The Noise of Time

One of the Best Books of the Year: San Francisco Chronicle

“Brilliant. . . . As elegantly constructed as a concerto.” —NPR 

“A condensed masterpiece that traces the lifelong battle of one man’s conscience, one man’s art, with the insupportable exigencies of totalitarianism.” —The Guardian (London)

“Brilliant. . . . Leads us to places only a handful of novelists have the skill and the courage to go.” —The Boston Globe

“Barnes’s storytelling is phenomenal; Shostakovich, as tragic and anxious as he is, is utterly fascinating. “ —The Christian Science Monitor

“A powerful portrait . . . Barnes does wonderful work on the key scenes. . . . The whole Kafka madhouse brought to life.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Exquisite.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Beautifully written. There is a wonderful rhythm to the prose—long passages are broken up by staccato bursts of single sentences—and Mr. Barnes writes with a crystalline clarity.” —The Wall Street Journal

“A tense and elegant study of terror, shame and cowardice, of a celebrated artist capitulating to power, yet on his own terms. . . . Barnes interweaves the painful and the sublime to achieve an epic orchestral effect.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Affecting. . . . In his impressionistic portrait of Shostakovich, the man and the artist, Barnes balances sympathy with a tough-minded clarity. . . . In its examination of the totalitarian state through the life of a single victim, The Noise of Time stands in an honored literary tradition.” —The Miami Herald

“Undoubtedly one of Barnes’s best novels.” —The Sunday Times (London)

“Powerfully imagined and chillingly lucid. . . . Moving . . . Barnes takes us inside the composer’s mind, observing how he reacts to the ceaseless demands of power.” —The Millions

“Excellent. . . . The author’s achievement here: to not only capture the mood of fear
under which Shostakovich worked but also create a tribute to the struggle of all artists.” —The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Moving. . . . Renders Shostakovich’s wrenching personal and political conflicts in a way that makes them impossible to forget or ignore. . . . Barnes’s writing is elegant,

his curiosity boundless, and his intellect formidable.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“Magnificent. . . . Novels about artistic achievement rarely do justice to their subjects. The Noise of Time is that rarity. It is a novel of tremendous grace and power, giving voice to the complex and troubled man whose music outlasted the state that sought to silence him.” —Anthony Marra, Publishers Weekly