'In 1981, with the Cold War intensifying, a young Australian woman goes to Paris in pursuit of love with a bourgeois communist – though her idea of revolution has more to do with the early music movement than politics. At odds with her background and also with herself, she hides her gift for singing from the world. In Paris her naïve and romantic expectations soon crumble, but when she is at her most desolate, a strange encounter brings about a change. Moving to the West German countryside, she comes up against the khaki craziness of the Cold War but also, in this most unlikely of places, forms a deep musical connection. Will Eleanor succumb to sabotage, or will she find the courage to set herself free?
'Graceful, funny and moving, Chaconne is a novel about the wrong turns and painful transitions along the path to womanhood. It affirms that learning, like love, can appear in many guises, and that no matter how far from home we may travel, there is no escaping ourselves.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
