The Biography of Thomas Lang

An epistolary novel about a concert pianist and a young man’s attempt to write his biography.

Thomas Lang was an outstanding concert pianist. He was elusive, arrogant, depressive, mysterious, and a genius. He died mysteriously, probably by his own hand. Bit by bit, in a volley of letters between his would-be biographer and Lang’s brother Christopher, his life is pieced together and the real Thomas Lang begins to emerge.

Jonathan Buckley’s first novel ponders the nature of biography, the question of what a life is and, more particularly, what a life becomes once it is finished, who that life belongs to. Confident, endlessly inventive, often very funny, it is one of the most assured debuts in British fiction for some time.