The Soloist

While it's three months too late to catch the movie primer, I finally read "The Soloist."

Nathaniel Ayres was a brilliant student at Julliard whose bout with mental illness landed him on the streets of LA. Steve Lopez is a journalist looking for a good story. "The Soloist" is the true story of the unlikely friendship of these two men.

Since it's a true story one can't criticize the the plot too much but I do worry that some readers may walk away thinking that people who are sleeping on the street just need someone to take an interest in them. Lopez doesn't shy away from the fact that Ayres was resistant at first and that it took a lot of time, consistency, and patience to make the friendship work but many people who live on the street would require even more of a commitment than Ayres did.