Sonata: A Memoir of Pain and the Piano - Tapa dura

Beautifully written, deeply thought and felt. The interweaving of music and disability works extremely well throughout, and Avery describes life with disability in a moving, engrossing way, and without giving way to any of the punishing tropes that bedevil not only outsider account of disability but even lots of first-person narratives.

In 1989, at the age of 12, Avery was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. She was also a promising pianist. This excellent memoir illuminates both elements of her life with equal dignity and insight. Her story offers inspiration, and education on building a beautiful and meaningful life even when what you love most slips away.

Avery's love of music is patent on almost every page. Dazzling. As much as this is the story of Avery's mind and psychology, it is even more so the story of her adjustments to her traitorous body, to how people perceive her, that composes the capacious heart of this narrative. Through it all we see a bright, determined person trying to come to peace with herself and with a world that is not always kind. [Avery is] determined to maintain the music of her life in whatever forms are possible.

When pure bad luck forces a talented person to go to Plan B, how does that person create a life that's richer, happier, and more fulfilled than Plan A? Andrea's book answers that question. It is a smart, moving, and funny testimony to the sturdiness of the human will.--Joe Theismann, Super Bowl champion quarterback

Andrea writes like a clever, cunning, confident angel. She's a natural, and her realness and grace are lovely to behold.--Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of 'Eat, Pray, Love'

Readers will be rooting for Avery as she builds a life she can cherish regardless of her symptoms.

Remarkable. By so eloquently sharing her own 'scars, ' Andrea Avery enriches us all.

[Avery is] not afraid to embrace a both a hip tone peppered with slang and references from her favorite grunge bands, as well as the academic elegance of research and her mother's copious medical notes. Relatable to most every reader, she extends to us the same encouragement as the teachers she takes after to 'put some oomph in it!'

Andrea Avery, already a promising and ambitious classical pianist at twelve, was diagnosed with a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) that threatened not just her musical aspirations but her ability to live a normal life.As Andrea navigates the pain and frustration of coping with RA alongside the usual travails of puberty, college, sex, and just growing-up, she turns to music?specifically Franz Schubert's sonata in B-flat D960, and the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein for strength and inspiration. The heartbreaking story of this mysterious sonata—Schubert’s last, and his most elusive and haunting—is the soundtrack of Andrea's story.Sonata is a breathtaking exploration of a “Janus-head miracle”—Andrea's extraordinary talent and even more extraordinary illness. With no cure for her R.A. possible, Andrea must learn to live with this disease while not letting it define her, even though it leaves its mark on everything around her—family, relationships, even the clothes she wears. And in this riveting account, she never loses her wit, humor, or the raw artistry of a true performer.As the goshawk becomes a source of both devotion and frustration for Helen Macdonald in H is for Hawk, so the piano comes to represent both struggle and salvation for Andrea in her extraordinary debut.