Book Review
By Forrest Preece
“A Testament to Wind and Stone” by Max Sherman
Max Sherman, former dean of the LBJ School, is a West Austin icon and a gifted author. His latest novel, “A Testament to Wind and Stone,” is entertaining, with plotlines that traverse music, creativity, love, the wonder of nature, Vietnam, and the conflicts in the Middle East. How Sherman ties it all together might strike some readers as fantastical. But then I look at my placing an employment ad for a local software company in the Dallas Morning News in 1975, Linda Ball accepting the job, and marrying me six months later, and I have to agree that sometimes “art imitates life.”
Taking that thought one step further, it’s hard not to see this book as a metaphor for how idyllic the world would be if humans could hear the sounds of nature and reorder them into music that transcends religion, politics, national boundaries, and war.
The book begins in Amarillo. Doctor Tom Brewer’s patient, Karolina Strapovic, a world-renowned Czechoslovakian pianist, has delivered twins and has put both of them up for adoption. Brewer’s attorney friend Daniel James helps with the process. Since the next couple on the adoption list said they would not accept twins, a search begins to find another family to take the second child, and it is quickly successful. As it happens, one couple is Jewish, the other is Protestant. How to decide which boy goes to which couple? The doctor puts slips of paper in a Mason jar, draws them, and gives them to his nurse, sending the boys to their respective destinies.
It’s not long until both twins exhibit exceptional musical talents, and by the time they are in their late teens, they are studying at top-flight schools. One, Archer, becomes a composer who draws his inspiration from the sounds of cattle on North Texas ranches, the wind whistling along rocky terrain, a man he hears playing blues guitar, and the poverty he sees in small towns on a bus ride home from New York City. His twin Ari, who was adopted by the Jewish family, becomes a conducting prodigy and attracts international attention.
Along the way, both boys fall in love with talented women. After a series of entertaining twists and turns, they both wind up in Israel for a concert that is an international event featuring their mother as the pianist. (And no, they are not aware that she is their mother at first.) In a deft narrative turn, the orchestra Ari assembles for this concert has a variety of Middle Eastern instruments mixed with the usual winds and strings. More than that, and I’d be spoiling the plot.
One quote by Daniel, the attorney, sums it up: “. . . when I realized that Karolina was coming here to play Archer’s music, I had to pause and think that maybe, just maybe, there is a higher hand at work. Perhaps it’s truly about the power of love and the power of music.”
The book is available at BookPeople as well as an audiobook on Audible.
