Tag: Hilary Hauck

Book review: ‘From Ashes to Song’ by Hilary Hauck

‘From Ashes to Song’ by Hilary Hauck. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

Hilary Hauck is a writer and translator whose work has appeared in the Mindful Writers Retreat Series anthologies, the Ekphrastic Review, Balloons Lit. Journal, and the Telepoem Booth. She moved to Italy from her native UK as a young adult, where she mastered the language, learned how to cook food she can no longer eat, and won a karate championship. After meeting her husband, Hilary came to the US and drew inspiration from Pennsylvania coal history, which soon became the setting for her debut novel, “From Ashes to Song.” Inspired by true events, “From Ashes to Song” is a story of unconventional love, hope, and the extraordinary gifts brought to America by ordinary people in the great wave of immigration.

“From Ashes to Song” begins in the family vineyard in Piedmont, Italy in 1911. Pietro’s idyllic life revolves around music and vineyards. He plays the clarinet and he is practicing his first composition that he wants to play at the end of harvest celebration. His grandfather, who he calls Nonno, has taught him everything he knows about music and Pietro is nervous about playing it for him first. His perfect life starts to unravel when news of a deadly disease spreading through the countryside reaches their vineyard. The family has no choice but to burn it and brokenhearted, Pietro’s grandfather passes away. Now that he has lost the two most important things in his life, Pietro leaves for America to start a new life. Faced with the grueling life of a miner in Pennsylvania, Pietro puts music on the backburner but when he meets Assunta, a friend’s wife, she becomes his musical muse. Admiring her from a distance, he begins writing music again but the harsh realities of everyday life threaten to end his musical aspirations for good. The story ends in 1952 as the years have taken their toll on Pietro but not before he experiences music’s amazing power to heal the soul. He develops miner’s lung, which affects his ability to play his clarinet: “whistling and wheezing filled his ears, drowning out the music.” He passes away peacefully surrounded by family, which by this point includes Assunta as his wife.

“From Ashes to Song” is a beautifully written novel that perfectly captures the hardships of turn of the century immigrant life in Pennsylvania. Using charming and lyrical prose which includes music metaphors: “From the vantage point of the courtyard, the hills rolled like the rise and fall of a tempo…,” the reader is immersed in Pietro and Assunta’s daily struggles to create a better life. The story is written in third person point of view and alternates between Pietro and Assunta; two separate stories until they collide in Pennsylvania. Helped along by exquisite poetic language, the story flows effortlessly through the pages until its heartbreaking yet happily ever after ending. The in-depth character development creates characters that are relatable and by the end, it is hard not to get emotionally invested in their turbulent lives. Throughout the years, Pietro is distant and patient with Assunta but after going through so much loss in their lives, when he finally plays his clarinet for Assunta, their relationship begins to heal: “Doubts and sorrow erased like a message drawn in the sand on an incoming tide.” Since it is inspired by true events, this story of heart break, survival, and triumph of the human experience might resonate with anyone with Italian ancestors. “From Ashes to Song” by Hilary Hauck is a captivating novel that combines the beauty of the Italian countryside and the determination of immigrants to build a better life in a foreign land. It is recommended for fans of historical fiction who appreciate the importance that music can play in someone’s life.

“He just played, eyes closed, his heart aching yet healing at the same time. Him, his clarinet, love. If his music had ever had the power to heal, now was the time to wield it for this woman he loved, who tolerated him by her side.”

*The author received a copy of this book for an honest review. The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to her.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Book excerpt: ‘From Ashes to Song’ by Hilary Hauck

‘From Ashes to Song’ is Hilary Hauck’s debut novel out April 20, 2021. Photo: google

Hilary Hauck is the author of “From Ashes to Song,” her debut novel. A writer and translator, her work has appeared in the Mindful Writers Retreat Series anthologies, the Ekphrastic Review, Balloons Lit. Journal, and the Telepoem Booth. After meeting her husband, Hilary came to the US and drew inspiration from Pennsylvania coal history, which soon became the setting for her debut novel. Hilary is Chair of the Festival of Books in the Alleghenies, past president of Pennwriters, and a graduate of RULE. Inspired by true events, “From Ashes to Song” is a story of unconventional love, hope, and the extraordinary gifts brought to America by ordinary people in the great wave of immigration.

Synopsis: It is 1911 in Italy, and Pietro’s life on the family vineyard is idyllic. He has at last captured the melody of the grape harvest on his clarinet and cannot wait to share his composition with his grandfather, but before he can play, news arrives of a deadly disease sweeping the countryside. They have no choice but to burn the vineyard to stop its spread. The loss is too much for Pietro’s grandfather, and by morning, Pietro has lost two of the most precious things in his life—his grandfather and the vineyard. All he has left is his music, but a disastrous performance at his grandfather’s funeral suggests that music, too, now seems beyond his reach. Adrift with grief, Pietro seeks a new start in America. He goes to work in a Pennsylvania coal mine where his musician’s hands blister and his days are spent in the muffled silence of underground. When the beautiful voice and gentle heart of a friend’s wife stirs a new song in him, Pietro at last encounters a glimmer of hope. From a respectful distance and without drawing the attention of her husband, Pietro draws on Assunta for inspiration and soon his gift for music returns. But when grief strikes in Assunta’s life, Pietro is to blame. When Prohibition steals Pietro’s last pleasure, he must do something before Assunta’s grief consumes them both.

Excerpt – “From Ashes to Song”
Chapter One
Copyright ©2021 by Hilary Hauck
Sunbury Press, Inc.

Pietro breathed lightly into his clarinet so his song would not travel the length of the grapevines that stretched like lines of music on either side of him. He didn’t want Nonno to hear it—not yet. On his oath, he’d make himself play it for him in the next week.

The song was Pietro’s first composition—not that anyone could credit him, he had simply captured the sounds of harvest, of the annual tending of plants whose roots had burrowed into the soil long before he’d been born.

Without a specific plan in mind, he had tucked away the beats and notes, adding new rifts each year until this summer, when it had all begun to spread out and rearrange in his mind. The paper-light tremble of leaves had given him the rhythm. It scampered so heartily it might have dissolved into chaos if it hadn’t been grounded by fruit held by the improbable strength of the vine. The grapes were a firm, reliable beat.

The only thing that had eluded him had been the ending, but now he had found it, he couldn’t imagine it any other way. It brought the music together, so it no longer felt like a rough sketch of a song, not telling the whole story at once as it did now.

He’d found the ending in the celebration that followed the harvest when family and friends gathered around the table heaped with a feast that had taken an entire week to prepare. The culmination of the long season that brought both relief and melancholy for the end of the summer days, even though Pietro could depend on the same cycle beginning all over again next year.

At this year’s celebration, he’d wait until the food was gone and glasses filled with last year’s wine were raised to this year’s grapes, when he, Nonno, and the others gathered their instruments to shroud the night’s sky with song—that was when Pietro would play his music.

First, though, he needed the courage to play it for Nonno. Only then would he know if his efforts were worthy.