Writing alum Carolyn Jack '16 explores family trauma and the world of opera in her debut novel The Changing of Keys, released in August by Regal House Publishing.
The novel follows a gifted young pianist who leaves his Caribbean home to study music in the United States, eventually entering the competitive world of opera. As he pursues stardom, he grapples with the legacy of his controlling mother and his own difficulties with love and relationships.
Jack began work on The Changing of Keys while pursuing her Writing MFA. The book examines themes of family dysfunction, artistic ambition, and the challenges of parenthood, drawing on her background in arts journalism to depict the opera world.
Reflecting on the challenges of writing about family in fiction, Jack wrote in a recent piece for Writer's Digest that “writers of fictional families probably can't help turning them into echoes of our own kin, because those are the people who taught us what we know of kinship."
Adjunct Associate Professor Benjamin Taylor, author of Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth, praised the novel, writing that it contains “grandeur and piercing moral insight” and constitutes “a very promising start to what will be a great career." Other peers have noted the book's lyricism, emotional depth, and lavish style.
Jack's short stories have appeared in publications like The Westchester Review, The Blue Mountain Review, and Pen + Brush in Print. She has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In 2016, the novel's first chapter won the Meringoff Prize for Fiction from the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, under the title Success.
