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It's
fair and probably legitimately broad enough to say that there
are things in life that people just can't get over. Be it
significant or paltry, regret or triumph, there are events
and people that will forever hold a place in time, stuck in
memory in clips and images exactly as they happened. In The
Song Is You, the fourth effort from Arthur Phillips, these
events converge via songs shuffled through an iPod, each song
a beacon to a different time, to an earlier version of a currently
unhappy man.
Phillips'
main focus is Julian Donahue, successful director of commercials
but unsuccessful at managing his life. The Song Is You
begins with Julian several months separated from his wife
in the wake of their two-year-old son's sudden death. He is
moderately content with his career despite it being in a continuous
stall, and he is safely ready for something different.
Listening to his iPod, what Julian considers "that greatest
of all human inventions," is something akin to carrying photo
albums of his past. "The songs now offered him, in exchange
for all he had lost," Phillips writes, "The sensation that
there was something still to long for, still, something still
approaching, and all that had gone before was merely prologue
to an unimaginably profound love yet to seize him."
Apropos
of nothing more than a deep affection for music and a perfectly
timed cue, Julian discovers Cait O'Dwyer, an up-and-coming
pop singer he directorially observes as having an "intricately
inked forearm and [a] white T-shirt worn with no bra so that
the occasional implication of her breasts skimming the unseen
surface of the cotton carried the force of a whispered obscenity."
Though technically Phillips' words, it gives voice to the
intensity that Julian emotes throughout the novel about Cait,
music, and himself; every feeling, every memory is raw, and
Phillips thrives in this arena.
Recently
major-labeled up, O'Dwyer has her own set of issues, most
frequently a revolving set of backing musicians and the management
of criticism on her website. Julian's first introduction to
Cait comes in the form of a series of coasters he haphazardly
illustrates with her likeness as she's performing, scribbling
impromptu career advice on each one (for instance, "#3 Repeat
only what is essential; discard mercilessly"). Critique being
O'Dwyer's key weakness, she is attracted to and appalled by
Julian's means of communication. Julian, in turn, becomes
obsessed with her music, the lyrics seemingly applying to
every turn in his life.
The awkward
courtship between Julian and Cait—they never actually
meet in person—never really gets off the ground. Julian
attends shows but never approaches; Cait seeks him out to
no avail and seems both disappointed and relieved every time
a path goes cold. Phillips seems to go cold as well just after
setting Julian and Cait on a crash course and alternating
their drama with that of Julian's estranged wife Rachel and
his prodigy brother Aiden. For readers, Rachel serves as another
facet of Julian's odd life, giving him depth when he appears
mostly self-absorbed; Aiden provides modest comic relief (including
an accidental ethnic slur on Jeopardy!) and foil.
While
the first chapters are filled with Phillips' keen storytelling
(the first chapter about his father's love for the music of
Billie Holiday is both beautifully written and compelling)
and intriguing wordplay (such as his description of cassette
tapes as a "moodicidal interruption of rewinding"), Phillips'
overall storyline doesn't carry the same weight. Phillips
is clear in conveying that Julian's obsession with Cait is
more of an idea, as a gateway to mending his broken life,
but as he essentially stalks her, going into her apartment,
taking pictures of her, even following her around on a European
tour,it gets confusing. Is this a maladroit love story or
is Julian a threat? To that point, how are readers expected
to connect the dots when Julian is such an unreliable and
suspect character?
The iPod
fills a role that is both an extension of Julian and a character
in and of itself, selecting (albeit at random) the songs that
trigger memories and thus subsequent reactions. Phillips'
technical abilities as a writer produce several stunning sections
of truly evocative prose about music, love, and loss. If it
weren't for the flustered, over-complicated plot, perhaps
a more complete, compelling story would have surfaced.
(July
2009)
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