In her fourth novel, The Music Shop, Rachel Joyce (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry) composes a narrative with soul and depth. In a down-at-heel street in a nondescript British city, Frank's record shop doesn't just sell vinyl (and only vinyl), it also gives people the music they don't know they need.
Easygoing about most things, Frank is unbudging about vinyl, with all its idiosyncrasies. "Life has surface noise!" he shouts at a sales rep touting the "clean" sound of CDs. "Do you want to listen to furniture polish?" He's in good company among the eccentrics of Unity Street: kind Father Anthony, who runs a religious gift shop; taciturn tattoo artist Maud; the quiet Williams brothers, who are undertakers; and Kit, Frank's overeager but perceptive shop assistant. All of them--but especially Frank--are intrigued by the appearance of Ilse Brauchmann, an enigmatic German woman in a green coat. Though reluctant to talk about herself, Ilse asks Frank for music lessons, and he is both baffled by and "irresistibly drawn to her great quietness." While Frank and Ilse form a tentative but deep bond, Unity Street struggles against the advances of a wealthy development company.
Joyce writes crisp, evocative prose, drawing readers inside the music, just as Frank draws customers into the listening booths in his shop. The Music Shop is a joyous, poignant, utterly human love song to community found in unlikely places, and a tribute to the healing power of music. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams