The History of Sound

“Exquisitely crafted, deeply imagined, exhilaratingly diverse, --Geraldine Brooks, In twelve luminous stories set across three centuries, The haunting title story recalls the journey of two men who meet around a piano in a smoky, dim bar, only to spend a summer walking the Maine woods collecting folk songs in the shadow of the First World War, forever marked by the odyssey. Decades later, a woman discovers the wax cylinders recorded that fateful summer while cleaning out her new house in Maine. Shattuck’s inventive, exquisite stories transport readers from 1700s Nantucket to the contemporary woods of New Hampshire--into a landscape both enduring and unmistakably modern. Memories, artifacts, paintings, and journals resurface in surprising and poignant ways among evocative beaches, forests, and orchards, revealing the secrets, misunderstandings, and love that linger across centuries. Written with breathtaking humanity and humor, <The History of Sound <is a love letter to New England, a radiant conversation between past and present, and a moving meditation on the abiding search for home.

Autorentext

Ben Shattuck is the author of Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau, which was a New Yorker Best Book of 2022, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of Spring, a New York Times Best Book of Summer, a New England Indie Bestseller, and was nominated for the Massachusetts Book Award. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and a Pushcart Prize. He lives with his wife and daughter on the coast of Massachusetts, where he owns and runs the oldest general store in America, built in 1793. He is also the director and founder of the Cuttyhunk Island Writers’ Residency.

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**NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING PAUL MESCAL AND JOSH O’CONNOR

Winner of the Story Prize Spotlight Award • Shortlisted for the 2025 Mark Twain Award • Longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction & the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction

An ALA Notable Book • One of NPR’s “Books We Love” • One of the Chicago Tribune’s 10 Best Books of 2024 • Best Short Fiction, Kirkus Reviews

“Polyphonic fiction. . . . A reminder of the short story’s power. . . . The History of Sound marks Shattuck as one of the form’s brightest lights. . . . A terrific writer. . . . Deeply resonant.” —The Boston Globe

“Exquisitely crafted, deeply imagined, exhilaratingly diverse, The History of Sound places Ben Shattuck firmly among the very finest of our storytellers.”
—Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Horse

“Magnificent. . . . Poignant. . . . Exquisite.” —Publishers Weekly

A stunning collection of interconnected stories set in New England, exploring how the past is often misunderstood and how history, family, heartache, and desire can echo over centuries**

In twelve luminous stories set across three centuries, The History of Sound examines the unexpected ways the past returns to us and how love and loss are entwined and transformed over generations. In Ben Shattuck's ingenious collection, each story has a companion story, which contains a revelation about the previous, paired story. Mysteries and murders are revealed, history is refracted, and deep emotional connections are woven through characters and families.

The haunting title story recalls the journey of two men who meet around a piano in a smoky, dim bar, only to spend a summer walking the Maine woods collecting folk songs in the shadow of the First World War, forever marked by the odyssey. Decades later, in another story, a woman discovers the wax cylinders recorded that fateful summer while cleaning out her new house in Maine. Shattuck’s inventive, exquisite stories transport readers from 1700s Nantucket to the contemporary woods of New Hampshire and beyond—into landscapes both enduring and unmistakably modern. Memories, artifacts, paintings, and journals resurface in surprising and poignant ways among evocative beaches, forests, and orchards, revealing the secrets, misunderstandings, and love that linger across centuries.

Written with breathtaking humanity and humor, The History of Sound is a love letter to New England, a radiant conversation between past and present, and a moving meditation on the abiding search for home.

Leseprobe
The History of Sound

I was seventeen when I met David, back in 1916. Now I don’t very much care to count my age. It’s April 1984 here in Cam­bridge. White puff balls that must be some sort of seedpod have been floating by the window above my writing desk for days now, collecting on the sidewalk like first snow.

My doctor suggested I write this story down, due to the recent sleeplessness that started when a package from a stranger arrived at my house: a box of twenty- five wax phonograph cylinders, sent from Brunswick, Maine. A letter taped to the box read, I saw you on television. I admire your work. These are yours. I found them when cleaning out the house we bought. Of the three books I’ve written on American folk music—with moderate success and thus the tele­vision interviews—I’ve never written about that summer with David. So, here we are.

I first saw him in the fall, after my first term at the New England Conservatory, when I was out with my friends in the pub. He was across the room, at the piano. I remember watching how his shirt stretched and slacked across his back.

“What do you think?” my friend Sam asked, tapping me on the arm.

I hadn’t heard his question.

“What are you looking at?” he said, turning.

“I know that song,” I said. It was “A Dead Winter’s Night,” a tune my father used to play on the fiddle back in Kentucky. A slow song to the tempo of “a sitting person’s breath,” as he’d say. An old English ballad from the Lake District, I’ve since researched, about a man and a woman lost in the woods, having run from their homes to elope. Thinking of it now reminds me of lying on the porch in the summer, moths flitting around the lantern, my father’s foot hitting the floor—the scratch of his boot on the wood. Katydids in the trees, stitching the night together. My brother sitting nearby.

“Excuse me,” I said to Sam.

I pushed through the crowd, to the piano. I watched David play. His eyes were closed, so at first he didn’t notice me standing there. Cigarette held between his lips. Dark hair combed back. His head jolted when the chorus arrived. I watched his hands.

“Where did you learn that?” I asked when he ended.

“Oh,” he said, looking up. “Some swamp in Kentucky.” He ashed his cigarette on the floor. A deep voice. Words spoken too fast. He played a C chord with one hand and picked up his drink from the floor with the other.

“I’m from Kentucky,” I told him. His hand paused on the keys. He looked up again.

“Yes, well. Sorry.” He held out his hand. “David.”

“Lionel,” I said.

“What department?”

Likely everyone in the pub that night was from the Conser­vatory.

“Voice,” I said.

“Well, fa‑la‑la. I’m composition. This”—he played the melody once—“a hobby. In the summer. To get fresh air. Song collecting.”

From across the room, my friends motioned that they were leaving. I waved them on.

“Ever been to Harrow?” I said. “That’s whe…