The Music Shop

Bitter-Sweet Love Story

Rachel Joyce, who made her writing debut with the bestselling The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry, has written another heart-breaker, The Music Shop.

This book is also about love, friendship, loyalty, compassion; added to it is the healing power of music.  Her fourth novel begins in 1988, when a dishevelled giant of a man, Frank, sets up his music shop, selling vinyl records.  He had grown up with an eccentric mother, who taught him all there is to know about music. So, Frank knows just which piece of music will help a troubled customer.

Frank’s shop with its piled of records piled up in no particular order, is located in London’s Unity Street, where a motley group of neighbors and fellow business owners are trying to keep away the grubby hands of a developer.

There is Maud the tattooist, who is in love with Frank but cannot bring herself to tell him, Father Anthony, the recovered alcoholic who sells religious iconography, Novak the baker and the undertakers, the Williams brothers. And there’s the slightly odd Kit, a young man who helps Frank in the shop, and becomes a catalyst for the joy and sorrow that befalls his kindly employer.

Despite the pressure from music companies, Frank refuses to see CDs, even it means dwindling sales. And he won’t budge from the shop, no matter what threats and temptations the developer offers.

One day, a woman in a green coat, faints outside the shop. She turns out to be a mysterious German called Ilse Brauchmann, who brings about a transformation in the lonely Frank. Ilse asks him to give her lessons in music, and as he takes her through his favourite records, a hesitant kind of unspoken romance grows, watched over by the sullen waitress at the Singing Teapot, where they meet every week.

As the reader follows the various strands of the story, there is the discovery of music and Frank’s passion for it—there are stories about composers and musicians from Aretha Franklin, Duke Ellington and Sex Pistols to Beethoven, Vivaldi and Purcell. Frank’s mother has told him, “Music is about silence… the silence at the beginning of a piece of music is always different from the silence at the end… Because if you listen, the world changes. It’s like falling in love. Only no one gets hurt.” It is these silences the emotions of the characters seem to fall into.

The prose is simple, poignant, often over-sentimental but never maudlin. Joyce makes the reader care about the characters, but does not promise them a conventional happily-ever-after. Still, it offers hope and optimism even in the depths of despair.

There is also a wonderful playlist, so readers can listen to all the music Frank talks about and discover the soul-stirring beauty and silences for themselves.

The Music Shop

By Rachel Joyce

Published by: Doubleday

Pages: 336