Book news: No strings attached
By Dave
April 24th, 2009 | Leave a comment
The newspaper columnist who “discovered” the musician who became the subject of columns, then book, and now movie tells how his encounter with Nathaniel Ayers led to this series of events, culminating – for now – in the movie being released amid a ton of buzz starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.
Steve Lopez talked to NPR a year ago about how this unlikely friendship grew: “Lopez says his friendship with Ayers has ‘always been a two-way street, it’s not just me doing for him.’ The writer explains that the musician re-ignited his passion for journalism and gave him a sense of well-being: ‘You know, there’s this humility, there’s this good feeling I have from giving something,’ Lopez says.”
The story is pretty well-known at this point, of how Ayers had been a promising violinist at the prestigious Juilliard School who dropped out as he struggled with schizophrenia. He moved to L.A. and landed on the streets there.
As Lopez wrote about Ayers in the Los Angeles Times, readers sent instruments to Lopez on behalf of Ayers. One thing led to another, Ayers got off the street and into an apartment and treatment for his mental illness.
Hear excerpts from the movie and from Lopez on radio before the movie was released: “It was the violin that turned my head,” he told NPR, then he noticed the player was in rags and the violin had only two strings.
The book is The Soloist: A Lost Dream, and Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music.
