In four intertwined tales, Laura Otis invites readers into the minds of social outsiders and synesthetes with super-sensitive ears. While leading vastly different lives in German and American cities, four loners fight to thrive on their own terms. During the pandemic, an English teacher discarded by her married boyfriend rediscovers her will to live when she falls in love with a television detective. A supermarket worker who can hear through touch bonds with a stray cat who bites her hand. A disrespected museum guard gets in trouble for making visitors look at a painting that obsesses him. A translator frustrated by the world’s noise and slow pace gets stuck behind an old woman on a stalled escalator. Can these solitary people use their exquisite hearing to heal their wounds and discover inspiration in unexpected places? D Minor’s four stories subtly link the lives of social outsiders who find surprising ways to recover from abuse.