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The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
Steve Lopez, 2008
Penguin Group USA
304 pp.

In Brief
When Steve Lopez saw Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles' skid row, he found it impossible to walk away. More than thirty years earlier, Ayers had been a promising classical bass student at Juilliard—ambitious, charming, and also one of the few African-Americans—until he gradually lost his ability to function, overcome by schizophrenia. When Lopez finds him, Ayers is homeless, paranoid, and deeply troubled, but glimmers of that brilliance are still there.

Over time, Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers form a bond, and Lopez imagines that he might be able to change Ayers's life. Lopez collects donated violins, a cello, even a stand-up bass and a piano; he takes Ayers to Walt Disney Concert Hall and helps him move indoors. For each triumph, there is a crashing disappointment, yet neither man gives up. In the process of trying to save Ayers, Lopez finds that his own life is changing, and his sense of what one man can accomplish in the lives of others begins to expand in new ways.

Poignant and ultimately hopeful, The Soloist is a beautifully told story of friendship and the redeeming power of music. (From the publisher.)

The 2009 film version of The Soloist stars Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.

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About the Author

• Birth—1953
• Where—California, USA
• Education—San Jose State University
• Currently—Los Angeles, California


Steve Lopez is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where he first wrote a series of enormously popular columns about Nathaniel Ayers.

Before joining the L.A. Times, Lopez wrote for Time, Sports Illustrated, Life, and Entertainment Weekly. Prior to working for Time, Inc., Lopez was a columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Jose Mercury News and the Oakland Tribune. His work has won numerous national journalism awards for column writing and magazine reporting.

A California native, Lopez is the author of three novels and a book of non-fiction, The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, And The Redemptive Power of Music. The book is based on columns Lopez wrote for The Times about his friendship with a downtown Los Angeles musician.

Lopez is married and has two sons and a daughter. (Adapted from the publisher and L.A. Times.)

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Critics Say. . .
Lopez is a natural storyteller, giving us a close-up view of the improbable intersection of musicianship, schizophrenia, homelessness and dignity. The result is a surprisingly lively page-turner, propelled by the close friendship developing between these two men and filled with eloquent passages…The Soloist goes a long way toward explaining the workings of the musical mind, albeit one tragically touched by madness. It doesn't shy away from exploring the failures of governmental programs and mental health services for the needy, but it does so without preaching and finger-pointing. It doesn't editorialize; like good music, it just is.
Daniel J. Levitin - Washington Post


Compelling and gruffly tender…Lopez deserves congratulations for being the one person who did not avert his eyes and walk past the grubby man with the violin.
Edward Humes - Los Angeles Times


Perhaps the fact that William Hughes is an accomplished musician and a political science professor allows him to slip so easily into both the voice of free-associating, schizophrenic, homeless musical prodigy Nathaniel Ayers, and the more professional voice of LA Times columnist Lopez. Lopez stumbles across Ayers playing his violin on the street a few blocks from his downtown office and writes a column about him that piques the public's interest. This begins an inspiring tale of a friendship rife with triumphs, disappointments, and human kindness. Hughes reads Lopez's narration with the casual authority of one telling his own story. When the dialogue is Ayers', Hughes makes a subtle but effective vocal shift to make him sound more loose and free, but also more anxious.
Publishers Weekly


By turns harrowing, winsome, and inspiring, this work by novelist (In the Clear) and Los Angeles Times columnist Lopez relates the first two years of his friendship with Nathaniel Anthony Ayers. A budding string genius at Juilliard in the early 1970s, Ayers succumbed to paranoid schizophrenia and became homeless, yet he continued to play the violin as a way to keep the demons at bay. With the help of Lopez and others who responded to his columns, Ayers took steps to recovery, residing in a group facility, making trips to Disney Hall for concerts, and achieving the dream of having his own music studio. The tangle of mental health policies and government priorities comes in for a thorough drubbing, as does the callous disregard for students' personal situations at many elite institutions, at least at the time Ayers was enrolled. Lopez's newspaper experience serves him well, and both he and his subject come across as fully developed individuals. A deeply moving story; highly recommended for all collections and of special interest to those dealing with the intersections of music and psychology or therapy.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) On the streets of the inner city, Los Angeles Times columnist and novelist Lopez 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 Angeles’ Skid Row, fighting off rats and drug-frenzied fellow homeless—and serenading passersby. The spot where Ayers has chosen to play is no accident; it’s near the city’s statue of Beethoven and just down the hill from Walt Disney Concert Hall. Lopez quickly becomes an integral part of Ayers’ 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
Booklist


Los Angeles Times columnist Lopez (In The Clear, 2001, etc.) brings empathy, intelligence and humor to his poignant portrait of a homeless man who once studied at Juilliard. The author first encountered Nathaniel Ayers, a longtime resident of Los Angeles's Skid Row, while en route to work. A Cleveland native who was among a handful of blacks enrolled in Juilliard in the early 1970s, Ayers developed schizophrenia while at the school. After unsuccessful treatment in psychiatric facilities, he landed on the streets of L.A. where, drawn by a statue of Beethoven in a local park, he began to play classical music on a battered violin. Lopez wrote a series of newspaper articles about Ayers that highlighted the plight of the homeless and brought the mentally unstable man donations of numerous violins, a cello and a string bass. Bedraggled and often spewing invectives, Ayers stored the instruments in a shopping cart that he wheeled through town. At night, he fended off sewer rats that scurried across the litter-strewn sidewalk on which he'd slept for years. Outraged, Lopez helped Ayers secure housing in a facility for the homeless and arranged for him to attend concerts at Disney Hall. By the book's end, Ayers has met cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a former classmate at Juilliard. But this is not a feel-good memoir. Determined to understand the evolution of Ayers's illness, Lopez probes his family history, revisits his painful past at Juilliard and seeks advice from mental-health professionals. He also details the myriad complications of forging a bond with a gifted musician whose schizophrenia continues to rage. Energetic prose delivers powerful insights on homelessness and mental illness.
Kirkus Reviews

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Book Club Discussion Questions

1. When they first meet, Steve looks at Nathaniel as a compelling story for his newspaper, one that has the potential to bring attention to the inhabitants of Los Angeles’s Skid Row. What do you think compels him to continue to take on responsibility for Nathaniel’s wellbeing following the initial article?

2. Although Steve didn’t enter into his relationship with Nathaniel looking for either a friend or a musical teacher, he winds up with both. Discuss how their relationship progressed from writer-subject to the friendship the two men now enjoy. Is there a turning point in their relationship that you can identify? Have you experienced something similar in your own life?

3. Classical music is a much a ‘character’ throughout the book as any of the people. For Nathaniel, the music he plays at times can help to keep his illness at bay. Do you believe that these creative kinds of therapy can ever be a replacement for anti-psychotic drugs? How does Nathaniel’s love of music eventually begin to influence Steve?

4. From their first meeting, Steve and Nathaniel both have an impact on each others’ lives that is almost palpable and touches the lives of the people around them. Discuss the ways in which their relationship becomes not only a catalyst for change in their lives but also the lives of others.

5. Upon visiting Disney Hall for the first time, Nathaniel comments “It’s like a dream. I don’t know if it’s a dream or purgatory (p. 114)”. Steve ruminates upon this comment for a moment, finally accepting it as is. Discuss what you think Nathaniel means by this. Do you think there’s any deeper meaning to it, or do you agree with Steve’s assessment?

6. One of Steve’s goals in the book is to shed light on the homeless situation on Skid Row and the mental health problems that most of the people there suffer, going into some depth regarding different forms of therapy and medication. How do you think families should handle a mentally ill relative? Do you think it is okay to force treatment on a person? Are there any instances that could change your mind?

7. Readers begin to donate instruments and money almost immediately following Steve’s first article. What do you think compels people to help a stranger? Do you believe that people would have been as eager to help Nathaniel had Steve not written about him and his plight? Why or why not? What do you think this says about human nature in general?

8. Nathaniel attended Julliard during the 1960s, when its students were predominately white. How much do you think the pressures of being one of the only African-American students at Julliard contributed to Nathaniel’s breakdown?

9. After Steve’s articles are published, the mayor of Los Angeles visits Skid Row with him to see it firsthand. Discuss whether or not you think he’d have made this visit without Nathaniel’s story as a catalyst. Would a series of articles that simply focused on the homeless in Los Angeles as a group been as effective?

10. On page 139, Nathaniel states “I can’t survive if I can’t hear the orchestra the way I like to hear it.” Do you agree with Steve’s assessment that, in a variety of ways, Nathaniel is freer as a man than most "regular" people? Do you think it’s possible for people to live unfettered by society without living outside of its confines?
(Questions issued by publisher.)