LitPick Review
Fifty year old songwriter, Sophia, looks back on her very troubled past. In 1963, she suffered from racism and prejudice by being a black woman studying in an affluent college in Marin County, California. Her mother has been institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital and her brother has been murdered. While Sophia loves her father, she learns some things that question her affection for him. She has a talent for singing and songwriting that she uses in local amateur talent competitions and now plans to display on television. She is also in an on and off relationship with Sammy, a white man also with a talent for music. During one of their off periods, Sophia encounters Kyle, an African-American musician who tries to charmingly pursue her. This triangle becomes heated just as Sophia becomes the target of racist hate group members and learns some devastating secrets about her family and where she belongs.
Opinion:
The Music Within Your Heart is a brilliant character study of a woman looking back on her troubled past. We explore various facets of Sophia's life as a daughter, sister, lover, student, mother, singer, and songwriter. We see the turbulent times of racism and family dysfunction through her eyes and how they shaped her future path. There are many passages of tense and suspenseful moments where Sophia is confronted with the worst aspects of people around her. In one chapter, she has a very frightening encounter with racists while she is leaving town. She also lives with the hatred and survivor's guilt after racists killed her brother. Even when she is near seemingly good white people, she is still plagued with doubt by questioning their loyalties. A seemingly kind white man helps her in a trying situation, but then later she recognizes his voice under the hood of a Klansman. Sophia's mistrust also carries over in her interactions with her family. She cares for her mother but feels remote from her as she falls further into insanity. When her mother challenges the authority at the hospital, Sophia isn't sure if it's a delusion or she's telling the truth, though her cynicism towards the medical establishment leans towards the latter. Sophia is also particularly devastated when she learns about her father's past. Even though he had long died, Sophia thought of him as a source of strength, a calming influence in her life, even a heroic presence when she needed one. Learning the truth forces her to see her father as just a man who was capable of making mistakes and not thinking about what the effects would mean for his family. Sophia's life is also shaped by the men within it. She has a very Rocky relationship with Sammy. Despite them clearly being in love and willing to break the color barrier to be together, there are plenty of obstacles such as Sammy's racist father and their own aspirations for stardom in the music field. This is a couple of great strength who fight just as often as they make love. They get separated but spend much of their separation missing and thinking about each other. Kyle on the other hand is an equally strong presence in Sophia's life. He is also a musician and singer who fancies her and vice versa. There is something of the Black Power movement in him that believes that Sophia is pining for a white man who will never love her back and should instead be with the more available black man. There are times in the narrative where Kyle comes across as a better, more supportive character than Sammy. This leaves the reader feeling that either man would be a good partner for Sophia. Unfortunately, Kyle is somewhat dropped unceremoniously from the book too early before his real potential is realized. Some of the plot focuses on Sophia's youth while the rest focuses on her adult years in the 1980's where she sees where she went wrong and where she succeeded. Her well-deserved independence and self-made career as a songwriter allow her to open doors for herself that the younger Sophia would never have dreamt of. She connects with her daughter and seeks to find closure in her old relationships. Then she can be the full woman that she had always meant to be.
