Sounds Like Titanic tells the unforgettable story of how Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman became a fake violinist. Struggling to pay her college tuition, Hindman accepts a dream position in an award-winning ensemble that brings ready money. But the ensemble is a sham. When the group performs, the microphones are off while the music–which sounds suspiciously like the soundtrack to the movie … Titanic–blares from a hidden CD player. Hindman, who toured with the ensemble and its peculiar Composer for four years, writes with unflinching candor and humor about her surreal and quietly devastating odyssey. Sounds Like Titanic is at once a singular coming-of-age memoir about the lengths to which one woman goes to make ends meet and an incisive articulation of modern anxieties about gender, class, and ambition.
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Sounds Like Titanic would be unbelievable as a novel, but as a memoir it is deliciously bizarre and utterly American. It’s a Coen Brothers movie come to life ― Ruby Tuesday, QVC, and one woman working for years as a fake violinist for classical music’s version of Thomas Kinkade. I couldn’t put it down.
Here’s a first for me. I did a total turnaround regarding Sounds Like Titanic. Listening to it on Audible, at first I thought I’d die. Between the unusual writing style and the melodrama in the narrator’s tone, I considered returning it. Fortunately, I did not. Once into it, I found Sounds Like Titanic to be the most unusual, witty, on-the-mark meaningful, and downright enjoyable piece of both poignancy and social satire I’ve experienced in years.
It is non-fiction, a memoir written by a violinist from Appalachia, who got into Columbia University on the merit of her music, only to find that she is the very worst one there. Still, she needs to make money to pay her tuition. So she starts working for “the composer,” a never-named guy who is nice enough and talented enough and smart enough to know what people want. They want music. He puts together a series of CDs of the music they want, basically take-offs of legit music (hence, the title, Sounds Like Titanic), and plays these CDs so loud at their venues (malls, school auditoriums, outdoor markets, and craft shows) that no one knows the musicians aren’t the ones actually making the sound.
The beauty of this book is the Audible narrator. Once you accept that the melodrama is very much tongue-in-cheek, she is hysterical. It took me 30 minutes of listening before I was into the story enough to appreciate that. But then … well, I’ve been laughing out loud as I listen.
Aside from style, the story tells of the author’s Appalachia childhood, her struggles in the big city (New York), her travels with “the composer,” and her observations through it all, some of which are so spot-on I found myself saying, “Yessss!” aloud in my car (between chuckles). This book is written in the second person, another unusual thing to get used to, but it works.
I have no idea how Sounds Like Titanic reads in print, but it you’re an audio person, go for it!
This book was so much more than what I was expecting. I thought I was getting into a somewhat funny tale of deception but, instead, I got a sharp and current criticism of our society (although I did laugh out loud more than once).
This is a book for millennials. It’s about our coming of age in a world whose worst epidemic is hypocrisy. It’s about how we choose to close our eyes – or, in this case, ears – to what is right in front of us.
Hindman is an emissary for a generation, repurposing its sarcasm and irony in a nuanced, humorous, and intelligent look at what it means to construct and consume fake realities in post-9/11 America.
A most original memoir, one in which the narrator’s intelligence deepens by the page… I salute Jessica Hindman for having shaped so well a remarkable piece of experience.
Carson “Sonny” Garvey is a serial killer. He lives in Sacramento. He has a house with a sound-proof basement. He does abhorrent things to women there. All the while demanding them to, “Say you’re sorry.”
Daisy Dawson, a local radio personality, is walking from an AA meeting with her friend, Trish Hart. They are headed to a diner. When Trish goes on ahead Daisy is attacked in an alley. She is able to ward off her would-be abductor. While doing so, she pulls off a locket from the man’s throat. A locket with an unusual engraving.
FBI Special Agent Gideon Reynolds is called in on the case by his friend, SacPD Detective Rafe Sokolov.
Rafe recognizes that the engraving on the locket as one that matches a tattoo on Gideon’s chest that he’d had as a teenager.
It’s connected to a New Religions movement cult, the Second Eden, which Reynolds escaped from when he was thirteen.
Gideon has been trying to find them and bring them down for 17 years. This is deeply personal for him. In many ways.
When Gideon is assigned to Daisy’s protection detail they work together to find her attacker and uncover the truth of Gideon’s past.
Before long they discover that Daisy is far from Sonny’s first victim. The bodies begin piling-up as the danger looms nearer.
Dawson and Reynolds become close the closer they get to the truth. Sparks fly in more ways than one.
Soon the killer will have new targets: Daisy and Gideon!
This is meaty, high-octane suspense. It unfolds at a perfect pace, giving us time to find out what makes these characters tick.
We are also brought into the mind and motivations of the dark and twisted Sonny.
One character I especially enjoyed was the gutsy and determined Zandra.
There’s Also two smart dogs in this tale. Brutus and Mutt. Gotta love it.
Read this great book and you’ll not…SAY YOU’RE SORRY!