Book Review: Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, In Music Lessons by Jeremy Denk (Random House, 2022)
Who doesn't love a good book about the performing arts?
Onstage NTX's "Book Recs & Reviews" section begins with a memoir reviewed by Cathy Ritchie, who some of you may remember from TheaterJones.com.
We welcome Cathy back, and look forward to reading about her book "finds."
Our focus will be on the world of theater and music, of course--and in-between reviews, we may squeeze in a few lists of "Our Favorites" too.
If you have a favorite book, old or new, about the worlds of theater and/or music, contact us with your suggestion at:
—Jan Farrington, Managing Editor
—Cathy Ritchie
Award-winning pianist, published author and MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship winner Jeremy Denk gifts us with a memoir as engrossing, multi-faceted, and fascinating as the man himself. Performers, music students, and lay people like myself will find much to savor in Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons.
Denk is an amazing communicator whose agile intellectualism comes through in a voice brimming with humor and thoughtfulness. His passion for music began at age six and soon permeated all aspects of his young life—including the school bus. One morning, for the cultural enlightenment of all, young nerd Jeremy blasted a cassette recording of high-brow classical tunes on the ride to school, competing with the more popular songs his schoolmates were playing, also at top volume. The auditory experiment did not go well.
His piano lessons continued apace, as did his explorations into the aims and methods of his favorite composers. Denk shares both the technical and biographical portions of his life in alternating chapters. He periodically pauses his narrative to dissect “Harmony,” “Melody,” and “Rhythm”—and while these discussions may be a bit of an overreach for the non-instrumentalists among us, such as myself, they’re definitely worth a moderate skim for all readers. No matter the topic, Denk’s verbal charm and approachability carry the day.
But this performer truly shines for me in the chapters describing years, and the ever-increasing intensity, of his musical higher education. Although Denk was a prize student in mathematics and chemistry in his younger days, a change in direction led him to receive music degrees from Oberlin, the University of Indiana/Bloomington, and the Juilliard School. Along the way, he studied with numerous private teachers of quite varied temperaments and proclivities. Tossed into his heady mix of studies were odd roommates, less-than-luxurious living spaces, cobbled-together music-related short-term jobs, and some ultimately unsuccessful romantic entanglements. His descriptive eye and story-telling skills are wonderfully keen throughout. These sections bring us inside the saga of one aspiring performer’s journey through the real-life cultural wilderness, offered with wit and sardonic charm in abundance.
In Jeremy Denk, we have in our midst an artist and intellectual of the first order, but one who welcomes readers and thinkers of all stripes into his world with grace and humor. The phrase “Renaissance person” has perhaps lost its luster as a cliché, but this official “Genius” goes far towards making it shine yet again.
