The Soloist

Steve Lopez 2008

Devastation Rating

Ugly Crying
mental illness homelessness music friendship

Our Take

Lopez is a journalist; Nathaniel Ayers is a Juilliard-trained cellist who lives on Skid Row. The relationship between them is the story — how help works and how it fails, how institutions fail, how friendship persists anyway. The music never stops; neither does the crisis.

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