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A one-time piano turner herself, she thought: What if?

Writer's picture: nancyburkhalternancyburkhalter

“Book ideas come from a place with no address,” says Nancy Burkhalter. Or sometimes one that becomes clearer only with time. In the early years, in possession of a newly minted degree in linguistics, she’d found herself job hunting in the midst of an economic downturn. A friend of hers suggested — “apropos of nothing,” Nancy says — becoming a piano tuner. Well, why not, she thought. Little did she know then the wellspring this work would one day become.

Photo by Austin Irving
Photo by Austin Irving

No, in its moment piano tuning was simply an absorbing, and decidedly useful, way to make a living. It enabled her return to academics, financing two master’s degrees (one in journalism, one in English) and a return to linguistics to complete a PhD. 

“I never had any thoughts of making writing my profession,” Nancy reflects. Yes, she’d worked as a journalist. Yes, she’d gone on subsequently to build a career in academia, publishing an array of scholarly articles and four textbooks. But that was writing of another sort. Writing in service of, not for the sake of. “Fiction,” she says, “wasn’t on my mind at all.”

She stumbled into it by happenstance. “In graduate school,” she says, “I felt some of my professors had treated me harshly and unfairly. So, I wrote a mystery where I killed them in very ignominious ways. And, boy, did I have fun doing that.” She laughs. “Cheap therapy. I recommend it.” 

That delicious therapy was eventually to lead to a full-scale new adventure.

Her love of music, and her early work in pianos, began to thread an idea. “What if Chopin had had a piano tuner?” she found herself wondering. Learning to tune a piano is so difficult that he must have had, she reasoned. “Besides,” she thought, the idea gathering momentum, “he wanted to compose — period — not futz around with strings and tuning forks.”

Thus was born her first novel, The Education of Delhomme: Chopin, Sand, and La France. She crafted the character of the piano tuner from some elements of herself. “Like me,” she says, “he adores Chopin’s music.” Delhomme is honored to be working for the beloved composer, but, she explains, he is soon compromised by the king’s spymaster. The idea took hold, filled with intrigue and possibility. She then set about bringing the tale to life. With the precision of a piano tuner.

Our judges called this work of historical fiction superb. The scenes, the characters’ mannerisms, their way of being in the world, and the dialogue with its flavor of the past, stellar. The structure of the story, masterful. The story itself, intelligent. With prose that seems to reflect the style and rhythm of the music at the heart of the novel. A lyrical work, steeped in history and beautifully paced.

“These kind words billowed my sails,” says Nancy. “We writers are like the Medieval monks who toiled away by candlelight, never knowing if anyone would appreciate their work. So when I finally emerged from my writing lair, coffee-drunk and bleary-eyed and found someone at IPNE had actually read it and liked it enough to give me an award for doing so, why, it was as refreshing as finding an oasis in the Gobi Desert.” 

As refreshing, we might add, as a fine novel is for thirsty readers. 


This essay courtesy of Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE[dot]org).


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©2024 by Nancy Burkhalter

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