With special appeal for classical music fans, this witty memoir-in-essays chronicles coming of age in 1950s New York City as the daughter of an accomplished musician/opera conductor father and a brilliant neuropsychologist mother—Joan’s life built on their shortcomings and strength.

The essays of One Grand Sweet Song begin in Joan Rudel’s childhood—a world in which her parents’ dedication to each other and their careers often leaves her with less-than-consistent guidance and mothering, and to care for her two younger siblings often more times than is safe.

The opera house where her father, baton in hand, inspires orchestra and singers to tell magical stories, is the one place where lonely young Joan feels safe. When the curtain rises, she is grateful for the dramatic company that shelters her with tragic tales she comes to regard as her private story time. There is strange comfort in the operas, as her life outside the theater is infused with music and more than a little drama and danger. An unbalanced relationship with her mother fuels her determination to cross-stitch the generations of her own family, literally and figuratively, with consistent love and support. Learning from all she witnesses on the stage, at home, and from a bevy of colorful members of an extended family, Joan is confident that she will be a mother quite unlike her own.

In these witty and poignant essays spanning a lifetime, Rudel embraces with humor and optimism the richness of her childhood and of her seventy-five years.