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The Summer Of Oprah: American Music
Illustration by Brian McLachlan/Torontoist.
When I first picked up Jane Mendelsohn’s newest book, American Music, the plot description threw me off. A physical therapist, Honor, and a paralyzed Iraq war veteran, Milo, both experience visions whenever she touches him? Uh, what does that have to do with music? But once I stopped judging and started reading, the title of this vivid, beautiful book made sense. Mendelsohn artfully weaves jazz music and cymbals throughout the visions, drawing on history from early Persia, where cymbals were invented, to 1930s New York, where they become synonymous with American music. It certainly helps that Mendelsohn’s writing is beautiful, lyrical, and haunting, like really good jazz.
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