My newest historical novel will debut April 15. We’re now in what book publishers call the “ARC phase,” which stands for Advance Review Copies. The purpose, of course, is to generate positive comments from both professional reviewers and a broad spectrum of “regular readers.”  

          So what’s “The Music Makers” all about? And why this particular topic?

          The what begins with an organ grinder in East Berlin’s dark days in 1989. His tunes bring smiles in a grim, gray city and evoke memories of carefree times before the Great War and smothering rule of the East German Stasi and Russian KGB. Soon Leo the organ man is joined by other street musicians. They evolve into a regular Sunday afternoon soiree where picknickers sing and dance for a few hours of relief from lives of guarding their conversations and standing in lines to buy shoddy goods at indifferent government shops.  ​

          But in time the music makers attract the attention of security agents. Interrogations pry open past lives that had been hidden from view of friends and neighbors. And each in their own way, people on both sides of the East-West divide play roles in the fall of the wall and the re-birth of modern Germany.

          For the why I wrote this book, I offer you the Preface word for word:​

 

The overnight appearance of the Berlin wall in August 1961 was a severe setback to democracy so soon after a world war was fought to preserve it. But the “great fall” of the wall in 1989, the emergence of a united Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union soon created the brightest opportunity for democracy in the history of Europe.​

          And yet, to the millions living in faraway nations like America, these dramatic events played on TV screens as two-minute blurbs on the nightly news or as documentaries that now rust in the archives of YouTube. ​

          Those born in the years since 1989 – when history all but disappeared from public school curricula – may not even be aware that these events took place. Never registered in millions of brains…along with Lexington, Gettysburg and D-Day.  ​

          If they mean nothing, how can they be part of what defines who we are today?

With no hindsight, no lessons learned, and with so much of our time spent tethered to our supposedly “smart” phones, we are already beginning to swoon to the siren call of demagogues who promise that “only I can fix” the crisis du jour.  

          This is a story of ordinary people living in a dictatorship and their struggle to be free of it.  Democracy was their most cherished ideal. 

          Is it still ours?

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Now about that free book offer. If you read on a Kindle or any digital device, just email me with your request at jds@jamesdsnyder.net. You’ll promptly receive a pdf file at your email address. Within 30 days, please send back an email with your review/comments. The length can be up to 300 words. Note: some commenters simply repeat the plot. Please don’t. It’s what they call a “spoiler.”
 

Also: please don’t try posting your review directly on web sites like Amazon. The “Music Makers” won’t appear online until early April.​