2016 novel by Rose Tremain
The Gustav Sonata is a novel by English author Rose Tremain published in 2016 by Chatto &amp; Windus.
It won the National Jewish Book Award in 2016 and the Ribalow Prize in 2017 and it was also shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards and the Walter Scott Prize in 2016 and longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2017. 
It was loosely based on Paul Grüninger, Police Chief of the Canton of St Gallen in 1937.
Plot.
The novel is split into three parts:
Part One: (1947-1952).
Set in post-war Switzerland where Gustav Perle and his best friend Anton Zwiebel live in a fictional small town called Matzlingan.
Gustav's father died mysteriously during the war, Anton is Jewish and plays the piano, but he comes last in a competition in
Bern where his family and Gustav are in the audience. Gustav then joins the Zwiebels on a holiday to Davos where the boys play
in an abandoned TB hospital...
Part Two: (1937-1942).
Before the war, Gustav's mother Emilia attends the local Schwingfest wrestling festival where she falls for Erich Perle,
the Assistant Police Chief in Matzlingan. She gets pregnant and they marry, but the pressure of the Jews migrating across the 
Austrian-Swiss border make her husband's job difficult, and he pushes her and they lose the baby. Erich arranges a holiday to
Davos, to rebuild their relationship. Erich then starts falsifying entry dates to allow Jews to enter Switzerland, he therefore 
loses his job and his apartment as a result and, Emilie moves to live with her mother. Erich has an affair with Lottie, the wife of
the Police Chief. Then Emilie returns and they have a child, Gustav. Erich then suddenly dies of a heart attack on the way to meet
Lottie.
Part Three: (1992-2002).
Gustav now runs a hotel in Matzingan, and resolves to find out about his father and he contacts Lottie who tells him about her lover
Erich, and as the Hotel requires updating he accompanies Lottie to Paris. Meanwhile Anton is now a Music Director at an academy,
where his playing of Beethoven sonatas bring him the attention of music impresario Hans Hirsch who takes Anton to Geneva to record
them. Anton and Hans become lovers but Anton then has a breakdown. Gustav and Anton then move to Davos...
References.
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