Booklist
March 2008
THE SOLOIST
By Steve Lopez
(starred review)
Advanced Review – Uncorrected Proof
The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an
Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music.
Lopez, Steve (Author)
Mar 2008. 288 p. Putnam, hardcover, $25.95. (9780399155062).
787.2092.
On the streets
of the inner city, Los Angeles Times columnist and novelist Lopez (In the
Clear, 2003)
stumbled upon
the story that changed his life. Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless African American
man, was
standing on a
corner coaxing memorable music from a two-stringed violin. Turns out, 30 years
earlier,
Ayers had been
at Juilliard studying classical bass when he experienced the first in a series
of
schizophrenic
episodes that turned his musical dreams into a nightmare. Now, worlds away from
the
concert halls
he imagined gracing, Ayers spends his days on Los AngelesŐ Skid Row, fighting
off rats and
drug-frenzied
fellow homeless—and serenading passersby. The spot where Ayers has chosen
to play is no
accident; itŐs
near the cityŐs statue of Beethoven and just down the hill from Walt Disney
Concert Hall.
Lopez quickly
becomes an integral part of AyersŐ life, bringing him new instruments and even
facilitating
arrangements at
a homeless shelter. But as he navigates the complex world of mental illness,
Lopez
discovers that
good intentions (and good connections) are often powerless in the face of
schizophrenia, a
potent,
prickly, unpredictable disease. Award-winning actors Jamie Foxx and Robert
Downey Jr. are set to
star in a movie
version of this compelling, emotionally charged tale of raw talent and renewed
hope.
— Allison Block