The Sound Post

In New Orleans in the early 1990sthe country in a low-grade recession, a hot summer nightan unlikely James Buck steps off the bus from the sad farmlands of nowhere, with a few dollars in his duffel and a secondhand violin latched up in a blistered case. An autodidact, he busks the streets of this ancient town with Bartk and Tchaikovsky while Nine Inch Nails hammers a lustful angst into the floorboards of every drinking hole from Rampart to the West Bank clear to Claibornethe era of grunge, a storm blowing in from the northwest, ravaging the youth with a gorgeous industry of apathetic noise, an alienating and infectious roar, calling out the depravity below the thin skin of mainstream America. So begins an extraordinary set list transcribed in prose.

With opportunities scarce, income in feast or famine, racism seething on every stoop, a disenchanted and impoverished Buck tries to make some sense of himself in this choleric world, in this lyric roman clef about love, trust, youth, morality, and the search for something meaningful. Here is a story sad yet so beautiful it breaks the heart and then mends itstronger for the repair.