The Song Is You: A Novel (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: lay brothers, New York, Billie Holiday, Alec Stamford (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best of the Month, April 2009: A man who's not quite young anymore, his relationship trouble, and his iPod: at first glance Arthur Phillips's The Song Is You sounds like strictly Nick Hornby territory, but it turns out to be a lot closer to The Red Shoes, a story of love and art in which the two are confused and jealously compete. And as in The Red Shoes, but so rarely in other works of art, it's the art-making that carries the most power and mystery. Julian Donahue is a "creative": a skilled director of commercials who has come to know his limits. Cait O'Dwyer is a singer, and a bit of a comet that Julian somehow catches the tail of. Their courtship--as Julian evades a marriage split by an unbearable loss and Cait shoots single-mindedly toward stardom--is an intricately constructed pas de deux that is both surprising and convincing throughout. It's Phillips's first novel set in the present since Prague, and in its artful structure, style, and heart it's a match for that smart and charming debut. --Tom Nissley

From The New Yorker

Phillips’s best writing achieves an elaborate, gratifying precision, combining a naturally flamboyant style with neat, observational wit. This quality is sharpest in some of the character portraits and delectable set pieces that animate this novel, his fourth, but the central plot is sometimes strained. A middle-aged advertising director, whose marriage has broken up following the death of his two-year-old son, plays an invisible and unlikely muse to a young Irish singer on the brink of stardom. As the two engage in an indirect seduction—they never meet—the narrative veers close to the “adolescent fantasy” that its protagonist fears. But this curious bond provides an armature for Phillips’s beautiful evocation of music’s consoling power to blur the borders between art, artist, and consumer.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Random House (April 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400066468
• ISBN-13: 978-1400066469
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #133,907 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's the novel you'll treat like a favorite album..., April 20, 2009

By	Erick "Ebama" (Oklahoma City, OK USA) - See all my reviews

Arthur Phillips gave an interview to Amazon for this book and that interview found its way to my Kindle via the Amazon Storefront. In it, Phillips discusses his passion for the iPod and his feelings about music - how each song revives a memory, a moment, a relationship; how a record can make you feel as insecure as the rainy day after 9th grade when you heard it, or a song can make you shake in longing for the person who shares the memory of that song with you. Phillips was right, and as soon as he said this book took that approach and crafted a story about/around/inspired by it, I knew I had to read it.

Phillips gives his readers an honest, voyeuristic, captivating journey through the past, present, and future of Julian and the ones important to him. Phillips uses songs to shift through time and space fluidly from memory to memory, telling stories not in a chronological order but as randomly as the songs on his iPod appear that trigger the memories.

Julian finds a new musician, Cait, and follows her career from a lowly dive bar to an international tour. Along the way, he begins finding his attraction to her spread deeper and more thoughtfully, as he connects her lyrics to the moments in his life past and present. Cait's music and persona help him cope with his past regrets, deal with his present aimlessness, and his longing for...he doesn't quite know what, maybe just his longing to be longing over something.

Julian writes/draws out some feedback for Cait at a show and it gets around to her; from then on til the end, the relationship becomes something torn between friendship, romance, mentorship, mutual therapists, and philosophers. The two never come face to face, but they spend the book dancing around the courtship of one another and finding ways to tease along the desires they both sustain for each other.

"The Song is You" took me on a journey I wasn't expecting. I found myself longing to get to the end, then pulling back and hoping it wouldn't come. I expected a trip down memory lane with music and memories intertwined, as the interview suggested, but this novel became so much more than just that. It weaves and flows with suspense, tension, and anguish, like a great mystery or thriller.

Take your time and enjoy "The Song is You." It's the novel you'll treat like a favorite album; you'll be enjoying it over and over again when your ears (and in this case, your eyes) just can't tolerate anything less.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cait O'Dwyer Fan, April 30, 2009

By	Skye Mackenzie (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews

I am not sure what attracted me to this book at first, but one reviewer mentioned it was about a guy with his ipod. That is an extremely simple and ignorant way of looking at this novel.

I will not go into recapping the story except to say middle aged Julian has had a very emotional roller coaster of a life when he stumbles in a little club and hears the Irish swan song calls of Cait O'Dwyer, a young and rising musician on the scene.

What ensues is a journey through and with Julian's life and his search to find something "real" to hold onto, hence, his Greatful Dead-like following of Ms. O'Dwyer.

Love of music from Julian's father, especially jazz, truly links the two generations together and like father, like son, music seems to be the only constant true love.

Arthur Phillip's writing might be some of the best this reader has ever read. I found myself re-reading paragraphs due to my astonishment of his use of language and words. He is a remarkable writer and because of the writing I will be looking into his previous book Prague.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book, April 13, 2009

By	Grace212 - See all my reviews

A must. The incredibly talented Phillips has come into his own. The Song Is You is as cerebral as his earlier work, but tender as well. For the first time, he seems to view his characters with a compassionate as well as critical eye. A meditation on creativity, memory, loss and love, it's gentler than his other work, but Phillips hasn't lost his edge. The chapter on Aidan's stint on Jeopardy is priceless.
It's beautifully written, engrossing, and often hilariously funny. Destined to be one of the best books of the year.