Ryder, a famous pianist, arrives in an unnamed central European city to give an important concert. He finds that its citizens expect him to solve their troubles, and he is pulled into a stream of obligations, half-remembered acquaintances and encounters with people who seem tied to his own past. Time and space behave with the logic of a dream. This long, strange and comic novel explores ambition, neglected family and the longing to be understood, and is among Ishiguro's most experimental works.