43 pages • 1 hour read
The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship
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Preface and Part 1: Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Preface Summary
Steve Lopez, a columnist for the L.A. Times, first catches sight of Nathaniel Ayers one afternoon in downtown Los Angeles. Ayers is “dressed in rags on a busy downtown street corner, playing Beethoven on a battered violin” (ix). Ayers is clearly homeless, with all of his belongings in a shopping cart next to him. Lopez compliments him on his playing. Despite his condition, there is a “rumpled elegance about him” (x). Lopez believes that Ayers could provide material for a column, but he does not have time to talk to him on that day. At the office, he writes “Violin Man” (xi) on a paper and resolves to go back to see Ayers play.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
Three weeks later, Lopez again notices Ayers in Pershing Square playing Tchaikovsky. Lopez approaches Ayers and tells him about the idea to write about him. Ayers reveals he utilizes the Midnight Mission, a rescue operation on Skid Row. Although he showers and eats there, he prefers to sleep outside on the street. Lopez leaves and promises to visit Ayers at the mission. Ayers seems suspicious and clearly does not trust Lopez at the time.
Lopez looks for Ayers again two weeks later but cannot locate him. Lopez goes to the mission and is informed by the attendant that Ayers has not been seen lately. Weeks pass, and Lopez gets “distracted by other things” (6) until he sees Ayers near the Second Street tunnel. The two speak to each other, “an experience that’s like dropping in on a dream” (7) since Ayers moves from subject to subject quickly. He speaks about music and reveals that he attended Julliard. Ayers has scrawled names on the sidewalk, and he explains that these names belong to his classmates at Julliard.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
Lopez rushes back to the Los Angeles Times building to begin working on the story. He contacts Julliard to investigate Ayers’s attendance claim, which is eventually validated. Lopez decides the column is “too good to rush” (12), so he works on other projects over the next few weeks. He continues to speak with Ayers, who grows to trust him more.
Lopez learns about Ayers’s past, some of which comes from interviews with friends and family. Lopez speaks with Jennifer, Ayers’s younger sister and Harry Barnoff, Ayers’s high school music teacher and friend. Ayers attends Julliard and is “tormented by months of confusion, anxiety, and hallucinations” (15). At the age of 21 in his third year, he has a psychotic episode and is brought to Bellevue Hospital. There, he is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and “his life, and the life he had lived until then, was over” (15). He lives with his mother in Cleveland until her death in 2000. He goes in and out of treatment, but nothing seems to be helpful. He goes to look for his estranged father out West but does not locate him. He decides to stay in downtown L.A. and wanders the streets for several years before meeting Lopez.
Lopez also learns that Ayers goes to Studio City Music, a store where Ayers periodically buys instruments as he keeps getting them stolen. Ayers played double bass at Julliard but switches to violin since it is easier to move around in his shopping cart. Lopez gives Ayers two new violin strings.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Lopez publishes a column on Ayers entitled, “He’s Got the World on Two Strings,” and comments: “[T]he response exceeds my expectations and has me wondering what it is about the story that I’ve underestimated” (21). Lopez receives many responses from readers, some encouraging medication and rehab programs, others offering musical instruments. One man, the CEO of the Pearl River Piano Group, sends a cello and violin.
Ayers continues to set up his violin every morning on the street. He creates signs “announcing his current musical interests” (24), such as Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven. Lopez continues to contend with Ayers’s illness, saying: “I know little about this illness, how it works, what to do or whom to ask” (26). He admits: “I’ve set a trap for myself without knowing it, and readers aren’t letting me forget it” (27). He now feels a certain responsibility to rehabilitate Ayers but is not equal to the task.
He gets in touch with representatives from Lamp (Los Angeles Men’s Project), an organization that offers shelter and rehabilitation to the mentally ill. Shannon Murray and Patricia Lopez come to meet Ayers and suggest that he stop by Lamp to speak with them. Ayers refuses at first. However, Lopez decides to store all the new instruments at Lamp and says Ayers will have to stop by in order to play them.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
Lopez brings the new cello and violin to Ayers, and “he’s a child at Christmas, his expression half delight and half relief” (33). Lopez informs him of the plan to keep the instruments at Lamp, and Ayers at first balks at the idea. He sets up the new cello and is about to play. A homeless woman named Estella comes up and shows him her spider bite, and another homeless man joins the conversation.
Ayers begins to play, staring with a Beethoven sonata, and “this drab concrete corner of downtown Los Angeles […] is transformed into a place of lilting repose” (37). He goes on to play Ernest Bloch’s Rhapsody for Cello, after which Lopez brings the instruments to Lamp.
Preface and Part 1, Chapters 1-4 Analysis
These chapters introduce and examine the character of Nathanial Ayers. He is a skilled musician in his 50s living as a homeless man on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. At the core of Ayers’s character is music. Although he has fallen on hard times, he nonetheless keeps music at the center of his life. He plays every day on the streets, and Lopez describes him: “He plays as if he’s a student, oblivious to everyone around him, and this is his practice session” (3). When he plays, he tunes out the squalor of the life that surrounds him. He has high standards for himself, and he has “one nonnegotiable rule […] While performing, he is an artist at work and does not appreciate being interrupted, a misstep that always draws a look of scorn” (12). In this way, Ayers’s art elevates him from his challenging circumstances.
As Lopez develops a relationship with Ayers, he learns more about the struggles the latter has faced. While at Julliard, Ayers was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He had to drop out of Julliard and could not pursue music in the way he wanted to. Despite treatment and medication, Ayers never found anything that worked and ended up on the streets of Los Angeles. After Lopez published a column on Ayers, the musician begins to gain more agency. Readers send him instruments, and these allow Ayers to practice his art with less inhibitions. He begins to connect more closely to his art and to the core of his drives.
These early chapters also introduce the theme of art and purpose. Art is something that elevates and provides meaning to the characters in the book. It is separate from the every-day drudgery and challenges that the characters face. For Ayers, music is his connection to art: “Music is a meditation, a reverie, a respite from madness. It is his way to be alone without fear” (38). Music also represents a way for him to assert his identity outside of mental illness.
Lopez also connects to art in multiple ways. In his relationship with Ayers, he connects to the power of music secondhand. He witnesses the other man’s deep connection and becomes inspired. Writing is also an artistic pursuit for Lopez. Through writing, Lopez is able to connect to Ayers and allow him to connect others in the world. Storytelling allows a powerful narrative to travel and make a difference in the lives of others.
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