Michael Zadoorian. (2018). Beautiful Music: A Novel. Akashic Books.

Michael Zadoorian. 2018. Beautiful Music: A Novel. Akashic Books.

Michael Zadoorian, Beautiful Music: A Novel. Akashic Books, 2018.

Michael Zadoorian. Beautiful Music: A Novel. Akashic Books, 2018.

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1. • value: Detroit
2. • value: Music
3. • value: race riots
4. • value: iggy pop
5. • value: MC5
6. • value: Beautiful Music
7. • value: Michael Zadoorian
8. • value: The Leisure Seeker
9. • value: The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit

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1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Zadoorian, Michael
   • bioText: Michael Zadoorian is the author of the critically praised The Leisure Seeker—now a film starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland, released by Sony Pictures Classics this year. 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, and the Michigan Notable Book Award. His other books are Second Hand: A Novel, and the story collection The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit. His fiction has appeared in the Literary Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, American Short Fiction, Witness, Great Lakes Review, and the North American Review. He lives with his wife in the Detroit area.
   • name: Michael Zadoorian

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Beautiful Music

fullDescription

"[An] eight-track flashback of a novel set in 1970s Detroit" from the international bestselling author of The Narcissism of Small Differences (O, the Oprah Magazine, Summer 2018 Reading List).
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.
"A sweet and endearing coming-of-age tale measured in album tracks." —The Wall Street Journal
"For Danny, cracking the seal on a fresh piece of wax and dissecting cover art and liner notes are acts of nigh religious experience that unveil to him a community of fellow rockers across Detroit . . . It's in these small moments—a lonely boy experiencing premature nostalgia—that Zadoorian shines." —The Washington Post
"A disturbing yet humorous tale of beleaguered adolescence in 1970s Motor City." —Steve Miller, author of Detroit Rock City

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Michigan Quarterly Review
   • content:

     "Beautiful Music is not only a testament to the rockin' jams that propelled Motown to become reknown as Detroit Rock City, it swells with the beautiful music of a lively soul...Beautiful Music is touching, hilarious, and heartbreaking, much like the gamut of emotions you may have felt the first time you heard your favorite song. And much like that first, mind-opening musical experience, you'll return to certain passages within this novel because like the perfect song, it hits all the right notes--something you can feel deep in your gut."

2. • premium: False
   • source: MLive
   • content: This is a must read for any Detroit native."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Lansing City Pulse
   • content: If you grew up in the age of slow dancing, sock hops, transistor radios, powerhouse rock stations, record stores, first love and last kisses--you will love Michael Zadoorian's new novel, Beautiful Music."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Razorcake
   • content: I read Beautiful Music compulsively until its end, captivated by the sympathetic character of Danny. I was left with the satisfying, 'Wait a minute, this wasn't really about music at all' feeling that I demand of music writing. But then I had to admit that it really was about rock, its power to heal and transcend. Zadoorian had an easy book to write. His refusal to write it the easy way makes all the difference."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Publishers Weekly
   • content: [A] raucous bildungsroman...Zadoorian touches on white flight, iconic radio stations, and the racial history of Detroit, but remains rooted in [protagonist] Danny's transition out of his shell. With its echoes of works by Nick Hornby and Stephen Chbosky, Zadoorian's ebullient novel is full of energy, pain, growth, and great music."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Bay Area Reporter
   • content: Zadoorian's new novel Beautiful Music is set in ravaged 1970s Detroit, and focuses on the healing power of music."
7. • premium: False
   • source: Steve Miller, author of Detroit Rock City
   • content: Popping with Detroit cultural landmarks, Beautiful Music wraps a disturbing yet humorous tale of beleaguered adolescence in 1970s Motor City around the A-list rock music that made the dingy landscape an aural playground."
8. • premium: False
   • source: Adam Schuitema, author of The Things We Do That Make No Sense
   • content: Don't let anyone tell you that a novel can't have a soundtrack. Beautiful Music adds another chapter to Detroit's rock and roll mythology, every scene shaking with bass, drums, guitar riffs, and driving vocals. But beneath it all, Zadoorian expertly portrays a quiet boy who's navigating heartache at home, bullies at school, and racial tension in the air--a boy trusting in music to tell him that both he and his city will be okay in the end."
9. • premium: False
   • source: Davy Rothbart, contributor to This American Life
   • content: Beautiful Music thrums like a guitar riff and rattles like a bass drum. This soulful, funny, transporting, and often electrifying novel will resonate with anyone who's found their true passion--or is still on the hunt. It's not just a great Detroit story and a great American story; it's also a story about what it means to be human. I loved this book! In the words of Bob Seger, all I could do was turn the page."
10. • premium: False
    • source: Paul Clemens, author of Made in Detroit, on The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit
    • content: Zadoorian knows the streets and side streets and alleyways of his city and its surround; better, he knows the humor, the sadness, and the sometimes hidden beauty of life in the Rust Belt, and he pins it down on the page with wonderful precision."
11. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      March 1, 2018
      A teenager in 1970s Detroit takes his first steps toward hard-rock rebellion after a soft-rock upbringing.Zadoorian's third novel (The Leisure Seeker, 2009, etc.) is narrated by Danny, a white kid in Detroit who's slowly getting pushed out of his bubble. The 1967 race riots introduced him to racial divides, starting high school makes him absurdly anxious about becoming a drug addict, and a classmate who prankishly played the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams" in class reveals the existence of a louder, more profane world. His father's tastes run to the "beautiful music" of the title (the Carpenters, John Denver, etc.), but after he dies, Danny begins a slow-motion process of acting out, developing an affection for Led Zeppelin and Iggy Pop. That connects him to a fellow record nerd named John, who introduces him to the charms of British rock mags and weed. Increasingly confident thanks to John's friendship and a stint at the school radio station, Danny begins to push back against his grieving mother, who's been drinking heavily. The novel is notable for being a coming-of-age story without a romantic peg, Danny being too emotionally formless to pursue a relationship. But Zadoorian keeps the tone upbeat in other ways: He's skilled at capturing the feeling of release that music can provide ("something snaps in your heart and a jolt of pure happiness shoots through you better than all the dope in the world") as well as the anxiety the novelty of that experience can produce in a sheltered kid. The emphasis on those lighter elements soft-focuses the drama of the final pages, where racial tensions and mom's drinking come to a head. But that captures Danny's character too: The real world is encroaching, but he can keep it at arm's length just a while longer.A likable bildungsroman that cannily evokes how music transforms teenage identity.

      COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

12. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      March 5, 2018
      In this raucous bildungsroman from Zadoorian (The Leisure Seeker) set in Detroit in the early 1970s, Danny Yzemski turns to rock and roll as an escape from his freshman year of high school, family tragedy, and the fallout from the recent race riots. Danny is a nervous kid, happiest when building model cars and listening to the radio. When his father suddenly dies of a heart attack and his mom sinks into instability, Danny gets a job selling blueprints of cookie-cutter homes to keep the family afloat. At work, his coworkers blast rock—Led Zeppelin, MC5, Iggy Pop—and soon Danny falls in love with the music and decides to become a radio DJ. Danny’s endearing, sweet-yet-snarky voice drives the novel (“I have always been a model of good attendance and student citizenship. Then it occurs to me: where has it gotten me? I became bully bait”). As he delves deeper into rock culture, makes a friend, and confronts his mother’s (and his own) racial prejudices, his nervousness gives way to a kind of confidence. Zadoorian touches on white flight, iconic radio stations, and the racial history of Detroit, but remains rooted in Danny’s transition out of his shell. With its echoes of works by Nick Hornby and Stephen Chbosky, Zadoorian’s ebullient novel is full of energy, pain, growth, and great music. Agent: Jud Laghi, Jud Laghi Agency.

13. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      March 15, 2018
      It's 1970s Detroit, and 15-year-old Danny is head over heels in love with rock 'n' roll; it's a panacea, a sovereign remedy. When his father muses about music, Danny's comment is simple: It just makes me happy. Music will need all its power when the father dies suddenly and the boy is left alone with his mother, who begins drinking heavily, sitting, drink in one hand and cigarette in the other, doing nothing but staring glassily at the TV. Danny must take over the family chores, becoming in effect his mother's father. And then there's school, where Danny is classic bully bait until two things happen: he acquires a friend who loves music as much as he does, and he is selected to be on-air talent and music director for the school's radio station. True to its time, there are occasional mini-race riots at school, but they seldom touch him?until they do, with dire consequences. This affectionate, nostalgic novel about a sometimes-troubled teen is a crossover delight with appeal to both adults and teens.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

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"[An] eight-track flashback of a novel set in 1970s Detroit" from the international bestselling author of The Narcissism of Small Differences (O, the Oprah Magazine, Summer 2018 Reading List).
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...

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3. • code: FIC045000
   • description: Fiction / Family Life / General