Echo

Echo comprises three stories inside a story inside another story. Maybe I could best describe it with an already solved SAT analogy test question.

INCEPTION : DREAMS :: ECHO : STORY LINES

Each of the stories was riveting and endearing, but I liked Friedrich's the best (a story about fighting injustice in Nazi Germany is pretty much a trump card for me) and Ivy's the least (even though her story starts in my hometown of Fresno). All five stories follow the pattern of a music-loving main character who experiences some extreme hardship (war, orphan-hood, segregation), but who finds solace in and even a slightly magical escape from hardship in the same enchanted Hohner harmonica. And the stories all reach a satisfying, if slightly kitschy, resolution in the end when the main characters all end up at the same concert at Carnegie Hall (some performing, one conducting, some attending) in the final chapter, though they are unaware they had all at some point in their lives played the same magical harmonica.

I found this book particularly enjoyable because I happen to be a music-loving main character who plays a Hohner harmonica (though I'm fairly certain it is not the same harmonica they all played . . . ) and I loved that each new story started with the harmonica tabs to a song played in the story. I made sure to play them all for my son (he wasn't a fan of Auld Lang Syne).

 Recommendation: Whole-hearted. Best read with a harmonica on hand.

And now for an irrelevant, but related, story.

While headed home last Christmas, I was stopped by Atlanta airport security because of something in my backpack. I quickly tried to take inventory of its contents and figure out what had alerted the guys at the x-ray machine, but I could think of nothing. I heard two of the guys talking about a 'magazine' before walking over to rifle through my bag in front of me and I thought, "My church magazines are a potential threat?!" Then I peeked at the x-ray screen and saw a circle drawn around something that looked startlingly like a magazine of bullets! How did THAT get in there? The man asked me if I had a harmonica in my bag and I told him I didn't think so, so we pulled a few things out and he ran the backpack through the machine again. The magazine of bullets was still in there hiding. He (we, actually, since I kept pointing out hidden zipper pockets where he might find my contraband) searched my bag again and this time uncovered . . . my Hohner harmonica. I sheepishly told the guy I had forgotten I packed it (was it still in there from my Thanksgiving camping trip when I thought I might play some tunes at the campfire?) and he let me go free. I purposely left it in my carry-on for the return flight in anticipation of another harmonica confrontation, but apparently the Salt Lake City airport does not care much about magazines of bullets in people's carry-on luggage.