The Musical Mozinskis

The Mozinskis experience music like no family you've ever met. Struggling musicians Vincent Mozinski and Grace Klinefelter marry in the early 1960s, drawn together by the shared ability to see the music they play. The two pass this unique skill along to their ever-growing family of musical prodigies: Clara, Ellington, Bix, Allegro, Thelonious, and Viola. After the children record a radio commercial for a local business, Vincent realizes the best chance of achieving his dream of musical stardom is with and through his children.

The family is tapped as one of several amateur acts to perform on a nationally televised Bicentennial celebration, leading to a recording contract and ultimately the pinnacle of 1970s stardom, their own musical variety show. The success of The Musical Mozinskis depends on the family's ability to keep churning out talented children. There's only one problem: Viola is tone deaf.

Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, The Musical Mozinskis explores the limits of family bonds and loyalties and what it means to be an artist.


Genre: Literary Fiction

"It's rare to read a book and find yourself humming along to it. That's why I loved The Musical Mozinskis, a toe-tapping fable about two things that can both break your heart and put it back together: music and family. You will fall in love with Grace and VIncent Mozinski and their six brilliant children -- think The Partridges by way of Salinger -- as they rise and fall across four decades of a musical landscape that never sits still. Popping with magical realism and buzzing with humor and heart, it's an earworm of a book, a song I never wanted to end." - Carter Bays

"As they grow, the harmonious (and unharmonious) Mozinski children come apart as often as they come together, because extraordinary talent is not what makes a family a family. Completely original, wonderfully magical, and totally charming." - Karen Joy Fowler

"What do we owe one another and what is owed to us? The Musical Mozinskis asks one of the fundamental questions of family life: can love really be unconditional?" - Mary Doria Russell