Fiction Addiction: Introducing 'The Conductor'

'The Conductor' and author Sarah Quigley. Photos / Supplied

Sarah Quigley's The Conductor almost made it onto my Shelf of Shame. That's the place - figurative or literal - where all those books you meant to start or meant to finish fade to yellow and gather dust.

My Shelf of Shame is literal. Actually, it's a Pile of Shame, hidden in the dark recesses of my wardrobe and currently comprising: Maurice Gee's Plumb trilogy, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, Nigel Cox's The Cowboy Dog, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves, and, to lighten the load in tone if not weight, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. There, I've admitted it. The pile feels shorter already. (Go on, share with the group: what's on your Shelf of Shame?)

So The Conductor, a novel set in Leningrad during the siege of World War II, would have been in good company. I started it about six weeks ago when I was on holiday. There was once a time the words "good book" and "holiday" conjured up a mental picture of hour upon hour of uninterrupted reading under a shady tree. But now I have two children under 4. Enough said.

Knowing I needed to pick a book for June's Fiction Addiction book club, I did get The Conductor out of the suitcase, which was a marvel in itself. But I rarely got to read more than a couple of pages at a time before being interrupted. So I became impatient, though it wasn't the novel's fault.

I knew the story was based on a dramatic real event, so I was eager to get to the action. The composer Shostakovich is evacuated from Leningrad as the Germans approach, but sends his Leningrad Symphony back over enemy lines to be performed by a second-rate starving orchestra, under the baton of Karl Eliasberg (who Quigley paints as socially awkward and difficult), to encourage the besieged residents.

But the book starts slowly, gradually introducing the characters as the German threat draws nearer. After spending a week with it and only getting through about 100 pages I became frustrated and put it aside.

It was weeks later, after a conversation with the lovely Rachel from Dear Reader in Grey Lynn, that I decided to give it another go. I had wondered aloud if I was shallow for being impatient for the good stuff to start.

"It all depends on your mood," she said. "I have had books in my bookcase that I have picked up and put down for a couple of years and then, when I finally get round to reading them, I think, 'What took me so long!' I put it down to right place, right time."

So I picked up The Conductor again from where I left off - and discovered that the action began to ramp up on the very next page. I also found that I knew and cared about the characters, after Quigley had spent so many pages developing them. And I started enjoying it.

I've decided to go back to the beginning, to give the novel the attention it deserves. I'll check in next week with a progress update.

Because The Conductor is in such hot demand by the media I'm afraid the publishers couldn't spare us any books to give away. But there's still time (just!) to enter our competition to win Christine's June feature book, The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb.