The Years
Sheet Music

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SKU: HU.9780822213536

Play, Plays. Softcover Book. Hal Leonard Australia #9780822213536. Published by Hal Leonard Australia (HU.9780822213536).

ISBN D0822213532. 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.1 inches.

THE STORY: Andrea, a young woman, is attacked by a man, Bartholomew, on her wedding day. On returning home, she tells Eloise, her older sister, and Isabelle and Andrew, her cousins, that her black eye and cut lip are a result of falling, thus protecting her attacker. While the family comforts Andrea, Eloise is quietly dealing with her own pain: Her husband, Jeffrey, has just told her that he is leaving her. The family has been plagued with loss and pain, as Andrea and Eloise's father recently died and shortly after, their mother committed suicide. Andrew has a chance meeting later on the wedding day with Bartholomew and tells him the story of his cousin's mishap. Bartholomew had only mugged Andrea out of a desperation to escape to a better life and is now disturbed by this information, but decides he must move on. Thirteen years pass, and the cousins are gathered for another wedding. This time Eloise is to be remarried, but she has been sent the wrong dress, and food has also gone to the wrong party. That night Bartholomew, now a very successful business man, happens to save Andrea from a drunken attacker and is shocked to discover that his mugging of her thirteen years earlier continues to color her life. His own life then takes a downward spiral as we discover in the final scene three years later. At that time, Andrea's family suffers another loss when Andrew, by now a renowned photographer, dies just before the opening of a major exhibit of his work. At the opening, Isabelle, is expected to speak, and as she sums up the relationships in her family, the remaining cousins reach a new level of understanding and forgiveness.

When Andrea is mugged on her wedding day she surprisingly decides to cover up the crime and protect her assailant. At the time, the attack seems a large and shattering incident and the forgiveness a small and confused one, but over the course of the next sixteen years, the forgiveness turns out to be the far more shattering event of the two. This and other family incidents reverberate with comic, moving and surprising results. In the end, redemption comes for each character, not through large acts, but through almost insignificant and now long forgotten moments. "Ms. Johnson has an appealing off-center sense of humor, even when something vaguely unsettling is transpiring. You laugh and you shift uneasily at the same time." - NY Times.