The Glass Harmonica

The Glass Harmonica, Louise Marley, Ace Books, 2000

In 1761 London, Eilish Eam is a ten-year-old Irish orphan who plays the glass harmonica (sound is produced by moving the fingers around the rims of glasses filled with varying amounts of water) for a few coins on the street until, one day, she is "discovered" by Benjamin Franklin. He brings her to live with him (and his maid, cook, and black male slave) because he has invented a sort of mechanical glass harmonica and wants Eilish to be his resident virtuoso. She certainly grows to enjoy high society, but Eilish never forgets where she came from, and is troubled by occasional visions of a young woman near her age.

Erin Rushton is a virtuoso on the glass harmonica in 2018 Seattle. It's a time of America as theme park; a certain neighborhood must, by law, look as if time stopped in the 1950s, including clothing, another must look like the 1930s, etc. Undesirables, like the homeless, are pushed out of sight into permanent tent cities.

Charlie, Erin's twin brother, has spent most of his life unable to walk. The only way to counteract a neurological condition when he was little was to give him an engineered virus which had the side effect of forcing him into a wheelchair. Erin watches as doctor after doctor fails to restore use of Charlie's legs. She is less than impressed at Gene Berrick, a neurophysiologist who came from a tent city, who tries sound plus small bits of electricity, to force Charlie's brain to make new neural pathways to his legs. Charlie is very impatient, and tries a huge "dose" of the treatment, on his own, with disastrous side effects. Erin's attitude changes, when, in desperation, she consults Gene with the fear that she's losing her mind. Erin has been troubled by random visions of a young woman near her age. Did I forget to mention the reputation the glass harmonica has for driving insane those who listen to it?

I think I liked the near future society building a little bit more than the story. The story is not bad by any means, with more than a bit of historical fact included, and is well worth reading. I guess I liked the vision of America less than twenty years from now just a little bit more.