The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

“And yes, I infused the man in the coffin, my mysterious and misunderstood Frankie Presto, whose recent death during a festival concert was witnessed by a sold-out crowd, his body lifting to the rafters before dropping to the stage, a lifeless shell. It caused quite a stir. Even today, as they gather in this centuries-old basilica for his funeral, people are asking, ‘Who killed Frankie Presto?’ because no one, they say, dies that way on his own. That is true.” 

The novel opens with the premise that Frankie died under strange circumstances, and as Music tells Frankie’s story, pieces of the mystery come together. The main mystery is that Frankie’s body seemed to lift off the ground as he died before falling back to the stage. This is one of the first supernatural, or magical, elements in the novel, besides the fact that the embodiment of Music is telling Frankie’s story. 

“Did you ever notice how music sounds different played outdoors? A cello in a garden wedding? A calliope in a seaside amusement park? That’s because I was born in the open air, in the breaks of ocean waves and the whistling of sandstorms, the hoots of owls and the cackles of the birds. […] Only man shapes my edges to make me beautiful.” 

While this is Frankie’s story, Music reveals pieces of himself during his narration. Here, he reveals that he is timeless and originated in the sounds of nature, and that humans have refined him. Throughout the novel, Music contemplates his own mysterious nature and makes connections between himself and the way humans experience life; he often comments on how music is simple, yet humans make their experience on earth so complicated.

“Everyone joins a band in this life. You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him. As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army.” 

This idea that everyone joins a band in life is a constant theme throughout the novel. Music explains it as the idea that a band doesn’t necessarily revolve around music; rather, it’s a group of people that a person joins in life. He also stresses that bands are often temporary, as is the case with most of the bands that Frankie joins in life.

“Soon he was sounding out a melody. His eyes widened with each new note, because playing a song for the very first time is my greatest revelation, like discovering you can walk on a rainbow. He began to hum along. Had the two grown men in the front room stopped their arguing, even for a moment, they might have heard the little miracle of Francisco de Asîs Pascual Presto, not yet five years old, fingertipping his way through a tune he’d heard many times on a Saturday-morning radio program, a nursery rhyme turned jazz standard […] It was Frankie’s first guitar performance. And no one heard it but me.” 

Before this moment, Baffa had taken Frankie to a music school in the hopes of getting him lessons, but the music teacher said Frankie was too young. While Baffa and the music teacher argued, Frankie went to the back room and played the guitar for the first time. Music takes credit for this moment, saying that he was pulsing through Frankie. Most notably, this moment demonstrates Frankie’s innate musical talent. 

“Later, when a special someone lifts the curtain, you feel that chosen talent stirring inside you, a bursting passion to sing, paint, dance, bang on drums. You are never the same. It was a blind guitar player who did this for Frankie.” 

Music describes the first encounter between Frankie and his music teacher, El Maestro. For quite a long time, El Maestro won’t let Frankie touch a guitar but instead makes him listen to classical pieces; he wants Frankie to learn the music by listening to it before he attempts to play it. This, he believes, is what makes a true musician—the ability to both listen and play. Although Baffa is the man who takes Frankie in as his son, when Frankie grows up, he considers El Maestro to be just as, if not more so, influential than Baffa on his life. Unbeknownst to Frankie, Baffa is his biological father as well as the father of his musical abilities.

“This is how talents weave from generation to generation, how the shadow stretches, and how an artist born nearly a hundred years earlier begins to fill the soul of a child who shares his name.” 

A prevalent theme throughout the novel is the idea that history repeats itself in strange ways. Frankie’s mother hummed “Lágrima” to him as she was dying, an act which saved his life, and El Maestro, the man who fosters the musical talent that changes the course of his life, plays this song for him as well. Similarly, Frankie shares his name with Francisco Táregga, the musician who wrote “Lágrima,” and both men had tragic childhoods. Music explains how these lives lived separately intersect, and how they follow a kindred trajectory. At the end of the novel, Frankie dies while playing “Lágrima.”

“[A] legend was constructed. It is how you humans remold your history. Baffa told Frankie that his mother was a saintly woman, Baffa’s one and only love, who died tragically on a trip they took shortly after Frankie was born.” 

Because of Baffa’s story, Frankie grows up thinking that Baffa is his real father and that his mother’s body is somewhere in America. But despite this story, Frankie always feels like a piece of himself is missing, a void that is only filled through music. Later in this chapter, Frankie finds a photo of Baffa and his sister, but he believes the woman to be his mother. This brings him some comfort, until he finds Baffa’s sister in America and learns the truth. This reconstruction of Frankie’s history speaks to his developing character throughout the novel. He is effectively orphaned four times: first when his mother dies, second when the nun abandons him, third when Baffa disappears, and fourth when El Maestro dies. 

“Here is what I know of love. It changes the way you treat me. I feel it in your hands. Your fingers. Your compositions. The sudden rush of peppy phrases, major sevenths, melody lines that resolve neatly and sweetly, like a valentine tucked in an envelope. Humans grow dizzy from new affection, and young Frankie was already dizzy when he and the mysterious girl descended from that tree.” 

Frankie meets Aurora for the first time, and the two are instantly bonded by the tragedy of watching the soldiers throw the dead bodies into the graves. Frankie is drawn to Aurora’s outgoing and kind nature, especially because he has had no friends before her, and she’s drawn to his empathy and guitar playing. Music says that this is the moment Frankie fell in love with Aurora; it’s also the moment that his music changed as a result.

“That afternoon Frankie […] took the hairless dog with him out the back gate of the garden. An hour later a police car would arrive, and two officers would again search the house. This may seem highly fortuitous, but when a higher power has plans for you, life can be full of near misses.” 

This moment comes after Baffa was arrested, leaving Frankie alone in their house without anyone to care for him. When their hairless dog unexpectedly returns home, this inspires Frankie to take him and leave. Music explains that this coincidence—Frankie leaving right before the police show up to search the house—isn’t actually a coincidence: It’s evidence that a higher power has plans for him. However, it’s not clear whether Music is talking about himself as the higher power or if he’s referring to God.

“Every loss leaves a hole in your heart. El Maestro, as you may have surmised, suffered a great loss earlier in his life, one that led him to a drunkard’s despair. His wife died. The beautiful woman who would lead him from the stage and plant a kiss on his lips. Once she was gone, he wanted nothing from this earth. He let himself sink—into melancholy, into drinking, into a haunted, restless sleep. If he could have unplugged his heart and shut the lights on his memory, he would have.” 

When Frankie first begins studying under El Maestro, the teacher is always drunk and clearly regretful. Music explains that this is because of his wife’s unexpected death. However, once he begins teaching Frankie music, he slowly lifts out of his depression and drinking. When Frankie comes to live with him, he even begins playing in public again so that he can provide for the little boy. El Maestro’s wife was Carmencita, so to El Maestro’s knowledge, he lost a wife and a baby. Of course, the reader knows that Frankie is his son, but neither El Maestro nor Frankie know this during their relationship.

“It is not new, this idea that a purer art awaits you in a substance. But it is naïve. I existed before the first grapes were fermented. Before the first whiskey was distilled. Be it opium or absinthe, marijuana or heroin, cocaine or ecstasy or whatever will follow, you may alter your state, but you will not alter this truth: I am Music. I am here inside you. Why would I hide behind a powder or vapor? Do you think me so petty?”

When Frankie is older and unable to cope with the tragedies of his life, he turns to drugs and drinking to escape, and he also hopes that they will rekindle his passion for music. However, Music makes it clear that these substances don’t enhance his talent in any way. In fact, Music is offended that so many people turn to substances in the hopes that they will find the essence of music within. Music talks about other musical artists who have lost their lives to a substance because they were searching for him, and thus he provides a commentary about the imaginary connection that humans create between music and drugs. Interestingly, Music makes this point around the time that Frankie attends Woodstock, a festival that celebrated psychedelic rock heavily influenced by hallucinogenic drugs. Some of the latter Beatles albums, like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club,” fall under the psychedelic rock genre. 

“Frankie couldn’t believe it. He had listened to this man’s recording so many times, sitting beside El Maestro in the flat above the laundry, both of them imagining a guitarist with large, powerful hands and incredible reach. It was the first time my child realized the utter disconnect between a man’s body and the music he can make.” 

This is Frankie’s first encounter with Django Reinhardt, the gypsy guitar player who El Maestro’s admired. Frankie and El Maestro had listened to his records innumerous times together, so running into him on the streets of England was more than a mere coincidence; the encounter again demonstrates divine favor and direction in Frankie’s life. Once Frankie meets Django, he accompanies him to America, where he’s introduced to some of the biggest legends in music history, like Duke Ellington. 

“He also learned that Django was ready to cancel what would prove to be his only trip to America—until Frankie had agreed to go. The idea of traveling with a boy made the journey after his son’s death more bearable. I can see all futures, the ones my talents will make and the ones they will turn away from (just as I can hear all melodies on a keyboard, those played and those yet unplayed) and I can tell you had Frankie not been there, Django would never have experienced America, or the way it influenced his life and art.” 

Music reveals that he sees all, unhindered by the constraints of time. This is how he knows that Frankie changed Django’s destiny by agreeing to go with him to America. Once Frankie agrees and Django’s destiny changes, a string on Frankie’s guitar turns blue. 

“We should speak about those strings. You know that they came from Carmencita, Frankie’s beautiful, dark-haired mother. You know that she intended them for her husband, El Maestro, who was really Frankie’s father. You know that they sat unused for nine years—inside a purse in El Maestro’s closet—until he gave them to Frankie the day the boy left Spain. What you do not know is where Carmencita acquired them. Or from whom.” 

Music reveals many major plot points in the novel and demonstrates the interconnected nature of these key events. Frankie’s magic strings came from El Maestro, who received them from his wife, Carmencita. She received them from a gypsy family who wanted to repay her kindness, and they said that the strings have “lives inside them” (210). Once Frankie receives the strings, he inadvertently changes people’s lives, and he eventually carves a path to find the truth about his past.

“Of course, when he was truly sad, Frankie came to his guitar. Hour after hour. Day after day. […] For my disciples, the map is simple. All lonely roads lead back to music.” 

For much of Frankie’s life, he is lonely and without friends his own age. He befriends many musicians, but they are usually much older. In his younger years, the hairless dog is a constant, always there to save him in some way and provide companionship, while in his later years Aurora is a constant. However, in both youth and old age, Music is the perennial constant in Frankie’s life. 

“There are some songs that you play that you have to restart, and songs that you play that you never get right. But when a song is complete, there is no more you can do. The hairless dog leaped into the water and paddled away. Frankie watched limply, knowing somehow, he was not supposed to follow, even as the last member of his original three-piece band disappeared down the Mississippi River. A moment later he heard a rustling in the tall grass behind him. He turned his head and squinted into the sun. He saw a figure hovering above him, smiling.” 

The hairless dog is important to Frankie because it’s the creature that saved his life when he was thrown into the water as a baby, and it’s the one who has provided him constant companionship despite losing the most important people in his life. Once Frankie moved to America, the hairless dog’s presence provided him a comforting link to his past. By seemingly divine intervention, the hairless dog disappears from Frankie’s life just as Aurora York returns to it. This is symbolic of Frankie’s past dissolving and his future with Aurora taking shape.

“The truth is, I do not share well. I want you to myself. And you, my precious acolytes, want me, too—even at the expense of others. You follow me to lonely practice rooms, faraway stages, late hours inside smoky recording studios, your weary fingers banging piano keys, your tired lips clamped around a mouthpiece, playing on, forsaking those who love you and who you should love back. They will lure you. I will lure you more. It is the price I exact. And the one you pay.” 

This explains the struggle Frankie has for much of his life. During his younger years, he sacrifices his most important relationship, the one he has with Aurora, to further his career. While Aurora wants him to be genuine to his music, he gives in to his agent’s request to stop playing guitar and focus only on singing. When he does this, she leaves him. Later in life, when they reunite, he gives up music, thinking that he can’t love both music and Aurora. However, Aurora encourages him to play again, and Music notes how Aurora was the only person on earth who could compete with him for Frankie’s heart.

“In the three years following their wedding, Frankie and Aurora moved from harmony to counterpoint, as the adagio completed its slow turn. Frankie made a trip to New York City. Aurora took a job in a flower shop. Frankie secretly replaced Elvis for a show in Vancouver. Aurora joined a church. Frankie went to Los Angeles, met the agent Tappy Fishman, and signed a contract. Aurora learned to cook crawfish.” 

Despite how quickly and deeply Aurora and Frankie fall in love, very quickly their differing interests pull them apart. Frankie is attracted to the flash and glamour of his rising stardom, while Aurora desires a simple life with Frankie and his music by her side. While she is initially supportive of his musical career, once she realizes that his aspirations are pulling him away from her, she leaves him, presumably to avoid the pain of him leaving her.

“But Frankie, upon seeing McGuinn, was reminded of London and 1965 and the Beatles and the party and how far he had fallen from his once-worldwide fame—playing in this dank and smelly nightclub—and his ego was bruised and he grew depressed and he stayed out until dawn, drinking and smoking with musicians in the club’s basement.”

Before this moment, Frankie and Aurora get back together, and she gets pregnant. However, feeling depressed by his fall from fame, he breaks the promise he had made to Aurora and gets drunk. When he comes home late that night, Aurora doesn’t notice that he’s been gone all night, and he promises himself he won’t mess up again. But early that morning Aurora leaves to get breakfast ingredients when she gets mugged and kicked in the stomach. She loses the baby, and Frankie blames himself for not being there. After this, they once again break up. This quote further develops the idea that Music is a jealous partner. Frankie yearns for musical fame and breaks his promise to Aurora. 

“Meanwhile, returning to their affections (the rondo, remember?), Frankie and Aurora pleasantly discovered the barriers between them had melted away. Fame was no longer an issue, nor was traveling, late nights, or other women. Aurora discarded all remnants of narcotics or alcohol in Frankie’s life.” 

Once Frankie’s fame falls away, he and Aurora reunite and stay together for good. While they finally settle down together, up until this point, their relationship had followed a cycle of being united and separated; each time one of them left, the other would wait faithfully, as if they both always knew that they would one day end up together. Frankie’s passion for music and his passion for Aurora are similar in this way.

“What would you give to remember everything? I have this power. I absorb your memories; when you hear me, you relive them. A first dance. A wedding. The song that played when you got the big news. No other talent gives your life a soundtrack. I am Music. I mark time.” 

Music is timeless, but he helps humans mark time. Throughout the novel, Music describes himself as being ageless and without body, but he supernaturally affects the humans who are infused with him. Music has always watched over Frankie and influenced his life in key moments, and it’s because of Music that Frankie feels linked to his past. 

Frankie walked his family through a busy plaza, past a weeping willow garden, and along an irrigation canal into which Francisco Táregga had once been thrown by his caretaker, just as Frankie had once been thrown into a river. He avoided sharing any stories about Baffa Rubio, although he could feel Aurora’s silent urging as she walked beside him.” 

This describes the moment when Frankie takes his family to Spain for the first time. He hasn’t been back since his childhood, and he feels out of place; so much of Spain has changed, and he also feels haunted by his past. He doesn’t want to talk about Baffa because he still feels resentful that he lied to him about being his real father. But this moment also reveals the cyclic nature of history: Frankie has finally returned to his hometown, the same hometown of Táregga, and both musicians share a similar tragic history.

“All told, he sailed for five months and 19,000 miles. Over those weeks, he made a certain peace with his less than peaceful past. For the first time in a long time, Frankie slept through the night. He found himself dreaming of Baffa Rubio, and the oranges they would share from a paper bag, and old Hampton, making Frankie pork stew in his tiny kitchen, and even the nuns in the orphanage and the meals they would serve after mass. He realized how many people it takes to keep one child alive in this world.” 

This moment comes after Frankie found out that Alberto shot El Maestro. Frankie almost shot Alberto in revenge and this frightened him, so he left his family and went to a monastery for three years. He had always been angry with Baffa for lying to him and claiming to be his biological father, but by the end of the three years in the monastery, he realizes just how much he and Baffa have in common. Like Baffa, Frankie took in the abandoned baby girl and raised her as his own. This realization, coupled with the recognition that many people, not just Baffa, helped to raise him, gives him a new appreciation and love for Baffa, and he finally forgives him.