The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship

Steve Lopez’s 2008 book, The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music, is a work of nonfiction that charts the experience of the musician Nathaniel Ayers. Lopez is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and encounters Ayers playing a two-string violin on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Lopez questions why so talented a musician is clearly homeless and reduced to his present circumstances.

Lopez strikes up a rapport with Ayers, and they build a relationship over the course of the book. We learn that Ayers is a classically trained musician—he attended Julliard for about a year and a half until his schooling was cut short by his experience of mental illness. Ayers suffers from schizophrenia, and his symptoms emerge full force while he is at school. He returns to his family’s home in Cleveland where he undergoes bouts of unsuccessful treatment. Eventually, he moves to California in search of a father who abandoned the family years ago. Untreated and without support, Ayers ends up homeless on Skid Row, sleeping and playing his violin in the Second Street tunnel.

As Lopez begins writing about Ayers in his column, support pours in from many sources.