The Last Day

After learning he has a fatal disease, Anders is invited to join a bus tour of Germany, mostly by musicians, visiting places lived and worked in by Johan Sebastian Bach. Anders is not a musician but loves Bach’s music and sees the tour as a last act of homage to Bach for the lifelong pleasure he has given him. As the tour progresses things become complicated for Anders by his growing involvement in a relationship with a widow, Miriam, who is touring Europe to recover from the distress of watching her husband die slowly from cancer. Desperate to end the relationship without hurting Miriam in the hope of sparing her from a similar fate with him --- also facing a slow, painful death --- Anders, although a committed atheist, turns to another non-musician on the bus, a Jesuit priest who says he is a metaphysical philosopher. Anders finds himself in debate with someone who has extremely unconventional views on religion. In this enigmatic novel, the reader is asked to try to separate illusion from reality.