The life and loves of Lena Gaunt : a novel

Documentary filmmaker Mo Patterson approaches veteran musician Lena Gaunt after watching her play at a festival in Perth: her first performance in 20 years. While initially suspicious of Mo's intentions and reluctant to have her privacy invaded, Lena finds herself sharing stories from her past. From a solitary childhood in Malacca and a Perth boarding school, to a glittering career in Jazz-age Sydney, to quiet domesticity in a New-Zealand backwater, Lena's is a life characterized by the pull of the sea, the ebb and flow of passion and loss, and her enduring relationship with that extraordinary instrument, the theremin. Longlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Literary Award | Longlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Literary Award Tracy Farr's acclaimed debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt: musician, octogenarian, junkie. 'Compelling reading' The Listener I hold one regret from that day: that I put my first love, my cello, aside. But it was to take up a bigger love, a greater thing; it was to step into the future. Music's Most Modern Instrument. And I was to become Music's Most Modern Musician. Tracy Farr's debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt: musician, octogenarian, junkie. Documentary filmmaker Mo Patterson approaches veteran musician Lena Gaunt after watching her play at a festival in Perth: her first performance in 20 years. While initially suspicious of Mo's intentions and reluctant to have her privacy invaded, Lena finds herself sharing stories from her past. From a solitary childhood in Malacca and a Perth boarding school, to a glittering career in Jazz-age Sydney, to quiet domesticity in a New-Zealand backwater, Lena's is a life characterized by the pull of the sea, the ebb and flow of passion and loss, and her enduring relationship with that extraordinary instrument, the theremin. "Octogenarian musician Lena Gaunt lives quietly in the Perth suburbs. An early embracer of electronic music, she found fame in Jazz-age Sydney as a virtuoso of the theremin and travelled the world before settling down to a life of daily swims and a decades-old heroin habit. Now, for the first time in 20 years, she's performing at a festival again. In the audience is documentary filmmaker Mo Patterson. Lena's extraordinary past makes her an intriguing film subject: but is she prepared to reveal the secrets she has guarded for so long? Spanning continents and much of the twentieth century, from colonial Malacca to post-war Europe, this is a story of talent, modernity and belonging, of a woman shaped by the ebb and flow of love and loss, and the constant pull of the sea."--Back cover