Quintet - Peter Abbot

A novel of the COVID-19 pandemic ...

The onslaught of the coronavirus leads to the cancellation of a renowned quartet's planned performance of Schubert's Quintet in C. But the group continues to practice, in hopes of at least an eventual private performance, and in an effort to draw the musicians closer together and improve their music-making, Boris -- the group's founder and cellist -- asks each of them to keep and share diary entries, from which he'll choose a daily entry as a record of the journey they are making together, and yet apart.

The result is a poignant chronicle of a world-altering event as reflected in miniature in everyday life, written with grace and empathy.