Shortly after the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff was forced to flee his homeland. He ended up in America, where he wrote some beloved pieces, indulged his love of fast cars, and engaged in a memorable music battle with Harpo Marx. Fiona Maddocks’s book recounts the years between his emigration and death in loving detail—his friendship with Stravinsky (whom Rachmaninoff famously gifted a pot of honey in the middle of the night), his delight in cherry malted milk floats, the reluctance of critics to accept him as a great artist. The book is full of delightful anecdotes, exuberantly told.