The Train in the Night: A Story of Music and Loss

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

For thirty years Nick Coleman immersed himself in music, from rock'n'roll to "pro rock," jazz to classical, until one morning as he sat up in bed, his right ear went stone deaf. His left ear--as though to compensate--started to make horrific noises ". . .like the inside of an old fridge hooked up to a half-blown amplifier."

The Train in the Night explores the world in which a music critic must cope with a world that has abruptly lost its most important element, sound. But Coleman opens more than his struggle; he delves back into his past to examine how music defined his identity, how that identity must be reshaped by its loss, and how at time the memory of the music can be just as powerful as the music itself.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Music journalist and first-time author Coleman's memoir of his sudden hearing loss in one ear, and his attempts to deal with a future in which the sound of music-the thing he loves most-has been irrevocably changed, is a fantastic, sad, funny, and, finally, optimistic view of his quest "to get the music back-or at least to reconnect with it." One day while having tea with his wife, Coleman hears a soft "pffff" in his ear, like the sound "of a kitten dropping on to a pillow"-a sound that evolves after a few days into a "wild humming" that resounds in his head "like the inside of an old fridge hooked up to a half-blown amplifier" and affects his ability to listen to his music. He spends three years adapting to his new condition during which time he seeks help from Oliver Sachs, among others. He also considers the ways his life has revolved around music and sound, and these meditations take up the bulk of his memoir. Coleman is remarkably adept at describing the moments of "hopeless disorientation" he experienced: "The reactive tinnitus took me close to the threshold of actual physical pain." He also provides hilarious and astute observations views of many of his albums, such as the Rolling Stones' Goat's Head Soup, which Coleman perfectly describes as sounding "exactly how a record made on a Caribbean island by a bunch of knackered tax exiles with unlimited access to drugs ought to sound." Agent: Jenny Hewson and Peter Straus, Rogers, Coleridge and White. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

What is it like for someone who loves music to not be able to hear it? That is the dilemma faced by Nick Coleman. Coleman, the former music editor of Time Out and arts and feature editor of various English newspapers, had spent a lifetime listening, writing about, and playing music. He loves all kinds of music, from rock to jazz to classical. His life changed when one morning he sat up in bed and realized that he couldn't hear out of his right ear. Then he began to hear terrifying noises in his left ear. The effect that his hearing loss had on him was devastating on many levels. This compelling memoir chronicles his startling journey from a healthy middle-aged man to someone who, during the worst stages of his condition, could barely get out of bed. As he describes it, his head felt like it was ready to explode, he could neither stand nor sit up without support, and he felt nauseous much of the time. Doctors were either flabbergasted by his condition or shockingly nonchalant. Don't worry, one physician said, It may come back. At one point, Coleman even Googled assisted suicide. A gripping memoir of survival and adaptability and a love of music.--Sawyers, June Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

One of the most widely read music journalists in the U.K. loses his hearing and very nearly his mind. Not quite an autobiography, nor a focused memoir of illness, this tragic recollection by prolific rock journalist Coleman examines a lifetime's worth of choices in the wake of a devastating illness. In his mid-40s, the author experienced a form of tinnitus so severe that he imagined the inside of his skull was occupied by "a tiny monkey playing a tiny pipe organ." Stricken with sudden neurosensory hearing loss, a maddening syndrome with undiagnosable causes ranging from genetics to stroke, Coleman was understandably grief-stricken, given his profession. He punctuates his journey to his new existence with memories of his old one, the grim upbringing of a boy born in 1960, with many flashbacks focusing on the girl whom he loved from afar. The medical segments are harrowing, as Coleman describes in intimate detail procedures like having steroids injected directly into his inner ear. Early on, he broached the topic of assisted suicide with his wife, who told him, "Don't you DARE talk to me like that." The teenage autobiographical segments are readable but unremarkable, but Coleman's self-examination of his identity via music and his new interpretation of it are thoughtful and complex, recalling something of David Byrne's rich How Music Works (2012). "What was really interesting was that, as I sat there shuddering and trickling, I began to hear the music better," he writes. "Melody, metre, a little bit of timbre, the puffiest cloud of harmony. Yes, yes: that's a trombone all right, not just a note. And I began to sense the tiniest swelling of architectural form in my head. You wouldn't have called it the Taj Mahal, but equally, this was no papery squiggle." A disquieting but ultimately resilient reflection on the sound and the fury.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.