The Upright Piano Player

April 25, 2011
In an elegant debut filled with anguish and yearning, a retired London executive stumbles through a detached life of loss and muted violence. After Henry Cage retires from the consulting firm he founded but lost control of, his quiet, solitary life closes in around him. His estranged son, Tom, lives on the coast with his wife and four-year-old son, Hal, whom Henry has never met, but who provides a catalyst for the family to reconnect once Tom tells Henry he's a grandfather. Also on the docket for a reconnection is Henry's ex-wife, Nessa, who now lives in Florida and, unbeknownst to Henry, is stricken with terminal cancer. Abbott takes these broken relationships and slowly works over their frayed ends with a delicate touch, sometimes mending them and other times hitting exposed nerves, and when Henry becomes the object of an obsessed violent stalker, the novel takes on a welcome texture of subtle menace that colors the unfolding family dramas. It's a very careful novel in its structure and revelations, but Abbott impresses most in his easy balance of the disparate plot elements (the stalker bit, which threatens to dip into the sensational, is precisely controlled) and overarching themes of reconnection and regret.

Starred review from May 1, 2011

This debut novel by a founding partner of Britain's largest ad agency follows the life of Henry Cage, a successful executive at a management consultancy, as he tries to cope with the changes in his life brought on by a sudden, involuntary retirement. The opening chapter, actually at the end of the story chronologically, portrays the aftermath of a terrible tragedy involving Cage's grandson. The chapter sets a melancholic tone for the rest of the book. Abbott proceeds to delve into Cage's past, detailing his unsuccessful attempts to hold his life together after retirement. When Cage is attacked by a thug while watching the New Year's fireworks celebrations, it sets in motion a whole series of events, including a growing reconciliation with his family. But the prolog has foreclosed any chance of redemption for Cage. VERDICT Readers who can make it through the gruesome opening scene will be rewarded with a powerful and well-written portrayal of loss and grieving. Highly recommended.--Douglas Southard, CRA International, Boston

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2011
Chance can play a critical role in even the most careful of lives, as Abbotts accomplished first novel shows. In the opening pages, Henry Cages beloved eight-year-old grandson dies in a random accident; then the narrative goes back years to illuminate the mans life. Founder of his own management consulting company in London, Cage became known as a guru in his field. It was chance that he saw his documentary-filmmaker wife, Nessa, on the street and uncovered a relatively meaningless affair that became uncomfortably public, causing him to divorce her, which led to a rift with his sons family that took years to mend. It was chance that while walking home in a New Years Eve crowd he bumped into a violent man who responded out of kind, beginning a period of harassment that ended badly. And there was randomness to Nessas cancer, discovered too late after she moved to Florida. Abbott contrasts what was Cages basically circumspect life (noted in the play on words in the title) with events that veer off course, sometimes tragically, taking joy with them.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)