Introduction

A young woman leaves Appalachia for life as a classical musician?or so she thinks.

When aspiring violinist Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman lands a job with a professional ensemble in New York City, she imagines she has achieved her lifelong dream. But the ensemble proves to be a sham. When the group “performs,” the microphones are never on. Instead, the music blares from a CD. The mastermind behind this scheme is a peculiar and mysterious figure known as The Composer, who is gaslighting his audiences with music that sounds suspiciously like the Titanic movie soundtrack. On tour with his chaotic ensemble, Hindman spirals into crises of identity and disillusionment as she “plays” for audiences genuinely moved by the performance, unable to differentiate real from fake.

Sounds Like Titanic is a surreal, often hilarious coming-of-age story. Hindman writes with precise, candid prose and sharp insight into ambition and gender, especially when it comes to the difficulties young women face in a world that views them as silly, shallow, and stupid. As the story swells to a crescendo, it gives voice to the anxieties and illusions of a generation of women, and reveals the failed promises of a nation that takes comfort in false realities.

Editorial Review

An Amazon Best Book of February 2019: True story: A poor, young Appalachian woman heads to an Ivy League with ambitions of becoming a concert violinist. When she gets there, she learns that she’s not nearly good enough, and she’s killing herself to make tuition. Still, she answers a job listing on a message board for a seat in some kind of “ensemble,” and she’s hired without an audition. Her first gig is selling CDs by a man only identified as The Composer at a booth in a craft fair while two other musicians (one on violin, the other on penny whistle) play low under loudly broadcast New Age-y music, which sounds vaguely, or maybe a lot, like the Titanic soundtrack. Soon she’s onstage with The Composer himself, touring the country in a derelict RV with a select “ensemble,” miming the music emanating from a hidden CD player for adoring crowds—an act Hindman dubs “Milli Violini.” In our new age of malleable facts and fungible truth, Sounds Like Titanic hits some trenchant notes on the nature of truth and uncomfortable observations on gender. She anguishes over both the deception (and an overwhelming fear of being caught) and what feels like the betrayal of a lifetime of support from family and her small-town community. But it’s also entertaining. Hindman somehow avoids any meanness of spirit, even while having a lot of fun at the Yanni-like Composer’s expense. (We’re never given the his real name, but one will speculate.) “Fake it till you make it”—a phrase Hindman never writes, probably consciously—might not be so bad, after all. --Jon Foro, Amazon Book Review

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