover the truth about her missing father.Leaving the safety of America Teera returns to Cambodia for the first time since her harrowing escape as a child refugee. She carries a letter from a man who mysteriously signs himself as “the Old Musician” and claims to have known her father in the Khmer Rouge prison where he disappeared twenty-five years ago. In Phnom Penh Teera finds a society still in turmoil where perpetrators and survivors of unfathomable violence live side by side striving to mend their still beloved country. She meets a young doctor who begins to open her heart confronts her long-buried memories and prepares to learn her father’s fate. Meanwhile the Old Musician who earns his modest keep playing ceremonial music at a temple awaits Teera’s visit. He will have to confess the bonds he shared with her parents the passion with which they all embraced the Khmer Rouge’s illusory promise of a democratic society and the truth about her father’s end. A love story for things lost and restored a lyrical hymn to the power of forgiveness Music of the Ghosts is a “sensitive portrait of the inheritance of survival” (USA TODAY) and a journey through the embattled geography of the heart where love can be reborn.