The art of hearing voices

In The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, Jan-Phillip Sendker tells of a man who not only hears heartbeats but can distinguish one heartbeat from another from across the room. In a sequel, A Well-Tempered Heart (2012), he writes about a 38-year-old woman, the man's daughter, who hears a voice nobody else can hear. And like her father, Julia must travel to Burma to find answers.

Julia is a prominent attorney in New York City who can no longer focus on her work. That voice she alone can hear keeps asking her questions and giving her advice. Who are you? What do these men want from you? Be on your guard. Forced to take a leave of absence, she decides to visit her half-brother in Burma, a mystical man named U Ba. Perhaps he can help silence the desperate woman's voice within her.

Sendker diverts to another story in the middle part of the novel, a story about a Burmese woman and her two sons in a time of war. This apparent diversion, of course, is really another part of the same story, the explanation of Julia's mysterious voice.

The novel becomes a love story by its end, a story about love in its many dimensions.

Sendker writes with a lyrical and mystical quality that will appeal to some readers, while turning off others. I find myself somewhere in the middle.