Marianne Langner Zeitlin's third novel, Motherless Child, draws on her background in the "business" side of the music business (classical division) to conduct an engrossing tale of family secrets with elements of psychological mystery and a touch of romance.
The Guaragna family knows loss all too well--the death of a child, the abrupt decline of a musical career, the disappearance of a mother--and for decades, they've placed the blame for those losses on music impresario Albert Rossiter. Now, in what one might expect to be the declining years of his career, Rossiter is instead launching a high-profile management firm, and the youngest Guaragna child, Elizabeth, sees an opportunity to learn more about her family's nemesis. While she lacks management experience, she possesses the musical knowledge to land a position as Rossiter's assistant, and--calling herself Lisa Sullivan--begins to know her enemy. Rossiter's would-be biographer, George Wentworth, is also getting to know him, and what he is learning could reshape Elizabeth's entire understanding of her family's history.
Shifting perspectives between Elizabeth and George, Zeitlin's narrative draws the reader into both characters' search for the truth about the complicated and powerful Albert Rossiter with an immersive portrayal of the culture business of the late 1960s. (It's this past setting that makes Eizabeth/Lisa's charade more plausible than it might be in the present day.) With a plot that takes some unexpected turns--and characters who do the same--Motherless Child should appeal to fans of thought-provoking women’s fiction. --Florinda Pendley Vasquez, blogger at The 3 R's Blog: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness