When Steve Lopez saw Nathaniel Ayers playing his

heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles'

skid row, he found it impossible to walk away.

More than thirty years earlier, Ayers had been a promising classical

bass student at Juilliard—ambitious, charming, and also

one of the few African-Americans—until he gradually lost his

ability to function, overcome by schizophrenia. When Lopez finds

him, Ayers is homeless, paranoid, and deeply troubled, but glimmers

of that brilliance are still there.

Over time, Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers form a bond,

and Lopez imagines that he might be able to change Ayers's life.

Lopez collects donated violins, a cello, even a stand-up bass and

a piano; he takes Ayers to Walt Disney Concert Hall and helps

him move indoors. For each triumph, there is a crashing disappointment,

yet neither man gives up. In the process of trying to

save Ayers, Lopez finds that his own life is changing, and his

sense of what one man can accomplish in the lives of others

begins to expand in new ways.

Poignant and ultimately hopeful, The Soloist is a beautifully

told story of friendship and the redeeming power of music.

STEVE LOPEZ is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where he first wrote a series of enormously popular columns about Nathaniel Ayers. Lopez, the father of three children, currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Alison, and daughter, Caroline.