Customer Reviews

Only Moments

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When you watch a man dancing on a dark stage in front of a flashing strobe light, you see only moments of the dance. Nick Oliva has taken the defining, and often poignant vignettes, of musician Chris Vadia's life and choreographed them into a remarkable novel.

We begin in the future, after all of the moments are long gone--a coming-of-age car trip, first love, marriage, marital strife, a husband-and-wife performance at Carnegie Hall, the death of a spouse--and look at events so fresh they appear to be happening now! But they are of the past and cannot be changed, and they take us--along with Chris--figuratively back in time and where they dance before our eyes in perfect detail before we move on.

The struggling Chris we find within each moment of his life's journey is not the Chris observing his past from the perspective of a man who learns, is learning, actually, that his seemingly disparatemoments of joy and sorrow that appear to have been separated by time and space and vantage point are connected into a well-defined, sensible whole.

If you're a musician and/or if music impacts your life in meaningful ways, you will appreciate the impact of Oliva's experience as a musician on the piano/violin practice and performance scenes. But you'll also see as you read from moment to moment that music is one of several apt metaphors in "Only Moments." Life's moments are like the notes in a composer's great work in progress, a work that in spite of all the choices, false starts, crescendos, decrescendos, and improvisations, turns out the only way it possibly could have turned out.

"Only Moments" is the journey of a lifetime carried forward on the wings of Chris Vadia's stirring memories and Nick Oliva's stirring prose.

Only Moments by Nick Oliva provides a Mind Transport from-and-to Reality. It is a Great Read filled with Creative Moments that transend generations! Only Moments

THE MAIN CHARACTER IN THE BOOK, CHRIS, GREW UP IN THE 60'S AS I DID WHICH MADE IT EASY FOR ME TO RELATE TO HIM AND HIS FRIENDS. HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE, ANGELA, EVOLVED INTO WHAT COULD BE A REAL LIFE MARRIAGE BUT WAS WRITTEN IN SUCH A WAY AS TO KEEP YOUR TOTAL INTEREST AS TO WHERE THEIR LIFE WAS GOING. A MUST READ FOR ALL PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS. WHEN I FINISHED THE BOOK I FELT LIKE I WANTED TO READ IT AGAIN TO PICK UP ON LITTLE THINGS I MAY HAVE MISSED ON THE FIRST READING. HOPE TO SEE THE BOOK MADE INTO A MOVIE.

I enjoyed this book very much. It is a love story combined with detailed passages of different time periods in history, scenes of great beauty, and the world of music. The reader experiences many emotions throughout the story and gains a true feeling about the importance of living every day to its fullest. I recommend this book to adult readers of every age as it relates to different times and experiences in a lifetime.