Emotional Rescue: Essays on Love, Loss, and Life--With a Soundtrack

As a listener of all types of music, I was initially excited about this non-fiction essays centered around music and life's great emotions. Sadly Greenman's Emotional Rescue falls short of expectations--by sprinkling both personal events and song lyrics into one book, he fails to delve into either deeply.

The book itself covers 32 essays over 200 pages. Each essay introduces 2-5 songs initially while the narrator describes a pithy theme (e.g. Fear/Bravery) with song lyrics to encapsulate the most poignant moment. Admittedly the range of songs is impressive, and the author’s love for music shines clear. For me, there is a big disconnect between reading the song lyrics on a page versus intimately knowing a song and having it resonate in your life, which is what the narrator intended. After dramatics situations are introduced (breakups, death, observing a sad stranger in an airport), the narrative often dodges by trotting out yet another lyric on paper or by pondering abstract concepts aimlessly (e.g. what is sadness?). Each pithy essay then ends unresolved and empty, leaving me frustrated as the cycle begins again.

I wish he had picked a smaller number of topics and expanded on them as characters seem to flit in and out without warning. I wish he had covered the songs themselves more deeply and explained the history in which this song came into fruition. Without either of these, the book comes across as unmemorable and rushed.