The Song is You

I'm always on the look-out for high-quality fiction written about the way we live now. Writing about right now, I imagine, is pretty tough: How can you know what will be tomorrow's important event versus a short-lived trend? A lot of successful fiction is set in the recent past, probably because it's easier for authors to get critical distance.
So I had high hopes for the recent novel The Song is You by Arthur Phillips. Julian, a music-loving an advertising photographer in New York City, is bereft after the collapse of his marriage and the loss of his family life. He's aimless until one night he wanders into a Brooklyn bar and hears a new band with an entrancing lead singer/songwriter. He writes her a series of notes on the back of bar coasters, and she finds his advice penetrating and perceptive for her climb up the rungs to pop-rock stardom. Other communications ensue, and so begins a funny, distant relationship between a fan and his muse.
I liked this novel a good bit, especially the parts where Julian remembers his father's love for the jazz singer Billie Holiday. (A charming setpiece on Billie Holiday opens the novel.) But I wanted to read a lot more about Julian and his relationship with his ex-wife, while the novel was pretty focused on his relationship with the singer. (Is this a guy thing?) Still, The Song is You is an interesting, readable novel of our current moment.
From a librarian perspective, I'd recommend The Song is You as a read-alike for Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, which I think is still the definitive contemporary novel on pop music. (Read-alike is librarian jargon for, "If you liked X, you might also like Y.")

Books and Music

I often get tempted to blog about music and movies, but then I remind myself that what little focus this blog has is about books, and I should stick to that. So with that disclaimer out of the way ...
The NYT had authors blog about music every so often, and this entry by Joshua Ferris caught my eye -- Joshua Ferris, author of the brilliant office novel Then We Came to the End.
Ferris likes Neutral Milk Hotel. I like Neutral Milk Hotel! (And you've maybe never heard of Neutral Milk Hotel.) They were a lovely '90s band, indie and somewhat experimental. Here's a very hazy YouTube video of lead singer Jeff Mangum singing my favorite NMH song "Naomi."

Except Alex from J-school still has my copy of Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Why don't you send that back to me, Alex? And send me my Glyn Styler live album back while your at it.
OK, music entry over. Read Joshua Ferris' whole playlist here. With reading suggestions.
(And I'm not kidding about those CDs, Alex!)