The Piano Tuner

The novel opens with a lyrical Prologue: fragmented final memories of an unnamed man in Burma, where the sun hangs over a dry road, a lone woman walks under a parasol into a mirage the Burmese call than hlat, and disappears.

In 1886, Edgar Drake, a London piano tuner specializing in French-made Erard grands, receives a letter from Colonel George Fitzgerald of the British War Office. Surgeon-Major Anthony Carroll, a physician stationed since 1874 at the remote outpost of Mae Lwin in the Shan States of eastern Burma, has proved indispensable to British pacification through alliances with local princes. Carroll demanded the army ship him an 1840 Erard grand, threatening to resign if refused; the army complied, but humidity has rendered the piano unplayable. Colonel Killian briefs Edgar on Carroll: An Irishman who lost his wife and child in childbirth, Carroll once persuaded an Indian chieftain to supply 300 troops by reciting Shelley's poetry. Killian disapproves of Carroll's methods but admits Carroll is irreplaceable. Edgar, more interested in the piano than military affairs, accepts the commission.

Edgar's wife Katherine is hurt not that he accepted but that he concealed it. She urges him to go, believing the mission represents something worthy. Over the following weeks, she reads the War Office's documentation eagerly. On November 26, 1886, Edgar departs London by steamer. Fog swallows the ship, and everything turns white.

The voyage carries Edgar through the Red Sea, where the Man with One Story, an old deaf Arab, tells him of being shipwrecked on the African coast and hearing a woman sing with such beauty that his ears stopped sensing sound forever. In India, a Poet-Wallah, a young itinerant reciter, tries to tell Edgar a Burmese poem about the leip-bya, a butterfly-spirit whose flights create dreams, but a policeman knocks the boy from the moving train. Edgar reads Carroll's reports on the Shan peoples: the fragmented principalities, the Limbin Confederacy (a rebel alliance of local rulers called sawbwas), and Twet Nga Lu, a defrocked monk turned warlord known as the Bandit Chief.

In Rangoon, a tiger hunt with young officers turns catastrophic when Captain Witherspoon fires too quickly and kills a village boy. The death devastates Edgar. Upriver to Mandalay, he befriends soldiers who share mythic tales of Carroll: halting an ambush by playing a Shan love song on a flute, building a paradise of orchids where cannons serve as flower planters. Edgar realizes the tales reflect what each soldier needs to believe, and truth has begun to matter less to him as well.

In Mandalay, Captain Nash-Burnham houses Edgar in a cottage tended by Khin Myo, a 31-year-old Burmese woman of distant royal blood who speaks fluent English. Nash-Burnham and Khin Myo take Edgar to a pwè (Burmese street theater) and a yôkthe pwè (puppet theater), where he is moved by the ngo-gyin, a mournful song performed in a male puppeteer's soprano voice.

Edgar's departure for Mae Lwin is delayed when masked riders attack the fort and a musket ball strikes the Erard's strings. A letter from Carroll, bypassing the army, summons Edgar and Khin Myo immediately. They set out with Nok Lek, a 15-year-old Shan fighter, on ponies through remote terrain. Ambushed by dacoits (bandits) at night, Edgar picks up a fallen pistol and fires for the first time, scaring off the attackers. Days later they cross the Salween River by boat. Edgar meets Carroll on the dock: "I am Edgar Drake. I am here to repair a piano" (152).

Mae Lwin is a camp of bamboo structures festooned with orchids and butterflies. Carroll, more naturalist than soldier, delays the piano work for botanical expeditions; several species bear his name, including his own genus of orchid. Edgar repairs the bullet hole with bamboo from the fort's wall, replaces the broken strings, and tunes the instrument in two days. He reads Carroll's account of the piano's journey: A porter died from a cobra bite, and Carroll carried both the piano and the body through the jungle night.

Edgar grows reluctant to leave. By the river, Khin Myo shares her story: educated at an elite Mandalay school, fired after rejecting a schoolmaster's advances, rescued by Nash-Burnham. Edgar contracts malaria and endures violent fevers. During recovery, he hears someone playing the piano at night. Carroll is translating Homer's Odyssey into Shan and shares its stories. When the rains arrive after months of drought, Edgar and Khin Myo are caught in the downpour and run back laughing, an unguarded moment of closeness.

Carroll orders Edgar to perform for the visiting sawbwa of Mongnai, a powerful Shan prince. Edgar chooses Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, reasoning that its mathematical complexity is universal and its roots in equal temperament tuning honor his craft. He plays for nearly two hours to great effect. Carroll then reveals he has been secretly negotiating with the Limbin Confederacy and Twet Nga Lu for two years, defying military orders, and needs Edgar to pose as a British officer at a meeting of Shan princes in Mongpu. On the ride, Carroll confides he once turned back from a voyage to England, unable to face London after the wonders he had seen. He reveals that the Man with One Story tells different listeners different tales. At Mongpu, warriors kowtow before Carroll, calling him "Bo," a title for warrior chiefs. Twet Nga Lu confronts Edgar, revealing he knows Edgar's true identity. Carroll announces a conditional surrender.

Back in Mae Lwin, Khin Myo comes to the piano room at night. Edgar teaches her the opening of the Prelude in F Minor, then they play the Fugue in F-sharp Minor together, his hands beneath hers on the keys. He kisses her neck. She gently untangles herself and leaves.

The next morning, Carroll warns that Mae Lwin will be attacked and orders Edgar to evacuate with the piano on a raft. Edgar begs to stay. Khin Myo refuses to come, saying she must stay with Anthony, the first time Edgar hears Carroll's given name. Before Edgar boards the raft, Carroll presses a folded piece of paper into his hand, telling him to wait before reading it.

The raft carries Edgar and two young Shan brothers downstream, with Nok Lek following in a separate dugout. During a stop, Nok Lek tells Edgar the leip-bya story the Poet-Wallah once tried to share. On the second day, Edgar uncovers the piano and plays the ngo-gyin. Gunfire erupts from the bank. He opens his eyes to find his companions dead. British soldiers arrest him, charging him with aiding Carroll, now accused of treason. Nash-Burnham delivers the worst news: British forces have destroyed Mae Lwin in retaliation for a Confederacy offensive. Carroll and Khin Myo have escaped.

That night, a shadowy visitor enters Edgar's cell. Whether the figure is Nash-Burnham or Edgar's own conscience remains unclear. The voice challenges Edgar to separate what Carroll was from what Edgar wanted him to be and suggests Khin Myo's affection may have been orchestrated. The door is left open.

Edgar escapes into a storm. At the river, he cuts the Erard free from the raft, and the piano floats into darkness, hammers ringing against strings with no musician but the current. He swims the Salween and runs north. He unfolds the wet paper Carroll gave him at parting: a passage from The Odyssey about the Lotus-Eaters, whose fruit made men forget the way home. On the back, Carroll has written, "For Edgar Drake, who has tasted" (300). Edgar leaves the paper at a roadside spirit-shrine.

On an open road under the returned sun, he sees a woman walking with a parasol. From behind come hoofbeats, a shout to halt, and a gunshot. Edgar Drake falls. The novel circles back to the Prologue: The woman walks into the than hlat and disappears. Now only the sun and the parasol remain.