The Time of Our Singing

By: Richard Powers

Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez

Length: 33 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

A magnificent, multifaceted novel about a supremely gifted - and divided - family, set against the backdrop of postwar America

On Easter day, 1939, at Marian Anderson's epochal concert on the Washington Mall, David Strom, a German Jewish emigre scientist, meets Delia Daley, a young Philadelphia Negro studying to be a singer. Their mutual love of music draws them together, and - against all odds and better judgment - they marry. They vow to raise their children beyond time, beyond identity, steeped in song. But their three children must survive America's brutal here and now.

Jonah, Joseph, and Ruth grow up during the Civil Rights era, come of age in the violent 1960s, and live out adulthood in the racially retrenched late century. Jonah, the eldest, "whose voice could make heads of state repent", follows a life in his parents' beloved classical music. Ruth, the youngest, chooses a militant activism and repudiates the white culture her brother represents. Joseph, the middle child and the narrator of this generational tale, struggles to remain connected to them both.

The Time of Our Singing is a story of self-invention, allegiance, race, cultural ownership, the compromised power of music, and the tangled loops of time that rewrite all belonging.

©2003 Richard Powers (P)2018 Recorded Books

Timely read

For those, the privileged, by the fortune of chance to be born white in America.

Fantastic

I loved this book. Richard Powers is a genius. So many layers and twists. Like The Overstory, I am sure I’ll read again. Highly recommend.

Long but worth it.

This book was an extremely long read. But if you do it on an audio book, it is much easier to comprehend. the new psychology is pretty deep if you don't have a rudimentary understanding of music composition. However, the writing is extremely beautiful and carries the characters through a traveling. Journey of time and color

complex and moving

Richard Powers does a stupendous job of character development maintaining suspense while weaving themes of time, music, science, racism and what it means to be black in America. I was completely captivated by descriptions of scenes: musical performance, whether in the living room of the protagonist's family or in the concert hallls or in a speakeasy Atlantic City came alive and I could both see and hear the music. The same is true as we follow the characters attempting to define their lives and their identities as biracial children, unaccepted as either black or white.

The performance is also stupendous, consistently maintaining a rhythm never lost my interest or attention.

Narrator should look up how to pronounce musical terms and composers

It is wonderfully expansive story about music, family, and race with many historical references. I really got to know and love the characters. The narrator should be more informed with regard to music.

An unforgettable epic

The story is real. I’ve learned a lot about music and composers who are less familiar. It’s the best historical fiction I’ve ever read.

A time odf singing makes great listening and read

This moving story of three generations of an inter-racial, fascinating family is also a history of America between 1940 and 2000, including richly rewarding detours into Marian Anderson's career and life and Emmitt Till's tragedy. As often with Richard Powers' powerful books real life is laced with a measure of magic. I recommend this reading experience highly.

USA, Race, historical fiction

I love this author. This was the second book of his I have listened to by him. I found them both to be important topics that may well be the death ofbthis country. I read a few reviews before listening. Every book I listen to about race and racism have abundant reviews by offended white people. I don't believe the most of them actually listened to this book.

Singing a song of discord then harmony

Richard Powers is an epic and gifted writer whose knowledge and lived experience provides a historical context for interracial marriage, mixed race children, the stigma of othering so prevalent today, and the transcendence of quantum physics’ perspective on time through his story of a relationship in the 1930s of a German immigrant physicist to the US and his subsequent relationship, marriage, and progeny with a black female vocalist from inner city Philadelphia. The rifts that develop: the anguish of not only being black but also being mixed race through the rise of the black power movement are thoroughly unpacked. The author, Richard Powers, has an advanced degree in physics as well as being a gifted musician: his ability to write cogently about the space-time continuum and the transcendence of music throughout all time is profound. This book of historical fiction is ever appropriate as we continue to unpack our legacy of grappling with othering, out of our collective fear not of difference, but our sameness. Don’t miss this book, as well as his current book The Overstory. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Our Time of Singing is Beautiful

The depths of all that is beyond the outer sheath of this world 's seeming reality is beautifully stitched together in this masterpiece of writing. Incredible! If you love music, art, that glorious richness of Other that surrounds and encompasses us all, you will love this book.