The Soloist (Movie Tie-In): A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
by Steve Lopez
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Book Summary Information
Author: Steve LopezEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-30
ISBN: 042522600X
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Book Reviews of The Soloist (Movie Tie-In): A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
Book Review: The Next Steps
Summary: 5 Stars
How often have most of us walked down the street and ignored the far too many homeless people that abound in most major urban centers in North America? One man I know with a schizophrenic son always carries large amounts of change in his pockets. He is generous with the change because, if circumstances were different, his son just might be among the homeless. Most of us simply tune the homeless out without thinking. Steve Lopez, to his credit, did not.
He took the time to be curious about one such person because of that person's talent for music and that led him on a journey to tell his readers in LA and eventually the readers of his book all over the world about the plight of those with mental illness. For his kindness to another human and for alerting people to this problem, he is to be commended.
But the issue here is that in any caring society, people who are ill should not, for any reason, be allowed to plummet to the point where they wind up homeless or, as often happens, in jail. Dr. David Dawson, who wrote the preface to my book Schizophrenia: Medicine's Mystery - Society's Shame and wrote and directed the film Cutting For Stone said that "the mentally ill of many western countries are not faring as well as they might have in 1960 or 1970, despite our advances in knowledge, treatment, and our nations' wealth".
The Soloist mentions that Ayers refused medication and some of the reviews have wondered how much autonomy we should give people who are sick to refuse treatment. One reason that Dawson and others have concluded that those with schizophrenia fare less well now than earlier is that we do allow too much autonomy. People who lack the capacity to understand that they are ill are still allowed to refuse treatment.
Some European countries such as Norway and The Netherlands, as I pointed out in my book, have laws that do allow for treatment in these cases, do respect individual rights and do manage to avoid our problems of homelessness amongst the severely mentally ill.
This book does help us to understand and be sympathetic but we must go beyond that as a society and deal with these problems at a societal level.
Marvin Ross
author of Schizophrenia: Medicine's Mystery - Society's Shame
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Summary of The Soloist (Movie Tie-In): A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
Make this your next book club selection and everyone saves.
Get 15% off when you order 5 or more of this title for your book club.
Simply enter the coupon code LOPEZSOLOIST at checkout.
This offer does not apply to eBook purchases. This offer applies to only one downloadable audio per purchase.
Now a major motion picture-"An intimate portrait of mental illness, of atrocious social neglect, and the struggle to resurrect a fallen prodigy." (Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down)
This is the true story of journalist Steve Lopez's discovery of Nathaniel Ayers, a former classical bass student at Julliard, playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles' Skid Row. Deeply affected by the beauty of Ayers's music, Lopez took it upon himself to change the prodigy's life-only to find that their relationship has had a profound change on his own life.
Get 15% off when you order 5 or more of this title for your book club.
Simply enter the coupon code LOPEZSOLOIST at checkout.
This offer does not apply to eBook purchases. This offer applies to only one downloadable audio per purchase.
Now a major motion picture-"An intimate portrait of mental illness, of atrocious social neglect, and the struggle to resurrect a fallen prodigy." (Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down)
This is the true story of journalist Steve Lopez's discovery of Nathaniel Ayers, a former classical bass student at Julliard, playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles' Skid Row. Deeply affected by the beauty of Ayers's music, Lopez took it upon himself to change the prodigy's life-only to find that their relationship has had a profound change on his own life.
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