Finished: The Gustav Sonata (Tremain) A very compelling story about two five year old boys who meet in Switzerland when the world is on the brink of World War II, Gustav, a little boy born and raised in the small town of Matzlingen, Switzerland, and Anton, a Jewish boy who has moved with his parents from Bern to Matzlingen. Gustav and Anton develop an unbreakable bond, despite the fact that Gustav's cold, unloving mother, Emilie, blames her husband Erich's compassion for the Jews on his fall from grace and eventual death. Erich is an assistant police chief in Matzlingen when he first marries Emilie. He is faced with the impossible task of either breaking the law or breaking his own moral code when the police in Switzerland are ordered by law to no longer accept Jewish refugees escaping over the border from Austria. When Erich falsifies several immigration forms by predating them before the law is ordained, he is betrayed by someone close to him in the department, losing his position and his status in the small community. When he's forced to leave the comfortable apartment they had and move Emilie to a near desolate apartment, she can't handle his fall from grace and goes home to her mother. She had already become distant from Erich when he caused her to miscarry their baby boy, to be named Gustav, when he accidentally caused her to fall at five and a half months pregnant. She eventually forgave him and came to understand that he was an honorable man because he was trying to do the right thing by falsifying the forms. Emelie returns to Erich and becomes pregnant with her second baby, who will also be a boy, and be named Gustav. Emelie can't really ever bond with Gustav, though, even though Erich does. She always looks past Gustav wondering if she would have loved her first baby more. Poor Gustav! All he ever wants is to please his mother, or Mutti, as he calls her. He does everything he can to earn her love and nurturing, but he never succeeds. Tragically, when Gustav is just an infant, Erich dies of a sudden heart attack. :-( This throws Emelie and Gustav into more dire circumstances as she works to make ends meet for them. Gustav's finds a happiness in life when he meets Anton in kindergarten. Anton, new to the area, spends the entire first day crying and the teacher assigns him to the compassionate Gustav to buddy with. Gustav befriends Anton and even gets him to laugh. They become fast friends, though Anton is far more self-centered than Gustav. Anton is a piano prodigy with great talent, who blossoms over the years. By the time the boys are 10, Anton's parents are encouraging his career and have entered him in a piano contest. Anton is brilliant and makes it all the way to the finals with four others. Once there, though, he suffers terrible stage-fright and can't play on the big stage for the crowd, which he must do for the finals of the competition. He gets through his piece, but it is sub par. He is humiliated when he comes in fifth out of five. Only Gustav can talk him out of his disappointment. Gustav is invited to travel to Davos with Anton and his parents for a two week vacation. While there, the boys explore an old abandoned sanatorium that had been used for people suffering from tuberculosis. They make up their own make believe world of doctors and patients and one day share an innocent kiss. Too young to really understand it they continue on with their friendship. Gustav, though, seems to know that he loves Anton as more than a friend. They continue throughout the years to be the best of friends and to be there for each other. Anton, realizing he'll never be able to perform as a concert pianist due to his stage fright, instead becomes a music teacher at the very same school that he and Gustav attended as children. He is good looking and charming and dates various women, but never gets serious about any of them, insisting that music is his only love. Gustav, after the death of his mother, goes to culinary school and opens a small hotel in Matzlingen. He takes great pride in overseeing every detail of his cozy hotel and catering to the patrons. One day Anton comes to Gustav greatly agitated. A former student of his has gone on to win some major piano competition and is being touted as someone who will go on to be asked to play at all kinds of venues and become a concert pianist! The student even credits his teacher, Anton Zwiebel, with teaching him everything he knows. Rather than be happy for his former student, though, Anton is again thrown into despair...whining about how that could and should have been HIM if only he had been able to conquer his stage fright. Throwing his feelings to the wind, he plays a piece at his students' end of year concert with such passion and abandon, that a record producer in the audience hears him and wants him to move to Geneva to record all of Beethoven's symphonies on records to be sold to the public! A perfect solution! Anton can show off his talent and become famous without having to perform on a stage. Anton tells Gustav he can't wait to get out of their small town and make it big. Gustav is heartbroken, having obviously let Anton become his life, even though he has never acted on his feelings of love. Anton, always thinking about himself, moves to Geneva to follow his dreams. He pretty much dismisses the feelings of both Gustav and his own parents, who have always bent over backwards to support him. Meanwhile, Gustav throws himself into work at the hotel. He meets an interesting old Englishman one night who teaches him to play Gin Rummy and encourages him to find out what happened to his father, a story that Gustav has never explored. He was always told by his mother that his father had been a hero, but has never known how his father died. Gustav seeks out the wife of the old police chief who was his father's superior at the police station. The police chief is long dead, but the wife, Lottie, remembers Gustav's father very well...she had been his lover! When Emilie had left Erich and gone home for that bit of time, Erich and Lottie had begun a steamy affair. Erich had fallen in love with Lottie unlike he ever had with Emelie. Gustav was actually pleased to hear this news...to hear that his father actually had someone in his life that loved him and wasn't cold and unfeeling like his mother always was to him. Lottie tells Gustav about how his father falsified the forms to help so many Jewish people escape from Austria and Gustav is so touched by his father's actions. When she explains about Erich losing his job when he was found out, Gustav wants to know who told on his father? Lottie hems and haws and Gustav lets the subject drop. The most important thing that Lottie tells Gustav is that his mother had lost her first baby, a boy who would have been named Gustav, and was never the same after that. This actually gives Gustav comfort, as he realizes why his mother could never fully give her love to him and was instead, so cold all his life. Gustav and Lottie become good friends and spend alot of time together. Eventually on her death bed, Lottie tells Gustav that it was her own  husband who turned Erich in when the officials threatened to arrest HIM for the illegal actions. With Erich's signature clearly on all the forms, the police chief really had no choice but to admit it was his assistant police chief who has falsified the forms. Anton is not heard from until his father falls ill and dies. He comes back to town and tells Gustav that his records haven't sold as well as they should and that the man who lured Anton to Geneva has become his lover as well as his boss. Gustav is stunned. He thought that Anton loved the women he was always with. He's mostly sad for Anton, as Anton is extremely unhappy and unfulfilled and on the brink of a breakdown. Eventually, when Anton and Gustav are nearing 60, Anton's mother, Adriana, begs Gustav to go with her to help Anton. Anton has had a breakdown and been taken to a mental hospital. He wants only to talk to Gustav. When Gustav gets there, Anton begs him to take him back to the sanatorium in Davos. Gustav tries to explain that the sanatorium was never real...and Anton finally gets through to him and makes him understand that he wants Gustav to take him back to that time when they were innocent and kissed. He wants to start his life from there and take it where it should have naturally gone...to be in a relationship with Gustav. Gustav sells his hotel and he, Anton and Anton's mother move to a cabin in  Davos with some land and a garden and live there happily. Soon, Anton is playing the piano again and it's an original piece. His mother asks him what it is and he says it's something he composed when he realized that his life had gone the wrong way and he needed to get it on the right path. He called it Gustav's Sonata. So, that's the book in a nutshell, but of course written in beautiful prose that truly tugged at the heart. I really felt for Gustav throughout the story....this little boy who tried so hard to gain his mother's love. The rest of the characters were actually pretty selfish. This, however, was a story of love and music and memories, and finally, two people realizing in the end that they could find happiness with each other. A really good book!