RHAPSODY

This compelling historical novel, inspired by Gershwin's gorgeous musical legacy, delves into the decade-long love affair between Gershwin and Kay Swift.

George Gershwin, one of the best-known and most-admired composers of the twentieth century, was responsible for such enduring works of musical genius as Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, and the incomparable score for Porgy and Bess, as well as many of the world's most beloved standards -- I Got Rhythm, Someone to Watch Over Me, Embraceable You.

Kaplan's sweeping romantic novel, inspired by his love of Gershwin's gorgeous musical legacy, delves into the decade-long love affair between Gershwin and Kay Swift, herself an accomplished composer and arranger and the very first woman to score a hit musical (Fine and Dandy, which includes the enduring standard, "Can't We Be Friends?") Their relationship, the stuff of legend, led to the demise of Swift's marriage to the wealthy banker James Warburg, and endured until Gershwin's tragic death in 1937, of a malignant brain tumor, when he was only thirty-eight years old.

This compelling work of fiction, in the tradition of major New York Times bestsellers like Nancy Horan's Loving Frank or Paula McLain's The Paris Wife, is a tantalizing look into the life story of not one but two enduring twentieth century figures who made indelible contributions to the pantheon of American popular music, even as they defied tradition and broke protocol, daring to be together in a time of sweeping social change.


Mitchell James Kaplan is the author of one previous novel, By Fire, By Water, which won the 2011 Independent Publishers Book Award for historical fiction, and was also a Goodreads Choice Award and Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year, among other accolades. He lives with his family in Roanaoke, Virginia.