A Clockwork Counterpoint is the first book to examine the musical side of Anthony Burgess, an astonishingly prolific, underrated and talented composer, revealing how his lifelong involvement in music is an essential key toward understanding his life and work.

Whether explaining the sonata form structure of A Clockwork Orange and the musical underpinnings of dozens of his other novels, his distinctive views on the interrelationship between music and literature, music's role in his ties to his father and wives, or what his compositions tell us about his troubled relationship with his son, A Clockwork Counterpoint illuminates Burgess's dual creative life, providing the first complete portrait of a prodigious artist whose musical accomplishments have remained largely unknown until now.