Ghost Music
by An Yu
A novel of loneliness, the sound of yearning, and mushrooms.
What It’s About
The story follows a young woman in Beijing whose life feels suspended between her evasive husband, her mother-in-law, and the ghost of a dream of music and a family. Then there are the mushrooms, strange, sometimes delivered in boxes, sometimes growing in her bathroom, and occasionally waking her up in the middle of the night. Reflecting her need to be remembered.
What Stuck With Me
This is one of those books that is hard to describe without flattening it. It is full of sadness and disconnection, but also full of beauty. An Yu’s writing is gorgeous, in a way that makes you read just a little closer. There were so many lines I read over and over again.
The mushrooms are unsettling and unforgettable, as symbols of loneliness. They spread in the dark, they multiply quietly, and they become part of what she literally consumes.
We cannot forget the color orange, the spores, the surreal atmosphere that seeps through the novel. It feels like loneliness that spreads beyond the individual, a whole environment touched by it. But still, threaded through all of it, is music. Yearning. The abandoned dream, the lessons passed down to children, the fragile way the narrator reaches for it again and again. Music here is the sound of something just beyond your fingertips, but still worth stretching toward.
The husband, meanwhile, keeps running. When things get too heavy, he disappears. His broken link with his sister shadows every attempt at connection, leaving him rootless and emotionally unreliable. It is one of the sharpest portraits of avoidance I have read.
Would I Recommend It?
Yes, Ghost Music is surreal in parts, but what carried me through was the way Yu writes about absence, about the things we inherit from family, about silence, broken trust, and half-kept dreams. So, if you like your Literary Fiction with a bit of magical surrealism sprinkled on top, you will enjoy this book.
I cannot say I caught every layer, there were so many to peel away. But I loved it anyway. It made me pause, underline, and ask questions instead of finding answers.
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Set the Mood for Ghost Music
Soft reading lamp for quiet late-night chapters
Mushroom-patterned mug to sip from while reading
Mushroom ournal for collecting underlined quotes and reflections
Playlist of piano music to echo the novel’s sound of yearning
Where to Find It
📘 Buy on Amazon
📘 Buy on Bookshop.org
First time on Bookshop.org? Click for discount code
Also available via WorldCat to check your local library
