"The Song Is You"

OK, it is about a fictional singer-songwriter, but here’s a read more than a few of us might connect with:

“Another song ended. And a too-sweet, tobaccoish residue lingered in Julian from his unchecked fantasies, and he laughed at himself (so like his father wrapping a fur stole around Billie Holiday’s shoulders), and he laughed at Cait O’Dwyer’s sorcery, and he wondered if, in her real life, she required a steady diet of recent heartbreak in order to manufacture fresh emotion for her consumers. . . . Two months ago, she was raw and unblended; tonight she was reasonably effective; someday very soon she would be in danger of marbling over into a slick cast impression of herself. The target was only microns wide, and history’s great singers may simply have been those who happened to make a record in the brief time between learning and forgetting how to manage their power.”
— from The Song Is You, by Arthur Phillips

NYTimes Book Review: http://tinyurl.com/da9g9c