54 pages • 1 hour read
Brendan SlocumbThe Violin Conspiracy
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “The Disappearance”
Chapter 1 Summary: “Day 1: White Chucks, Size 10½”
Content Warning: This novel contains discussions of racism and enslavement, graphic descriptions of torture, and allusions to sexual assault.
Ray McMillian wakes up in his New York hotel room with his girlfriend, Nicole. After he has a shower, he finds that the maid has left breakfast for them. Nicole admits that she took money from Ray’s wallet to tip the maid. In retrospect, Ray examines all the small details of the morning and wonders what different choices he could have made. After breakfast, he and Nicole leave the hotel. Nicole offers Ray some advice on his violin playing and then gets into a taxi. Ray thinks about his upcoming challenge: the Tchaikovsky Competition for classical musicians. He takes a flight home, always keeping his violin close by. When he arrives home, he opens his violin case to discover a white running shoe and a ransom note for $5 million.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Day 1: Darkness”
Ray phones the police but has trouble facing the loss of his instrument. He returns to his hotel in New York while the police investigate the room he had occupied. As the police question him, Ray sinks into self-pity and believes that he wasn’t worthy of his violin; he worries that he is proving the racial prejudices that everyone had against him. Nicole calls to reassure him and asks about his music teacher, Janice, and his Aunt Rochelle. Ray tells her that Janice is on her way, but he couldn’t face his aunt. He continues to answer the police’s repeated questions. Ray suspects his own family members and another family, the Markses, of stealing the violin. Nicole comes back to New York and comforts him; she encourages him to get a temporary violin so that he can keep practicing. They plan to go to a music shop where Ray had his violin appraised to find a provisional replacement. Ray invites Nicole to come to Moscow with him for the Tchaikovsky Competition.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Day 2: Temporary Solution”
The theft of Ray’s violin is featured on every major news channel with the heading “$10M Stradivarius Stolen from NYC Hotel” (16). Ray and Nicole prepare to go to the music shop, and Ray begins receiving aggressive messages from his family. Later, they meet Janice at the music shop and meet the appraiser, Mischa Rowland, who helps him to choose a new violin. Ray feels disloyal to his instrument but finally purchases a Lehman violin to use until his is returned. Later, Ray learns that his insurance company has hired a private art detective to investigate the theft.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Days 3-4: Alicia”
Nicole encourages Ray to practice on his new violin. He is initially resistant but warms up to his Lehman and the Mozart sonata that he plays. He takes Nicole’s advice and improves his approach to the song. Later, the FBI tells him that they’re investigating a hotel maid named Pilar Jiménez who brought Ray’s breakfast tray and then didn’t show up to work. The documents that she gave the hotel, including the passport, were forgeries. Nicole struggles with her guilt over leaving the maid alone with the case and not being vigilant enough. She left the room very briefly to borrow a tip from Ray’s wallet, during which time they believe the violin was stolen.
That evening, the art specialist, Alicia Childress, arrives to talk to Ray and Nicole about the theft. Ray again insists that the violin was taken by either his family or the Markses. He considers a legal deal he made with his family members of which his lawyer disapproved. They discuss the crime scene, the ransom note, and the shoe, but none are offering any leads for them to follow. Alicia questions both Ray and Nicole closely about their movements the previous day. Ray tells her that he keeps his violin with him at all times. Alicia asks about his family, and Ray tells her about his estranged mother who has always been greedy. His aunts and uncles are also greedy and in debt. He alludes to the deal that he made with them so they would stop harassing him for more money.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Day 17: Mom”
As Ray waits at home for news, he calls Alicia for an update; nothing has been discovered. The next day, however, she tells him that they've located the maid in Honduras. When Alicia goes to see her, Pilar will only say that she returned home because she was homesick. After they hang up, Ray goes to see his mother. His mother is aggressive and unwelcoming. When Ray tries to tell her about his upcoming competition, his mother tells him that the police have been coming to talk to her and looking into her accounts. She says that Ray should have apologized for the inconvenience. Ray asks her if she knows anything about the theft and, if so, if she can tell the thieves to get in touch. She becomes defensive and aggressively tells him to leave. Afterward, Ray calls Nicole and they plan to set up a crowdfunding site to raise the ransom money. That evening, Ray struggles to become emotionally invested in his music. He receives a call from his Uncle Thurston who rages at him for threatening his mother.
Part 1 Analysis
Part 1 takes place in the present day, establishing the driving conflict of the story before Part 2 brings the novel into the past. Slocumb uses the literary technique “in medias res,” or landing the reader in the midst of the action in order to immediately engage them with the plot. The first chapter introduces the protagonist, his relationship to his music, and the relationship he has with his girlfriend. From the very start, Slocumb characterizes Ray by his dedication to music: “Breakfast had materialized before he’d gotten out of the shower. He’d lost track of time, caught up in the fingering of the Tchaikovsky Concerto’s triple-stops, and water sluiced down for ten minutes while he gaped at the tiny bar of hotel soap” (3). The chapter also makes a point to highlight Nicole’s advice about Ray’s playing, showing that they’re able to connect on an intellectual level about their shared passion. She also encourages him to continue and move forward with the competition even when Ray has lost the ability to believe in himself. At this point, their relationship seems healthy and like a constant, stable part of Ray’s otherwise chaotic life. She also aggressively encourages him to set up his crowdfunding site—this is later revealed to be a clue to her true intentions.
Slocumb uses backshadowing in order to draw the reader directly into the action without yet pausing the narrative for explanation: Several plot elements are put into place in this opening section, such as the violin theft and the Tchaikovsky Competition, but their full significance is not fully explored until later. For example, the first chapter closes with Ray receiving the ransom note for $5 million. At first, Slocumb deliberately obscures to the average reader why this excessive amount is required for a musical instrument; the note opens questions about why the instrument has such a value and why it was specifically targeted. It’s not until Chapter 3 that a small piece of the story is revealed through the headline about the “$10M Stradivarius Stolen” (16). These chapters also take a very emotional lens as Ray processes the loss: “[F]or moments at a time he forgot how to breathe, as if the air had suddenly become something difficult and foreign” (7). His reaction leans toward being disproportionate, and so it becomes clear that there is a deeper story to be discovered.
Toward the end of Part 1, Slocumb carries out exposition of the other antagonistic forces that Ray faces throughout his journey including the Marks family, his internalized shame about his race, and his challenging relationship with his own family. Part 1 closes with Ray’s interaction with his mother before immediately moving into the past in Part 2. Putting this chapter at the end of Part 1 is effective because it juxtaposes the high-value, high-action events of the first few chapters with something more domestic and visceral. The setting is described as a house with the “left gutter pulled away from the sliding, rust stains oozing like acne down the white vinyl, new weeds elbowing their way through the old ones along the walkway” (35). This evokes a very different sensation to the high-art theft and the expensive New York hotel. Ray’s mother is equally debased in the narrative and treats her son with cruelty and derision. Later, he receives a call from his uncle who heightens the novel’s antagonism and the feeling of opposing sides. By the end of Part 1, the novel has set up dramatic questions and separate plot threads before leaving the scene behind to start at the very beginning.
