The Soloist - Music and Survival on the Streets

This is a great story, a great book - Steve Lopez is a LA Times reporter who sees a homeless man, Nathaniel Ayers, playing his violin in a freeway tunnel on his way to work. He needs an idea for a story, and decides to stop and see if this might be one. He is captivated by the character and the contradictions he encounters in Nathaniel. Nathaniel is playing a violin with just two strings. Yet, somehow, he is producing music - and as Steve gets to know him, the mystery of how truly gifted he is, and how he came to be living on the streets and playing in a tunnel is slowly unraveled. It is a journey not to be missed - it is real, but astonishing, to follow the progression of events (I won't spoil it by telling you!). At the same time, Lopez manages to meet and talk with members of Nathaniel's family, as well as friends and teachers from his earlier life.

A few key facts won't hurt: Nathaniel suffers from schizophrenia; he once studied music at Julliard; and his anchor to sanity seems to be music. Lopez is a reporter with a nice family and a nice house. He loves going after a story, and he loves wrapping up the loose ends and moving on. But with Nathaniel, it is not that neat, and it is not at all easy for Lopez to know what is coming. It is a dance, and a roller-coaster ride; it is costly , it is not easy, it is not familiar and it is not comfortable.

So while the role of music in Nathaniel's healing is huge and soul-satisfying, I like to remember that the unlikely friendship between these two men also played a leading role. The strength of that connection allowed them both to grow far beyond what they imagined possible, each in his own way. For Nathaniel, well, a universe has opened up - or so it seems to me, to us. Yet there is no pretense in this book, no imagining that only good things will follow. It is that real.
In conclusion - read it!!

The Soloist was featured by the libraries in Philadelphia and that is how I knew about it. Steve Lopez was once a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

I found this video , on youtube with the real Steve Lopez and the real Nathaniel Ayers - celebrating Beethoven's birthday, I think. It was so cool to see them that I decided not to look for the movie trailer after all.