The Minimalist

For fans of Tár and The Piano Teacher, this gruesome and unsettling psychological drama is a darkly lucid portrait of a classical composer's descent into madness. As the last and greatest student of famed minimalist composer Ryder Wakefield, Mia Voss has long been assured a rise to prominence in the insular world of classical music. When Ryder dies unexpectedly, she inherits everything-including the unfinished manuscript of his final composition, the mysterious Death Fugue: Music for Orchestra. Haunted by memories of her tragic romance with Ryder's late son, Oliver-like Mia, an Asian American adoptee-Mia leaves her girlfriend behind and returns to Ryder's home to finish his last work. While there to untangle her complex relationship with Ryder, who hid his Jewish and gay identities to become one of the most important twentieth-century American composers, Mia must also contend with her lingering guilt over Oliver's suicide and her own musical ambition as the manuscript begins to exert a disturbing, mesmerizing hold over her. Drawn from the author's own experiences as an adoptee and classical musician, The Minimalist is a harrowing examination of loss, torment, mental illness, self-harm, and artistic disintegration.