'The Music Shop' by Rachel Joyce

1988.

Frank owns a music shop. It is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk - as long as it's vinyl he sells it. Day after day, Frank finds his customers the music they need.

Then into his life walks Ilse Brauchmann. Ilse asks Frank to teach her about music. His instinct is to turn and run. And yet he is drawn to this strangely still, mysterious woman with her pea-green coat and her eyes as black as vinyl. But Ilse is not what she seems. And Frank has old wounds that threaten to reopen and a past he will never leave behind.



I feel that I found this book at exactly the right time.

The future is uncertain. A lot of people in the country are scared or worried about what lies ahead in 2019. We need something to soothe our fears, just as the customers who come to Frank's music shop rely on him to provide something for them that will relieve their worries and woes.

"If you told Frank the kind of thing you wanted, or simply how you felt that day, he had the right track in minutes. It was a knack he had. A gift. He knew what people needed even when they didn't know it themselves."

There is a vast restorative power in music, a power of healing, and a uniting force. Appropriately enough, Frank's shop is based on Unity Street, where the small business owners support each other against the threat of being closed down. Alongside Frank and his assistant Kit are Maud the tattooist, Father Anthony the former priest who owns a religious iconography shop, the Williams brothers from the funeral parlour, and Mr Novak the baker. These people are not lonely when they are together. When Unity Street is threatened by a redevelopment company who wants to acquire and demolish the shops to build new housing, this ragtag group of individualist friends must protest and protect their home. Into all this adversity walks Ilse Brauchmann, a reticent German woman who faints outside Frank's shop. Through subtle pacing by Joyce, Ilse becomes more involved with the inhabitants of Unity Street, especially Frank, and, slowly, mends her broken, secretive soul.

The Music Shop is about transformation and healing. Joyce stresses that both of these themes are very much a choice: Frank is in tune (get it?) with the emotions of every customer who comes into the record shop, but hides away his own. However, he can't outrun his broken heart because music has that magical ability to turn back time. Ever heard a song and instantly been transported back to the moment you first heard it? Joyce seizes this idea and cleverly uses it to flashback to earlier points in Frank's life. The structure of the novel, therefore, is set out like a vinyl record. Each chapter title is the name of a song (It's a Kind of Magic, Adagio for Strings, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, etc). There are four sides and a hidden track. Most importantly, there is a playlist which can be found at The Music Shop Playlist (I must confess that this is the first book I have read where the music comes with it, and I love it!) The reader is given separate timelines to follow at a teasing, melodic pace, soundtrack included. Thus, Joyce emphasises the importance of vinyl records, the magic of them. Nothing sounds better than it does on vinyl.

Music permeates through this novel. Frank tells stories about composers and musicians; he describes music in passionate, expressive detail; he makes connections between seemingly disparate pieces; and he expounds on the importance of silence. In a novel about sound, we must not neglect the absence of sound. Several awkward silences take place in the novel, which only add to the humorous tone and heighten the romantic moments.

This is a book about surviving change, the power of community, and the universal remedy that is music. It is brave, warm-hearted, and openly wacky. I found this book a wonderful example of uplifting literature or 'uplit', a genre which seems to be on the rise. Please buy a copy of this book and when you come to the playlist, close your eyes and see if you can hear in Vivaldi's Four Seasons 'the little trills that were birds or the staccato notes like slipping on ice'.

This book is more than just a love story because this is a love story to music, the dignity and courage of ordinary people, and independent shops that touch your heart with their endearing quirkiness and restore your faith in the resilience and decency of humanity.

We live in a time when the high street is in decline. The big players suffered greatly during the Christmas period due to a rise in online sales, but also because many people are scared to buy things and are trying to save their money to prepare for the uncertain future. At the moment, we are not confident in the directions being taken by our government. We hide from the high street, the visual representation of British trade, because we see an increasing number of empty shop fronts, sad and lonely. More and more shops on the high street are closing, announcing poor results, and even going into administration. Retail seems to be shifting from the streets to the screens, with online sales on the rise. We seek solace in online retailers because it seems securer than the fate of high street sales.

We must remember that British commerce does not solely run on high street department stores, supermarkets, or shopping websites. Before all of these, there were the independent shops, run by locals who are approachable to all, perfectly happy to make their shop a place where people felt welcome enough to talk about anything. This is the security we should be looking for in these unsettled times. This is the side of British consumerism that actually builds lasting qualities such as decency, kind-heartedness, a sense of community, loyalty, politeness, conversation, and respect. Shopping does not always have to be stressful; it can be far more sociable. You are also offered the choice to wander at your leisure in total silence if you so wish. Thus, independent shops offer a polite environment where what is most at stake is not only customer satisfaction, but customer happiness.

You may think that I have strayed away from my original book review into a polemic about how independent shops are better than high street shops. This is not the case. The high street is always the centre of the town, where people meet each other at cafes, restaurants, coffee shops, parks, bus stops,, etc. We listen to buskers, find a bench to sit on to eat our sandwiches, browse local market stores, take pictures for our social media accounts. The high street is the community. I am not discouraging shopping on the high street. I would prefer it if people put on their coats and braved the wintry weather rather than settle for the ease of waiting for their online delivery. A trip to the shops is highly beneficial, providing fresh air, exercise, and a lovely sense of anticipation. It can be fun to take your kids or your grandparents or your friends out to the high street; you can make a day of it. You can get a shopper's buzz and feel the evidence of your spending by carrying heavy shopping bags. The barista who hands you your coffee may smile at you. This cannot be replicated through online shopping, and this lack of human interaction drives my personal preference towards the high street. I can easily see the benefits of online shopping - next day delivery, trying on clothes in the comfort of your own room, not having to carry heavy appliances up the stairs, the excitement of receiving something in the post - but it's not the same.

At the end of the day, it comes down to choice, and I am thankful that when it comes to retail, there is still plenty of choice for the British public. If we do not have the time to go out to the shops, online retail provides a time-saving alternative. If we have our favourite high street brands (and we do, even I do), we may return to them as many times as we like. If we wish to shop only at independent shops, we may. Everyone may do what suits them. Also, everyone has noticed what is going on in the high street, and we all care about it. We wish to preserve our home towns, our sense of community, our social interaction, in the face of change.

I hope, my dear readers, that you didn't mind my digression. I promise that I will stick more to the book in the next review. I just saw a strong parallel between the Britain of 1988 which Joyce has depicted and the Britain of 2019. Rachel Joyce is a very talented author and has another excellent book called The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize and longlisted for the 2012. Man Booker Prize. Both books can be found on Amazon and Waterstones

P.S. I also have a favourite independent bookshop that I have been going to since 2002. It is in Winchester and I shall leave a link to it here P&G Wells


Open: Monday-Friday 9am-5:30pm Sunday 11am-5pm
Address: 11 College Street, Winchester SO23 9LZ