In Theresienstadt, the notorious Czech concentration camp, Yuri Masurovsky, a world-renowned pianist, survived persecution by playing for his captors. Years later, his daughter Isabel finds herself orphaned and adrift in Italy and bound to her father's past. Although she has not performed in years, she takes a job teaching the troubled son of a miserly millionaire. Isabel learns he is concealing a legendary cello, which was confiscated by the Nazis and has never resurfaced. Giulio is a cagey surgical resident who also works as a gigolo. A compulsive performer and liar, he turns out to be more genuine than anyone Isabel has ever known. Slowly, he provokes, coaxes and seduces her into the present, helping her see that she must live not in her father's time, but in her own. In DISTURBANCE OF THE INNER EAR, Joyce Hackett has created a pitch-perfect first-person narrative. Her dazzling debut marks the arrival of an exciting new novelist.