In September of 1941, Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become among the longest & most harmful sieges in Western history-two and a half many years of bombardment and hunger. More than a million citizens perished. Survivors recall corpses littering the frozen streets, the relatives of the inactive having neither the means nor the strength to bury them. Desperate citizens burned books, home furniture, and floorboards to maintain warm; they ate family members dogs and-eventually-even about Symphony for the City from the Dead each other to stay alive.

Trapped between your Nazi invading push as well as the Soviet government itself was composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who create a symphony that roused, rallied, eulogized, and commemorated his fellow citizens-the Leningrad Symphony. This testament of courage was copied onto microfilm, driven over the Middle East, and flown within the deserts of North Africa to become performed in the United States-where it played a surprising role in strengthening the Grand Alliance against the Axis powers.

This is actually the true story of a city under siege: the triumph of bravery and defiance in the face of terrifying odds. It is also a look at the power-and layered meaning-of music in beleaguered lives. Symphony for the town of the Deceased can be a masterwork thrillingly told and impeccably explored by National Book Award-winning author M. T. Anderson.