Beautiful Music Paperback by Michael Zadoorian

Product Details

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd. (2018-05-08)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 336 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781617756177
• Item Weight: 368.55 grams
• Dimensions: 0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0 cm

A funny, poignant, thoughtfully rendered novel about love, fear, death, race, music, and the intense passions of youth.

“Beautiful Music is a sweet and endearing coming-of-age tale measured in album tracks.” —Wall Street Journal

“An exceptional, engaging, and compelling read from first page to last.” —Midwest Book Review

Set in early 1970s Detroit, a divided city still reeling from its violent race riot of 1967, Beautiful Music is the story of one young man’s transformation through music. Danny Yzemski is a husky, pop radio–loving loner balancing a dysfunctional homelife with the sudden harsh realities of freshman year at a high school marked by racial turbulence.

But after tragedy strikes the family, Danny’s mother becomes increasingly erratic and angry about the seismic cultural shifts unfolding in her city and the world. As she tries to hold it together with the help of Librium, highballs, and breakfast cereal, Danny finds his own reason to carry on: rock and roll. In particular, the drum and guitar–heavy songs of local legends like the MC5 and Iggy Pop. In the vein of Nick Hornby and Tobias Wolff, yet with a style very much Zadoorian’s own, Beautiful Music is a touching story about the power of music and its ability to save one’s soul.

About the Author

MICHAEL ZADOORIAN is the critically praised author of Beautiful Music, as well as The Leisure Seeker—the basis for the 2018 Sony Pictures Classics film starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland. Zadoorian is a recipient of a Kresge Artist Fellowship in the Literary Arts, the Columbia University Anahid Literary Award, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, the GLIBA Great Lakes Great Reads award, and a Michigan Notable Book Award. His other books are Second Hand: A Novel, and the story collection The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit. His work has appeared in the Literary Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, American Short Fiction, Witness, Great Lakes Review, North American Review, Detroit Noir, and the Huffington Post. A lifelong resident of the Detroit area, he lives with his wife in a 1937 bungalow filled with cats and objects that used to be in the houses of other people. His latest novel is The Narcissism of Small Differences.