Summary

Rodney Webber is a failed clavichordist who contemplates his past experiences as a young and prospective composer in the face of his current devastating financial debt. He is married to Rebecca, who is the founder and sole employee for her company that makes small stuffed mice, “Mice n. Warm,” and has twins and a young child in Chicago. He reminisces about his days as a graduate student studying musicology, and his days in East Germany, where he was researching early music and investigating the unknown exact tuning of Johann Sebastian Bach’s harpsichord, for his would-be doctoral dissertation.

While Rodney was in Germany, he was asked to play clavichord in a church concert in a large venue that seated over 200 people. Although he played to a nearly empty and half-asleep audience, he was unbothered, as he tried to hear the notes that the...