Us Conductors

“Us Conductors” is one of the more unusual novels I’ve read in a long while. It follows the true life story of a Russian scientist (Lev Termen) who I’d never heard of, who made among other inventions a strange musical instrument (the theremin), which I’d also never heard of. Lev came to the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s and was a big hit, especially in New York, and then he returned to Russia where he was imprisoned in various gulags till 1957. It’s not a book I think I would’ve picked up on my own, but I was curious since the author had won the Giller Prize for it last November for $100,000 — not too bad for a debut novelist.

In the first half, I struggled with “Us Conductors” as I didn’t feel very invested in the character of the scientist Lev. The novel jumps around, too, to different places in time — in flash backs as he’s telling the woman he loves about his life in two letters. The novel though is quite readable. The pages go by quickly as Lev at first arrives in New York and is the toast of the town with his patented musical box — the theremin.

Have you heard this instrument’s sound? Its eerie high-pitched notes make it seem straight from The Munsters or Star Trek. No one even touches the box to play it but uses their wavering hands in the air to manipulate the electrical field between its two antennas to make a shrill sound. Check out this example.

Strange but true, I think companies once had big plans for making the theremin a popular instrument in homes everywhere, though in the end that didn’t really pan out.

Somewhere along the line “Us Conductors” crept up on me. As the book goes on there’s so much of this scientist’s life that turns out to be incredible — his successful inventions and work with U.S. companies, how he gets involved in being a Russian spy, his marriages and the one unrequited love of his life, and his imprisonment in the Soviet gulags. Wow. His life story encompasses the Bolshevik Revolution, the swinging night life and music of New York City in the 20s and 30s, and later the Soviet gulags under Stalin.

It’s quite a riches to bust story with an amazing scope that made me rush online the minute I finished it to find out if indeed certain parts of Lev’s life story were true. I especially found his involvement in espionage and the whole Cold War era to be quite captivating, as well as his lifelong love for this woman Clara (an expert theremin player) who he’s addressing throughout the book. Eventually I wanted to know everything about what really happened, which obviously is a sign of an engaging book.

Apparently, the author Sean Michaels kept to the actual biographical sketch of what happened in the scientist’s life, but then reimagined it by filling in the scenes, details, conversations, and people Lev came in contact with. As Michaels said on a radio show, he filled in Lev’s “emotional progress.” It’s not unlike other recent novels have done with the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway’s spouse, or Frank Lloyd Wright’s spouse.

It’s a bit weird because I’m not usually enticed by novels that use actual historical figures to put words in their mouths, but for “Us Conductors” I actually think it served a worthy or interesting purpose.

Not only does it bring life to the era, places, feelings of this scientist who has long since been forgotten by many (Lev only just died in 1993, at the age of 97), but I also liked how the espionage in the book raised questions of Lev’s patriotism, duty, and responsibility, which Michaels talked about on a radio program as being relevant today in such places as Russia and in America’s NSA/Snowden case.

It’s cool, too, that the musical instrument the theremin can be seen sort of as a metaphor in the book. As the theremin uses invisible forces to make players or listeners feel a particular way, so too does Lev feel an invisible force working, for instance, through Clara and him. He writes letters to her in his mind over time and distance as if it’s almost telepathy.

I was struck by the novel especially during the second half of the book. There’s a lot of different things at work in it, such as: love, music, inventing, spying, and surviving the gulags. The story of this scientist’s life is rather remarkable — he went through so much — and that’s what ultimately won me over. The book’s research into bringing his story to light is quite compellingly done and left me wanting to know what was fact or fiction about the scientist Lev Termin and the theremin long after its last pages.

What about you have you read Sean Michael’s book and what did you think? Or have you ever heard of a theremin before this novel?