A heavy, sensory wartime story that highlights the power of art and music in the face of tragedy
At nine years old in 1939, Jan Balik travels from his home in Poland to spend the summer with his aunt and uncle in Konigsberg where he hones his prodigious piano skills under the watchful eye of his uncle.
But while in his aunt and uncle’s care, Germany invades Poland. Jan worries over the fate of his family, unable to contact them, and feeling the struggle as a Polish boy in a now increasingly volatile country. Taking the last name of his uncle, Jan continues to showcase his piano skills, earning renown and using his music to express his feelings in the wartime tension. Then the news comes that his family has been killed and Jan siphons his grief into writing music of his own, haunting songs dedicated to the family he has lost.
Six years later, Jan and his aunt are attacked in their home by invading Russians. Jan suffers a gunshot wound and his aunt is killed. As he’s shuttled onto a train and then left for dead in a forest, Jan ends up in a home for children where he’s mistreated and neglected like the other children around him. When one of the officials hears him playing piano, Jan becomes part of a traveling group of children musicians where they receive great praise across the Soviet Union.
However, when Jan tries to expose the neglect of the children’s home, he’s labeled an enemy of the State and is sent to a Siberian prison barge where he and the other prisoners labor laying train tracks in impossible conditions on a mission called the Dead Road. After years, with the death of Stalin, the mission is disbanded and Jan gets release orders. But where should he go? Where is home? He’s haunted by those he befriended along the way and then lost, haunted by his loved ones no longer with him. His only solace through it all is music.
Later, in an intersecting story, a reporter named Harper living in Moscow pitches a story to her editor about exposing the trauma children endured during World War II who were sent to homes like the one Jan ended up in. While her editor initially assigns the story to someone else, asking Harper to write about an upcoming music contest instead, Harper is determined to see the story through. Her own father experienced similar mistreatment, and Harper saw firsthand how it haunted him for the rest of his life.
While this is a heavy story, Jan’s strength really shines through. He’s resilient and sometimes impulsive, but his sensitivity is what makes him who he is. While many would lose that given what he goes through—getting shot, suffering under neglectful and abusive institutions, and working in a labor camp meant to kill him just to name a few—he clings to his internal sensitivity and softness through it all. He does this through the bonds he forms with those around him, but also through his music. No matter where he goes or what he experiences, he carries his music book with him. Music, both literally and figuratively, saves him. He plays music to express his feelings, to bond, to confess.
Later, when he finds somewhere to call home, he uses it to help others process their grief, capturing the essence of their lost loved ones in original compositions. The throughline of music is a unique and sensory detail, one that differentiates this book from other historical novels tackling the same topic. The music adds a depth and a softness to an otherwise incredibly dark story. Music is the tool through which the hurt and tragedy of wartime is both captured and combated.
This is very much a story about the way war causes lasting loss for those directly and indirectly impacted. Jan is a piano prodigy as a child, earning renown for his talent everywhere he goes. But war causes him to put that aside, going long stretches of time without keys to play upon. That loss of what could have been pervades this story and many of the characters Jan encounters. War has ruined or at the very least maimed, in varying degrees, the futures of them all. While there is an underlying thread of hope and softness from Jan and his music, grief and loss are the dark shadow hovering over it all.
In the first half of the book, the pacing is fairly one note as Jan experiences tragedy after tragedy with little reprieve. While that pacing makes sense for depicting the realities of a boy experiencing wartime, as a reader it is at times hard to enjoy reading the continuous horrors he experienced.
The latter half of the book, as Jan attempts to find a place to settle, is much more evenly paced as he reckons with the ghosts of his past and turns back to the music that saved him. The two halves almost feel like separate books tonally, though Jan and his music are the anchors between them. While reading such tragedies may not be everyone’s cup of tea, the ending makes all of the suffering worth it. The place Jan finds to call home, his family, and the people in their community, rally around this traumatized man so he can finally face the past. It’s an emotional catharsis for both Jan and for the reader.
Songs of the Dead Road is a music-threaded, grief-laden story of a boy who loses all of his possible futures in the harsh face of war. It’s a sensory, emotional story with an unexpected softness despite the many cruelties depicted.
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