28 Questions
by Indyana Schneider
Scribner
What brings you pleasure? Indyana Schneider studied music at Oxford University before moving to Vienna to sing opera professionally, and the main character in her book is Amalia, a first year music student at Oxford University who wants to be a professional opera singer.
What song means a great deal to you? Amalia is drunk when she meets fellow Aussie Alex at Oxford’s College Bar. Alex is in her third year at Oxford and the two develop an immediate friendship with an intensity that is both thrilling and terrifying.
Do we desire because we are incomplete? Despite Alex having a boyfriend and Amalia declaring that she is straight, they spend more and more time together discussing the psychological study that comprises a list of 28 questions. When answered in full, these questions are meant to make strangers fall in love.
Why are there so many variations for ordering coffee and so few for defining love? Amalia struggles with the close friend dynamic and whether to define moments as familial, friendly, romantic or sexual. She finds musical parallels for her feelings towards Alex and tries to balance the harmony with the melody.
What is the last dream you remember? When Amalia meets Cate who is a drummer in a jazz band, she finds herself questioning her sexuality. This involves mainly running away from thoughts that chase her into sleep, though they always catch her in her dreams.
If life’s a choice, why do people talk about falling in love? Falling is involuntary. Mixing raw dialogue with hand-written notes and texts, the book takes the reader on the ups and downs of the philosophical quests for both Amalia and Alex which are entwined with music and poetry.
“Is it possible to enjoy a love story when you know it will end in the kind of heartache that slices time?” I think it is because this journey about love in all its guises is what matters most!
Lezly Herbert
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