Nikolai Grozni’s brilliantly cynical main character, Konstantin, is a 15-year old piano prodigy at the Sofia Music School for the Gifted. He struggles—what with his sensitive soul and tough exterior—between escapism and the grinding grayness of the totalitarian state in the years leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The book is full of humor and grace and has some of the best writing ever about the (possible) transcendent power of music. It shouldn’t be overlooked.

It’s amazing debut books like this that can so easily be missed. Originally published by a university press and later picked up by Random House, we had it for almost two years without selling before this new edition came out. I tore through it almost too quickly. Porter’s narrators (haunted, damaged) look back on life-changing events trying to understand what happened and how their lives are affected. In shining prose he investigates memory; how we look at mistakes, missed connections and opportunities, and seek to make clear stories out of the things we couldn’t see as they were happening. Each story is more beautiful, complex, and well-crafted than the one preceding it. I can’t wait for his next (a novel).