The Vexations

May 13, 2019
Horrocks’s vivid, hard-edged debut about French composer Erik Satie focuses on his erratic career, difficult personality, and dysfunctional family. In 1872, widower Alfred Satie leaves his children—six-year-old Eric, youngest brother Conrad, middle sister Louise—to be raised by their grandmother in Normandy. A great-uncle takes Louise to live with him. When the grandmother dies, Alfred brings the boys home to Paris. By his early 20s, Eric, now calling himself Erik “with a k,” plays piano at Chat Noir and other Montmartre cafes. Louise, widowed within a year of getting married, resides with her son on her husband’s debt-ridden estate, until relatives confiscate both the estate and the son. Often neglectful and hurtful of friends and family, Erik collaborates with modernists like Cocteau and Diaghilev to varying success. Horrocks includes the perspectives of Erik’s onetime librettist (fictional Philippe) and sometime lover (real-life Suzanne Valadon) for a portrait of avant-garde turn-of-the-century Paris that proves art isn’t easy and neither are artists. Horrocks shines while envisioning Erik scoring a silent film, debuting a masterpiece, or being released from jail (where he was held for defaming a reviewer) so he can complete a commission. Horrocks’s description of Satie’s music is also apt for her noteworthy novel: slow, spare, and at its best finely filigreed.

Marisa Calin gives a spirited narration of this introspective novel, which imagines the life of eccentric French composer Erik Satie. His story, told by his sister, Louise, includes his early years, his struggles to become accepted in legendary Montmartre, and his eventual success among the avant-garde. Calin delivers the narrative in a crisp British accent, with a gruff timbre and a French accent for the dialogue of Satie. Louise, speaking in the first person, is given a gentler persona. Calin provides varying French intonations for several others who were affected by Erik, including brother Conrad, poet Philippe, and model Suzanne. Occasionally, an echo effect emphasizes introspective passages. Listeners will be treated to intimate details of bohemian life in Paris during the period. J.E.S. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine