Harold Schonberg first heard Vladimir Horowitz play in the 1930s, and for the next half century he followed Horowitz's career with obsessive interest. This volume is filled with quotes from Horowitz himself, opening with the dramatic 1986 homecoming to the USSR after a 61-year absence, then flashes back to his childhood in Kiev, his trials as a Jewish student at the Moscow Conservatory and his flight to Berlin in the wake of revolution. The book follows his growth from gifted provincial to international colossus, a man envied by musicians everywhere but haunted by private demons.