“This novel – a remarkable debut by George Collins – is about one man's journey into deep understanding and humanity." – Jay Parini, author of The Last Station and Borges and Me.

“A heartwarming and inspiring story about the healing power of music.” – Joe Lovano, Grammy Award-winning saxophonist and composer.

“If you’re lucky enough to get a second chance, grab it and hold on like hell.”

Ray Stark has built his life on logic, discipline, and control.

A celebrated neurosurgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, Ray is on the brink of becoming Chief of Neurosurgery. He believes problems can be solved, pain can be managed, and emotions – his own included – are distractions best ignored.

Then his young daughter dies.

Ray’s carefully constructed world, one he has spent a lifetime building, is instantly shattered. As grief exposes the limits of his hyper-rational mind, long-buried memories resurface – a childhood shaped by a violent, bullying father and an alcoholic mother, and a boy who learned early that empathy was a liability.

Now, as his marriage strains under the weight of unspoken pain and his sanity begins to fray, Ray finds himself unable to operate – both on a personal level, and on his patients.

An unexpected encounter with an old jazz recording reawakens a part of Ray that he abandoned decades earlier: the musician he once was, and the emotions he trained himself to silence. Music becomes both refuge and reckoning, forcing him to confront the damage he’s done – to others and to himself – in the name of control.

As his professional future, marriage, and mental stability hang in the balance, can a man devoted to saving the lives of others learn how to save his own?

A powerful work of literary fiction, Playing the Changes explores grief, family, and the fine line that so often separates brilliance and emotional blindness.