The Music of Your Life: Stories Paperback – June 2, 2004

Few short story collections, let alone a debut set, are as thematically developed as The Music of Your Life. Each of the stories centers upon an early mid-life assessment, touching on emotional perplexities that have more to do with meanings than plot, with consequences rather than choices. To be sure, there are familiar issues from gay life fictional and lived: gay adults dealing with their parents, early loves found and lost, the awkwardness of being unpartnered when middle age is closer than youth. What makes Rowell's writing fresh, though, are two incredible talents: the first is an ability, through dialogue (both internal and spoken), to create very complete lives and worlds for these characters. The characters voices are distinct, honest, and convincing.His second gift is his ability to convey the complex paradoxes of those characters in ways that are both heartbreaking and hilarious. Rowell juxtaposes the Lawrence Welk Show and the Batman television show, displaying two sides of one boy in the 1960s, one for whom it was natural to imagine being tied up with the Caped Crusaders as easily as singing standards with Miss Jo Stafford. I literally laughed aloud by page 4.Rowell conveys several aspects of growing up gay (at least, for the times of the 1960s and 1970s) in a visceral way: it's one thing to know we get along better with adults than children, but it's another to feel it. By the time I reached the conclusion of the first story (written in the second person, a verboten voice to match a hidden interior experience - one in which the narrating child envisions his life as a television talk show, with him as the host, or a radio program coming to you live from the Hotel Astor), I saw all too clearly the relevance of the title "The Music of Your Life," which made me cry. I continued to laugh and cry, in almost equal proportion, throughout the rest of the book.As a writer, I have always found titles to be very difficult to manage; they have to say so much, yet reveal so little; they're sort of like haikus. Rowell's titles haunt me. I keep returning to one story in particular. "Who Loves You?" Again, the plot (which sounds a bit contrived) is secondary to the characters. I can't explain fully without ruining the fun for those who haven't read the story, but in 1954, as Arthur and Willie (the narrator), are in bed, about to drift off to sleep. From page 83:***He turns over and looks at me. "Hey, Willie... who loves you?" he whispers, and it always makes me smile when he says that, even if I'm ticked off. Usually, I don't answer him, I just let the words hang there in the air for a second or two. He probably doesn't think I appreciate it enough, that he says that to me, and maybe I don't, or maybe I just don't show it, but inside I really am glad he keeps saying it. I'm more glad for this than for anything else, if I'm being honest. And then he sings his own words to the Lucy tune, which is so corny, even I can see that, and I'm from the damn sticks. "I love Willie, and he loves me, we're as happy as we can be..." he sings in my ear. "Don't quit your day job," I say, rolling my eyes. But then he can't resist la-la'ing one more chorus of the Lucy song in my ear, real quiet and hushed, like a lullaby - a Hollywood lullaby: "I love Willie, and he loves me..." And just before I drift off, I whisper to him: "That'll never play in the valley," and then I'm all the way out, on the way to dreaming, as I do every night, about the movies.***I felt I was intruding, a voyeur of something far more important, far more intimate than any sexual act I have witnessed or read. It's all the more profound when Willie looks back on his life forty years later, recalling the first time they met... and imagining hearing that song again when he next sees Arthur. Rowell so captivatingly conveys the youthful romanticism of that night, just before sleep; of the meanings an older man makes of meeting and falling in love, forty years after the fact; of the ... well, if not regrets and redemptions, then recognitions of and resignations to one's past.John Rowell's stories express sets of emotions I have been feeling for a few years, feelings that do not match the themes of most pieces of literature, most tropes for living as a gay man in the post Will & Grace world, despite being informed and shaped by entertainment media. I'm certainly too young for a mid-life crisis, and I really can't complain about my life, but I do have moments of clarity, when I long for the relationship with my mother that only once had when I was very young, or wonder what has happened to the friends I had in my teens and twenties (yet somehow lack the resolve - or the courage - to track down), or ponder how I should live my life (after all, we never got to see how Mary Richards made it past 37). Rowell makes me want to know what will happen next for his characters, and, by extension, for me.I am reminded, too, of New York magazine's review of Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance. The Music of Your Life is a funny, lyric book about New York and North Carolina, looking for love and growing older. I have never been to New York and I have never lived in North Carolina, I am, however, a gay man of a (creepingly higher) certain age, who has been affected (and perhaps effected) by television, popular song and musical theater. I have looked for love and I am growing older, and this book contains many stories of my life. I thank the John Rowell for sharing his vision and his words with the world, and I look forward with eagerness to his future work.

"You're ten years old. It's summertime. And you have Lawrence Welk damage." You just know that a short story with that for an opening line has to be outstanding. And it certainly is. In the title story, one of seven in this first collection of stories by John Rowell, the narrator is a ten year old boy growing up in North Carolina who at that early age understands all too clearly what it means to be different. As do many gay children, he learns quickly to hide his true feelings. He would rather read "Photoplay" magazine than play baseball. He thrives in the classroom-- the teachers love him-- "But then there's the playground." The story certainly cut to the bone as I read this youngster's account of getting way out in the outfield in a ball game so that he will be far away from any flyball. It all sounded too, too familiar.The other stories in this remarkable first book are just as good. I particularly liked "Saviors." "Jean Nimocks Sloops is a woman on a mission." She tries to match up her divorcing niece Bitsy Nimocks Evans with the bachelor church organist. She invites both of them to her "antique infested" home for tea and like so many heterosexuals doesn't have a clue as to why the church organist has never married.The endings of both these stories are quite amazing. Unlike many short stories that are little more than character sketches, these stories actually go somewhere.Mr. Rowell got endorsements from a lot of people whose writing I admire, one reason I bought his book: Jill McCorkle, Mark Childress, Stephen McCauley, David Ebershoff, Lee Smith.These most impressive stories will not disappoint you.

From the top of the first of seven short stories in this wonderful collection, I immediately recogonized this sweet funny sensitive young boy who appears with various names and ages throughout the stories. As if a mirror was being held up to my own childhood, despite the many differences, I instantly knew this little boy and his humor, his references, his isolation, the moments of estrangement from his family and community, and down deep his fear. I was lapping up every single word as if it were the first time I had ever read something so familiar and close to me in print. The stories are full of innocence, hopes, fears, ambition, and regret; all told with humor, wit, and sometimes heartbreaking sadness. The music of John Rowell's short stories is the very music that makes up all of our lives, especially those of us who were sweet funny and sensitive young boys.

This short story collection is just wonderful. The characters leap of the pages of to take the reader on journies both moving and hillarious. Rowell's writes with both keen insight and honesty. You will want to re-read these soon after you finish them. Highy recommended.