Critical Praise

"Inez and Sylvia are powerful, unforgettable characters, but they are made so in large part through Schneider's description of the music they share. His ability to probe so deeply, for example, into the melancholia that grips Inez's soul is tied inextricably to his reflections on Bach's Partita in D Minor. A brave novel and a resounding success."

——Booklist (starred review)

"Beautiful Inez is a marvelous performance by an artist who has made his language by turns syncopated and then shimmering, as if an entire life and landscape have been laid out for the enthralled reader in fluid song. Inez weaves through the narrative, haunting and intense and unforgettable."

——Susan Straight, author of Highwire Moon

"Schneider spins a good yarn --- and he knows his Mendelssohn."

——Kirkus Reviews

"Beautiful Inez takes us into the heart's uncharted territories, where two unlikely lovers come together in San Francisco in the early 1960s --- the beautiful Inez, a concert violinist and unfulfilled wife, and the impetuous, passionate bohemian, Sylvia, who sees in Inez her own salvation. A memorable, risk-taking novel that gets the people, the time, and the place just right."

——Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander