• The Instrument Must Not Matter

The Instrument Must Not Matter

by Christine Fischer Guy

May 12, 2026 | ISBN 978-1-998408-38-2 | 250 Pages

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She sees the score for the Bach-Brahms in her mind’s eye, hears the indigo notes unfurl.

In this sweeping coming-of-age novel gifted young classical pianist Lila Rys finds herself in New York City studying under famed teacher George Vrubel. The move to the American city is terrifying, but Lila is determined to bring music back to the Rys family, where the story of her grandmother refusing to play Soviet music after their tanks rolled into Prague in 1968 is family lore. Accompanied by her brother, Lucas, who is studying at NYU, Lila struggles to navigate the classical musical world and become the successful performer she’s expected to be. But in New York she has a romantic encounter with a renegade female pianist and everything she knows about herself is turned upside down, until her brother discovers dissident literature that holds the stories her grandmother had not passed on, and Lila learns how to set her love for her family, and her music, free.

“In The Instrument Must Not Matter, Christine Fischer Guy walks a delightful boundary between no-nonsense realism and soaring, stylized musicality, thus achieving a spectacular and immersive reading experience. Living inside Lila Rys’s idiosyncratic mind is to understand her particularity and to – briefly, wonderfully – merge with that singular brilliance. This is an incandescent read.” – Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, author of Wait Softly Brother and All the Broken Things

“The Instrument Must Not Matter is a fierce and brilliant book. It will open your eyes and ears, your mind and your beating heart. It will sing inside you long after the story is done.” – Alissa York, author of Far Cry and The Naturalist

“Music moves through this beautiful novel. Author Christine Fischer Guy shows us inside the life of a talented young woman, Lila Rys, who is able to see music as colour and texture. This is the extraordinary story of how she learns to connect with her gift, her love and her family legacy.” – Claire Cameron, author of How to Survive a Bear Attack and The Last Neanderthal

Events with Christine Fischer Guy

  • Christine Fischer Guy is a Toronto writer and journalist. She’s a 2024 VCCA fellow and is the author of The Umbrella Mender (Wolsak and Wynn 2014), a “terrifically entertaining read” that “keeps the reader interested partly because she avoids setting up stereotypical opposites.” Her second novel, The Instrument Must Not Matter, is a coming-of-age story about a classical pianist and arrives in spring 2026. Her short fiction has appeared in Canadian, American and British journals. She was awarded a National Magazine Award and contributes criticism and interviews to literary journals.