The Ghost of Frederic Chopin by Éric Faye

​    Once upon a time there was a woman who claimed a long-dead famous composer came to her and dictated her music and there was a man determined to investigate these claims. If this sounds stranger than fiction, it’s because it is. This book is, in fact, based on a true story of a real-life woman who believed these things and has made her life about them.
     A very European sort of a novel, not just its Czech Republic setting, but the overall mood, style, and ambiance, it featured a denser narrative than I normally prefer, but despite it, it read very easily and enjoyably.
      There was something very engaging about this story and its characters. The woman in question is plain, plain-spoken, with not much education and a very limited music education, which makes her claims all the more spectacular. And the man, the documentary maker, is desperate to prove her to be a fraud and yet fails, time and again. So, is she or isn’t she? You won’t know until the very end and even then, it leaves space for interpretation.
     I loved the suspended uncertainty of it all. Is it a ghost visitation or an elaborate put-on affair? And if the latter, then to what end? The woman didn’t seem interested in fame or fortune.
     At any rate, a strangely enjoyable mystery about this world…the next. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.