Fly, My Darling

began as an unwieldy collage of heady memories. Lynda Roth was a remarkable woman: wise, generous, musically gifted. Committed to the truth, deeply kind.

That we fell in love was as unexpected as it was unavoidable.

How was I to make sense of those sulry, riveting, tumultuous years in the middle of my life? And how did they fit with my past?

I lay them out like scattered pearls: the distilled moments, brief scenes, hot emotions. The wild joy, the nearly unbearable grief. Some written on index cards, others on snippets of paper. I studied them for weeks. What did they want to become?

The flow would be lyrical, I knew. The pearls remaining distinct but linked, a narrative both rooted in music and taking flight. It would begin at the beginning: the afternoon we met.

And the shape? A musical composition. A love story in three movements, thematically mirroring classical sonata form....

[ Sonata form: a three-part musical structure where each movement explores a central theme or motif. Roughly: the first movement/section introduces the theme in a lively allegro tempo; the middle section challenges that theme, creating a counter melody somewhat slower and often dramatically pensive; the third returns to the opening theme’s original idea and quickened pace, occasionally in a different key. ]

Allegro. Adagio. Allegro con brio.  Yes.

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“A love story in poetic glimpses — glimpses that accumulate to become a sweeping narrative, lyrical and impressionistic and irresistibly compelling. It’s a smooth, sexy, jazzy delight to read, even when it’s heartbreaking, as love stories almost inevitably are. Ultimately, Fly, My Darling offers us a larger vision — of how unexpectedly love comes, and how capacious it can be, and how it transforms and deepens us.”

— Cecilia Woloch, author of Sur la Route and Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem