Summary: Publisher Summary 1 Five interconnected stories in which music is an intrinsic theme follow the struggles of a once-popular singer desperate for a comeback, a songwriter who is unwittingly involved in a failing marriage, and a jazz musician who wrongly believes that plastic surgery will secure his career.   Publisher Summary 2 Five interconnected stories in which music is an intrinsic theme follow the struggles of such protagonists as a once-popular singer desperate for a comeback, a songwriter who is unwittingly involved in a failing marriage, and a jazz musician who wrongly believes that plastic surgery will secure his career. By the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day. Reprint. A New York TimesNotable Book.   Publisher Summary 3 From the award-winning author of Remains of the Daycomes an inspired sequence of stories, which is as affecting as it is beautiful.   With the clarity and precision that have become his trademarks, Kazuo Ishiguro interlocks five short pieces of fiction to create a world that resonates with emotion, heartbreak, and humor. Here is a fragile, once famous singer, turning his back on the one thing he loves; a music junky with little else to offer his friends but opinion; a songwriter who inadvertently breaks up a marriage; a jazz musician who thinks the answer to his career lies in changing his physical appearance; and a young cellist whose tutor has devised a remarkable way to foster his talent. For each, music is a central part of their lives and, in one way or another, delivers them to an epiphany.