100 Things: Midnight Hour Encores
Monday, April 16th, 2012 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
retsuko100 Pop Culture Things: Midnight Hour Encores, by Bruce Brooks
For a long time, there were four books that I carried everywhere: Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto; The Modern Girl's Guide to Everything, by Kaz Cooke, Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck, and the above edition of Midnight Hour Encores, by Bruce Brooks. I lost track of how many times I read it, but each time, all of the characters' voices ring true, and the story holds together better than I remembered it from the time before.
MHE is the coming of age story of a cello prodigy, Sibilance T. Spooner. To a lesser degree, it's also a story of the relationship she has with her father, an aged hippie who's raised her from the time she was about 12 hours old. Sibilance is aggressively an individualist; she'd rather let her talent atrophy than conform to the wishes and expectations of others. She's on track to go to Julliard, but decides she's going to figure out who the mother is who abandoned her to her father's care before she leaves. Additionally, she's on the track of a Russian cellist who she suspects is meant to be her mentor. When she tracks him down at an elite music school in San Francisco, she enlists her father's aid, thinking that she'll kill two birds with one stone. She doesn't anticipate her father using the trip as a platform to share with her the music he loves from the '60s, as well as trying to prepare her for the inevitable confrontation with her mother. The resulting meet-up with her now-yuppie mother shakes Sibilance to her core, and she finds herself faced with a difficult decision about what she truly values.
What struck me when I read this as a kid was how well Brooks a) wrote female characters and b) wrote about playing a musical instrument. I think this book is responsible for my long-held belief that anyone can write any gender, as long as she or he knows the character's soul. Both Sibilance and her mother are whole people with real conflicts and layers. They're not defined by the men in their lives, nor are they dependent on anyone else (at least, not in the cliched way that Strong Female Characters are.) Brooks' other writing strength is the way he describes what playing the cello is like. At first reading, I was struggling with violin. I was surprised to think there was a spiritual side to what I was trying to do, that when I performed, I could go into another mental space that was peaceful and quiet. Brooks describes this the way no other author I know of has managed to do. I will admit that even though I quit violin, I still think of the way he writes about performance when I'm teaching or speaking in public. There were many scenes that I could recount almost word-for-word, and a lot of them had to do with music, and Sibilance's reactions to it.
Bruce Brooks has written many notable books (I especially like The Moves Make the Man, another meditation on character and people's flaws), but I am sorry to see that he's not prominent on library shelves any more. I hope that his works won't go out of print, and I still keep MHE on my permanent shelf.
For a long time, there were four books that I carried everywhere: Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto; The Modern Girl's Guide to Everything, by Kaz Cooke, Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck, and the above edition of Midnight Hour Encores, by Bruce Brooks. I lost track of how many times I read it, but each time, all of the characters' voices ring true, and the story holds together better than I remembered it from the time before.
MHE is the coming of age story of a cello prodigy, Sibilance T. Spooner. To a lesser degree, it's also a story of the relationship she has with her father, an aged hippie who's raised her from the time she was about 12 hours old. Sibilance is aggressively an individualist; she'd rather let her talent atrophy than conform to the wishes and expectations of others. She's on track to go to Julliard, but decides she's going to figure out who the mother is who abandoned her to her father's care before she leaves. Additionally, she's on the track of a Russian cellist who she suspects is meant to be her mentor. When she tracks him down at an elite music school in San Francisco, she enlists her father's aid, thinking that she'll kill two birds with one stone. She doesn't anticipate her father using the trip as a platform to share with her the music he loves from the '60s, as well as trying to prepare her for the inevitable confrontation with her mother. The resulting meet-up with her now-yuppie mother shakes Sibilance to her core, and she finds herself faced with a difficult decision about what she truly values.
What struck me when I read this as a kid was how well Brooks a) wrote female characters and b) wrote about playing a musical instrument. I think this book is responsible for my long-held belief that anyone can write any gender, as long as she or he knows the character's soul. Both Sibilance and her mother are whole people with real conflicts and layers. They're not defined by the men in their lives, nor are they dependent on anyone else (at least, not in the cliched way that Strong Female Characters are.) Brooks' other writing strength is the way he describes what playing the cello is like. At first reading, I was struggling with violin. I was surprised to think there was a spiritual side to what I was trying to do, that when I performed, I could go into another mental space that was peaceful and quiet. Brooks describes this the way no other author I know of has managed to do. I will admit that even though I quit violin, I still think of the way he writes about performance when I'm teaching or speaking in public. There were many scenes that I could recount almost word-for-word, and a lot of them had to do with music, and Sibilance's reactions to it.
Bruce Brooks has written many notable books (I especially like The Moves Make the Man, another meditation on character and people's flaws), but I am sorry to see that he's not prominent on library shelves any more. I hope that his works won't go out of print, and I still keep MHE on my permanent shelf.
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I have one thing to say
Date: 2012-04-17 01:52 am (UTC)That is all!
Re: I have one thing to say
Date: 2012-04-17 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-16 11:07 pm (UTC)I remember being unable to really relate to the main character sleeping with some guy, late in the book. Or maybe I did relate but my own difficulties with being a Catholic girlchild were making me feel really uncomfortable for being able to relate. I can't remember now. But I really enjoyed that book too!
no subject
Date: 2012-04-17 02:27 pm (UTC)Did she really sleep with that guy? I remember that they go out on a Friday night, dance, have a few drinks, and he says something that really throws her for a loop--something that prompts her to start questioning where she wants to be, with her mother or father. I think she falls asleep afterwards...? Maybe I do need to reread this. (Twist my arm! ^-^;;)
Re:
Date: 2012-07-08 05:59 pm (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6M_6qOz-yw