Ever wondered what the world of professional classical musicians looks like? The struggles and hard work that takes to train as a professional and all the challenges that come along the way. Add to this the struggle of being a minority person of color in a field dominated by white musicians then the odds are even higher of making it big.
Synopsis
The Violin Conspiracy narrates the story of Ray McMillian, a black boy hoping to make a name for himself as a professional violinist armed with his great grandfather’s instrument. However, with a surprising turn of events, Ray discovers that his violin is an original Stradivarius. As people with competing claims to the instrument come forward, Ray has his violin stolen, and that too when he is set to compete in the international Tchaikovsky Competition. With the loss of his beloved Pop pop’s fiddle, Ray must determine who to trust and how to recover his violin.
What’s to like
Being a musician himself Slocumb describes the musical pieces that Ray plays beautifully. He guides the reader through the piece like it is a story in itself and it allows one to imagine what hearing it would have made them feel.
The reader finds himself rooting for Ray throughout the book, who starts with nothing and goes on to become a renowned violinist. Within this tale of Ray and his violin, the author describes episodes of racism that Ray experiences and how his own being black is always in his mind. It opens the reader’s eyes to how living as a black person can be like navigating a minefield at times. In a field where people of color are a minority, Ray makes a place for himself and that is the kind of story that gives hope.
What’s not to like
The pace of the novel towards the end, in part seven, of the book seems a bit too fast as compared with the rest of the story. The reader spends more than half the book reading about Ray’s desperation to keep his violin and then trying to find it when it is stolen. However, the chain of events that finally solves the mystery seems a bit abrupt.