2010 Featured Title: The Soloist
A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music

Author: Steve Lopez 

"The Soloist is a symphony, providing an honest look at mental illness, human dignity and the need for social connection.  It is also a call to action.  As masters of their arts, Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers deserve a standing ovation."

- Michael J. Fitzpatrick, Executive Director, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

Synopsis:
When Steve Lopez sees Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles's Skid Row, he envisions this "Violin Man" as the topic of his next column for the Los Angeles Times-- only to unearth an even more extraordinary story about the mysterious street musician.

More than thirty years earlier, Ayers had been a promising classical bass student at Juilliard--ambitious, charming and also one one of the few African-Americans at the school--until he gradually lost his ability to function, overcome by a mental breakdown.  When Lopez finds him, Ayers is alone, suspicious of everyone and deeply troubled, but glimmers of that brilliance are still there.

From an impromptu concert of Beethoven's Eighth in the Second Street tunnel to a performance of Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites on Skid Row, the two men learn to communicate through Ayer's music.  Their bond takes torturous turns as Lopez imagines he can change Ayer's life--finding him lodging, reconnecting him with his family, taking him to Disney Concert Hall to meet a former Juilliard classmate.  For each triumph, there is a crushing disappointment, yet neither man gives up.  And though it's Ayers he initially sets out to save, Lopez finds that his own life is profoundly changed.

Themes:
Friendship, Music, Art, Homelessness, Mental Health, Journalism