We are only as great as our mind and our circumstances allow us to be.
Nathaniel Ayers is a man who loves music. Classically trained, he is his most content when he is left to his instrument and his playing. And he is a man of great talent. He is also a paranoid schizophrenic who rails at the cigarette smokers and lying imaginary thieves and scoundrels that plot to steal everything he owns.
On any given day, you cannot anticipate which persona Mr. Ayers will present. Mr. Anthony Ayers is The Soloist.
Steve Lopez is an award-winning journalist who writes for the Los Angeles Times. He met Nathaniel Ayers a few years ago and immediately was struck by the amazing showmanship of this homeless black gentleman, serenely playing his violin (which was missing a couple strings) to the accompaniment of passing traffic. Steve Lopez began to develop ideas about columns about Nathaniel Ayers, and he really became intrigued when he learned that Ayers once attended the prestigious Juilliard School in New York.
How had Nathaniel Ayers come to be homeless? What was his story? Where was he from? What manner of illness did he have? How is it that someone who once attended Juilliard, one of the most renowned performing arts schools in the world, ended up on the streets of Los Angeles serenading passersby and other homeless people with Brahms and Beethoven?
Lopez begins to take an active role in Ayers’ life, not only getting to know Nathaniel Ayers better, but learning more and more about classical music, about the homeless, and about schizophrenia. Nathaniel Ayers soon becomes famous through Lopez’ articles. And as Steve Lopez attempts to sort out the man whose mind has relegated him to a street musician, he also begins to believe he is responsible for Ayers and begins to work to get Nathaniel Ayers off the street and into an apartment, something Lopez soon finds out is far easier thought about and arranged than actualized.
Somewhere in the give-and-take of Steve Lopez listening to Nathaniel Ayers play and getting to know him as a person, Lopez and Ayers develop a tenuous friendship. Before long, Lopez has gotten the reluctant and sometimes recalcitrant Ayers to frequent the Lamp Community, a housing and support facility for the homeless in Skid Row. Drawing upon the resources of various professionals, Lopez works at getting Anthony Ayers back to the world where he believes he belongs.
But there is much about Mr. Ayers that the journalist in search of a story does not know. And the more Steve Lopez finds out about Nathaniel Ayers and the disease that has forced him away from playing concert halls, the more he comes to believe that he just might be able to bring Ayers back to his promised former life.
But time and knowledge and the insidiousness that is schizophrenia, plus the acquired suspicion and aversion to medication of any kind, lead the journalist to several realizations about Nathaniel Ayers. He would never be fully cured. He would never be totally safe in his current environment. He would never reach that place he nearly reached before leaving Juilliard. And there was little that he, Steve Lopez, could do about it — except give him support and be a friend.
Because the one thing that Nathaniel Ayers did have that was not taken away by his mind, by those attempting to “cure” him over the years with medication and therapies, by his destitution and his circumstances, was his music. His love of music and his ability to play remained intact.
The Soloist is about one man’s endeavor to help another find his way. It is a chronicle of unknowable loss and of unrealized potential. It is a testament to the ignorance of a man whose words matter to many, a medical profession searching for answers, and a society that simply wishes to deal with its homeless population by ignoring its existence. And it is a journey of awareness, where the journalist ultimately finds himself while helping another find his former self.
Steve Lopez has created a work that is not only inspiring but enlightening. The Soloist brings the plight of the homeless into sharp focus without beating the reader up about the social injustice of it. His approach to indicting the mental health / psychological profession reads much the same way, giving various treatments and theories serious consideration while weakly chastising them for not cooperating more with each other.
The Soloist is a virtuoso performance, written in two-part harmony. The Soloist is about hope and fulfillment. The book sets its mood to hope from the very beginning, with Steve Lopez, a journalist in search of an idea for a column, to the very end, where Lopez and a few interested parties have given Nathaniel Ayers hope for his musical future. The Soloist also identifies various degrees of fulfillment, some of which we know all too well, some we don’t recognize, some that can never be reached, and some that are simply the expectations of others.
And we all play solo, even on a crowded street. Even when accompanied. Even if we are married, single, or in a relationship. Even if we have a job or are unemployed. Even if we live in the city or in a rural setting. The difference remains, like with Nathaniel Ayers, do you love where you are and what you do?
