"A LIFETIME IS NOT ENOUGH FOR MUSIC"

The second book I wrote, Eli’s Heart, is a love story and more. Krissy Porter and Eli Levin meet as young teens when Eli, who is a piano prodigy, visits his older sister in Krissy’s town in Tennessee in the summer of 1953. They become good friends and are on the verge of romance, but their relationship is ended by Eli’s over-protective family. They find their way back to each other while college students and marry on Krissy’s twentieth birthday. 

The story continues as each of them builds a career in the music world. While Eli was born with an unusual gift for music, he also was born with a seriously damaged heart. Despite the challenge of never knowing when the various repairs on Eli’s heart might give out, Krissy and Eli enjoy a happy life. 

 Perhaps Rachmaninoff’s famous quote, “Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music” prompted me to include in the romance the thought of reincarnation. When Krissy and Eli find their way back to each other while college undergraduates, their relationship blossoms into a deep and intense love. Krissy is convinced they are soul mates who have been together in a previous life. How else would Eli have such a remarkable ability to play piano with such technical proficiency and such depth of emotion? Why else would they both have this strong sense that they belong together?

 Learning more about the craft of writing over an additional fifteen novels prompted me to write a second edition of Eli’s Heart. There are no changes in the story, but in particular the early chapters of the book have been tightened up by removing over five thousand words and using less narration and more dialogue. Now the characters are telling more of their story. I began the process nearly six years ago, but additional books interfered. However, now I am ready to publish the revision, and it will be in print soon. The first edition was published in 2014. I also adjusted the formatting to make the book an easier read, which means that though there are fewer words, there are more pages. There is also a new cover, though the photo is the same one that appeared on the original: the hands of a dear friend and exceptional pianist, Scott Besser.

 Readers of the first edition had praise for the book; they found it worth the read and the romance moved them. Music is Eli’s and Krissy’s life, and there are many passages about music throughout the book …always written from the viewpoint of the performer and/or the listener. How music affects us is what makes it vital to life. Recently I learned of this quote from another great composer, Gabriel Fauré: “To me – music exists to elevate us as far as possible above everyday life.” Listening and performing great music and allowing it to fill our being is an experience like no other. I hope I have managed to convey some sense of that in the book.

 One reader’s response:

Eli’s Heart is a song from the heart. It is more than a coming of age for two young people—Eli with a damaged heart, and Krissy, with the love to embrace it. It is a romantic tale rich with introspective detail between two people who met young and were not whole until they joined forces. It transcends the typical story of two people beating insurmountable odds. It is a story of living life to the fullest despite the odds. This provides a deep look into the world of music. Eli’s Heart is a musical delight, intertwining life and its drama with music.

 

Glimpses of Heaven

All of the arts enrich our lives, but I think only music can give us moments that transcend reality and show us a glimpse of the ethereal. Over the course of more than fourscore years I’ve experienced this a few times, unforgettable moments that made me vividly aware we are more than bones and sinew and even thought.

One such experience was during a performance of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem performed at Lincoln Center by the New York Philharmonic and Westminster College Choir. A section of the Dies Irae, “Tuba mirum spargens sonum” (“The trumpet, scattering a wondrous sound”). Verdi in his brilliance used a multitude of trumpets to depict that “wondrous sound.” In this performance, I have no idea how many trumpets we actually heard, but they were positioned throughout the room, on all sides of and I think even above the audience.

A single trumpet begins on a medium pitch. Sound is layered as more and more trumpets join, the volume and pitch rise to an almost unbearable intensity, timpani is added, and finally full orchestra and chorus break forth in a tidal wave of sound which is overwhelming and incredibly thrilling. At some point during this magnificent music, I felt myself elevated. I literally felt I was floating. I knew I was in a seat in what for me will always be Avery Fischer Hall … but I was also in another place, a place of such awesome and dazzling beauty I could only weep in wonderment.

I thought of that experience when I wrote my second novel, Eli’s Heart, in 2014. I’ve recently been revisiting the book, making a few changes by applying some of the skills I learn as I continue to write. With every art, whether visual, musical, or literary, we never stop learning and growing. American soprano Renée Fleming, one of the world’s most famous opera singers, recently referred to herself as a “work in progress.” I admired her even more on hearing that.

Eli Levin and Kristina Porter meet as young teens. They’re separated for three years, and then find their way back to each other and realize they want to spend their lives together. Music is what brought them into each other’s lives. Eli is a piano prodigy who was born with a serious congenital heart defect, and since this is the 1950s, they honestly don’t know how long his life might be. But however long they may have, they know music will be the heart of their love.

They’re both in college but on campuses some six hundred miles apart. They have a magical weekend together, make plans to marry in a year, and just before they have to go back to their separate lives, Eli plays piano one final time for Krissy. She sits on the piano bench with him as he plays, and they have this moment.

**

     Eli had been born with two things: a damaged heart and a heart filled with music. That was how Krissy saw him now, and how she would always think of him. He played for her, and she closed her eyes and opened herself up to the music he was making.

   Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G Minor began with repeated thick chords and heavy octave passages with large leaps up and down the keyboard, played rapidly. Eli pushed the tempo slightly; he loved doing that, especially with Rachmaninoff. The prelude had a grandeur and sweep to it, and demanded technical facility and strength. As with much of his music, Rachmaninoff slowed the tempo and introduced a beautiful melody, and the music became completely different, almost ethereal.

    As soon as Eli started the lyrical section, he felt some kind of shift in reality. The light became a soft glow, the air seemed different. He could feel his hands on the keys, he knew Krissy was touching him, but he felt he became a conduit for the music. It flowed through him and around him, opening up time and space. He continued to have a sense of transcendence through most of the section, and then the music gradually returned to the original idea, the sense of being somewhere else left him, and he was again sitting at Krissy’s piano playing Rachmaninoff for her.

     When he finished the piece, he sat quietly for a moment.  He turned to look at Krissy, and he could tell by the look of wonder on her face that she had made the journey with him. He asked softly, “Did you feel that?” Not wanting to speak, she nodded. They sat close together without feeling any need to talk, knowing what they had just experienced was remarkable.

Eli's Heart is available on Amazon in paperback and ebook
https://www.amazon.com/Elis-Heart-Carousel-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B00LE5MNAK

Just Call me Eponine

Victor Hugo Wasn’t Around for This One

(First published on 6-9-2016)

In the first part of Eli’s Heart, Eli Levin and Krissy Porter have just reconnected after three years. Through letters and then phone calls they resume a friendship which seemed to be blossoming into something more but was brought to an end by his interfering mother. He’s in college in Westchester County, New York; she’s at a music conservatory in Cincinnati, Ohio. He’s a brilliant pianist, she’s a voice student.

There is a growing drama on Krissy’s campus; one of the school administrators is making a power play which is creating turmoil. He has brought two new faculty members on board for obviously personal reasons, and in order to provide them with stellar performers in their studios, he attempts to raid the studios of established faculty members.

Back in the 1950s, when I was a student at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, studio loyalty was fierce and sometimes fanatical. Your applied music teacher was one of the most important people in your life. Often students of a teacher referred to them as “Mama” or “Papa” … my late husband’s excellent voice teacher, Robert Powell, was highly esteemed and was “Papa Powell.” My teacher, Fenton Pugh, was “Pappy” to his students.

I’ve had a private studio of my own since 1979 so have long been on the other side of this. There is a unique bond between a music teacher and her private students unlike that of a classroom teacher. There has to be complete trust. Your teacher is asking you to use your music to share your soul. Music is meant to live, and the finest musicians make that happen and take audiences with them to beautiful places.

So for this man to use coercion and intimidation to lure students away from this person who is vital to what they are attempting to do with their entire lives was a cause for concern, among not only the student body but among the faculty as well. In addition, some faculty were threatened with being replaced as directors of various performing groups.

The story is all there in Eli’s Heart, pretty much as it unfolded. Things came to a head not with an explosion, but with a massive toilet paper prank one night in December, after this had been simmering since September. We awoke the next morning to find nearly every tree on the small campus festooned with toilet paper, and while it was hysterically funny, it woke the board of directors up to the seriousness of the situation. Music students didn’t toilet paper trees in those days. We were far too busy practicing our butts off and dealing with music theory.

A call went out to the student body via faculty members (who were as disgruntled as we were … the school’s reputation was at stake, in their opinion, and I think they were correct) for any student who had specific grievances to speak to the Dean of the school. So Krissy decided to play advocate, and she circulated throughout the small women’s dorm, collecting information, writing it all down. She let the Dean of Men know she had this impromptu document, and was called before the Dean, the Assistant Dean, the Dean of Men, and the very administrator she was hoping to help unseat.

I know exactly how she felt when she walked into the Dean’s office and saw those four people sitting there. Krissy … well, okay, Susan Moore was only a first semester sophomore, and the consequences could have been bad if this went the wrong way and the bad guy won. Fortunately, the troops were rallying in the distance in the form of student body leaders, mostly male graduate students, who surrounded me when I left the office and after I’d been debriefed, they took over. Okay, Eponine, you fired the first salvo, now the real troops have arrived.

What convinced the board that Fred Smith had to go was the very real threat from both students and faculty that if he were not removed, we were prepared to not return to school after Christmas break, and most of the faculty stood with us. I have what I believe was the only piece of publicity our rebellion received in an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer from mid-December, 1956, upper left hand corner of the front page, headlined “Smith Quits, Conservatory Rebellion Ends.”

In part it reads: “Faculty members said they believed the resignation will end the turmoil among both students and teachers who had demanded Mr. Smith’s ouster … (Walter) Schmidt, (president of the board of trustees) confirmed the resignation, but refused further comment on what he called ‘a student rebellion.’ ‘I won’t say another word,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough trouble.’ … ‘It was a case of Mr. Smith going or there being no more school,’ a faculty member said. ‘The great majority of both students and teachers were ready to quit and go elsewhere.’”

Eli’s Heart includes the student resolution presented to the board of trustees listing our grievances against Mr. Smith (he’s referred to by another name in the book), which states in part “he has impeded educational processes by coercion, intimidation, pitting student against student, faculty against faculty, and deception of the board of directors. The administrator has sought to use his power and office to satiate his appetite for complete control and dominance.”

There’s quite a bit about what actually went on during all this in the book. Krissy was not a rebel by nature, and for her to jump into the fray as she did showed some strength I don’t think she realized she had. She had no problem with the men taking the reins after that first skirmish.

Remember, it was 1956. I have to wonder how something like this would play out in 2016.

 Eli's Heart is available on Amazon,

e-book and paperback. Visit my website

www.susanmoorejordan.com for 

additional information.

My Mother and the Prodigy

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom

     If you had met my mother when she was a poised, accomplished adult, wife of a Vice-President of Borg-Warner, you’d have most likely been very surprised to learn that she had grown up riding a horse on a working ranch near Norman, Oklahoma. And possibly even more surprised to learn she’d dealt with discrimination from a very young age, since her father was the son of a member of the Choctaw tribe. In other words, he was a “half-breed Indian.”

     At some point in what I laughably refer to as my adult life, I realized what an extraordinary woman had given birth to me, and I made a point of telling her how much I appreciated who she was. She married my dad the summer after her high school graduation (I realized eventually it was most likely a shotgun wedding) in the depths of the depression. I recall she took some college courses when I was in elementary school. She read constantly. She was one of the most observant people I knew, and because of that and her intelligence she remade herself as often as necessary to keep up with my dad’s rise in the corporate world. She was devoted to my father. She was the wife he needed; she kept a beautiful home; she was a gracious hostess.

     She was also an incredibly kind, witty, loving, nurturing, and considerate person. When writing Eli's Heart and recalling the friendship I enjoyed with Samuel Sanders the summer I was fifteen, I also remembered the role my mother played in that relationship. We met him one spring evening near the end of my sophomore year when he performed for our Junior Music Club while visiting his sister, who lived in my home town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. His genius as a musician and pianist was apparent from the first notes he played, and everyone who was there that night was enthralled.

     When he returned for a longer visit during the summer he came to our house on several occasions. As I recall, he generally arrived in time for lunch and he always requested the same thing: a grilled cheese sandwich, Coke, and Hershey’s chocolate.  Mom and I were both aware of Samuel’s heart condition ─ one of the first things he told us was that he’d had an operation which took away the blue color from his lips and fingers, but that he wasn’t expected to live past the age of thirty. So we knew this extraordinary boy was dealing with two challenges, a bad heart and the burden of being a prodigy.

     His activities were restricted because of his heart condition and we were confined to indoor activities. We talked, listened to baseball games on the radio, listened to recordings of classical music. He seemed to enjoy playing piano for me while I stood next to the piano and watched and listened. He played with such confidence, and the music seemed to pour out of him. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe this prodigiously gifted boy was seated at my piano, performing solo recitals for me.

He also wanted to play piano duets with me, which I found intimidating and he seemed to enjoy immensely. Sometime during his college years, he changed his career path and became an accompanist … a collaborating artist rather than a soloist. He said he found performing with other artists much more enjoyable. Considering the isolation he suffered as a child, it makes perfect sense, and he had a vibrant career, playing with many important artists. Over the years, additional surgeries, including two heart transplants, extended his life to twice what he had anticipated. He was sixty-two when he died.

     Samuel seemed much younger than sixteen and I looked at him as a sweet, funny, slightly geeky little boy with this huge talent. Mom never said much, but she may have seen what I did not see ─ that he was most likely going through a late puberty and experiencing a lot of emotions I was totally unaware of. She said many nice things about him, but never suggested I should look at him differently or think of him as anything more than a good friend. Both my parents encouraged me to think for myself, to be my own person. Which meant making my own sometimes bad choices.

     After that summer I saw Samuel Sanders only one other time, when he returned some months later to perform with our local symphony orchestra. He played the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto ─ brilliantly, passionately. He’d also grown up. He wasn’t a little boy any more, but a poised and appealing young man. I think my extraordinary mother saw what this extraordinary boy was going to become.

     My book Eli’s Heart is not about Samuel Sanders, but it was inspired by the remarkable opportunity I had to enjoy a brief friendship with him. My mother, (Lillie) Erma McKee Moore, appears in the book as Lily Porter. And Lily definitely is my mother. I’m glad I had the foresight to preserve some of her wonderful qualities in the book.

(originally published May 2015)

Eli's Heart is available on Amazon, paperback and Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Elis-Heart-Carousel-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B00LE5MNAK

That Broken Heart Disease You've Been Hearing About

When I first became aware of the trauma Jimmy Kimmel and his wife endured with the birth of their son, I understood immediately what had happened. I had researched this same condition a few years ago when my character Eli Levin in Eli’s Heart was born with this disease. It was heartwarming to learn how quickly Billy Kimmel was diagnosed and treated. A true testament to the great work done by medical researchers and to how far medicine has come with this once inevitably fatal condition. These days, children born with this "broken heart" generally live long, productive, and non-restricted lives, and can excel even in sports: Olympic snowboarder Shaun White is one such person.

My novel Eli’s Heart was inspired by a friendship I had decades ago with a brilliant teenage pianist born with the congenital heart condition Tetralogy of Fallot. Samuel Sanders was fifteen when I first met him and heard him play. He was visiting a sister who lived in my hometown and he came to my house several times, and we listened to recordings of orchestral music, played piano duets (which was definitely daunting for me!), talked about books and baseball. His activities were restricted because of his congenital heart defect.

With a lot of help from Dr. Aarti Asnani, a cardiologist with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, I finally developed a grasp of the condition. There are four separate defects of the heart: a hole between the lower chambers (ventricles) of the heart, which means unoxygenated blood is mixing with oxygenated blood; a narrowing of the valve between the right ventricle and the lungs, which means not enough blood is getting to the lungs to be replenished with oxygen; a thickening of the wall of the right ventricle; and an aorta which is misplaced and is drawing blood from both ventricles. 

The result is a considerable reduction in the amount of oxygenated blood distributed to the body. The average person receives between 90 and 95% oxygenated blood. TOF patients receive sometimes less than 50%. Breathing is a struggle. Any physical activity, even walking, becomes difficult and can be life-threatening. Many children died in infancy, or did not survive puberty. Cyanosis (blue coloring of the skin, especially fingers, toes and lips) is a primary symptom. This is why babies born with the disease were once referred to as "blue babies."

In 1944, Drs. Alfred Blalock and Helen Taussig, with considerable help from Blalock’s assistant Vivien Thomas, developed a procedure to alleviate these children’s suffering. A shunt was created by attaching a branch of the aorta to the pulmonary artery which increased the flow of oxygenated blood. Sometimes this increase was dramatic; sometimes enough to at least ease their symptoms. From my understanding, patients who survived the procedure lived more normal and longer lives. However, the heart was not repaired. The Blalock-Taussig procedure was considered “palliative” ─ it eased the worst of the symptoms, but all four defects of the heart were still there.

About ten years later an open-heart surgery (called the “total correction” or “total repair”) was performed which patched the hole between the ventricles and widened the opening to the lungs, giving the patients a chance at a better quality – and quantity – of life. Over the past decades, as TOF patients have lived longer (some into their seventies and even eighties) other surgical procedures have been developed and refined, and a range of medications also exists to help treat the condition. It was at first considered a congenital heart defect. It is presently considered a congenital heart disease, a life-long struggle with a heart which can never be made “normal.” From my understanding, there is no one “standard” procedure for these patients. One comment from Dr. Asnani in our extensive correspondence stands out in my mind:

“With regard to treatment options for (adult) TOF patients, it’s definitely not a straightforward decision to pursue surgery, so we will often try to manage with medications for as long as possible.  Newer technologies like cardiac MRI are helping us figure out when the heart dysfunction is progressing to the point where heart surgery is absolutely necessary to prevent a further decline, though we’re still wrestling with defining the exact timeline.”

One of the first things Samuel Sanders told me was that he didn’t expect to live past the age of thirty. Other than that, and telling me about the cyanosis and that he’d had surgery, he didn’t discuss his condition and I didn’t ask questions. We concentrated on enjoying the time we had together.

After hearing him play – brilliantly –  the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto a few months later, I lost touch with him. Some thirty years later I met a young man who was studying accompanying with Sam at Juilliard, so he’d have been in his early forties at that time. His student also told me Sanders had opted to work professionally as an accompanist rather than pursuing a career as a virtuoso pianist. I was very glad to hear he had survived past the age of thirty and was still sharing his extraordinary gift.

I thought of him again when I watched the HBO film “Something the Lord Made” (highly recommended) and wondered how he was. Internet searches revealed that he had died at the age of sixty-two. He’d had the B-T procedure when he was nine and two additional surgeries (the total correction and a heart valve replacement), and eventually not one but two heart transplants. The second one failed, sadly.

While not a household name, Sanders had a long and illustrious career as a collaborative pianist and performed with some great musicians who definitely ARE household names. He kept a schedule that would have exhausted even a healthy musician … sometimes playing as many as a hundred concerts in a year. He taught at Juilliard and at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and oversaw a summer music festival he founded on Cape Cod. For some thirty years he was Itzhak Perlman’s pianist, but he also performed with a lengthy list of distinguished soloists. A few of his many recordings are listed in the discography at the end of the book.

My book is fiction, and my character Eli Levin is the product of my imagination. I did not know Sam Sanders beyond that brief friendship when we were both little more than children. However, his passion for music certainly had a lasting impact on me; he was indeed an extraordinarily gifted pianist and musician. We don’t meet many musical prodigies in our lifetime, and if and when we do, we never forget them. The fact that this one also had a damaged heart made him even more unforgettable.

Families

At a recent Writers’ Conference a literary agent who had looked over part of the novel I hope to release in the spring made this comment: “Memories of Jake has the potential to become a moving family drama.”

When I consider the books I’ve written over these past three and a half years, all of them are about families. How I Grew Up tells the story of the Stewart sisters, three young women who have to put their lives back together after one sister’s estranged husband shoots and kills their parents and another sister’s husband. Eli’s Heart is about a budding romance between a young pianist and a girl he loves which is detoured for a time by his domineering mother. You Are My Song is the story of a young tenor and his wife, and the families of both are an important part of the story. And Jamie’s Children is the story of that tenor’s son and daughter, talented young people who have their own challenges to face.

With Memories of Jake I continue with this theme of family, going back to How I Grew Up and following the sons of the man who murdered their grandparents. What happened to those two boys after that event? They later both serve in the Vietnam War and are deeply affected by it. These may seem like dark themes, and in a way they are, but in all my books I focus on the creativity in the lives of my characters. Music and art help them to face these challenges and heal.

Every family has challenges to deal with, some more difficult than others. And most families have shared memories of happy times as well. The Stewart sisters manage to go on; the two older sisters remarry and have happy lives, the youngest sister pursues her dream of becoming an actress. The pianist’s mother eventually learns to love her daughter-in-law and appreciate the happiness she brings to the man who bears the double burden of musical genius and a serious congenital heart defect. The tenor and his wife suffer a devastating loss and also brilliant success.

These are all stories of people that are, well, ordinary people in many ways. People who laugh, love, weep, rejoice, and find richness in their lives through their creativity.

People my readers tell me they come to love. That is immensely gratifying to me. You might enjoy meeting these people … all my novels are available on Amazon. Winter is a great time to curl up with a good book!

Covers by Tristan Flanagan

All books available on Amazon, paperback and Kindle. 

Links can be found on my website, www.susanmoorejordan.com

Young, Talented, in Love ... and Sometimes Overwhelmed

Excerpt from Eli's Heart. Krissy and Eli are young, in love, and dealing with some pretty overwhelming problems ... primarily, Eli's severe congenital heart defect. A talk about her choices for her senior voice recital, and whether Eli will perform with her, lead to a serious argument.

**********

Krissy had thought when she chose the Schumann that performing the final song in the cycle might be difficult for her. The thought of his death was in both their minds. They never spoke of it, because Eli embraced life; it was one of the things Krissy most loved and admired about him.

Eli never said it, but because of his damaged heart he was aware every sunrise, every sunset, every good meal, every beautiful piece of music might be his last. Despite that, he was full of hope and plans for the future.

Then he said, lightly, “Besides, if I didn’t play for you, who would? Eddie?”

Without thinking, Krissy said, “Well, I had considered asking him.”

Eli abruptly stood and walked over to the piano. He turned and looked at her, and she was surprised to see his face was flushed and his eyes were blazing. “Are you serious? Good God, Krissy. You know he’s still in love with you.” He almost yelled at her. 

Eli had never raised his voice at her, and she was shocked. “Why would you say that? I never see him. I don’t know when you’ve seen him.”

Krissy had no idea what was going on in his head. She was shaking inside. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Eli. I can’t read your mind. I can tell you’re upset, but I have no idea why.” She wanted to touch him, but he seemed untouchable at that moment. “There are some things we’ve never really talked about that we probably should.”
  
All this was staring them in the face because of a piece of music she wanted to sing. Maybe her performing the Schumann song cycle was a very bad idea. He turned his face away from her.

She took a deep breath and composed herself. They had to talk about this. She moved over so she was sitting directly opposite him. “When you were fifteen, when I first met you, you told me you probably wouldn’t live to be thirty. You were twenty-one in May. You never talk to me about any of this. Why is that? We talked about how things were when you were younger. We’ve never talked about ...” she stopped again. He was looking at the floor. “Eli, please look at me,” she said. “Please talk to me.”

He finally looked at her. “We never talked about what would happen if I should die suddenly,” he said flatly. It wasn’t easy to say. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t even want to think about it.

“My parents were told I could die. Just like that. They were told I’d probably make it to thirty. That’s just great, isn’t it? Is this the talk you’ve been waiting for, Krissy?”

 He stood and started to pace the room. He sounded as if he were daring her to say anything at all.

This was ridiculous; she was his wife. He had to stop this. She took his hands and said, more firmly, “Why did you get so upset when I said I’d thought about asking Eddie to play for me if you couldn’t? Why can’t we talk about this, Eli?” She moved her hands to his shoulders. Her voice softened. “I’m your wife. We’ve been married nearly a year. You must know how much I love you. Why in the world are you jealous of Eddie?”

Eli looked at her, his anger spent. His shoulders sagged. He couldn’t believe he’d spoken so harshly to her. He moved away from her and slumped down on the sofa, put his head in his hands and looked at the floor. He spoke so softly she had to put her hand on his shoulder and bend down to hear him. “Because he, he loves you, and he doesn’t have a damaged heart. He wouldn’t die on you. He’d be around to take care of you.”

Krissy knelt beside him on the sofa and put her arms around him, pulling his head to her breast. Her voice shook as she spoke. “It’s you I love, Eli. It’s you I want to be with. I told you that when I asked you to marry me. Have you forgotten?” 

He took a deep, shaky breath. “We need ... I need to talk to you more. I can’t pretend I’m okay, because I’m not.” He paused. “I get scared. I get angry.”

He stopped, and she saw the anguish on his face. “I want to live forever. I hate that I have this ...” he stopped for a moment, and his mouth twisted. He pressed a fist against his heart as he said, “ ... this broken heart.”

He had never said this to her. He had alluded to it in a letter, but hearing him say it made her ache for him. She felt her own heart break. She put her arms around him again, and pulled him as close to her as she could; he clung to her. The room grew very quiet.

******

Eli's Heart and all my novels are available on Amazon, paperback and Kindle.
Please visit my Amazon author page or my website, www.susanmoorejordan.com,
for links to the books.

Stage Fright

Performance nerves. Performance anxiety. Stage fright. Whatever you choose to call it, it’s something most musicians have to deal with, and it can be awful. It can precede a performance by hours or even days, or it can be a moment of heart-pounding, gut-wrenching fear just before the performer steps onto the stage. It’s an adrenalin jolt that some performers manage to use to their advantage; a rush of energy that some can learn to channel in such a way their performance is enhanced.

I’ve never known a performer who didn’t experience it to some degree, because we all want what we do to be flawless, perfect and awe-inspiring. That’s asking a lot of ourselves, but it’s what we strive for. It’s rare for a performer to finish a performance and be totally satisfied with it. The nerves are usually vanquished when the first notes are played or sung and the performer realizes he is going to live through this. He thinks of the music, and it begins to be an experience that’s enjoyable if not exhilarating. After all, we do this because we love to do it, to share our music.

The musicians in my books experience stage fright. Jamie Logan, the tenor who strives to conquer the world of opera in You Are My Song, describes it as a combination of fear and excitement he experiences just before the curtains open. But that’s when he’s a mature artist: as a younger singer, he had serious trouble with stage fright. I think Jamie has learned how to use that adrenalin rush to his advantage.

Eli Levin, the main character in Eli’s Heart, sometimes has terrible attacks of nerves. In this excerpt from the book, he has one of the worst cases of nerves in his young life when he has limited time to prepare a difficult and demanding piece which he plays with a string quartet. He practices like crazy (well, that’s not new – Eli always practices like crazy). He cuts a class or two to practice, has trouble sleeping and isn’t his usual loving self with his wife.

The piece is the Brahms Piano Quintet in F Minor, and if you’re intrigued there are quite a few performances on YouTube. One I especially love is with the great pianist Arthur Rubinstein and the Guarneri Quartet.

**********

Eli asked Krissy to sit in the auditorium for the first half of the concert, two Bartok quartets. She wanted to stay with him, but he told her he’d really rather she didn’t. She tried not to look hurt, but he saw in her face she felt he was shutting her out. She was right. He needed it to be him and Brahms right now. He studied the score, his hands trembling.

At intermission Walter told him not to worry, it was going to be great. Krissy found him and walked into his arms, and he held her tight. She didn’t say anything, just held him as close as she could. He relaxed enough to feel he could walk out to the piano. “Hold these for a minute, will you?”  He handed her his glasses as he wiped his face and hands with his handkerchief. It distressed her to see his hands shaking. Have I ever been this nervous before a performance? he thought. Krissy replaced his glasses and kissed him, and he relaxed a little more. She smiled and touched his face, love and concern in her eyes, and went back to her seat.

As Eli waited to go onstage with the Quartet, he tried to turn his thoughts inward, to find that place in himself where he had gone so many times to find the muse. He knew she was there; she was always there. He caught a glimpse of her and held onto it as he walked onstage. He sat at the piano, opening the score. He looked at the score as he heard the strings tuning, focusing on what Brahms was asking from them to bring the printed notes to life.

Think about the music, Eli said to himself. Think about the muse. He heard the music in his head. His hands were no longer shaking; they were steady as he lifted them. He looked at Walter and nodded slightly; he was ready. On Walter's signal Eli brought his hands down on the keyboard, a brief thought crossing his mind: Here we go. He felt and heard the opening unison passage, all of them moving as one.  Eli attacked the keyboard for the rapid arpeggios that followed, playing them cleanly; he heard the strings accenting what he was doing. He caught Walter’s signal as they began the main theme, and the music swept through him. He became caught up in the beauty of what they were doing together and the connection he felt with them.

The first movement went almost perfectly, and he began to feel more confident. Eli loved playing with these men. He was part of a team; it was the musical equivalent of playing in the infield with the New York Yankees. The nerves were gone. By the time they began the third movement ... the Scherzo ...everything felt right. His fingers flew over the keyboard with surety, elegantly arcing phrases, weaving the piano part perfectly with the strings. This was why he played; this incredible feeling of making the music soar. There was another rush of adrenalin as they approached the end of the final movement; after the last strong chords there were glances and smiles exchanged on stage. Eli breathed a huge sigh of relief, feeling slightly giddy, elated by the joy of having lived music here in this hall with Brahms, with his colleagues, with this audience. The audience stood and responded with enthusiastic and prolonged applause.

**********

Links to my books can be found on my website at www.susanmoorejordan.com

The Inspiration for ELI'S HEART

A Courageous Musician

Eli’s Heart was inspired by a friendship I had decades ago with a brilliant teenage pianist born with the congenital heart condition Tetralogy of Fallot. Samuel Sanders was fifteen when I first met him and heard him play. He was visiting a sister who lived in my hometown and he came to my house several times, and we listened to recordings of orchestral music, played piano duets (which was definitely daunting for me!), talked about books and baseball. His activities were restricted because of his congenital heart defect.

With a lot of help from Dr. Aarti Asnani, a cardiologist with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, I finally developed a grasp of the condition. There are four separate defects of the heart: a hole between the lower chambers (ventricles) of the heart, which means unoxygenated blood is mixing with oxygenated blood; a narrowing of the valve between the right ventricle and the lungs, which means not enough blood is getting to the lungs to be replenished with oxygen; a thickening of the wall of the right ventricle; and an aorta which is misplaced and is drawing blood from both ventricles. 

The result is a considerable reduction in the amount of oxygenated blood distributed to the body. The average person receives between 90 and 95% oxygenated blood. TOF patients receive sometimes less than 50%. Breathing is a struggle. Any physical activity, even walking, becomes difficult and can be life-threatening. Many children died in infancy, or did not survive puberty. Cyanosis (blue coloring of the skin, especially fingers, toes and lips) is a primary symptom.

In 1944, Drs. Alfred Blalock and Helen Taussig, with considerable help from Blalock’s assistant Vivien Thomas, developed a procedure to alleviate these children’s suffering. A shunt was created by attaching a branch of the aorta to the pulmonary artery which increased the flow of oxygenated blood. Sometimes this increase was dramatic; sometimes enough to at least ease their symptoms. From my understanding, patients who survived the procedure lived more normal and longer lives. However, the heart was not repaired. The Blalock-Taussig procedure was considered “palliative” ─ it eased the worst of the symptoms, but all four defects of the heart were still there.

About ten years later an open-heart surgery (called the “total correction” or “total repair”) was performed which patched the hole between the ventricles and widened the opening to the lungs, giving the patients a chance at a better quality – and quantity – of life. Over the past decades, as TOF patients have lived longer (some into their seventies and even eighties) other surgical procedures have been developed and refined, and a range of medications also exists to help treat the condition. It was at first considered a congenital heart defect. It is presently considered a congenital heart disease, a life-long struggle with a heart which can never be made “normal.” From my understanding, there is no one “standard” procedure for these patients. One comment from Dr. Asnani in our extensive correspondence stands out in my mind:

“With regard to treatment options for (adult) TOF patients, it’s definitely not a straightforward decision to pursue surgery, so we will often try to manage with medications for as long as possible.  Newer technologies like cardiac MRI are helping us figure out when the heart dysfunction is progressing to the point where heart surgery is absolutely necessary to prevent a further decline, though we’re still wrestling with defining the exact timeline.”

One of the first things Samuel Sanders told me was that he didn’t expect to live past the age of thirty. Other than that, and telling me about the cyanosis and that he’d had surgery, he didn’t discuss his condition and I didn’t ask questions. We concentrated on enjoying the time we had together.

After hearing him play – brilliantly –  the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto a few months later, I lost touch with him. Some thirty years later I met a young man who was studying accompanying with Sam at Juilliard, so he’d have been in his early forties at that time. His student also told me Sanders had opted to work professionally as an accompanist rather than pursuing a career as a virtuoso pianist. I was very glad to hear he had survived past the age of thirty and was still sharing his extraordinary gift.

I thought of him again when I watched the HBO film “Something the Lord Made” (highly recommended) and wondered how he was. Internet searches revealed that he had died at the age of sixty-two. He’d had the B-T procedure when he was nine and two additional surgeries (the total correction and a heart valve replacement), and eventually not one but two heart transplants. The second one failed, sadly. While not a household name, he had a long and illustrious career as a collaborative pianist and performed with some great musicians who definitely ARE household names. I list a few of his many recordings in the discography at the end of the book.

My book is fiction, and my character Eli Levin is the product of my imagination. I did not know Sam Sanders beyond that brief friendship when we were both little more than children. However, his passion for music certainly had a lasting impact on me; he was indeed an extraordinarily gifted pianist and musician. We don’t meet many musical prodigies in our lifetime, and if and when we do, we never forget them. The fact that this one also had a damaged heart made him even more unforgettable.

(First published in July, 2014)

ELI'S HEART is available in paperback on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and most online book stores; and as an e-book on Amazon, Smashwords, Nook, iBooks, and Kobo. 

cover by Tristan Flanagan

Journey With Me Back in Time

Jamie’s Children, my fourth novel, was released on Monday, July 11. The first, How I Grew Up, was released in October of 2013. I’ve been on quite a journey. I’ve learned a lot about the craft of writing, I’ve learned a lot about publishing (especially self-publishing, which is the path I have taken).

Most of all, I have learned how much I love to write.

How I Grew Up, a fictional accounting of an actual event I experienced when I was a high school student in the 1950s, was the genesis for all of this. My work in progress even has its roots in the original novel. So in celebration of releasing novel number four, I am giving away Kindle copies of novel number one, between now and 11 a.m. EDT on Sunday, July 17.

Here’s the Amazon link for the giveaway. It’s a good story. Many people read it in one sitting. It’s the first person accounting of a life-changing experience for an eighteen-year-old girl (my close friend in actuality) who is able to move from tragedy to triumph with the help of her family and friends … and the power of creativity in her life.

There is also a Goodreads Giveaway for three print copies of Jamie’s Children, which is already receiving some wonderful reviews. So I’m including the link for that as well.

My characters have challenges to overcome, and the music in their lives helps them to meet these challenges. The other two novels are Eli’s Heart and You Are My Song.

If you love to meet new characters and come to love them, and if you love music, especially classical music, you will find much to enjoy.

 Link to Amazon giveaway for Kindle edition of How I Grew Up:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Grew-Carousel-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B017WE3GW0/

Link to Goodreads Giveaway for Jamie's Children:

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/194112-jamie-s-children

Just Call Me Eponine

Victor Hugo Wasn’t Around for This One
(First published on 6-9-2016)

In the first part of Eli’s Heart, Eli Levin and Krissy Porter have just reconnected after three years. Through letters and then phone calls they resume a friendship which seemed to be blossoming into something more but was brought to an end by his interfering mother. He’s in college in Westchester County, New York; she’s at a music conservatory in Cincinnati, Ohio. He’s a brilliant pianist, she’s a voice student.

There is a growing drama on Krissy’s campus; one of the school administrators is making a power play which is creating turmoil. He has brought two new faculty members on board for obviously personal reasons, and in order to provide them with stellar performers in their studios, he attempts to raid the studios of established faculty members.

Back in the 1950s, when I was a student at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, studio loyalty was fierce and sometimes fanatical. Your applied music teacher was one of the most important people in your life. Often students of a teacher referred to them as “Mama” or “Papa” … my late husband’s excellent voice teacher, Robert Powell, was highly esteemed and was “Papa Powell.” My teacher, Fenton Pugh, was “Pappy” to his students.

I’ve had a private studio of my own since 1979 so have long been on the other side of this. There is a unique bond between a music teacher and her private students unlike that of a classroom teacher. There has to be complete trust. Your teacher is asking you to use your music to share your soul. Music is meant to live, and the finest musicians make that happen and take audiences with them to beautiful places.

So for this man to use coercion and intimidation to lure students away from this person who is vital to what they are attempting to do with their entire lives was a cause for concern, among not only the student body but among the faculty as well. In addition, some faculty were threatened with being replaced as directors of various performing groups.

The story is all there in Eli’s Heart, pretty much as it unfolded. Things came to a head not with an explosion, but with a massive toilet paper prank one night in December, after this had been simmering since September. We awoke the next morning to find nearly every tree on the small campus festooned with toilet paper, and while it was hysterically funny, it woke the board of directors up to the seriousness of the situation. Music students didn’t toilet paper trees in those days. We were far too busy practicing our butts off and dealing with music theory.

A call went out to the student body via faculty members (who were as disgruntled as we were … the school’s reputation was at stake, in their opinion, and I think they were correct) for any student who had specific grievances to speak to the Dean of the school. So Krissy decided to play advocate, and she circulated throughout the small women’s dorm, collecting information, writing it all down. She let the Dean of Men know she had this impromptu document, and was called before the Dean, the Assistant Dean, the Dean of Men, and the very administrator she was hoping to help unseat.

I know exactly how she felt when she walked into the Dean’s office and saw those four people sitting there. Krissy … well, okay, Susan Moore was only a first semester sophomore, and the consequences could have been bad if this went the wrong way and the bad guy won. Fortunately, the troops were rallying in the distance in the form of student body leaders, mostly male graduate students, who surrounded me when I left the office and after I’d been debriefed, they took over. Okay, Eponine, you fired the first salvo, now the real troops have arrived.

What convinced the board that Fred Smith had to go was the very real threat from both students and faculty that if he were not removed, we were prepared to not return to school after Christmas break, and most of the faculty stood with us. I have what I believe was the only piece of publicity our rebellion received in an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer from mid-December, 1956, upper left hand corner of the front page, headlined “Smith Quits, Conservatory Rebellion Ends.”

In part it reads: “Faculty members said they believed the resignation will end the turmoil among both students and teachers who had demanded Mr. Smith’s ouster … (Walter) Schmidt, (president of the board of trustees) confirmed the resignation, but refused further comment on what he called ‘a student rebellion.’ ‘I won’t say another word,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough trouble.’ … ‘It was a case of Mr. Smith going or there being no more school,’ a faculty member said. ‘The great majority of both students and teachers were ready to quit and go elsewhere.’”

Eli’s Heart includes the student resolution presented to the board of trustees listing our grievances against Mr. Smith (he’s referred to by another name in the book), which states in part “he has impeded educational processes by coercion, intimidation, pitting student against student, faculty against faculty, and deception of the board of directors. The administrator has sought to use his power and office to satiate his appetite for complete control and dominance.”

There’s quite a bit about what actually went on during all this in the book. Krissy was not a rebel by nature, and for her to jump into the fray as she did showed some strength I don’t think she realized she had. She had no problem with the men taking the reins after that first skirmish.

Remember, it was 1956. I have to wonder how something like this would play out in 2016.

 Eli's Heart is available on Amazon,

e-book and paperback. Visit my website

www.susanmoorejordan.com for 

additional information.

Reader Reviews – We Indie Authors NEED Them!!

From time to time I request people who have read my books to please consider writing a review on Amazon in order to share their thoughts with other potential readers. I know I have said this before, but if a book receives a certain number of reviews Amazon will begin to include those books in their promotions.

People e-mail me and sometimes speak to me in a parking lot or an aisle in a supermarket … or recently in a doctor’s office … to tell me they’ve read and enjoyed one of my books. I generally don’t ask them on the spot for an Amazon Reader Review under those circumstances! But the point is, many people have read at least one of my books and expressed their enjoyment. Many more people than have left reviews. Reader Reviews are not only helpful in making Amazon notice us in the vast Amazon Book Jungle … but another potential reader might just read that review and actually buy a book!

One thing I don’t believe people know: it’s not necessary to have bought a copy of the book. You can borrow it from your neighbor or mother. You will see “verified purchase” on many of the reviews, but not on ALL. You can express your thoughts, or at least rate a book, simply because you have read it. It’s really not a difficult process, and the review doesn’t have to be long or “scholarly.” A very recent review which I loved finding over the past weekend reads:

“This is the third book in the "Carousel Trilogy "and I have read all three and the each were so moving in their own individual way!
This book tells Jamie's story and we did get to know him in the first book of the series when he plays the male lead in a high school production of "Carousel ".He plays Billy Biggs and Melanie plays Julie Jordan.We get to see his great talent and his love for music in that production but he has sung all his life inspired by his beloved mother.
After a failed marriage to a woman totally wrong for him he is encouraged,by his mother,to pursue his musical career..
Since I don't want to give too much away you will just have to read this story and fall in love with Jamie Logan!”

I love this review. I have no idea how this reader stumbled across my books, but I love so much that she loved all three of the books in “The Carousel Trilogy” – How I Grew Up, Eli’s Heart (for which she also wrote a glowing review), and You Are My Song (the subject of this review). I also love that she fell in love with Jamie Logan. That’s what I had hoped the reader would do.

Writing a review, and I have written many for other indie authors because I know each one means so much, really takes very little time. It’s a round of applause for the author. If it’s a five-star review, it’s a standing ovation.

Every nice review warms the author’s heart. Yes, I write for myself. It’s a solitary process. But when I get a review that tells me a story of mine has moved a reader, it means more than you know. Our readers are our audience and we thrive on the applause!

Please visit my website www.susanmoorejordan.com

You will find information about and links to all of my books.