New York: Viking, (2010). dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's first novel, inspired by an ancestor, a woman who deserted her wealthy husband and young son in Boston to pursue her operatic career in Italy. Erika von Kessler, the talented and beautiful daughter in a family of doctors, has a powerful and unique singing voice, a possessive husband who desperately wants a child, and the drive to triumph as an operatic singer. Her childlessness is the focus of the first part of this novel - which opens in Boston in 1903, and is set in America, Italy, and Trinidad before World War I. This brings her into contact with the obstetrician Dr. Ravell, who becomes the love of her life and father of her children. 422 pp. ISBN: 978-0670021888.