Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, April 2009 : A man who's not quite young anymore, his relationship trouble, and his iPod: at first glance Arthur Phillips's The Song Is You sounds like strictly Nick Hornby territory, but it turns out to be a lot closer to The Red Shoes , a story of love and art in which the two are confused and jealously compete. And as in The Red Shoes , but so rarely in other works of art, it's the art-making that carries the most power and mystery. Julian Donahue is a "creative": a skilled director of commercials who has come to know his limits. Cait O'Dwyer is a singer, and a bit of a comet that Julian somehow catches the tail of. Their courtship--as Julian evades a marriage split by an unbearable loss and Cait shoots single-mindedly toward stardom--is an intricately constructed pas de deux that is both surprising and convincing throughout. It's Phillips's first novel set in the present since Prague , and in its artful structure, style, and heart it's a match for that smart and charming debut. --Tom Nissley
From The New Yorker
Phillipsโs best writing achieves an elaborate, gratifying precision, combining a naturally flamboyant style with neat, observational wit. This quality is sharpest in some of the character portraits and delectable set pieces that animate this novel, his fourth, but the central plot is sometimes strained. A middle-aged advertising director, whose marriage has broken up following the death of his two-year-old son, plays an invisible and unlikely muse to a young Irish singer on the brink of stardom. As the two engage in an indirect seductionโthey never meetโthe narrative veers close to the โadolescent fantasyโ that its protagonist fears. But this curious bond provides an armature for Phillipsโs beautiful evocation of musicโs consoling power to blur the borders between art, artist, and consumer.
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