The Secret Chord

Geraldine Brooks is acclaimed for her ardent imaginative engagement with the blank spaces in history's record. In her fifth novel, she reconsiders King David, a man who shimmers between history and legend and whose life arcs from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to traitor, from brilliant poet, glorious musician, and glamorous young tyrant into an ailing and remorseful old age. Telling her story through the eyes of Nathan, the courtier who both counseled and castigated David, Brooks reinterprets both the better and the lesser-known episodes of David's life, giving voice to those who loved and those who feared him, and bringing David magnificently alive in an unvarnished saga of ambition, power, desire, and family.