A devastating, elegant, and gripping dissection of the American dream, Adam Rapp's Nocturne signals a brave new voice in American theater. "Fifteen years ago I killed my sister." So begins Adam Rapp's highly acclaimed play Nocturne , in which a 32-year-old former piano prodigy recounts the tragic events that tore his family apart. With a keen eye for human relationships and a deft ear for language, Rapp explores the aftershock of this unimaginable event. The father is so incapable of forgiveness he puts a gun in his son's mouth; the mother so shattered, she deserts the family and eventually takes leave of her sanity altogether; the son--only 17 years old at the time--sets out for New York City. There, he seeks an uneasy refuge in books and reinvents himself as a writer. Across the decade and a half that follows he tries to cope with the ramifications of his own anguish and estrangement while making a desperate search for redemption. Nothing can nullify the horror contained within this play's opening sentence: "Fifteen years ago I killed my sister." One hot summer afternoon when the narrator was driving home from work, he noticed a small creature run out into the street. Then he heard a thud. When he returned to the scene of the accident, he discovered his little sister lying dead in the street. The rest of the play portrays how grief can unravel a family. The narrator takes a job in New York City and refers to himself in the third person, perhaps in attempt to assuage his grief and dissociate himself from the person who caused the accident. His parents eventually separate. His father dies of testicular cancer in a dingy room, and his mother enters a mental institution. The play is really a monolog in which the narrator quotes other characters' words. Rapp, winner of many awards for his plays and young adult novels, has created a poignant and sensitive play about lost lives. Recommended to any collection, specifically in public libraries. Bob Ivey, Univ. of Memphis Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Best known for his spare, lyrical young adult novels The Buffalo Tree (1997) and Missing the Piano (1994), Julliard-trained Rapp also has a growing reputation as a writer of sometimes uneven, nevertheless powerful plays. His latest is an odd hybrid, published in the style and format of a short novel but produced as a two-act play in October 2000 at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Performed as a solo piece in early workshop productions, Nocturne is a beautiful, moody work about a man reflecting on a life marred by the accidental killing of his sister, and it does have the feel of a long dramatic monologue, in which Rapp's gift for exquisite, well-balanced sentences serves him well. It isn't clear how the folks at ART were able to divide the monologue up among five actors, or even why they would want to. That hardly matters. On the page, it is delightful. How well it works on the stage is someone else's problem. Jack Helbig Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “A brilliant, terrifying, perceptive, occasionally funny play . . . bold, daring and succesful.” ― Donald Lyons, New York Post “A playwright . . . to watch with keen interest.” ― Markland Taylor, Variety “A startling, unnerving work of art that fiercely pushes the boundaries of theater.” ― Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press Fifteen years ago I killed my sister. So begins Adam Rapp's highly acclaimed play Nocturne , in which a thirty-two-year-old former piano prodigy recounts the tragic events that tore his family apart. With a keen eye for human relationships and a deft ear for language, Rapp explores the aftershock of this unimaginable event. The father is so incapable of forgiveness he puts a gun in his son's mouth; the mother so shattered, she deserts the family and eventually takes leave of her sanity altogether; the son -- only seventeen years old at the time -- sets out for New York City. There, he seeks an uneasy refuge in books and reinvents himself as a writer. Across the decade and a half that follows he tries to cope with the ramifications of his own anguish and estrangement while making a desperate search for redemption. A devastating, elegant, and gripping dissection of the American dream, Nocturne signals a brave new voice in American theater. Adam Rapp is the author of numerous plays and young adult novels. He lives in New York City. Adam Rapp is an OBIE Award-winning playwright and director, as well as a novelist, filmmaker, actor, and musician. His play The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois had its world première last month at South Coast Repertory. His other plays include Red Light Winter (Citation from the American Theatre Critics Association, a Lucille Lortel Nomination for Best New Play, two OBIE Awards, and was named a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize), Blackbird, The Metal Children, Finer Noble Gases, Through The Yellow Hour, The Hallwa