It begins in Graz, Austria, in 1938. Joseph Skizzen"s father pretends to be Jewish and leaves his country to avoid any connection with the Nazis. In London with his wife and children for the duration of the war, he disappears under mysterious circumstances. The family relocates to a small town in Ohio where Joseph Skizzen grows up and becomes a decent amateur piano player, in part to cope with the abandonment of his father, and creates as well a fantasy self - a professor curating an Inhumanity Museum. Skizzen has trained himself to accept guilt for crimes against humanity and Middle C tells the story of his journey--an investigation into the nature of human identity and the ways in which each of us is several selves.