Music For Evenings
by Gerald Siclovan
| Fiction
| Published 05-08-2025
Music for Evenings is a set of three long stories that do not constitute a unified thematic arc or conventional plot line. Extremely minimal links exist between the three stories, which are otherwise independent of one another. Borderline, a three-part narrative with fantastical and heavily satirical elements, begins and ends the book. Charlie, inserted between parts 1 and 2 of Borderline, traces the career of a gifted young sculptor whose professional fortunes flourish even as his personal life deteriorates. Rose and Nicole, which precedes part 3 of Borderline, follows the lives of a two-woman family: Nicole, the mother, is a gifted, semi-professional watercolorist, and her daughter, Rose, a (professional) flute virtuoso.
Gerald Siclovan was born in Detroit in 1954. He has pursued both literary fiction and music since the mid-1960s. Music For Evenings is his first major publication. Prior publications include a clever piece of evasion (Lakeside—Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 1973); Fantasia on the Subject of Post- and/or Neo-Anythingism (the word ENAMEL—The Detroit Writers’ Project, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 1993); and Helena (The Wayne Literary Review—Wayne State University, 1993). Beginning in 1966 he studied guitar with Matthew Ferrante, and has studied drumming since 2014 under the mentorship of Gustavo Cortiñas. He performed as a member of Detroit-based bands The Zooks and Retro from 1970 to 1982, and has since led Clangstrum, a varying group of musicians focused primarily on recording. Clangstrum’s music can be found at clangstrum.bandcamp.com .