Rating: 5/5 stars

“Loss came in all shapes and forms, but it never occurred to me until now that you could lose the things you never had.”

At this point, I feel like my entire list of favourite reads of 2022 is going to be made up of marmite books that people will either love or hate, but I will be confidently championing this one as a book that I loved to my core. Top 5 reads of 2022, and a book I see myself revisiting in the future many times.

Ghost Music is a resonant and reflective character piece with some admittedly bizarre element of magical realism mixed in. Our protagonist Song Yan is a young woman in the midst of a quiet identity crisis. She has given up her lifetime dream of becoming a concert pianist, in favour of becoming a housewife to her new husband, and only touches the piano to tutor a handful of children on the side. As her husband travels for work, the silence of their empty apartment is filled only with the tentative notes of her pupils, and the recent addition of her argumentative mother-in-laws critiques on her life. Tensions rise in the household until their holding-pattern is broken by a mysterious delivery of mushrooms from an unknown sender. These mushrooms form a conversation starter between the two women, as well as a starting point for a quest for the mysterious gifter, that will set Song Yan on the trail of a world-famous pianist who disappeared a decade ago.

Ghost Music brilliantly tells a story of young Chinese woman desperately trying to fit into the mould she feels set out for her, yet experiencing the dissonance and friction of that mould mismatching with her own dreams. It’s a novel that is, at its core, about grief. Not just the traditional kind over the loss of a loved one, but the kind of grief you can feel over the loss of your own identity and the future you envisioned. Each of the central characters (Song Yan, her mother in law, her husband and even Bai Yu) carries with them their own regrets of a previous life and roads not taken. Song Yan’s journey throughout these pages is a powerful search for identity and meaning in her plan-B, whilst shedding the haunting of a life she could’ve lived.

An Yu manages to pack so much layering into such a short novel and her writing has matured so much since her already brilliant debut Braised Pork. Her prose flows like music and weaves together the intricate chords of these different motifs and themes to create a beautifully melancholic symphony.
Even readers who don’t typically enjoy magical realism need not be intimidated by the “magical element” of the fungi in this novel. They are never plot point in themselves, but rather function as a catalyst. They connect and spark conversations about the past between Song Yan and her mother-in-law as the two of them make them into soup. They sprout from dark and forgotten places as a reminder of a past in decay. They appear in Song Yan’s dreams to blur the line between reality and the life she imagined. They are what I wish a good magical realist element to be: an accentuation of reality rather than a magical trope in their own right.
Overall, I deeply loved Ghost Music and was left with its deep and melancholic sounds resonating in my mind until now. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, even though I can see why some readers found it to be too “experimental/weird”.

Many thanks to Grove Press, Recorded Books and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of one of my favourite reads of the year. All opinions are my own.

“We are all like trees, I thought, our heads swaying in the wind, our roots buried in the ground, unseen by anyone, and at times forgotten by ourselves”

Ghost music is a contemplative story of loss, grief, loneliness, silence, music, & identity. It was the perfect read for a cold & snowy December week because the writing style - simple yet intricate - set an atmosphere of melancholy & disconnectedness. Reading the novel felt like drifting through a bizarre dream and this was emphasized by the tiny touches of magical realism scattered throughout.

This novel follows piano teacher Song Yan who is reconciling her lost dreams of becoming a renown concert pianist like her idol Bia Yiu while juggling marital discord. Work obsessed husband Bowen continuously shuts down her desires for a child while withholding secrets from his past. Her life is disrupted when mysterious packages of mushrooms begin to arrive at their doorstep. When Bowen’s mother comes to live with them, Song Yan finds the only way to connect with her is by cooking the mushrooms together. Everything starts to shift in her life when she discovers the mysterious sender of the mushrooms is none other than Bia Yiu as he invites her help him find the “song of life” and when small talking ghost mushrooms being to appear around her.

Ghost music is beautifully written & deceptively underwhelming at first. However, as you read it, it takes you on a peculiar journey with a lot of philosophical undertones. It’s so hard to put all my thoughts into one post. I recommend this book to anyone who loves slow, character driven, contemplative novels. This book can be quite niche and you have to be okay with many unanswered questions. If you choose to read it I believe your experience will be further enhanced if you listen to the music mentioned in the novel (Reverie by Debussy, Clara Schumann, and John Cage). I also recommend listening to the @mushroomrevival podcast episode on John Cage as I believe it will provide a deeper insight into the connection between mushrooms and music.

Thanks netgalley for this ARC!

After moving into a new beijing apartment with her husband and widowed mother in law, Song Yan brings to feel more isolated and skeptical of the relationships around her. Rebuffed by her husband in her desire to have a child, discovering family secrets, and fighting with her mother in law frustrate her routine piano teachers life, and she longs for something more. After a mysterious delivery, she connects with a one renowned musician in hiding, and begins to return to music, and find anew sense of self.

I felt similar while reading this book as i did during drive your plow over the bones of the dead- am i missing a cultural signifier that works help me better understand this book, or is this just a delicious little weird thing that i am supposed to enjoy rather than understand? I'm leaning into the latter because what i most enjoyed about this book was the *vibes. *

Starting with mysterious packages of wild mushrooms, a series of surreal events lead Song Yan, a lonely piano teacher, to examine just what went wrong with her life.

4.5
This is a wonderfully bittersweet little book. Yu perfectly creates an atmosphere of emotional desolation as Song struggles to figure out how to jumpstart her stalled life. Despite the occasional talking mushrooms, Yu's written and crafted Song's life in incredibly tangible detail. Everything from avoiding tough conversations, to tense familial relationships, to a lost and found again passion deeply resonated with me. Most of this is pretty understated but each of Song's experiences culminates to form something that's more than the sum of its parts. HOWEVER, I can't undersell what Yu's done with Song and Bowen's relationship. This might be my favorite portrayal of how complicated romantic relationships can be. They argue, they avoid each other, they cry together. To me, this push and pull is what's pushed this book into one of the best I've read this year.

That said, I do wish Yu had swung harder on the surreal aspects though, these were some of my favorite scenes and there just weren't enough. I think this also could've improved the pacing. Once I got over her british accent, I liked Vera Chok's narration - good characterization and she really contributed to the somber vibe.

A delicious $10 mushroom risotto that's a bit undersalted but the restaurant has a master pianist playing Debussy's Reverie on repeat.

Ghost Music weaves three of my favourite elements - mushrooms, classical music, and magical realism - into a gripping narrative that unfortunately fizzles into nothing at the end. Song Yan is a piano teacher who once trained as a concert pianist, but ran away from that career and chose marriage as an escape. Years into her marriage, bits of her husband’s past mushroom out of nowhere, and she is increasingly troubled by the feeling that she never truly knew him or herself. The story explores emptiness, dissatisfaction, motherhood, anger, grief, self discovery and general disorientation in life. Much to my disappointment, everything is left hanging loose at the end, as if the author just ripped up the fascinating fabric that she had so skilfully woven in the first 96% of the book.
3.5⭐️

'Ghost Music' is a strange, although beautifully written book, which combines a modern, realistic story about a young woman finding increasing difficulties with her marriage, with a surreal subplot. Song Yan, the narrator, is a piano teacher in Beijing, having given up on becoming a concert pianist and married a car company executive. Her life has become more difficult since her mother-in-law moved in - Song Yan is keen to have a child, but husband Bowen is vehemently against it, something his mother blames on Song Yan. In the midst of this, strange parcels of mushrooms start arriving from an unknown sender, whilst Song Yan dreams of a talking orange mushroom. Events spiral when Song Yan discovers Bowen has been keeping some large secrets about his past, and the surreal happenings increase when she tracks down the mysterious fungi benefactor.

An Yu does write beautifully, both about food and about music - two of my favourite things and two of the best things that good writing can capture. It is a book that will give you a definite craving for some mushrooms. The story combines mundane and minute detail about ordinary things, with flights of bizarre fantasy and philosophical musings, in a way that is seamless. It does make it a very curious book though. I'm not generally a fan of surreal or magical realist stories, but I did identify strongly with Song Yan and the 'real world' story about her marital difficulties keep me hooked and compelled to read.

The surreal elements are never really explained or justified, but it bothered me less than in it would in most other novels. Readers who enjoy this genre should therefore love it, I would think. I think it would appeal to fans of Helen Oyeyemi, who has a similar elegant, surrealist style.

The audio book is nicely narrated by Vera Chok, who captures the calm-yet-strange atmosphere well in her pace and delivery. She also differentiates well between the character voices without sounding silly. It is quite a restful story to listen to, and the dream-like elements make it a good choice for winding down in the evening or listening to whilst waiting to go to sleep.

Ghost Music
By An Yu

Genre: Literary Fiction
Narrator: Vera Chok
Length: 5 hours, 58 minutes

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Ghost Music is the hauntingly beautiful story of Song Yan, an unfulfilled music teacher who gave up a career as a concert pianist. She attempts to be the agreeable wife she has been taught to be and now longs for a child. Her distant husband Bowen is very focused on his career as an executive at a car company and doesn’t think there is room in their life for a child. Soon after, Bowen’s widowed mother is brought from her home in Yunnan Provence to live with them in Beijing. The mother-in-law blames Song Yan for withholding grandchildren from her, the one thing she lives for. Then a mysterious package of mushrooms is delivered to their door which is addressed to another unknown party. As there is no return address, they can not be redirected. The two women relish in the surprise and join over preparing these mushrooms for Bowen, a favorite from his childhood. They begin to anticipate with pleasure the regular delivery of these mushrooms and find that it brings them closer together. That is, until Song Yu begins to realize she doesn’t really know her husband at all. Song Yan tries to be happy with her placid life, but things are crumbling around her.

Ghost Music starts off like any other domestic tale of ennui. But then the story takes on some surreal elements when orange mushrooms appear in Song Yu’s dreams and a famous pianist, who hasn’t been seen in ten years, summons her. Ghost Music is a layered, meditative tale that will stay with the reader and have them mulling over its many meanings. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself researching varietal mushrooms and their symbolism. Ghost Music really worked for me.

Vera Chok skillfully narrated Ghost Music and perfectly captured the subtle shifts in mood and tone of this story. I throughly bought into her interpretation of Song Yan and the other characters. I highly recommend listening to Ghost Music to readers who enjoy a loosely structured character study and don’t require a tidy ending.

Look for it - Pub Date 10 Jan 2023. I’d like to thank the author @anyuwrites, @NetGalley, @RBMedia and @RecordedBooks for the gift of this ALC.

This is not a book you should read expecting a great plot. Instead, this book is an in-depth look at music, loss, grief, and identity.

The atmosphere was unsettling and even a bit eerie at times, and the audiobook narrator did an incredible job getting that through.

For the most part, the characters and writing were not gripping enough for me, and this is why this book doesn't get more than 3 stars, however, there were some stunning quotes that made me want to get a physical copy just to highlight them.

I loved the beginning of this book and getting to learn more about the characters, but then it just fizzled. It felt like the book ended somewhere in the middle of the story.

Thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for early access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is one of those books that when I get to the end I'm not entirely sure what I've read or listened to in this instance). The narrator, Vera Chok, was excellent by the way - just the right amount of nuance expressed in each sentence.

The book, on the other hand, would probably come under the category of okay but still not sure. The main character, Song Yan, is a piano teacher whose life is undergoing fundamental changes. Her mother in law has just moved in with them after her father in law's death. Following closely on from this she learns some very surprising secrets about her husband. She then begins to receive boxes of mushrooms which are not addressed to her but she believes have been sent by a concert pianist who disappeared years before under mysterious circumstances. She has also begun to have frightening and disturbing dreams where she is locked in a windowless room whose only other occupant appears to be a ghost mushroom who tries to explain all the mysteries going on around her.

Needless to say, Song Yan undergoes a period of unrest. The book meanders from meetings with her friends, to conversations with people she doesn't know to arguments with both her husband and mother in law.

It is a strange book but I didn't feel cheated by its lack of direction. I'd certainly listen to it again but more slowly. The rhythm is hypnotic and if you don't mind the odd talking mushroom or lack of plot then you'll probably enjoy it. Fans of magical realism or poetic prose would probably find it very satisfying. I'd definitely recommend the audio version.

I love weird books and this was definitely a weird book. I'm not sure I got all of it, but I loved the magical weirdness of ghost mushrooms, I loved the writing style (this was my first by An Yu) and I was fully immersed in this story from the very beginning. I am adding her first novel, Braised Pork to my TBR now. I listened to the audio version of this book and the narrator was wonderful. Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for the advanced review copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion.

Eerie and lyrical, this book has some serious Rebecca vibes. This time, the ghost is more friendly and their interactions are more healing than traumatizing. The author takes us on an exploration of self, and how who we are isn't always a reflection of who we thought we would become. This story will strike a chord with anyone who feels they've lost their way, become stagnant in routine, and feels lonely in their relationships.

Song Yan gave up on her dreams of a concert pianist years ago and now teaches young students in her apartment while her husband, Bowen works as an executive at a car company and rebuffs her requests to have a child of their own. When her mother-in-law comes to stay, she campaigns on Song Yan’s behalf for a child, and she sees an opportunity to bond further when a package of mushrooms from her mother-in-law’s home region of Yunnan. Each week they arrive, and eventually a letter that will Song Yan on a weird journey to an abandoned house.

Though it wasn’t what I expected, I really enjoyed this book. Not as much weird fiction as I’d imagined, and more literary fiction, it’s still got some surreal bits, and I appreciated that. The poetic prose is beautiful, and I found myself pausing more than once just to admire the choice of words and beautiful language. I was with Song Yan through her journey and got especially invested once she began visiting the house and for the strange journey that came afterward.

It’s not super long, and if you like meditative, beautifully crafted book, I definitely recommend checking this one out. The narrator, Vera Chok, did a wonderful job at keeping me engaged with the story. It’s out on January 10th wherever you get your books and audiobooks.

Thank you so much to net galley and the publisher for sending me a copy of this audio book. I was drawn in cover first then by the plot. Unfortunately I didn’t finish this book. I was not a fan

An Yu's Ghost Music, is a spiritual companion to Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing's The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Since abandoning her childhood goal-difficult to say dream-of becomming a concert pianist like her father, the novels protagonist, Song Yan, is set adrift. The novel beautifully combines mushroom, memory, and loss. The sparsity of Yu's prose pairs perfectly with Song Yan's wandering through Beijing.

The various threads hang together somewhat loosely, rarely converging; perhaps reflecting Song Yan's compartmentalization or disconnection, but it meant the surrealist elements weren't incorporated as smoothly as I expected. The ending came rather abruptly, leaving a lot unresolved; but isn't that just to say I it to keep going?

Vera Chok, the narrator of the audiobook edition, did a fantastic job capturing the meloncholic voice of the text.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ALC.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but it was positively enchanting. Elegant and delicately written, the text pairs beautifully with Vera Chong's voice, providing an exquisite auditory experience. Song Yan, would love to have a child but her husband, Bowen, isn't at all keen. To add to Song Yan's misery, her mother-in-law has moved from Yunnan to Beijing, and is now living with the young couple. She makes no secret of the fact that she expects a grandchild. Like so many mothers-in-law, she holds her daughter-in-law responsible for the lack.

The day the family moves to their new apartment, a surprise package arrives. Such parcels arrive with regularity thereafter. They, and their contents. become an important part of the young woman's life. Having forsaken her own career as a pianist to support her husband's, Song Yan teaches piano to a handful of child students. while living a lovely, unstimulated, life within the walls of her marriage.

Rich with metaphors, Ghost Music draws the listener in as it weaves a narrative exploring a woman in the cold of a Beijing, winter as she battles discontent, loneliness, disappointment, and frustration; and attempts to make meaning of her life. (Helped along by some mushrooms.)

I loved the unsettling, uncanny atmosphere of this wonderfully disturbing feminist novel about grief: Song Yan is haunted by her past dream of becoming a concert painist, which she traded for becoming a wife - music was her home, now she hopes her husband will be just that. But when her mother-in-law moves in, Song Yan gradually discovers that she never really knew her husband, that he carries traumas and secrets (including an ex-wife and a kid, while he refuses to have a child with Song Yan). While the marriage becomes more and more precarious, Song Yan mysteriously receives a letter from her father's favorite concert pianist who was presumed death, and she starts to play again. And then there are the deliveries with different mushrooms that appear at her door, as well as a talking orange mushroom that manifests in her dreams...

While I struggled with her debut Braised Pork, I really enjoyed how An Yu amps up the weird in this deeply humane novel that relates each plot development to freaking fungi: They seduce the mother-in-law to spill secrets, they help Song Yan ponder her identity, and they suddenly grow in apartments, letting the line between reality and hallucination oscillate. There is a The Vegetarian feminist vibe involved, as Song Yan tries (and partly really wants to be) the traditional Chinese wife she is expected to evolve into, but the music at the core of her identity is a ghost she cannot shake, she cannot replace it as a partner in this symbiosis.

I was intrigued how complex the plot is crafted, how the imagery is open to different readings, and that Song Yan is not simply a victim of society, but a messy individual that often makes the reader wonder how intimately she knows (and can know) the inner workings of her soul, and that of the people around her. The enigmatic star painist that re-appears is searching for the sound of being alive, and composer and mushroom enthusiast John Cage is invoked, who famously knew about the sonic resonance of silence (see: John Cage: A Mycological Foray / Silence: Lectures and Writings). Alas, what can the silences of the characters in the novel reveal about their grief, about the absences and ghosts they wrestle with?

Interestingly, Icelandic artist Björk has recently released a "mushroom album" (her words), Fossora, which is, of course, great. The album also deals with grief, in this case the passing of her mother. Nevertheless, she explains that her "fungus period has been fun and bubbly" and stresses the connection to the soil and the unruly nature of wildly growing, various fungi - also an interesting foil to read An Yu's novel, and see the fungi as creative, resistant forces of hope.

An exciting novel, that should get some award recognition for its daring, weird nature and its sovereign refusal to neatly answer all questions it asks.

DNF at 25%

The novel opens with the protagonist conversing with a mushroom—a promising start for me. But ultimately the book was too quiet for me, and too slow. I always look for a novel to combine multiple pressure points for interest and motion, and this novel seemed to meditate on only one—the conflict between the protagonist and her husband about whether or not to have a child. I had to set It aside in favor of titles I found more compelling.

Pros: I listened to this book in one sitting both because it is an efficient length and because I was intrigued by the talking mushrooms . . . which is a sentence I've never written about a book! I was most interested in the relationships between the main character, her husband, and her mother-in-law, and I enjoyed the role music played in this book.

Cons: Although I appreciate that the author tried something different (i.e., talking mushrooms), I don't think I understood parts of this book. I am not sure if I as the reader am the con for not understanding or if the book will be confusing to other readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for the opportunity to listen to this book.

I'm very thankful to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this ahead of publication, because I don't think I would've picked it up otherwise. I recently read the author's debut "Braised Pork" which fell a bit short for me and I found quite underwhelming. Thankfully that was not the case for this one and I think the narrator played a big role in that.
The magical realism element felt more in place for me in this one and the narrators voice really did a great job setting the scene and putting you right in the middle of it. The story flowed very naturally and the characters were compelling and well fleshed.
Overall a great read and really makes me wonder how "Braised Pork" might change the reading experience in the audio format.