The Music of Your Life: Stories
by John Rowell
On This Page
Description
With a voice that is both sophisticated and deeply Southern, author John Rowell evokes the memory of the great Truman Capote in this wonderful collection of short stories, peopled with unforgettable, endearing characters and filled with wry insights. Drawn from the emotional well of a young man who grew up in love with the glittery, glamorous world of music and movies and theater--far removed from his own more prosaic life in North Carolina--and informed with honesty and compassion, the show more seven short stories that comprise The Music of Your Life showcase the talent of a remarkably gifted writer. Compulsively readable and always accessible, each story takes the reader into the mind and heart of its central character, whether a young boy suffering from Lawrence Welk damage and teetering precariously on the edge of puberty ("The Music of Your Life") or a not-so-young-anymore man for whom fantasy and reality have become a terrifying blur and who finds himself slipping over the edge toward total meltdown ("Wildlife of Coastal Carolina"). Nostalgia plays a part in these stories as a somewhat jaded New York film critic looks back on his life and the movies that shaped him ("Spectators in Love"), and an aging flower-shop owner ruefully assesses the love he found and lost when, as an eighteen-year-old, he embarked on a Hollywood career that never soared but did include one particularly memorable appearance on the I Love Lucy television show ("Who Loves You?") These stories all create entire worlds within which the characters live and struggle to find their way. Funny, touching, serious, and tender, the tales within The Music of Your Life are sure to appeal to anyone who has ever known the awkwardness of being "different," and while life is often harsh for the stories' characters, the bold determination with which they persevere offers inspiration to all. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
1 Work 98 Members
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- Epigraph
- Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you
can understand.
--W.B. Yeats, "THE STOLEN CHILD"
"One should be the s... (show all)pectator of oneself always,
dear, a little."
--Ronald Firbank, INCLINATIONS - Dedication
- For my mother and father.
- First words
- You're ten years old. It's summertime. And you have Lawrence Welk damage.
You are, in fact, America's biggest little fan of The Lawrence Welk Show. You can't get enough to him, of him and his weekly televisio... (show all)n variety hour. Lawrence Welk: "Mister Music Maker," the leader of the band, a fussy, exacting man who sports a red or pastel blue polyester blazer that gives him the look of, say, the president of your father's Rotary Club, but that could never be, because this man is famous; Lawrence Welk belongs to America, to American livings rooms, like some eccentric, musically included uncle from another state who suddenly appears in front of you - <"Hello, son... - bearing an undertaker's freeze-dried smile, lifting his baton and welcoming you to his show in a speaking voice that sounds eerily Transylvanian: "Good-a evaning, everybody, I'm-a Lawrence Welk..." -The Music of Your Life - Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.6
- Canonical LCC
- PS3618.O875
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 99
- Popularity
- 322,656
- Rating
- (3.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 3
