I am not a hero, I am a composer

More about the book

Eisler fled his destructive homeland in 1933 for safety abroad, only to be forced out of the USA by the Committee on Un-American Activities in 1948, returning to his ravaged homeland. In exile, the dynamics of attraction and rejection shifted. While in Hollywood, he composed for the film industry and critiqued it in his book on film composition. Although his film music achieved success, his serious compositions went largely unrecognized. Financial stability was fleeting, as debts consistently eroded his earnings. His Hollywood songs express his sorrow for the barbarism of his homeland and the emptiness of his refuge. The narrative explores his unsettled life in exile, the intricacies of Hollywood's social landscape, and the political context of his persecution. It includes interpretations of his works, his “art to inherit,” and his aesthetic of displaced form. New sources, such as the report from his first unpublished interrogation by the Committee, are examined, revealing a complex portrait of a melancholic fighter striving for clarity yet marked by contradictions.