43 pages • 1 hour read
Steve LopezThe Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship
Steve LopezNonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1: Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary
Lopez broaches the subject of medication to Ayers. The latter recalls his former treatment in Cleveland after leaving Julliard. Lopez asks Ayers to write down “some thoughts on his first awareness that something was wrong, and what it was like to be treated for schizophrenia” (80). Ayers writes a few stream of consciousness pages, one thought following from the previous. He starts by recalling: “As a youngster it was very untogether to be labeled mentally ill because of an underlying cigarette habit” (80). He moves on to crime, drugs, and a recent arrest in LA.
Lopez is in touch with Stella March, a woman with a schizophrenic son. She has helped reform the mental health system and works with “StigmaBusters, an ever-vigilant service of the National Alliance on Mental Illness” (83).
The two meet for coffee, and she offers Lopez encouragement. They discuss Tom Cruise’s recent comments stating that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance, and people should instead rely on vitamins for mental illness. Lopez opens up to March and relates two suicides in his family, his aunt and his uncle.
Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary
Alexis Rivera is a manager at Little Pedro’s Blue Bongo restaurant. He encounters Ayers playing on the street one day after having read about him in the paper and asks the musician to come in on Tuesday nights to play a set. He offers him tips and dinner on the house. Ayers agrees.
Lopez invites two psychiatrists to see Ayers play at Little Pedro’s: Dr. Vera Prchal, who occasionally works at Lamp, and Dr. Rod Shaner, the director of the L.A. Mental Health Department. Lopez is trying to figure out the right way to treat people like Ayers—a more passive, personal approach (like the Village or Lamp) or one more focused on diagnosis and medication.
At the restaurant, Both Shaner and Prchal say that both approaches work depending on the patient. Ayers shows up late and proceeds to play “a Beethoven-like dirge” (93) on the violin, making many mistakes. He switches to the cello and is more comfortable, playing with greater precision and focus. Ayers apologizes for not playing very well, but Lopez reassures him. Dr. Prchal says that it is important to get Ayers into treatment. Ayers sends Lopez a note thanking him.
Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary
Lopez questions whether he has been improving Ayers’s life since the latter is still living on the streets and not yet in treatment. He travels up the California coast with his wife, Alison, and daughter, Caroline, to look for a condo property to buy. Lopez receives a message from Alexis Rivera who says Ayers has been “losing it onstage” (98) and should take a break from performing.
Back in L.A., Lopez hears about teenagers who have gone on a spree beating up homeless people and worries that Ayers has been or will be a victim. Lopez attends the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Irvine where he seeks answers to Ayers’s predicament. One woman advises involuntary commitment, and Lopez wonders whether he should try to have Ayers committed by portraying him as “gravely disabled” (102). Lopez is honored at the conference for “the insights and public education” (103) he has provided through his column on Ayers.
Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary
Lopez and Ayers are invited to see the L.A. Philharmonic, but Lopez worries that Ayers will not be able to function in that environment. Instead, they attend a rehearsal in October. Lopez arrives at Lamp on the morning of the rehearsal to pick up Ayers, but the latter is reluctant to leave his shopping cart there as agreed and has a “meltdown” (108). Finally, Ayers agrees to go if he can leave his shopping cart in Lopez’s garage.
The two drive to Disney Hall where the Philharmonic practice. Publicist Andrew Crane greets the two respectfully and gives Ayers Frank Gehry’s book on Disney Hall. He takes them on a tour, and Ayers plays Crane’s cello.
At the rehearsal, some of the musicians introduce themselves to Ayers. Afterwards, Ayers meets the conductor. Lopez enjoys “the sight of Nathaniel handling himself so smoothly” (118). Ayers is appreciative and inspired by his time with the Philharmonic.
Part 1, Chapters 9-12 Analysis
These chapters continue to examine the issue of mental health—a complex and fraught one in the book. Lopez shines the spotlight on Ayers’s changeable moods. At one moment, he seems fairly high functioning, while at the next he seems to be melting down and breaking with reality. For example, Ayers at first is very excited to attend the Philharmonic practice, but he is reluctant on the morning of. Here, he goes from being completely on board to being anxious and difficult. Lopez notes that this seems to be a chemical issue—it is Ayers’s brain chemistry that is causing him to act this way. Lopez employs dialogue to let Ayers describe his own experience of mental illness. When remembering the time shortly after Julliard, Ayers says, “Your relationship with your family erodes, you have no friends, no human desire” (79). In this way, he illuminates the way in which mental illness has severely impacted his life and how it removes him from everything and everyone who is important to him.
Lopez himself continues on his quest to understand Ayers’s plight as well as the issue of mental illness at large. He tries to conceptualize Ayers differently. March encourages him to see Ayers not as “a mentally ill musician […] but a musician with mental illness” (81). These lines suggest that the illness does not define Ayers but is instead simply an aspect of his larger character. Lopez begins to make a personal connection to mental illness. Although Lopez himself has never suffered from mental illness, he reveals he has family members who have. An aunt and an uncle committed suicide, though it was not spoken of explicitly. He notes: “It was a time when depression was often thought of as the blues rather than a treatable medical condition” (84). In this way, he becomes closer to Ayers by connecting mental illness to his own life.
Despite the intensified closeness, Lopez struggles with the relationship. He finds himself spending time with Ayers and neglecting his wife and young daughter. He also questions whether he is really making a difference in Ayers’s life. Lopez notes: “He frustrates my efforts to help him and has me on the verge of giving up, and then he pulls through at the last minute in a way that gets me even more hooked on him” (95). In a certain way, Lopez feels exploited, and he writes: “I feel jerked around, I feel sympathetic, I feel abused” (110). Despite all of his, he feels an obligation to continue to help Ayers. Their relationship remains complex and changeable from day to day based on Ayers’s mood.
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