Bernard Chasan wrote:

>'Gerontius" by James Hamilton-Patterson is about Edward Elgar - a fictional
>account of a trip which Elgar took from England and up the Amazon River
>by steamer.  The composer went on this trip late in his life, but little
>is known about it in fact, so the novelist had free rein to invent, An
>excellent novel by a first rank English novelist.

Big Elgar lover I'm supposed to be and I forgot this one.  I didn't
like it quite as much as Bernie, but no Elgarian should miss it.  Part
of Hamilton-Patterson's invention was based on murky facts from Elgar's
early life, the identity of which I'll leave the future reader to discover.

Roger Hecht