Gerontius A Thoughtful Exploration of Aging and Memory

Sir Edward Elgar is a distinguished composer of the first rank, celebrated by the critics and his public, honored by the Crown. But in 1923 he is 66, and his talent and his zest for life are ebbing, yielding to age and the changing times. England is in the throes of postwar disillusionment; he is widowed and idle.  The world he knew has been swept away, leaving him oddly entombed by his own immense reputation and jealous of the even greater artist he might have been, had it not been for... for what? He doesn't truly know, or doesn't want to. On impulse, Eglar books passage on a cruise to Brazil and the Amazon port city of Manaos. It is as far from himself as he can get. Yet, there in the jungle, he wil encounter a figure from his past, the woman who inspired one of his major works...