A terrific book. It does a great job of balancing the musical with the personal. It doesn’t shy away from the mistakes made or the times shyness made Iain behave badly. As a consequence he comes across as a fully rounded character, which makes us want to see how his story comes out. Though I feel like I already knew Iain pretty well, I came out of the book knowing him even better – as if, in that Joe South song that I’m quite fond of, I’d truly walked a mile (or a few thousand miles) in his shoes. One of the many strengths of the book is that Iain never tries to put himself in a box or sum himself up in 25 words or less, he lets himself emerge in three dimensions, even when there are contradictions. If I have any complaint, it’s that it left me wanting more, it could have been twice as long and still not filled me up.
