Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir
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4.4 • 20 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A Finalist for the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography
"Deliciously bizarre and utterly American.…[A] Coen brothers movie come to life.…I couldn't put it down." —Caitlin Doughty, best-selling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?
Sounds Like Titanic tells the unforgettable story of how Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman became a fake violinist. Struggling to pay her college tuition, Hindman accepts a dream position in an award-winning ensemble that brings ready money. But the ensemble is a sham. When the group performs, the microphones are off while the music—which sounds suspiciously like the soundtrack to the movie Titanic—blares from a hidden CD player. Hindman, who toured with the ensemble and its peculiar Composer for four years, writes with unflinching candor and humor about her surreal and quietly devastating odyssey. Sounds Like Titanic is at once a singular coming-of-age memoir about the lengths to which one woman goes to make ends meet and an incisive articulation of modern anxieties about gender, class, and ambition.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
What would you do if you landed your dream job, but it turned out that the only thing you were allowed to do was lie? Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman’s wild memoir follows her brief and baffling career pretending to play classical music on tour with a total fraud who’s found success hawking CDs on infomercials. Hindman’s sense of humor cuts deep, and the flashbacks to her Appalachian childhood are stunning, nailing the small-town isolation that led her to New York and eventually this faux orchestra. Sounds Like Titanic is a spellbinding read that shows us how gunning for fame can lead straight to the gutter.
Customer Reviews
Mix of Music & Feminism
Being of roughly the same age as Jessica, her experience as a young girl & musician feels so familiar that I often teared up while reading. The perfect mix of how to make it as a [add your profession here] and survive as a woman with esteem issues, and how to navigate the complex social strata of the USA. I needed this book and it appeared at the right time. Thank you, Jessica, for writing this.
Perfect blend of wit, sincerity and a keen perspective of American values&their impact
A coming of age story that cleverly and clearly depicts political social and economic issues during the span of a few decades and how the expectations of young girls have impacted them and the American way we’ve made excuses or justified misbehavior and inappropriate or unjust situations that have been socially accepted for centuries. The poignant story of how deeply these slights and unjust circumstances affected her personally and how she strove to overcome the stigma of not measuring up to the standards America holds their females up to, the oppression females are faced with daily and the desire to work even harder to get to where she feels she belongs and is able to live her life as she deserves without question doubt or judgment from her male counterparts or those who are deemed socially superior due to income and wealth. Such a refreshing honest witty perspective that resonates especially with women who were coming of age in the late 90s. Her honesty and raw emotions regarding injustices in other countries, to poor communities and women were spot on and her gift of writing is crystal clear. She’s found herself and she’s just spectacular