Unable to afford the tuition at her pricey Ivy League university, Appalachia native Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman embarks upon a series of money-making ventures, including a job pretending to play the violin in a hugely successful, but fake, orchestra. This ensemble, led by a mysterious figure Hindman called The Composer, successfully tours the United States and sells thousands of dollars’ worth of CDs at each weekend show. The Composer’s emotionally-stirring music sounds a lot like the Titanic movie soundtrack. According to Hindman, most of the audience doesn’t realize that the “performed” music is not really live.
Sounds Like Titanic is both a memoir of the author’s coming of age and a meditation on the beginnings of our reality-challenged times. If you are tempted to feel nostalgic for the late 1990s-early 2000s, this book will quickly disabuse you from that notion. Highly recommended by Amy B.