Instrumental

October 10, 2016
Music soothes a lifetime of mental illness and psychosexual trauma in Rhodes’s intense memoir. Rhodes, an English concert pianist famous for his classical-music-for-the-masses shows, tells of being raped from the ages of six–10 by a teacher, which eventually led him to heavy drug abuse, obsessive-compulsive tics, a wrecked marriage, a suicide attempt, and commitment to mental institutions. The author tells his story with harrowing realism and even rollicking humor—smoking heroin, he writes, was “the greatest and stupidest thing I’ve ever done”—probing both the everlasting anguished chaos in his head and his own appalling behavior with self-lacerating specificity. Intertwined throughout is the remarkable efflorescence of his musical career—he didn’t start studying piano seriously until his late 20s—and the healing power of music. (He credits a cache of music smuggled into his psych ward by a friend with helping him regain sanity, and he sprinkles in rapturous appreciations of his favorite pieces.) The book trails off at times in self-promotion (Rhodes even plugs his shoe line) and showbiz rants, but Rhodes’s energetic, edgy, painfully perceptive prose makes for a gripping narrative of abuse and dysfunction as well as the quiet, painstaking, redemptive labor of music making.

November 15, 2016
A noted classical pianist revisits the horrors of the abuse and rape he experienced as a little boy and rehearses the enduring effects on his life, loves, and music.Rhodes debuts with a memoir that is, in many ways, a dark, underground cavern only intermittently permeated by shafts--and sometimes floods--of light. He divides his account into 20 "tracks," each of which begins with rumination about a relevant classical piece for the piano, including some biographical details about the composer and information about the performance he recommends. Throughout the passionate narrative, the author examines a variety of topics, including the serial rape he experienced for five years in elementary school (painful even to read--though not overly graphic), the enduring psychological problems that ensued (he says he's never more than "two bad weeks away from a locked ward"), the process of becoming a respected classical pianist (despite a 10-year hiatus in late adolescence/early adulthood), the events that led to the end of his first marriage (he offers numerous declarations of love for his son), his stays in mental institutions, and his fiery beliefs about the status and future of classical music. In a particularly bitter passage, Rhodes assails those whom he calls "gatekeepers," stuffy performers, record labels, and critics whom he blames for what he sees as the moribund state of the genre. He proposes a number of solutions, and he practices what he preaches--on YouTube are a number of his performances that make his beliefs and practices particularly clear. The text is replete with dismissive profanities for those he believes have earned his disdain. There are times when Rhodes becomes a bit preachy and repetitive, but, given the haunted house in which he's lived since boyhood, most readers will surely cut him some slack. A powerful story of day-to-day survival, struggle, triumph, and hope.

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Starred review from December 1, 2016
As a six-year-old, Rhodes faced horrific sexual abuse at the hands of his elementary-school wrestling coach. At 30, Rhodes finally begins to process this early trauma, landing him in a series of mental-health wards where, ultimately, music, which as a child he turned to in a nearly obsessive indulgence, saves him. In this triumphant and arresting memoir, Rhodes charts his ongoing recovery and journey to his place as today's most exciting classical pianisthe performs concerts in hospital wards, or in major concert halls in jeans and sneakers, anything to bring classical music down from the ivory tower. Between his candid explanations of the sexual abuse he endured and the mechanics of how this trauma plays out in his life, to life inside psychiatric wards, a la One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Rhodes injects a dose of music historyrecommended playlists, with portraits of composers whose tumultuous lives parallel his own, giving an eerie nod to the connection between madness, personal suffering, and artistic genius. Despite such heavy themes, Rhodes writes with an arresting charm, at times cold and clinical, shockingly self-effacing, then painfully personal and poeticsure to register powerfully with readers with similar experiences (he gives trigger warnings before the more gruesome scenes). A gripping testament to the immense tragedy of sexual abuse, the magic of music, and the power of hope.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)